Tears

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love." -C.S. Lewis

Tears! Tears! What is the use of them anyhow? Why not substitute laughter? Why not make this a world where all the people are well, and eternal strangers to pain and aches? What is the use of the storm when we might have a perpetual calm? Why, when a family is put together, not have them all stay, or if they must be transplanted to make other homes, then have them all live? The family record telling a story of marriages and births, but of no deaths. Why not have the harvests chase each other without fatiguing toil, and all our homes afflicted? Why the hard pillow, the hard crust, the hard struggle? It is easy enough to explain a smile, or a success, or a congratulation; but, come now, and bring all your dictionaries and all your philosophies and all your religions, and help me this evening to explain a tear. A chemist will tell you that it is made up of salt and lime, and other component parts; but he misses the chief ingredients - the acid of a soured life, the viper sting of a bitter memory, the fragments of a broken heart. I will tell you what a tear is; it is agony in solution. -DeWitt Talmage, The Ministry of Tears 1832-1902

We are really blessed as Children of God. Today, Zhencong asked me when was the last time I dropped tears/cried. I replied that it was during the sermon just now and very much these past few months. I just could not control my emotions every time I looked back at my past life and how much God’s love, grace and mercy was upon me even when I was still HIS enemy… when I was still dead in my sins. I was saved two years ago by the Grace of God. I am forever thankful for HIS great Salvation. No matter how much tears I shed, tears of repentance and joy, it would not be enough to express this feeling of gratitude in the face of such an immense Grace.

Many a times, tears are seen as a mark of sorrow, a mark of weakness. Yet, contrary to this thinking, tears are precious and it brings out the emotional side of us all according to God’s Creation and Plan. That makes it so beautiful, definitely not a sign of weakness.

"God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way." -C.S. Lewis

The Bible (Strong’s Concordance) provides 697 references for verses associated with crying (weep, cry, tears).

One of the first Bible references for tears is in the book of Genesis when Abraham wept over the death of Sarah. Hannah wept before the Lord in her barren state. Esau wept over his father Isaac, asking for a blessing. King David writes prolifically in the Psalms of his tears before the Lord, even saying they were his portion day and night.

The Bible provides accounts of tears of grief (as above, also David weeping over the death of Absolom, Jairus’s daughter and the death of Jesus Christ). Others wept tears of repentance and sin-sorrow (Israel as they stood to hear the scriptures read and were broken over not following the Lord their God and His law, David as Nathan confronts him, Ninevah when Jonah finally goes there to pronounce God’s judgment, Peter after the rooster crowed for the third time). Jeremiah was called the Weeping Prophet, authoring the book of Jeremiah and the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Jeremiah wept for the pride of Judah. Israel cried to God in affliction. Professional mourners attended the deaths in New Testament times. Jairus’s daughter’s death may have been one instance of this. The commentaries vary.

God is called “Comforter” (Jeremiah, for example) and the God of all comfort. God’s law and His love are described as comfort-givers. The body of believers is called to comfort, also.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (NIV)

The second occasion of the tears of Jesus takes place as He travels to Jerusalem, just after the triumphal entry is described.

When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. "For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation." Luke 19:41-44 (NASB)

He prophetically announced the destruction of the Temple. The Greek word used is for weeping in this verse is klaioo, meaning to weep audibly, to burst into tears.

Certainly, tears drop due to many reasons be it in grief, sorrow, repentance or happiness etc. It all part of the God’s Plan for us… “for blessed are those who mourned.”

"God who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain" -C.S. Lewis

Today’s sermon gives another interesting perspective to seeing tears. After the Great Flood in Genesis, God established a covenant with Noah.

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." -Genesis 9:12-16 (NIV)

When the Prophet Ezekiel saw visions of God, it was written,

Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

Beyond doubt, the rainbow that we have grown so used to and yet still so enchants many of us to this day, is one of the manifestations of God’s Glory on earth. When tears well up in our eyes, what do we see? Are we able to see the rainbow behind the tears? Are we not seeing the Glory of God?

However, as believers, we are not saddened and disheartened for great is the promise of God!

for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes."

–Revelation 7:17

Reference

New American Standard Bible

New International Version

Quotes by C.S. Lewis, http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1069006.C_S_Lewis accessed 18 April 2010

DeWitt Talmage, The Ministry of Tears (1832-1902), http://www.gracegems.org/SERMONS2/ministry_of_tears.htm accessed 18 April 2010

Mary Beth Swan, an excerpt from a report on tears by Mary beth Swan, in What the Bible says about tears, http://www.sethbarnes.com/?filename=what-the-bible-says-about-tears accessed 18 April 2010