Luke 23:28, commentary and pictures

On the road from Pilate's judgment hall to Calvary outside Jerusalem, as he bears the heavy cross in weakness and suffering with two thieves led out to die beside him, Jesus turns to the wailing women in the vast multitude flocking toward the crucifixion. Those daughters of Jerusalem lament him from ordinary human pity rather than faith in him as sent from God, and among them are women he had healed and raised from the dead whose cries turn him when nothing else can. Forgetting his own grief while bearing the sins of the world, he looks on them with tender compassion and tells them not to weep for his suffering but to grieve for themselves and their children because coming suffering will fall on Jerusalem. He sees the city besieged and its people dying amid the horrors of war, foretelling that many of those very women will perish with their children in its destruction, fulfilling the blind cry for his blood to be upon them and their children through impenitence and stubborn rejection of truth. That warning reaches beyond Jerusalem to the end of the world, teaching that as the innocent Christ suffered for the world's sins, all the impenitent who slight the mercies purchased by his death will suffer condemnation for their own sins when the Son of man comes with the mighty hosts of God.

Journey to Calvary

The saying is uttered on the road from Pilate's judgment hall to Calvary outside Jerusalem, as Jesus bears the heavy and cruel cross upon bruised and bleeding shoulders in weakness and suffering. Two thieves are being led out at the same time to die with Him.

He comes to that road after being seized at midnight in Gethsemane, dragged from palace to judgment hall, arraigned twice before the priests, twice before the Sanhedrim, twice before Pilate and once before Herod, then mocked, scourged, condemned, and hurried toward crucifixion amid shouts and jeers. A second scourging is followed by a crown of cruel thorns piercing His temples until blood covers His face, and when the cross is laid upon Him human nature can bear no more so that He falls fainting beneath the burden. He revives from that fall to speak to the women who wail for Him.

News of His condemnation spreads throughout Jerusalem, and a vast multitude of people of all classes and all ranks flocks toward the place of crucifixion and follows Him. Disciples and believers from the city and the surrounding region join that throng, because the priests and rulers are bound by a promise not to molest His followers if He Himself is delivered to them. Many in the crowd mock and deride, shout and jeer, while others wail and weep, telling His praise, declaring His marvelous works with earnest voice, and asking what He has done to be treated as a criminal. The weeping ones include those He had healed of infirmities and those He had raised from the dead, and the fickleness of the crowd is exposed, for many who only days before had attended Him with joyful hosannas and waving of palm branches as He rode triumphantly to Jerusalem, because it was popular to praise Him, now swell the cry of Crucify Him, Crucify Him.

In this setting Christ suffers as humanity's substitute, made a curse to redeem from the curse of the law. He bears Himself as one making a voluntary sacrifice, standing firm against priests and rulers who pressure the Roman governor to carry out their evil will. The cost of His suffering and death gives His followers the measure for their own self-denial. It belongs to the days when the Bridegroom is taken away and the children of the bridechamber have cause to mourn and fast, when the disciples see Him in whom their hopes of eternal life are centered in the hands of wicked men, hear His own nation clamoring for His blood, see Herod and his soldiers plaiting the crown of thorns for His brow, see Him clad in the purple robe with persecutors bowing before Him and striking Him with the reed placed in His hand, see Him who they thought would take His place on David's throne scourged as the worst of criminals with the murderous Barabbas chosen in place of their Teacher, and see Him lifted up on the cross dying as a malefactor, so that faith is tried and hope and courage fail.

Compassionate Prophetic Warning

The women wailing for Jesus on the road were moved by ordinary human pity, not by faith in Him as a teacher sent from God. Among them, undesignedly caught in the procession, were women He had healed of infirmities and raised from the dead. Their lamentation was what turned Him when nothing else in the jeering throng could attract His attention.

Though He was full of suffering while bearing the sins of the world on the way to His cruel death, He was not indifferent to their grief but looked upon them with tender compassion. He did not despise their tears or their sympathy, but received it, and their sympathy awakened a deeper sympathy in Him. He forgot His own grief while contemplating their future fate, and grieved more for them than for Himself.

He told them in comfort and warning not to weep for His suffering but to weep and grieve for themselves and their children, because coming suffering would fall upon Jerusalem and its people. Even in humiliation and the most intense, excruciating agony of mind and body, while pouring out His life in death, He acted as a prophet thinking only of others. That addressing of the daughters of Jerusalem displays infinite love for man stronger than death, and stands alongside His work as priest and advocate pleading for His murderers and as loving Saviour forgiving the penitent thief.

He saw Jerusalem besieged and its people dying amid the horrors of war. He foretold that many of those very same women then weeping for Him would perish with their children in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem.

That doom was the blind fulfillment of the cry for His blood to be upon them and their children, a fearful doom soon to be realized. The priests and rulers brought it upon themselves through impenitence and stubborn rejection of the light of truth. Their determined opposition to God was climaxed after the final evidence of His Messiahship when He raised Lazarus.

The warning referred not only to the destruction of Jerusalem but to the end of the world and a wider judgment. As the innocent Christ suffered for the world's sins, all the impenitent and unbelieving who slight the mercies purchased by the death of the Son of God and reject God's mercy will suffer condemnation for their sins. That will be when the Son of man comes attended not by a murderous mob but by the mighty hosts of God.