JESUS WEPT

It was customary in ancient Israel to bury someone on the day of death. After death, the Talmud prescribed seven days of deep mourning and thirty days of light mourning. So [after Lazarus died] Jesus shows up right in the middle of their deepest sorrow and grieves with them. John 11:35 simply says, “Jesus wept.”

It’s one of the shortest verses in the Bible, but it speaks volumes. And I’m not sure the English translation does it justice. The force of the Greek verb tense suggests that Jesus bursts into tears. This was not a measured response. Jesus literally lost it. It reveals how much Jesus loved Lazarus. It also reveals a God who sheds tears! And He doesn’t just cry over us, He collects our tears in a bottle (see Psalm 56:8).

Your tears are precious to God. Whether they are tears of joy, tears of sorrow, or tears of pain -- not one teardrop is lost on God.

If you’ve endured the type of loss Mary and Martha experienced [in losing their brother], you know that sometimes you need a shoulder to cry on. I’m grateful for those friends who seem to show up when everybody else disappears. Jesus is a friend who sticks closer than a brother (see Proverbs 18:24), and His broad shoulders can bear any burden. 

-- Mark Batterson in “The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible”

#6329

COMFORT AND COMPASSION

Editor’s Note: Today, January 21, is the anniversary of the birth of our son, Dustin (1982-1998). Today’s author, Nancy Guthrie, offered many of the lessons she learned from the loss of two of her children in her first book, “Holding On to Hope: A Pathway of Suffering to the Heart of God” which was published in 2002. Since then, Nancy has continued to write books that reflect her compassion for hurting people and her passion for applying God's Word to real life.

COMFORT AND COMPASSION

“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 receive from God.”  (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV)

Ours is not a culture that is comfortable with sadness.  Sadness is awkward.  It is unsettling.  It ebbs and flows and takes its own shape.  It beckons to be shared.  It comes out in tears, and we don't quite know what to do with those.

So many people are afraid to bring up my loss.  They don't want to upset me.  But my tears are the only way I have to release the deep sorrow I feel.  I tell people, "Don't worry about crying in front of me, and don't be afraid that you will make me cry!  Your tears tell me you care, and my tears tell you that you've touched me in a place that is meaningful to me -- and I will never forget your willingness to share my grief." 

-- Nancy Guthrie in “Holding On to Hope”

#6289

A JOY THAT LASTS

“But the angel reassured [the shepherds]. ‘Don’t be afraid!’ he said. ‘I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior -- yes, the Messiah, the Lord -- has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!’”  (Luke 2:10-11 NLT)

“Joy to the world; the Lord is come;
Let Earth receive her King;
Let ev'ry Heart prepare Him room,
And Heav'n and nature sing.”  (Isaac Watts)

The problem with Christmas is that January comes. Reality returns. However joyful Christmas makes you, you can’t live in December for ever.

But imagine if Christmas could be rescued from the stress or sadness of just getting through Christmas. Imagine if January could be rescued from the disappointment if your joy was in getting to Christmas. Imagine if there were a joy that lasted -- that endured through January and wasn’t dented by reality. That kind of joy would be worth finding, wouldn’t it?

And Christmas does offer that kind of joy. It’s to be found, very simply, in getting it. Not in grasping hold of the commercial version of Christmas -- the tinsel, the tree, and the traditions -- but grasping hold of the events and the meaning of the first Christmas.

The people who experienced that first Christmas and understood its meaning found a joy that did not fade. So can you. Whether you’re a get-to-er or get-through-er, if you get the meaning of the first Christmas this Christmas, then you’ll get the feeling of joy, and find it’s a feeling that lasts. 

-- Carl Laferton in “Rescuing Christmas: The Search for Joy that Lasts”

#6011

SACRED TEARS

"You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your record?" (Psalm 56:8)

In her book, “Strange Scriptures That Perplex the Western Mind” (Erdmans, 1940), Barbara M. Bowen provides some background on the image the psalmist may have been referring to. She describes the old custom of collecting the tears of a family and preserving the tears in bottles. When death or serious trouble has occurred, each member of the family brought his or her tear bottle and collected tears from all the persons present. These bottles were sacred to the family members because they represented all the sorrows of the family. Each person was buried with his or her tear bottle. Many of these have been found in ancient tombs

I had an experience recently that enriched this image of the psalmist for me. I was counseling with a young woman, Leigh Hobbson, who had recently lost one of the most important persons in her life -- a great-aunt who was almost like a mother to her. It was painful -- and she had done a lot of crying, which is cleansing and healing.

One morning, Leigh's six-year-old daughter, Katy, witnessing her mother's grief, painted her a picture and gave it, with some other love tokens, to her mom and said, "I want you to feel better."

That night when Leigh was tucking Katy into bed she thanked her and told her that her love gifts did make her feel better. Then she added, "But Katy, I want you to know that Mommy may cry a lot more, because I love Ola so much." "But Mommy," Katy said, "I'm afraid you'll turn into a tear." "Well," said Leigh, "If I turned into a tear, would you wipe me up?" "No," said Katy, "I would put you into my eye."

