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O Jerusalem!

Remember that moment on the Temple Mount when Jesus made this solemn and ominous declaration to Jerusalem’s rulers,

“Ye bear testimony against your father when ye yourselves are partakers of the same wickedness. Behold your fathers did it through ignorance, but ye do not; wherefore, their sins shall be upon your heads.”

And then the scripture records that Jesus began to weep over Jerusalem saying,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ye who kill the prophets and will stone them who are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. “

Jesus was a strong man and in perfect control of His emotions. Why now, and in this most public place did He weep? He had prepared all of His life for His ministry of salvation. He came to save all who would receive Him. For three years He had poured Himself out for Israel, and especially for Jerusalem. As a mother gives her all for her children and in so doing forms a sacred and eternal bond, so Jesus had and would yet pour Himself out even unto death for them. He had done all that could be done to save them and they would not. Can you imagine the anguish and pain borne of perfect love that He felt when they rejected Him, especially when He fully comprehended the agony and misery their hard hearts would bring upon them. He wept and they witnessed.

Source: JST Matthew 23:37