"ON THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE JESUS ADMONISHES UNBELIEVING JERUSALEM TO GRIEVE FOR THEMSELVES"

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 84:3,4
Hymn 1A
Psalm 30:3, 7
Hymn 21:3,4,7
Psalm 25:6,7

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

It’s fashionable at this time of year for Christian leaders to give some sort of message to their people. Australia’s Anglican primate, Archbishop Peter Carnley, has given his message in the latest Bulletin. He tells the people of Australia that God in no way pushes Himself onto anybody; the cross of Jesus Christ proves that God is much too modest for that. The Pope’s Easter message hasn’t been delivered yet, I believe, but we’ll no doubt hear of it soon.

Jesus Himself was the first to deliver a sermon on Good Friday. His message, though, is very different from Archbishop Carnley’s message. As Australians amongst Australians we’re asked to swallow Carnley’s message, but the words of Jesus in His sermon makes that impossible. God too modest to push Himself onto anybody? Jesus Christ, our Chief Prophet and Teacher, tells God’s covenant people of the judgment that will certainly fall on them for their unbelief. And He does so in the name of God!

I administer to you the Word of our God today as it comes to us through Jesus’ administration of the Word on that Good Friday of long ago. I summarize the sermon with this theme:

1. The theme of Jesus’ sermon
2. The text behind Jesus’ sermon
3. The application of Jesus’ sermon

The theme of Jesus’ brief sermon on His way to the cross is given in Jesus’ opening line: "do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children" – vs 28. To appreciate what Jesus says in His sermon, we need to have clear in our minds the context in which Jesus spoke.

Luke 23 had begun with Jesus being hauled before Pilate, the chief judge of the land. Luke has described for us the nature of Jesus’ trial, and Pilate’s conclusion: "I find no fault in this Man" (vss 4, 14, cf vs 22), and Pilate’s decision to release the innocent Jesus – be it after chastising Him (vs 16). The people, however, were insistent that Jesus be crucified, and so Pilate eventually heeded their demands; "he delivered Jesus to their will" (vs 25).

So Jesus was led away to the place of execution. But He wasn’t alone as He traveled the road from the government buildings in downtown Jerusalem to the place of execution outside the city; besides the compulsory soldiers "a great multitude of the people followed Him" (vs 27). No doubt this is the crowd that got caught up in the frenzy of the cry in Pilate’s courtyard to "crucify, crucify Him." With the demanded verdict in their pockets, they now come along to see the execution completed. They smell blood, and won’t leave off until they have what they want….

But it’s not just "a great crowd of the people" who follow Jesus. Luke adds that "women" also followed. In fact, it’s these women whom Jesus addresses specifically in His sermon, and so it’s they who need our attention for a moment.

These "women" are described in our text as "daughters of Jerusalem." This term ‘daughters of Jerusalem’ appears various times in the Old Testament (cf Zeph 3:14; Zech 9:9; Mic 4:8; also Song of Solomon 2:7; 3:5, 10: 5:8, 16: 8:4) as a reference to the female population of Jerusalem. Particularly in the Old Testament prophets they are called upon to set the emotional mood for the city in response to the prophets’ preaching. That the female population of a given town set the emotional mood was accepted practice in Jesus’ day too; in the event of a death it was the women who were to lead in wailing. And there’s nothing surprising in that, for God has so created the woman that she has greater swings of emotion than the man – be it to the side of joy or to the side of grief.

Luke has us know, now, that the female population of Jerusalem was out in force to accompany Jesus on His way to His execution. And what are these women doing? Says Luke in vs 27: they "mourned and lamented Him." As it is, the words that Jesus uses here for mourning and lamentation are used elsewhere in Scripture to describe one’s reaction to death. And this is the point, brothers and sisters: the "daughters of Jerusalem" are treating Jesus as already dead! They have heard Pilate’s sentence, and there is not a hair on their heads that doubts whether it will be executed; to their minds Jesus is as good as dead, and so they make the noises that their culture demands should be made in the presence of the dead.

Now, one could discuss at length whether the emotion the women were portraying was heartfelt or not. But the point, congregation, is not the women-in-their-sinfulness. The point is Jesus’ response. For Jesus, of course, as He moves forward, step by step, to the cursed cross and the work of salvation He is to perform there, hears all this mourning and wailing. Yet He knows that His death will ultimately not be a cause for wailing and lamentation; His death is going to be cause for rejoicing because by His death He will make atonement for sin! His death – that will be the gospel! Well will true preachers of the gospel desire to know nothing else than "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" – as the apostle Paul declared (I Cor 2:2). Shall the women than mourn and lament, and so tell the population of Jerusalem to respond to Jesus’ coming death, as one ought to respond to any other death? No, Jesus, knows, it may not be!

