“Jesus wept” is the shortest phrase found in the New Testament. There are three times in the New Testament where we see Jesus upset and in tears. One is the Garden of Gethsemane when he’s praying for his Father to “take the cup” (of his obligation) away from him. Jesus is so distraught he sweats bullets of blood. The other is when his friend Lazarus dies. The time that stands out to me, though, is the time before he enters Jerusalem. He sees the city from the Mount and he weeps.
Was he weeping for knowledge of his own coming demise? Maybe. But some scholars speculate that he was weeping in pity for the city and exhibiting compassion knowing that the sins of its inhabitants could be defeated but humans fail miserably due to their infatuation with self- interests. He will die in the name of those sins to show others how to overcome the world through love.
I’m writing this October 7th, the one year anniversary of the hostages in Israel being abducted while going about their business at a music festival. Israel is in the midst of the High Holy Days, as it is fighting a war against Hamas and Hezbollah. Considering the anti-Semitism and Islamophobia sentiment being expressed by both sides, it’s good to check in on our own personal metrics of where we stand regarding race and acceptance.
We’ve seen the missiles intercepting bombs headed to places like Tel Aviv. Some land creating a firey wake of destruction that is crippling cities, destroying homes and water supplies. The Palestinian people are suffering at the hands of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah who continue to wreak havoc on the neighboring countries. Lebanon and Iran have entered the fray as well. The thousands of people caught in the middle and dying due to the indifference of groups in the region is catastrophic and warrants tears from Israelis and Palestinians alike.
We’ve seen the images of refugees fleeing in Gaza only to be trapped in the crossfire of rockets as they seek safety, security and a place to rest and find food. Israelis are speaking out and calling out Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war and condemning him for going too far. Those caught in the middle are calling for a cease-fire that seems nowhere in sight. There’s no reasoning with entities leveling the crosshairs of another group’s destruction.
We see refugees, escaping turmoil and harsh conditions in their own countries, continue to die as we go about our day-to-day business. It’s not our problem until we are personally faced with it. I’ve been listening to Israelis and Palestinians weeping about their hardships. I’ve seen the funerals of keening mothers grieving the loss of their children. It’s someone else’s problem.
On college campuses people are protesting the indecency, as they should. It seems, though, that people are forgetting that both sides are suffering. A friend of mine who works on those campuses and has been the butt of rhetorical jabs as he does his job in addressing the injustices and leveling blame where it belongs has been accosted by protesters who call him a “baby killer.”
“They don’t know me,” he quietly states to me, as I see the hurt in his eyes. He’s right.
I remember as a child in Bible class a nun placing a picture of a villain on the dart board – horrible people who were causing destruction and challenging the status quo with their intents on dominating situations and positions in the world. There were pictures of fascists and communists like Hitler and Stalin, and prominent figures who had caused troubles in world history. She gave us darts and one by one children were allowed to throw darts at the picture in order to expel the anger and frustration we were feeling on the evil maniacal minds that caused so much hardship on the world. Some figures had more darts flung at them than others. One by one she pulled off the pictures and the last picture that remained on the dartboard was a picture of Jesus with holes where the darts penetrated the previous pictures, as she dared us holding the dart to through one at him.
The lesson was clear. Our hurt and lashing out was part of the problem. Jesus is in each one of those people, but we fail to see it. It was the picture of Jesus revealing his sacred heart. He had that sad look in his eyes that revealed he understood pain and suffering. He’d suffered the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes” imposed by humanity. If it was only this easy to understand. That experiment stayed with me all these years later.
I wish compassion could be so easy. It’s not. We are stuck in the mire of our disdain for injustice. We have villainized the other side and made them out to be something they’re not. We hear the lies. Truth doesn’t seem to land on those we talk with, facts are “conjured” and no one believes anyone else because we think they’re only concerned with their liberal or conservative agendas. In the meantime, democracy hangs in the balance and reason is stuck in yesterday’s pages of an old dusty book. The rank smell of history’s indecency and civil war is in the air.
We see the indifference of others toward the plight of the poor and we want to lash out and shake them to wake up and have compassion, but it just isn’t that easy. The systems of this world are wired for injustice and the algorithms are hypnotic.
Until we awaken to the power of compassion to help in our understanding, this injustice will continue to rear its ugly head. Until we’ve learned to listen to experiences of others and remind ourselves of the struggles our ancestor’s faced, we are doomed to repeat history. In the meantime, I read, “Jesus wept.” This too shall pass, but at what cost?
spirit beat 