Each member of the human race usually begins life weeping, for weeping is one of the first signs of life in a newly born babe, and the entire path of life is in measure soaked with tears. We may rest assured that this is not God’s purpose for man. No, an enemy has done this. God placed man, His perfect creature, in Eden. Man found in God everything that his sinless nature could desire. Man was perfect; his environment was perfect; his joy was perfect. God joyed in man, and man joyed in God. Heaven stooped to kiss earth, and earth rose to welcome the embrace of Heaven. Thus the bridal bliss of earth and Heaven was consummated in joy and ecstasy.
But, alas, a malignant being beheld that blessed scene with hellish hate, and purposed its destruction. Quickly he compassed man’s fall; by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. Man’s fair paradise has been lost, and this world has been turned into the Vale of Tears.
Sin has not only affected man, it has affected God. Sin has moved the Godhead as nothing else in the universe has done. Sin brought the Son of God to earth; sin was the occasion of His being here in human form to ransom and redeem. His life below bears witness to God’s deep concern for the woes of mankind.
Three times at least it is placed on record in Scripture that the Son of God wept during the days of His flesh. Surely the fact that He–the Source of life and joy–should stoop from His Godhood glory and shed human tears on this sin-burdened earth, tells of grace and compassion that surpass comprehension.
Tears of Sympathy
“Jesus wept” (Jn. 11:35). More wonderful words than these are nowhere to be found in Scripture. The verb translated “wept” is not found elsewhere. Literally it is: “Jesus shed tears.” These were tears of sympathy with the bereaved–Heaven’s gems sparkling on the cheeks of Emmanuel, revealing to mankind the very heart of the Eternal.
The Lord stood by the tomb where a loved and only brother had been laid, and where two broken-hearted sisters mourned the one they had loved and lost. Could He not have prevented this sorrow? Yes. Could He not have come earlier and robbed death of its triumph? Yes. But this sorrow was permitted for the glory of God. How true the words of the sisters: “Lord, if Thou hadst been here my brother had not died!” For His own His absence makes death and sorrow possible. Death cannot abide His presence nor can tears flow there.
Why Tears are Permitted
Here, then, we find it clearly taught that God permits death and sorrow to come upon His loved ones that He may be glorified thereby. This is a fact worthy of deep pondering. Had Lazarus not died, these words would never have been written, “Jesus shed tears.” Had Lazarus not died, these silent witnesses to the anguish that tore His heart in view of human loss and sorrow had never flowed. Had Lazarus not died, this special revelation of the heart of God would never have been granted to men to support them in the hour of anguish and sorrow. The death of Lazarus has enriched the race with a vision of God, the glory of which can only be discerned through tear-dimmed eyes.
These sisters had seen Him often. They had ministered to His wants; they had listened to His words. They loved to welcome Him to their home and to gaze on His face. He brought the sunshine of Heaven with Him, and diffused its peace around. He touched them in their joy; can He touch them also in their sorrow? They had seen that face radiant with holy joy; they must see it likewise clouded with anguish and behold the teardrops coursing down. Thus would He teach them, and us, how to “rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with them that weep” (Rom. 12:15).
The Brotherhood of Tears
Fellowship in tears ought to be an easy matter for the sons of men, for tears, sooner or later, are the lot of all. We reach a common bond in the brotherhood of tears. I weep with my brother at morn; he weeps with me at night. May the tears of the Son of God at the tomb of Lazarus not appeal to our hearts in vain! He has placed a holy dignity upon tears.
The tears of the Lord at this time are all the more wonderful as we contemplate the fact that He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead and restore him to these sisters and thrill their hearts with an unexpected joy. Not for them alone, therefore, were these tears shed. They were shed to assure our hearts that He sees and understands. For true it is that
“Our fellow-Sufferer yet retains
A fellow-feeling of our pains;
And still remembers in the skies
His tears, His agonies, and cries.
In every pang that rends the heart
The Man of Sorrows had a part;
He sympathizes with our grief,
And to the sufferer sends relief.”
Of nothing are we better assured from Scripture than that the Lord is still able to enter into the sorrows of His people, as He did during the days of His flesh, to sympathize with them in bereavement, and to send them divine succor from on high. To this very end did He suffer when here below. It behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest.
The words of the angels to the disciples after His ascension were: “This same Jesus” (Acts 1:11). He sits on the throne of God, having been absent in person from our world for nearly two thousand years, but these words prove that He is still unchanged, that He abides the “same Jesus.” True it is that He now is where tears can never flow, but the compassion that caused Him to shed tears in the days of His flesh remains unchanged, and by the Spirit He draws near to assure our hearts of His divine sympathy.
