Jesus wept – John 11:35 (NKJV)

Greetings in Jesus’ Most Holy Name!

“Jesus wept” - This is the shortest sentence in the entire Bible, yet one that should inspire each human being to connect deeply with our Living Lord, because every human has shed tears in his or her lifetime.

Why did Jesus cry at the tomb of Lazarus? Does the Bible say that Jesus was late in reaching Lazarus’s tomb? No! Jesus delayed His journey to the home of Lazarus because He knew exactly what He was going to do in that situation by manifesting His power and glory! After hearing of Lazarus’ illness, Jesus stayed back for 2 more days because He was in prayer with the Father who told Him to stay back. Then, when He reached the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus wept through the Holy Spirit! How do we know that Jesus had been praying to the Father before He worked the miracle of raising Lazarus back to life? John 11:41 tells us that Jesus thanked the Father for having heard His prayer! This is a classic example of the work of the Holy Trinity in perfect communion with each other. Today, we celebrate the Glorious Feast of the Most Holy Trinity; in essence we are celebrating the mystery and unity of the 3 persons of the Trinity - Abba Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Hebrews 5:7 gives us further insights about how our Lord offered tear-filled prayers while He was on Earth – “In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the One who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission.” The key word here is reverent submission or in other words obedience to the Holy Spirit. This is true intercession and Jesus is the perfect intercessor!



Jesus is interceding with tears for each of us before the throne of God in Heaven!

Jesus is also named Emmanuel which means God is with us – Matthew 1:23. As Christians, we have the life of Christ within us. So, whenever we cry, it is comforting to know that Jesus cries with us! He cries in order to tell us that He understands our human struggles; that He is deeply concerned about that which causes us the deepest pain!

Our Lord’s hands are not shortened to stop our tears yet He cries with us and allows us to cry with Him in order that we share in His suffering and burdens so that we can come to terms with our own pain and thru’ this suffering believe that He has kept count of each teardrop and will collect our tears and transform them into bouquets of blessings. He did that for Mary and Martha when He raised Lazarus from the dead! Psalm 56:8 tells us – “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in Your record?” Each time a pained or sore spot is touched or brought to the surface in our life, tears will surely flow from the heart into our eyes, if this area of pain has not been surrendered into Jesus’ hands for Him to deal with His grace, healing and forgiveness.

Even the most hardened heart and the heart of an atheist would have shed tears, if not in their adult lives then surely at birth when they came into this world. We can easily empathize with people who console us and understand our pain, yet when it comes to our Lord who created us and knows us better than our own self and anyone else in this whole world, we find it difficult to believe that this same God who became human can understand our pain and cry along with us.

After a baby is born into the world it starts crying, but is lovingly pacified by all those around – it’s own mother, doctors, nurses, loved ones etc. What about the babies who cry in the womb? Some of us have been rejected in our mother’s womb and may be crying from the pain of rejection or fear of death (for those who survived abortion attempts); Some of us may have been rejected in the womb when we were so tiny that even our eyes were not formed to cry while we were being rejected and traumatized in our mother’s wombs, which became our tombs even before we were born! Some of us could still be carrying these painful rejected feelings, pre-natal trauma right from the moment of our conception. All our uncried tears are stored within us and they just flow out whenever we feel rejected because a rejected child knows when he or she is rejected. But the Good News is that our Loving Father God knew us even before He created us and He was present while He was forming us in the womb – Read Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 1:4. God our Creator cries every time a baby is aborted (murdered) in the womb! After attending Inner Healing retreats and understanding God our Father’s deep and personal love for me, I now choose to believe that my Abba Father was very close to me even in my mother’s womb, holding me as He saw the uncried tears in that little lump of flesh that was being rejected there and was crying to survive. He cried along with me even there in the womb just as He cries along with each suffering, rejected and aborted soul.

