A Different Look At Tisha b'Av

Tonight begins the observance of Tisha B'Av, the date on the Hebrew calender when both Temples were destroyed, the first by the Babylonians and the second by the Romans. And many other terrible things happened later on this same date.
But here's a different way to look at Tisha B'Av:

Is it to mourn a city and a Temple?

Or is it to mourn the rejection of God?

Are we to weep for ourselves? Or do we weep for God who cried to us with such offers of grace and forgiveness, and that SO MANY times, begging us not to go into destruction?

Concerning the destruction of the first Temple, we were told:

"Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: 'Behold I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, BECAUSE they have hardened their necks, THAT they might not hear my words.'" Jer. 19:15

"And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor, "Why has the Lord done thus to this great city?' Then they shall answer, 'BECAUSE they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God...'" Jer. 22:8-9

They lost their city and their Temple because they rejected their God.

Before the destruction of the second Temple hear Yeshua (Jesus):

And when he was come near, he beheld the city and WEPT over it,
saying:

'If you had known, even you, at least in this your day,
the things which pertain unto your peace!
But now they are hidden from your eyes.
For the days shall come upon you, that your enemies
shall cast a trench around you, and compass you around,
and keep you in on every side; and shall lay you even with
the ground, and your children within you;
and they shall not leave in you one stone upon another,
BECAUSE you knew not the time of your visitation.'"
Luke 19:41-44

Israel lost their city and their Temple BECAUSE they rejected the Messiah-who had spent more than three years healing them, restoring their sight, casting out their demons, raising their dead. But they rejected him. And that's why, he said, they lost their city and their Temple. Because they did not recognize the time of their visitation.

Shall we not, therefore, weep for Israel's God who offered them all things and was rejected?

It is not that they were forsaken...

...but that HE was forsaken.