Jesus Wept

By Dan Betzer
Guest Columnist

CBN.com -- I recently watched a television preacher gleefully condemning a crowd of gays to hell. He laughed as he did it. While the Scriptures certainly teach against homosexuality, I could not understand the preacher’s apparent pleasure in his condemnations.

Jesus took no delight in such pursuit. He wept as He saw the disintegration of society. He agonized over what He knew was soon to happen in Jerusalem.

Two weeks ago, I visited once again the famed “tear drop” chapel on the slopes of the Mount of Olives facing the Temple Mount. The building commemorates the place where Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

He moaned, “How often would I have gathered thy children under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Jesus knew it was a matter of only four decades before Vespasian and Titus would arrive with the Roman armies, congregating on Mount Scopus on the north for the death thrust into the city.

The death tolls would be staggering. Not one stone of the entire city would be left standing. It broke our Lord’s heart.

The Bible states simply, “Jesus wept.” There was no gloating in His knowledge nor His firm proclamation. I truly believe the non-Christian world is turned off by the all-too-common gloating of Christ’s followers.

Jesus always exhibited passion, not pride. Again and again, Scriptures tell us that Jesus saw the multitudes and was moved with compassion.

Maybe that television preacher should weep more and laugh less. Perhaps the people he’s trying to reach would be more accessible to the Gospel. Perhaps they would be moved more by his melancholy than they are by his mockery.