Tears of Pity
“When He drew nigh, He saw the city, and wept over it” (Lk. 19:41). The word “wept” in this case differs from the one found in John 11:35. There the evidences of His grief were alone to be seen in the silent tears that rolled down His cheeks. Here, however, the word implies that His grief was accompanied with outward signs of mourning and lamentation In John 11, however poignant His grief, He knew that presently that sorrow would be turned into joy; but here is a grief upon whose night no ray of light shall ever shine; and the shadow of that darkness oppressed His soul and caused Him to weep and lament.
His omniscient eye could scan the future, and the unparalleled woes that were to overwhelm His people–because they knew not the day of their visitation–were all unveiled to His gaze. The appalling spectacle oppressed Him; the city destroyed, the temple burned, the people slain, the remnant scattered. Yet how often would He have gathered them together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but they would not. The light of God they had deliberately rejected; their doom was sealed; the things that pertained to their peace were forever hidden from their eyes.
The Fellowship of Tears
The Lord is not alone in His grief and tears on account of the impenitence of men. His servants in all ages have been permitted to share with Him in this fellowship of tears.
Pre-eminent in this respect was Jeremiah. What his eye beheld affected his soul (Lam. 3:48-49), so that he could say: “Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people. Mine eye trickleth down and ceaseth not, without any intermission.”
The apostle Paul frequently refers to his tears: “Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears” (Acts 20:19).
“I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears” (Acts 20:31). “I wrote unto you with many tears” (2 Cor. 2:4).
“Many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil. 3:18).
Such, then, was our Lord. Such were His apostles and prophets. They served God with many tears. How, then, shall we account for the dearth of tears in our day in this respect? A modern writer has said: “We have tears for everything but the infinite loss of those who have rejected the gospel. For this, alas, no single drop trickles along the dry watercourses. We are smitten with a terrible drought, our hearts a very Sahara, our water-springs frozen by remorseless cold or scorched by relentless heat.”
The Power of Tears
In losing the power of tears we have lost one great power of causing them. It is by broken hearts that hearts are broken, by wet eyes that eyes are made to brim over with the waters of repentant sorrow. The picture here is not overdrawn. Tears are practically unknown.
Is it that the dangers which assail the Church of God are fewer than in the apostle’s days when he warned everyone of them night and day with tears? Is it that the hardness and impenitence of men has passed away, and that they are more urgent in their response to the pleadings of God? No! Is it rather that the preaching of old was impelled by a dread “woe is me,” coupled with the constraining power of the compassions that filled the heart of Christ, and that the preaching of today is too often degraded to the level of mere professionalism? Yet the promise stands true: “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him” (Ps. 126:5-6). Might not a revival of apostolic tears yet bring to us a revival of apostolic power! Might not a revival of prophetic weeping yet bring to us a revival of prophetic vision!
Tears of Agony
“Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death” (Heb. 5:7). Our Lord wept in sympathy at the tomb of Lazarus; He wept in pity over doomed Jerusalem; He wept in agony in Gethsemane. This latter is a weeping in which we cannot share except insofar as we yet are enabled by God to weep with Him who wept. The agony that caused His anguish with strong crying and tears must be borne by Himself alone. The dreaded hour has come, and the dark shadow of Calvary presses upon His soul. His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground, and in this agony He wept and prayed. Moreover, He looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but He found none. Yes, we may not enter here; but we may, with unshod feet, draw near to gaze and search the secret of His woes.
There were two companies around the Cross. “Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (Jn. 16:20). The world’s joy ends in sorrow; our sorrow issues in joy. It is clear from these words that the disciples did weep and lament for their Lord. They wept with Him who wept. He had won their hearts, and in His death their hopes were crushed.
This aspect of the fellowship of tears is an extremely blessed and touching one. To us also is given the opportunity of weeping with Him who wept. Whose heart has never been touched to tears as he contemplated the sufferings of Christ? Ah! here perhaps is the point at which the tide of tears has too long been stayed, and where again that tide must flow.
A Revival of Tears
Surely there is abundant room and opportunity for a revival of tears in view of the love of Christ, the sufferings of Christ, and the Cross of Christ. Then it would be easy to weep over a doomed world and to shed tears in sympathy with every human woe.
The Lord’s words to the disciples were: “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice” (Jn. 16:22). This points to the resurrection morn. The first words placed on record as spoken by our Lord in resurrection were not addressed to any of the apostles, but to a lone woman disconsolately weeping for her lost Lord: “Woman, why weepest thou?” (Jn. 20:15). There is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh” (Eccl. 3:4), and in their place joy and rejoicing are as fitting as weeping is in its place. Mary’s weeping was turned into joy as she gazed on her risen Lord, and heard from His lips these cherished words: “I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God” (Jn. 20:17). As with her, so with us, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Ps. 30:5).
“‘Why weepest thou?’ thus saith the Saviour still,
And speaks to thee, O heart, by tempests torn;
Soon, in the glory, joy thy heart shall fill;
The darkest night of woe precedes the brightest morn.”