Hence Jesus’ deliberate action: He "turned" and addressed these women. "Do not weep for Me," He instructs the mass of wailing women, "but weep for yourselves and for your children." In other words: by all means, O daughters of Jerusalem, by all means keep on weeping, keep on mourning and lamenting and bewailing the dead. But don’t bewail My death; bewail instead your own death, and your children’s.

Odd. We can understand somewhat that the women bewail Jesus’ death before He dies; after all, given Pilate’s sentence Jesus’ death is certain. But why should the "daughters of Jerusalem" –healthy and young as so many no doubt are- today bewail their own deaths? Were they about to die? And what about their children? Should they not rejoice in their little ones, instead of today bewailing their offspring’s death – even while they were still so healthy?

"Weep for yourselves," said Jesus. The implication is: you will die, and so will your children. And whereas lamentation normally belongs to those days after death, Jesus’ command is that lamentation for these women begin before their deaths. More, whereas lamentation for someone’s death is what others supply, these women are told to bewail their own deaths. That makes plain to us that there’s something very special about the coming deaths of these women and children – and indeed of the whole population of Jerusalem. On what authority, then, can Jesus preach such a message? That brings us to our second point this morning:

In truth, congregation, Jesus does not dream up His message from nowhere. He justifies His theme with the words of vs 29. Notice that vs 29 begins with the little word ‘for’. Here is the justification, the explanation of Jesus’ theme in our text. "For indeed," He says, "the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breast which never nursed!’"

The way Jesus introduces His explanation of His theme is striking. Our translation has, "Indeed, the days are coming." Literally Jesus says, "Behold, the days are coming." And that’s a phrase you may recognize from the Old Testament, a phrase the daughters of Jerusalem will have recognized also from the Old Testament Scriptures. Time and time again the prophets of Israel had used precisely those words –"behold, the days are coming"- to introduce a revelation from God about what God was going to do, be it curse (I Sam 2:31; Is 39:5; Jer 7:32; 9:25; etc) or blessing (Jer 16:14; 23:5,7; 30:3; etc). By using these words, the Chief Prophet and Teacher publicly put Himself –again- in the same league as these prophets of old.

Why He would do that? Why now? For three years, brothers and sisters, Jesus had preached the Word of God to God’s people-by-covenant, but these people-of-God-by-covenant rejected this Prophet God sent – witness their recent demand for His crucifixion. So Jesus, on His way to the cross, once more addresses the people of God with the Word of God, and appeals to them with language meant to impress upon them that He speaks with the authority of the prophets of old. More, He sets before the people that God is going to act; God is not going to take their rejection of His Son.

And what will be the nature of God’s acting? His action will be such that as a result the people shall declare blessed "the barren", shall declare blessed the "wombs that never bore", and shall declare blessed also the "breasts that never nursed." Here are three groups, similar, but not identical. The barren are those who never conceived, and therefore never bore children nor nursed them. The "wombs that never bore" are those who did conceive, but had a miscarriage – with as result that the infant was never nursed. The last of the three, the "breasts that never nursed", describes the woman whose pregnancy came to term but resulted in a stillborn child.

Why does Jesus mention three separate groups? Why not simply declare blessed all those who have no children? As it is, congregation, Jesus is busy in His sermon with the prophecy of Hosea. Not only are His words in vs 30, about the mountains falling on us and the hills covering us, a quote from Hosea 10 (we’ll come to that shortly), but His reference to the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed are also drawn from Hosea’s prophecy - chap 9. There the prophet says:

"As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird -
No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!"

There’s the same three groups as Jesus mentions to the daughters of Jerusalem. To appreciate why Jesus alludes to the prophecy of Hosea when He speaks to the daughters of Jerusalem, we need to look for a moment at this prophecy.

"No birth," says Hosea to his hearers in his day, "no pregnancy, and no conception." Yet the prophet’s point is not that the women of Israel will be literally barren; Hosea’s point is that their children will perish – and so the mothers will be as good as barren. Hosea 9:12:

"Though they bring up their children,
Yet I will bereave them to the last man."

Vs 13:

"Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer."

Vs 16:

"Yes, were they to bear children,
I would kill the darlings of their womb."

That’s the thrust of the passage; God would ensure that the children perish! No wonder the general population would say, "Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed"! To go through the difficulties of pregnancy, birth, and nursing only to see your little ones murdered – how well we can understand that the population calls blessed the women who never bore, who were never pregnant, who never even conceived!

