I find it hard to focus these days as we continue to watch the horror of war unfold in the Holy Land, with more and more innocents dying every day. I don’t know about you, but I feel utterly helpless in all this. And, as important as prayer is, sometimes prayer in the face of such relentless violence feels empty and pointless.
In my despair over the world this week, I was helped by some words I came across by Malcolm Guite. If you don’t know of Guite’s work, I commend him to you. He is an Anglican priest and one of the greatest religious poets of our time.
In a blog post from Holy Week last year that is strangely apt to the current moment, Guite reminds us of that scene in the gospels where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Guite writes: “It’s hard to see through tears, but sometimes it’s the only way to see. Tears may be the turning point, the springs of renewal, and to know you have been wept for is to know that you are loved. ‘Jesus wept’ is the shortest, sharpest, and most moving sentence in Scripture. We are well to remember that we have a God who weeps for us, weeps with us, understands to the depths and from the inside the rerum lachrymae, the tears of things.”
In homage to this profound scene from Scripture, Guite has written a sonnet of his own, entitled ‘Jesus Weeps Over Jerusalem.’ Perhaps this kind of lament is all we can do in this time of crisis; or, at least, it may be a useful place to start as we seek guidance from God as to what the nations of the world can do in the days and weeks ahead to contain this tragic conflict in the Holy Land.
Here is Guite’s sonnet:
Jesus comes near and he beholds the city
And looks on us with tears in his eyes,
And wells of mercy, streams of love and pity
Flow from the fountain whence all things arise.
He loved us into life and longs to gather
And meet with his beloved face to face
How often has he called, a careful mother,
And wept for our refusals of his grace,
Wept for a world that, weary with its weeping,
Benumbed and stumbling, turns the other way,
Fatigued compassion is already sleeping
Whilst her worst nightmares stalk the light of day.
But we might waken yet, and face those fears,
If we could see ourselves through Jesus’ tears.