Luke 23:26 - Meaning and Application

Here we have the blessed Jesus, the Lamb of God, led like a lamb to the slaughter, to the sacrifice. It is striking how quickly they moved through his trial. How could they do so much in such a short time, even though they had so many important men to deal with, and dealing with them usually takes time?

He was brought before the chief priests at daybreak (Luke 22:66), then to Pilate, then to Herod, and then back to Pilate again. There also seems to have been a long struggle between Pilate and the crowd over him. He was whipped, crowned with thorns, and treated with contempt, and all of this happened in four or five hours, or six at most, because he was crucified between nine in the morning and noon.

Christ’s persecutors were determined to lose no time. They were afraid that his friends on the other side of town might hear what was happening and come to rescue him. No one was ever pushed out of the world so quickly as Christ was, but he had said it himself: “Yet a little while and you will not see me” a very little while indeed.

As they led him away to death, we find, first, one man who was a carrier, Simon of Cyrene, who likely was a friend of Christ and was known to be one. They laid Christ’s cross on him so that he would carry it behind Jesus (Luke 23:26). This was meant to shame Christ. They did it so Jesus would not faint under the burden and die too soon, which would have stopped the further cruelty they planned. It was pity, but a cruel kind of pity, that gave him this relief.

Second, we find many mourners, true mourners, who followed him, weeping and lamenting him. These were not only his friends and supporters, but also ordinary people who were not his enemies and were moved with compassion. They had heard of him and of the good he had done, and they had reason to believe he was suffering unfairly. This drew a large crowd after him, as often happens at executions, especially when the person is well known. A great many people followed him, especially women (Luke 23:27), some out of pity and some out of curiosity, but they too, like his close friends and companions, wept and lamented him.

Though many mocked and insulted him, there were some who valued him, pitied him, and were sorry for him. They shared in his sufferings. The death of the Lord Jesus may stir natural feelings in many who do not have devout hearts. Many weep over Christ who do not believe in him, and many lament him who do not love him above all.

We are told what Christ said to these mourners. One might think he would be fully taken up with his own suffering, yet he still had time and heart to notice their tears. Christ died with people lamenting him, and he keeps the tears of those who lamented him. He turned to them, though they were strangers, and told them not to weep for him, but for themselves. He shifted their grief in another direction (Luke 23:28).

He gave them a general instruction about their mourning: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me.” This does not mean they were wrong to weep for him. Rather, such hearts would have been very hard if they were not moved by such suffering in such a person. But they must not weep for him only, since tears for him alone would do no good. They should rather weep for themselves and for their children, with Jerusalem’s coming destruction in mind. Some of them might live to see those troubles, or at least their children would, and they should care for them.

When we look at Christ crucified by faith, we ought to weep, not for him, but for ourselves. We must not react to Christ’s death as if he were only a common person whose suffering we feel sorry for, or a common friend we expect to lose. Christ’s death was unique. It was his victory over his enemies, our deliverance, and the purchase of eternal life for us. So let us weep, not for him, but for our own sins, and the sins of our children, which caused his death. Let us also weep in fear, as these tears here suggest, because of the misery we bring on ourselves if we ignore his love and reject his grace, as the Jewish nation did, bringing on the ruin foretold here.

When our dear family members and friends die in Christ, we have no reason to weep for them. They have laid down the burden of the flesh, been made perfect in holiness, and entered perfect rest and joy. But we should weep for ourselves and our children, who remain in a world full of sin, sorrow, and traps.

He also gave them a specific reason to weep for themselves and their children. “See, sad times are coming upon your city. It will be destroyed, and you will be caught up in that destruction.” When Christ’s own disciples were sorrowful in a godly way because he was leaving them, he wiped away their tears with the promise that he would see them again, and they would rejoice (John 16:22). But when these daughters of Jerusalem wept for him only with worldly sorrow, he turned their tears in another direction and told them they would have real cause to cry. Let them be troubled, mourn, and weep (James 4:9).

He had recently wept over Jerusalem himself, and now he tells them to weep over it. Christ’s tears should move us to tears. Let the daughters of Zion, who acknowledge Christ as their king, rejoice in him, because he comes to save them. But let the daughters of Jerusalem, who only weep for him and do not receive him as their king, weep and tremble at the thought of his coming to judge them.

The destruction of Jerusalem is foretold here with two sayings that fit the moment well. Both show how terrible it would be. People would dread two things so much that they would actually wish for them, to be counted childless and to be buried alive.

First, they would wish to be counted childless. Usually, those who have no children envy those who do, like Rachel envied Leah. But then those who have children will find them to be a burden while trying to escape, and a grief when they see them fainting from hunger or falling by the sword. So they will envy those who have none and say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never gave birth,” because they have no children to hand over to the murderer or to be torn from his hands. It would be terrible not only for those who were pregnant or nursing at that time, as Christ had said before (Matthew 24:19), but also for those who had once had children, nursed them, and still had them alive. See (Hosea 9:11-14). This shows the emptiness of earthly things and how unsure their comforts are. Providence can change things so much that the very things we once counted as our greatest blessings become our greatest burdens, worries, and griefs.

Second, they would wish to be buried alive: “They will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us” (Luke 23:30).

This also points to the same prophecy mentioned before, Hosea 10:8. There the people want to hide in the darkest caves, just to get away from the noise of these disasters. They are willing to be sheltered on almost any terms, even if the shelter may crush them to pieces. That would especially be the cry of the great and powerful, as in Revelation 6:16. Those who will not run to Christ for safety and come under his protection will call to hills and mountains in vain when his wrath comes.

He then shows how naturally people could draw this warning from his suffering: “If they do these things when the tree is green, what will be done when it is dry?” (Luke 23:31). Some think this comes from Ezekiel 20:47: “The fire will burn up every green tree and every dry tree.” These words can be taken in a more specific way, and a more general way.

In a more specific sense, they point to the destruction of Jerusalem, which Christ foretold, and which the Jews brought on themselves by putting him to death. If the Jews and the people of Jerusalem acted this way toward an innocent and good man, one who had done only good, what should they expect God to do to them, since they had made themselves a dry tree, a corrupt and wicked people, good only for judgment? Or think of it this way: if the Romans, their judges and soldiers, treat Christ this way, though he gave them no cause and stands before them like a green tree, what will they do to Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, who will provoke them so deeply and make themselves like dry wood ready for the fire of their anger? If God allows this to be done to Christ, what will he appoint for those barren trees who were so often warned that they would be cut down and thrown into the fire? (Matthew 3:10; Matthew 7:19)

In a more general sense, the words apply to all the ways God shows his anger against sin and sinners. If God hands Christ over to such suffering because he was made a sacrifice for sin, what will he do with sinners themselves? Christ was a green tree, full of life and fruit. If such things were done to him, we can judge what would have happened to all mankind if he had not stepped in. We can also see what will happen to those who remain dry trees, even after everything done to make them fruitful. If God did this to his beloved Son, when sin was only charged to him and not in him by nature, what will he do to the people of his wrath, when he finds sin ruling in them? If the Father was pleased to do these things to the green tree, why would he hesitate to do them to the dry?

So the bitter suffering of our Lord Jesus should make us stand in awe of God’s justice and tremble before him. Even the best saints, when compared with Christ, are only dry trees. If he suffered so deeply, why should they not expect suffering too? And if that is so, what will the punishment of sinners be?