But why would God cause the little ones of Israel –covenant children!- to perish? Hosea is clear on the point. Says the prophet in 9:10:

"I found Israel
Like grapes in the wilderness;
I saw your fathers
As the firstfruits on the fig tree in its first season."

In other words: Israel was so desirable to God; God had pleasure in Israel when God took this people out of Egypt and led them through the desert. But – vs 10:

"But they went to Baal Peor,
And separated themselves to that shame."

We recall what Baal Peor was. That was the time when the Moabites invited the young people of Israel to their parties and the young people of Israel went! The result was that the children of Israel sacrificed to the Baals – something God called harlotry (Num 25). That sin at Baal Peor became a theme throughout Israel’s history; time and again God’s people-by-covenant –His bride!- gave themselves to the service of the idols – and so became guilty of the sin of adultery. That is why Hosea had to marry a prostitute, and so illustrate to Israel what God had to put up with in relation to His marriage with Israel.

But despite all the warnings on the part of the prophets there came no repentance with Israel; they carried on with their harlotry (cf 9:1). That is why the judgment of God must come upon this people. That is why God says in Hos 9:12: "woe to them when I depart from them!" And what is the evidence of God’s departure? This: God will cause the children to perish! The offspring of the generation Hosea addresses will be torn from their mothers, dragged off into exile to serve foreign kings, be made slaves in foreign cultures – if they don’t loose their lives before they get that far. Vs 17:

"My God will cast them away,
Because they did not obey Him;
And they shall be wanderers among the nation."

See there why God’s curse would come on this people, why the children would be destroyed: it’s all because of their unbelief, their embrace of sin despite the admonitions of God.

This is the material, congregation, with which Jesus is working as He addresses the "daughters of Jerusalem." They must weep for themselves, He tells them, and weep for their children. Why? Jesus’ point is that the days are coming when the prophecy of Hosea 9 will be executed upon them! For the people of Jerusalem live in the same sin as did their fathers and mothers of old; as Israel in the days of the prophets rejected the preachers God sent and continued merrily in their spiritual adultery, so Israel in the days of Jesus Christ rejected the Chief Prophet God sent and continued merrily to serve God in their self-chosen way. Weep for yourselves, says Christ, for the wrath of God cannot stay contained forever; the days are coming when the prophecy of Hosea will be fulfilled in you, when you shall declare blessed those who have no children –why?- because you will see your own little ones torn from you on the day when God departs from you! And the daughters of Jerusalem could know their bible history well enough to realize that God’s prophecy through Hosea had come to pass so painfully in the exiles to Assyria and Babylon. God’s Word is sure!

Lest the daughters of Jerusalem miss the fact that the coming wrath is evil, Jesus underlines the point with a quote from Hosea 10. Says Jesus in vs 30: "Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’" That’s Hosea 10:8, a verse from a chapter that follows directly on the heels of the day of destruction announced in chap 9. The point of the verse is to give a sense of the total panic that overtakes those upon whom the wrath of God falls. How desperate one must be to wish a mountain on top of you – anything to get away from God and His wrath! Jesus says to the women of Jerusalem that that is what their panic will be like when God’s wrath breaks out upon them.

That brings us to our last point:

What, beloved, is Jesus’ point? Why does Jesus say this to the women who are already setting the mood that, according to accepted standards of decency, belongs to Jesus’ death? Jesus tells them to "weep for yourselves and for your children." As I said before, it’s an instruction to mourn today on account of the divine judgment that will shortly come upon these women. But Jesus doesn’t tell them to weep on account of coming judgment – and then offer no hope; your God, brothers and sisters, is not like that! Jesus tells the daughters of Jerusalem of the coming judgment so that they might yet repent! That is the point of vs 31: "For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?" If Jesus Christ –green wood that He is- will die in the face of God’s wrath, how in the world will the dry would survive His fiery anger?? So there is need to bewail their spiritual deadness, need to repent, need to become green wood themselves and so produce fruits befitting their repentance. As Hosea said in chap 10:

"Sow for yourselves righteousness;
Reap in mercy;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord,
Till He comes and rains righteousness on you" (10:12).

See there, brothers and sisters, the application of Jesus’ final administration of the Word of God before His crucifixion. On the path of these women Jesus lays a pointed admonition to repent – lest they perish under the weight of God’s wrath. For the Lord has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his sins and live….

How amazing, beloved. The crowds of Jerusalem –covenant people all- had screamed out their hatred, demanded His crucifixion. The women and girls of the city –covenant people too- echoed the death wishes of their men-folk by providing the mandatory funeral dirge – already before Jesus is dead. And Jesus responded to all this hostility by administering to God’s disobedient covenant people the Word of life! There’s no need to weep for Him, He says, for His death will not mean the end of Him; He’ll arise in triumph, with the gift of life eternal for all who believe in Him. But there is need to weep for themselves and their little ones, for the wrath of God promised upon those who disobey His covenant will surely fall on them.

