SOON THE CHRISTIAN WORLD will commemorate the Passion Week of Jesus of Nazareth — the Messiah who was sacrificed as “our Passover lamb” (1 Cor 5:7). Near the end of that historic week Jesus made one of his most poignant — and puzzling — statements anywhere in the Gospels.
Following his arrest and mock trial by the Chief Priest Caiaphas and his corrupt cronies, Jesus is handed over to the Roman authorities on a trumped up charge of sedition. They interrogate him cruelly, and then in the early morning hours the detested Roman Procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, sentences Jesus to death by crucifixion as “King of the Jews” (Lk 23:38). He orders him scourged and sent to the place of crucifixion outside the city gate, bearing a cross beam.
The great multitude of people who welcomed Jesus upon his arrival to the city now follow him to Golgotha. They had been in their homes asleep, following the Passover meal, when he was arrested and sentenced. As they lament and mourn the stricken Messiah, even in his excruciating pain the Master turns to a group of tearful women:
“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Lk 23:29-31 NIV)
THIS STRIKING INCIDENT sheds a great deal of light upon the character of Jesus of Nazareth as well as his rabbinic teaching style. Facing what the Jewish historian Josephus characterizes as the most inhumane form of death, crucifixion, and terribly weakened by the Roman scourge and blood loss, Yeshua’s compassion still reaches out to others. He seizes the teaching moment to warn them of destruction coming upon Jerusalem.
When he had approached the beloved city earlier in the week, Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Lk 19:41). Like the prophets before him, he came calling for repentance, but his words were not welcomed. With tears he mourned a coming judgment so severe that not one stone would be left upon another (Lk 19:43-44). Now, with nearly his last breath, Jesus warns once more. He does so by citing two passages of Scripture.
First he quotes explicitly from the prophet Hosea (10:8) to illustrate how desperate the situation will become:
“Then they will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ (23:30)
Then he concludes his admonition with a provocative statement that has puzzled more than a few commentators. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry? (23:31)
THE RABBI JESUS taught in the manner of Israel’s Sages, often alluding to a passage of Scripture with just a phrase or key word. In this case the link he makes is to a vivid passage, Ezekiel 20:46-48.
Through the Prophet, God speaks a word against Israel in the form of a parable, which He then interprets for Ezekiel (21:1-5). He warns of a “flaming fire” (severe judgment) that the LORD himself will kindle against the great “forest of the south” (Jerusalem and the Temple). So intense will be the fire that “every green tree” (righteous person) and “every dry tree” (wicked person) shall be devoured.
Using the rabbinic logic of kal v’chomer (arguing from the light to the heavy), Jesus conveys a stark warning to his mourners: “Look at me,” he says in effect. “At my scourged back, my broken body, and the cross that awaits me. If this is what befalls me, the Green Tree — i.e., the Righteous One, or the Messiah — how much more will the coming destruction of Jerusalem be for you and the dry trees?”
Sadly, forty years later that fiery judgment in fact fell upon Jerusalem after a prolonged siege by the Roman army that left the mothers of Zion weeping for their starving infants. Both the righteous and the unrighteous perished in Jerusalem’s massive destruction in AD 70.
