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Continuing our analysis of the penultimate chapter of Luke’s Gospel, this week, please read verses 26-33. If possible, use a different translation each day, asking God to open your eyes to fresh revelation from His Word.
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Luke 23:27-31 (New Living Translation – NLT)
‘A large crowd trailed behind, including many grief-stricken women. But Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are coming when they will say, ‘Fortunate indeed are the women who are childless, the wombs that have not borne a child and the breasts that have never nursed.’ People will beg the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and plead with the hills, ‘Bury us.’ For if these things are done when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”’
Reading our verses today, it brings to mind a story based in France many, many years ago. It was a story about a man who was being led to a guillotine in order for the sentence of beheading to be carried out. He stood there beside the apparatus and began to talk to his executioner.
The conversation wasn’t a long one but the condemned man was concerned that the executioner wasn’t going to be able to sleep at night after the acts that he had previously committed and because of the one he was about to commit. As the hooded executioner placed the man’s head in place below the blades, he whispered in his ear “I think you have a bigger problem than I have” and then carried out the execution.
It’s quite something for someone who is about to die to show any kind of thought or concern for others. I’ve seen documentaries about capital punishment in the USA and most of the time, the condemned man is more concerned with himself than with the people around him. Most show little remorse and are seemingly ready to die.
Jesus has suffered some horrific beatings in the past few hours and is about to face an even worse death. As He walks the streets of Jerusalem toward Calvary, I’ve no doubt that His mind is focused on His death. However, He turns to the women who are visibly upset at what they are seeing. The NLT says they are ‘grief-stricken’. Yesterday we read the NIV that says they ‘mourned and wailed for Him’. The original language users the phrase ‘they beat their breasts.’ This is particularly an Eastern Culture thing but it is showing that this isn’t just a slight concern about Jesus’ welfare but a heartfelt genuine sympathy as they watched His battered body struggle under the weight of the cross.
In an amazing act of grace and compassion, Jesus turns to these women and puts things into a completely different perspective. Instead of concentrating on His own problems, He looks into the future and sees what is going to happen to these women. They think that they are in a better position than Jesus, but the reality was very far removed from that. Jesus was about to endure the onslaught of Hell itself but was completely secure in the victory that was going to be won. His future is secure. Unless these women repent of their sin, theirs is not. They were going to experience the destruction of Jerusalem and without Jesus’ salvation, they would face everlasting separation from God. In a similar way to the executioner mentioned earlier, Jesus is actually telling them that they have bigger problems than He did! As Jesus faced the torture and death to come, He wasn’t thinking of Himself, His heart was being poured out in compassion to those around Him. What an example of love and grace. What a Saviour.
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