The heart of Jesus

If there is one thing that always astonishes me, it’s the heart of Jesus. And it is as he goes to his death, that we see the compassion that caused him go to the cross in the first place.

On his way up the hill, he saw the women weeping for him, and he said to them,

Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.

For the time will come when you will say, “Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!”

Then “they will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!'”

For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry? (Luke 23:27-31)

Here Jesus looked beyond his circumstances to what would happen to the Jews because they had rejected him.

He was basically telling them, “If the Romans are willing to do such things to me, though I am full of the life of God, how much worse will they treat those who are withered spiritually?

“The days will come when you will wish for death, and envy those without children because of what they do to you.”

And that’s what happened when Rome destroyed Jerusalem in some 35 to 40 years later.

The point is, however, that Jesus didn’t want that, even for those who hated him. He longed for them to be saved. He longs for us to be saved. And that’s why he went to the cross.

Jesus died because he looked beyond himself to us and our needs.

The old hymn captures the wonder I feel at such a thought.

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
–Wesley