True love hopes that the loved one will respond in love - but can never demand it. The intensity of genuine love is not weakened by silence, carelessness or even antagonism; but eventually hopeful joy gives way to pain. God had a long history of loving Israel, although His people failed to respond in faithfulness (Hosea 11:1-3). The prophet Hosea was instructed to love and marry an adulterous wife, so that he would know how God felt about His people (Hosea 3:1). Despite many blessings and promises, Israel rejected God’s love; despite allowing His people to be taken into exile, God’s love persisted; He promised that He would restore those who returned to His love (Isaiah 57:18).
Now we read of Jesus looking over the city of Jerusalem with the Father’s pain in His heart. Despite its long history of killing godly prophets, Jesus loved Jerusalem because Father God had chosen to reveal His Name there (2 Chronicles 6:6). Their long history of rejecting the Messiah, they claimed to be awaiting, would culminate in God inviting Gentiles to be grafted into the stock of Israel – all those who trusted in Jesus would be included in God’s family (Romans 11:17-19). No wonder John wrote, "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God ..." (John 1:10-12).
Jesus was the finest expression of God's Name and so He loved the city and its people, wanting to be their Saviour, but they did not want His love at all. How painful was that? It exceeds the anguish of a parent whose child has become wild, or a wife whose husband has been unfaithful. In just a few months, on Palm Sunday, Jesus would return to that spot and repeat His heartfelt cry, “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.” (Luke 19:41-42).
Within 40 years of Jesus' statement, Jerusalem was destroyed and its inhabitants had to flee. Today, the city is divided. But on the Day when Jesus returns, Zechariah 14:4 says that His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives. Then "every eye will see Him" (Revelation 1:7), and will mourn because they realise the horror of their lost opportunity to respond to God's love. All the more reason for us who know Him to allow Him to 'spread His wings over us', encouraging others to do the same - welcoming His love and receiving His grace. The greatest folly in the world is to despise God’s love.