Wow! What perception and wisdom -- what a picture of love! The psalmist was praying that somehow God would take his tears, use them, make them God's own -- and, yes, even redeem them. 

-- Maxie Dunnam in “Living the Psalms”

#5602

LOSING SOMEONE WE LOVE

Our culture wants to put the Band-Aide of heaven on the hurt of losing someone we love.  Sometimes it seems like the people around us think that because we know the one we love is in heaven, we shouldn't be sad.  But they don't understand how far away heaven feels, and how long the future seems as we see before us the years we have to spend on this earth before we see the one we love again. 

-- Nancy Guthrie in “Holding on to Hope” 

#5207

LET SADNESS DRIVE YOU TO PRAYER

“When I heard these words I sat down and wept, and mourned for days,…”  (Nehemiah 1:4a NRSV)

If only a sailor could use any wind at all to get him where he needs to go. And if only a human being could use any feeling, any mood, any emotion to get them where they need to go. Enter Nehemiah.

We see as we read through his story the strong things that he feels. He feels things strongly, he feels things deeply, and yet we see that he lets those strong winds drive him… always towards God, and always towards God’s work. It’s remarkable.

So in the very beginning I shared with you when Nehemiah hears the bad news how he responds, how he feels. He says, “When I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days.” That’s not the whole sentence. I read to you before only a part of the sentence. Here’s the whole sentence: “When I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.”

His sadness did not merely drive him to tears, it drove him to prayer. And don’t dismiss that as a minor detail, a small thing. It makes all the difference in the world. It is the difference between an act of grief and an act of faith. It’s the difference between wallowing in my troubles and worshipping in my troubles. 

-- Rev. David Kalas in a sermon entitled “Hero in the Rubble: Letting Yourself Be Moved”

#4503

PRAYING OUR TEARS

Tears are a biological gift from God. They are a physical means for expressing emotional and spiritual experience. But it is hard to know what to do with them. If we indulge our tears, we cultivate self-pity. If we suppress our tears, we lose touch with our feelings. But if we pray our tears, we enter into sadness that integrates our sorrows with our Lord's sorrows and discover both the source of and the relief from our sadness.

-- Eugene H. Peterson


#4141

OPENING THE DOOR TO A NEW FUTURE

Jesus said, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand -- repent and believe the Good News!”   (Mark 1:15)

Jesus did not say, “The Kingdom of God is at hand -- regret and believe the Good News!” The difference between regret and repentance is the difference of an opened door to a new future.

God’s doors, like His mercies, are new every morning.

Frederick Buechner writes, “The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are just as the glad and gracious things will too, but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination and regret that makes us constantly stumble as we go, even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead.”

-- John Ortberg in “All the Places to Go… How Will You Know?”


#4086

GOD’S LAWS FOR LIVING

“Lord, You have given us Your laws and told us to obey them faithfully. How I hope that I shall be faithful in keeping Your instructions! If I pay attention to all Your commands, then I will not be put to shame.”  (Psalm 119:4-6 GNT)

There are times when it can be so tempting to 'bend' the rules in certain cases, especially if we don't think we'll get caught. But when we resist the temptation and follow God's laws for living, we'll invariably see that God has just spared us from needless grief.

-- Matt Donnelly,  ChristianityToday.com


#4033

NO NEED TO DESPAIR

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life..” (John 3:36a NIV)

The cemetery is a sad place. We don’t like to say goodbye to those whom we love. It’s right for us to weep, but there is no need to despair. They are, at this very moment, at peace in the presence of God.

One of our church members asked me to speak at the funeral of his mother. Her name was Ida, but her friends called her Polly. Her son told me his mother had been unresponsive the last few hours of her life. She never spoke a word. But moments before her death, she opened her eyes and in a clear voice said, “My name is Ida, but my friends call me Polly.”

Meaningless words of hallucination? Perhaps. Or maybe she was in the presence of God -- maybe she was getting acquainted!

-- Mac Lucado in When Christ Comes

#3912

GOD'S FAITHFUL PRESENCE

Our life is full of brokenness -- broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God's faithful presence in our lives.

-- Henri Nouwen

#3780

GOD WITH US

"All right then, the Lord Himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a Child! She will give birth to a Son and will call Him Immanuel (which means 'God is with us')."  (Isaiah 7:14 NLT)

God comes to the woman who feels in exile in her own marriage, for the man who grieves the loss of life dreams.  God comes to the child who lives on the street, for the parents who struggle to feed and clothe their children. God comes to the one whose loneliness or depression intensifies every Christmas. ...

Emmanuel -- God-with-Us -- is coming to us, to meet us wherever we are -- happy or sad, joyous or grieving, God comes to stand with us, whatever our condition.  And we thank God for that promised gift of presence.

-- Beth A. Richardson in Child of the Light: Walking through Advent and Christmas  (Nashville, Tenn.: Upper Room Books, 2005) Used with permission.

#3779

SACRED TEARS

"You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded each one in Your book." (Psalm 56:8 NLT)

None of the tears that you ever cried in your life were wasted or in vain. Everything you wept over honored those moments in life as valuable and important and those feelings of sadness were sacred to your Soul.

-- Dr. Jeff Mullan

#3750