Jesus Meets The Women of Jerusalem
i.
Women
weep not, the occasion is slight,
your saviour treads his way in the footsteps of countless prophesies;
comfort one another
as the day reaches its grisly height
and descends into decay;
comfort one another as you may,
until you see my promise kept on the third day.
Remember the fish you gutted on the shore,
remember the loved one who received a cure,
remember the good news for the poor;
remember the lifeless girl leaping
and the mother of Nain no longer weeping.
I have wept in secret, in quiet places,
in the night when those who caused me pain were sleeping;
I have wept for the doubt and the disbelief,
and the turning back when the road grew steep,
and the lust for glory,
and the way they thought I would change for them,
making all their sacrifices worthy.
But today I have done with weeping for them
and you, in turn, must cease weeping for me.
Weep, if you must,
for the city which killed the prophets
and see the pattern repeated
of repentance and falling away;
and weep because there is no end to it.
Just as these holy men have injured what is good,
have deliberately misunderstood,
do you think that your children will escape another deadly bout of destruction?
Look, see those noble stones,
can the Temple stand against the strength of God's command?
How many burnt bulls does it take,
to blot out a deliberate mistake?
Mothers of Jerusalem, weep not for me
but for yourselves and your posterity.
ii.
Goodly women,
weep not for such bliss,
weep not
for the small toils
on such a day as this.
Look,
where God leads his Christ must follow there,
with a gentle smile and a quiet prayer.
See past the wounds to the triumph of his will,
think of the signs and stages you have seen
from Cana's overflowing cups
to Lazarus' bursting tomb,
from the witty woman at Jacob's well
to foot washing in the upper room.
Yet there is much that calls for tears
that tears cannot assuage,
failure to see God's truth
and earth's terrible, treacherous rage
beginning with the Romans who lost patience with the Holy City,
and then the vengeance by those who claimed to follow me.
Weep for the tortured and the torturer,
for the down-trodden and the hollowness of tyranny;
weep for the dire betrayal of the brokenness you see.
Weep for my chosen people
and those marked out with the yellow star, for
the breach, with Stephen's death,
which led to Krystalnacht
and the near death of who we are,
for the comfortable churchiness which has subdued
the holy ground of penitence.
Women, women,
weep not for me, weep not as a reflex
overflowed then gone
but weep dry-eyed,
ceaselessly, for your part in my traduction,
a cruel seduction flowing from a people's hardened heart.
Goodly women, weep not for such bliss
but for the world unmade,
the sweetness gone amiss.