The City That Sat Down and Cried

There was a city named Jerusalem.
And oh, how full she used to be.

Full of footsteps on the morning road.
Full of singing at the feast.
Full of children, full of lamplight,
full of doors that opened wide.

But not anymore.
The smoke of the burning has barely cooled.
The songs have all gone out.

Now the roads are empty.
Now the gates stand broken.
Now the city that was crowded
sits all alone, and cries.

Do you know what it feels like
to be the last one in a room
that used to hold so many?

That is how Jerusalem feels.

She weeps in the nighttime.
The tears run down her face.
And out of all the friends she had,
out of every single one,
not one comes to wipe them away.
Not one comes to sit beside her.
There is no one left to comfort her.

The empty streets are sad.
The songs that stopped are sad.
But saddest of all is this:
she cries, and cries,
and no one comes.

Her little ones are hungry.
Her watchmen have gone home.
And she reaches out her hands in the dark
and finds no hand to hold.

God saw her crying.
God always sees.
And though her sadness was very great,
he did not look away from it.
He never forgot one single tear.

Long before, when David sang
in these very streets,
he sang that God keeps every tear,
each one, as if in a bottle,
and not one falls forgotten.
God was keeping them still.

But the city could not see
what was coming down the years.

One day a Man would climb a hill outside her walls.
He would look out over Jerusalem,
over the same streets, the same gates,
and his own eyes would fill with tears.

He would cry for her too.

Only this time, the One who wept
was not a lonely city.
He was the Comforter, come at last.
The Friend who finally came.
The One who would not leave her
sitting in the dark by herself.

His name is Jesus.

And he is gathering a home
where the streets are full again,
where every child is counted,
where not one is missing,
where no one cries alone.

He has begun it already.
He has begun it in you.

One day he will lift his gentle hand
to every wet and weary face,
yours and hers and all of ours,
and wipe the last tear away.

But tonight the city is still crying.
So turn the page,
and watch one weeping man
look up from the ashes
and find something new in the morning.