When you worship inside the chapel pictured above, Jesus’ words in Sunday’s Gospel come to life, ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets… how I have desired to gather your children… and you were not willing.” The name of this place is Dominus Flavit (‘The Lord Wept’) and it sits across the valley from the Holy City, on a plot of land pilgrims swear Jesus once stood to voice his famous lament in Luke 13. This chapel holds something very important, not just for Holy Land visitors, but for all of us who grieve.

Every day you and I lament over missed opportunities, unrealized potential, and the crippling reality that things don’t always go according to plan. We scream into the night, ‘Why does this always happen to me?’ and ‘It’s not fair!’ The drama of our lives can seem like it’s played out inside a shaken snow globe, where an invisible hand, subject to unpredictable spasms, exercises complete control over every aspect of our world. And here we are, flopping around inside, trying to hold on to the furniture or at least stand up straight and keep from getting hit in the head by a flying candlestick.

Sure, on our good days, when the world is settled and all is at peace, we can lean back in our recliners and take it all in – feeling utterly breathless by the glory of it all. And on those days perspective comes as we find places for the joys and the smiles, the disappointment and the lament. Ecclesiastes says there is a time for all of this. And Jesus sounds a New Testament echo by reminding us that we’re not the only ones who grieve. God does too.

‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem…’ How Jesus puts words to feelings we all experience when we long for something we cannot get. Or we yearn to protect someone we cannot protect. Or we seek to warn someone who will not listen. It may come as a shock to some of us who believe everything that happens on this earth happens just the way God wants it to. But it is apparent that the imperfection that surrounds us also has a place in God’s economy.

So as we contemplate the subjects of our own grief we understand that this is not a solitary enterprise. Jesus understands and shares our lament. And, perhaps even more importantly, we remember the balance of life, and how lament will give way to laughter, as the Psalmist says, ‘mourning comes at night but joy comes in the morning.’ For we can never forget that one of the purposes of lament is to lay the groundwork for new beginnings. Something fresh and new will be born. There is death, but there is resurrection.

Further Reading
Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths – Karen Armstrong
From the Holy Mountain – William Dalrymple
The Jews in the Time of Jesus – Stephen Wylen