I ran across this quote a few weeks ago and have continued
to think about it:
“‘Don’t
apologize for your tears,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever apologize for your tears,’ he
repeated with added fervor. ‘They reveal the feminine nature of God, a side
that is soft, nurturing, deeply passionate, and caring. We need to see more of
that side of God. Thank you for being brave enough to share it with me here
today’” (Thrashing About with God, Mandy Steward, 186).
It made me think of the death of Lazarus as recorded in John
11, and that short verse “Jesus wept” (11:35). I’ve always pictured Jesus with
a few tears sliding down His cheeks “weeping quietly,” as authors like to say.
But looking back at verse 33, I’m not sure it was so sedate. “When Jesus saw
[Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply
moved in His spirit and greatly troubled” (ESV). And in verse 38 He was “deeply
moved again.” That doesn’t sound like a “dabbing at His eyes” sort of
weeping.
I think sometimes we tend to sanitize Jesus, never imagining
that He could really experience the same intensity of emotions that we do.
Didn’t His nose run or His face get red at times like this? Perhaps the reason
verse 35 is so short is that Jesus was unable to speak through His tears at
that moment.
In his book When the Darkness Will Not Lift,
John Piper states:
“One
of the reasons God loved David so much was that he cried so much. ‘I am weary
with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with
my weeping’ (Ps. 6:6). ‘You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in
your bottle. Are they not in your book?’ (Ps. 56:8). Indeed they are! ‘Blessed
are those who mourn’ (Matt. 5:4). It is a beautiful thing when a broken man
genuinely cries out to God” (35).
We’ve done a disservice to God and to ourselves by creating
a false stereotype. “Big girls don’t cry...” “Real men don’t cry...” Really?
Was Jesus therefore immature or unmanly? There are events in this life that
demand tears, as we have witnessed all too often lately. There are deep
emotions and circumstances beyond our control. If Jesus, who was God incarnate,
had reason to weep, how much more do we?
“Tears
sum up everything gone wrong in this fallen world. Grief, frustration, pain,
disappointment, loss, stress, tragedy, disaster, regret, mourning, depression,
lament, brokenness, abandonment — all of it can be expressed through the
universal language of tears” (Tony Reinke).
As one who struggles with depression, tears are all too
familiar to me, but I’m trying to look at them a little differently. Tears were
part of Jesus’ experience on earth because they are part of the human
experience. It may not always be welcomed, but there is no shame in crying, and
it can be a healthy expression of what is going on inside.
“Rejoice with
those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
© Dawn Rutan 2016