How tender, my brothers and sisters, the Savior’s mercies, how long-suffering! That He would care sufficiently for His people –though they give themselves to the sin of crucifying Him!- that He would care sufficiently to give them one last warning from the Word of life – yes, what compassion, what tender mercy!

The Lord has not told us how the crowds responded to Jesus’ final sermon before His crucifixion. The Lord did, though, include this little sermon in the Bible He gave us. That is to say: this sermon is meant for us too, more, God would have also us respond to the administration of the Word of life as found in this passage.

True, we are not the daughters of Jerusalem, nor are we bewailing Jesus’ coming (or past) death. But, congregation, the theme from Hosea that Jesus laid before the daughters of Jerusalem is applicable to us too, and that theme is the matter of breaking the covenant and so provoking God’s wrath. Israel in the days of Hosea sacrificed to the Lord…, and sacrificed to the Baals too – and meanwhile rejected out of hand the admonitions of the prophets God sent. Israel in the days of Jesus sacrificed diligently in the temple…, but lived their daily lives in patterns thought up by themselves - and though John the Baptist demanded repentance, and after him Jesus exposed their apostasy and demanded repentance also, there came no change; God’s covenant people of old rejected the Prophet God sent. Their self-styled service of God, brothers and sisters, could result in but one response from God; in agreement with His prophecy of old He in His judgment would tear their children from their parents with such horror that the parents of Israel would declare the barren blessed…, and wish for mountains to bury them in their desperation to get away from the judgment of God.

The Lord has put this Word in Scripture. So there is need for self-examination on our part. Assyrian soldiers can tear children from mother’s breasts, and that’s horrible beyond words. Roman soldiers would come some 40 years after Jesus administered God’s Word from the prophecies of Hosea, would besiege Jerusalem and kill whomever they could, children included…. What happened was horrible beyond words; how mothers then wished they had no children!

But, dear congregation, the same can happen today, be it in a spiritual fashion. To see covenant children get pulled into the world, to see children turn from the Lord: does that not make a devoted mother wish her child had died in the womb? Is our experience not that barrenness would be easier to take than a child breaking the covenant??

Children turning from the Lord – we have seen it in our own midst over the years. We can think of names, faces, families…. Yet, beloved, let us be O so careful not to think now of the families, as if in some way our text or this sermon would say that these families are worse than families where the children are all faithful to God and His service. Certainly, it may well be parents’ two-facedness in God’s service that have prompted their children to spurn the Lord and His church; there is always need for self-examination. But never, never, brothers and sisters, can we generalize on the point! We need to bear in mind that children are given to the congregation; children are members of one body as much as the rest of us. And when God takes children away through spiritual death, is He not calling us all to self-examination? Truly, beloved, we are not better in our service to God than Israel was in the days of Hosea or than Israel was in the days of Jesus – and both Hosea and Jesus spoke about the penalty of God that comes on covenant disobedience, a penalty that would make one wish one never had children. Jesus’ last administration of the Word of God before His crucifixion is in the Bible so that we might go out of our way to examine ourselves time and again on the question of how we serve our God…, and the fact that God touches us in our children must impress that same self-examination upon us again and again. And, of course, that self-examination needs to lead to growth, in denial of self and in service to God – lest God take more children from the congregations and more parents wish they’d been barren, had never borne children, had never nursed.

How can we experience that children are a blessing from the Lord? Only, brothers and sisters, by bewailing today ours sinfulness, and embracing in faith the sufferings of Jesus Christ on the cross. For the heavy hand of God that makes sinners wish they had no children pressed upon the Christ, and He on Calvary experienced such horror that He could wish the mountains to fall on Him and the hills to cover Him; anything to get away from the wrath of God. But the hills didn’t cover Him, and the mountains didn’t fall on Him; instead He had to bear the full load of God’s wrath – so that His people might be spared the curse of God.

Does God, congregation, impose Himself upon us, impose His doctrine, His plan of salvation, His judgment? Or is He too modest for that? The Lord’s Good Friday sermon tells us that we need to take God seriously, very seriously, in every aspect of life – lest He in judgment tear our children away from us and we’d wish we’d never received them.

Let Australia weep for her children, before it is too late. More, let Australia weep for her sins. And let us begin with ourselves, so that, according to God’s faithfulness, we may for Jesus’ sake be spared the weight of His judgment.  Amen.