Tears are the universal language, which reveal a broken spirit – Psalm 51:17. Our tears are witnessed in Heaven – Job 16: 19,20. Tears always have an answer from Heaven! God always answers a tear-filled prayer! Men are known to withhold or suppress tears and few cry openly. On the other hand, women who are supposed to be the weaker ones cry easily. Tears are a gift to worship God! We know the story of the sinful woman in Luke 7: 36-50 who worshipped our Lord Jesus with her tears! She was crying because she knew who Jesus was; She knew His Holy and Godly character; she knew that Jesus would not take advantage of her like all the men in her life. Her security in life was only Jesus! So, she let down her honor by coming to the feet of Jesus, kissing them, bathing them with her tears and drying them with her hair! She was God-conscious, not self-conscious. She offered her tears as worship to Jesus! When you truly worship God with your tears, people around you will get upset and talk about you. Luke 7:39 tells us that the Pharisee not only condemned the woman, but also Jesus! But Jesus has the perfect answer to this, who read the mind and heart of the Pharisee and saw thru’ the tears and the heart of the woman who had displayed great love for God after being forgiven! Indeed, the one who is forgiven much is sensitive and compassionate and has greater capacity to love God and people!

                                        

Tears can also deceive and leave deep wounds. Don’t be fooled by the tears of people! In my own painful life experiences, I’ve seen real tears in the eyes of certain people whom I blindly trusted with all my heart only to learn few months later that they had been betraying me right from the start of the relationship! One of them even said these words to me “#@%%$ to your tears!” It was only thru’ the love, grace and strength of our Lord Jesus that I could forgive this person. Praise God, because our loving Jesus is not like these deceitful men who even insulted the painful tears that were cried! Jesus never disappoints, never deceives and never betrays us! All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In fact, it’s we who need to shed tears for betraying our Lord’s love and hurting Him by our sinfulness when we turn away from Him and when we wound others thru’ our words and actions. Yet, He is such a loving and merciful God who cries along with each of us sinners and wipes away our tears, all the while telling us ‘I hate your sin but I love You, My child’. We see examples of this unconditional love in the parable of the Prodigal son and Jesus’ love for His enemies even while He was being rejected and crucified on the Cross! While meditating on the subject of tears, I always remember an incident preached by a priest at Tabor Ashram – a man who was very sick had come to him for healing and father himself had been so moved to tears seeing the sad condition of this man that in his prayer to our Lord, he had pleaded for the man’s healing and thru’ the gift of word of knowledge, our Lord told this priest that the man was crying because of his current illness but if he cried even ‘one tear in repentance for his sins’, He would heal him! I’m sure we all remember that scene from the movie ‘The Passion of Christ’ how that one meaningful teardrop fell from Abba’s Father’s eyes when Jesus was crucified and breathed His last on the Cross and that teardrop shook the very foundations of the earth!

Tears serve as a sign that we are all human. When we are sad or broken or when people hurt us or rather when we feel hurt by people, our pain surfaces and gets released thru’ the shedding of tears. Have you noticed during an anointed and inspiring talk, the Holy Spirit touches our pained and sore spots and draws out the tears? This is the first sign that God’s Word is at work – Indeed the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart - Hebrews 4:12. Praise God for tears! Praise God for the people who caused you pain and brought tears in your eyes because He is the same God who will wipe away those very tears thru’ people whom He will bring into your life!

Brothers and sisters, are you shedding tears on account of your suffering and pain? Are you crying at the loss of a loved one? Does your heart bleed with tears as you remember the pain inflicted on you by others? Have you been the cause of someone else’s tears? Does it seem as if God is late in visiting you in your pain? When was the last time that you wept, remembering Jesus’ suffering and pain on the Cross? Do we shed tears when we see Jesus crucified in our place on account of our sins? We may think we are alone and no one sees our tears, but let us remember that God is keeping count of every teardrop from our eyes! God is NEVER late and it is NEVER late to turn to Him! His delays are not denials; He is crying along with you to strengthen you for your own good and for His greater glory. Just believe in Him and you will see His glory thru’ your tears and thru’ your pain!

I read the following on the Internet few years ago – which is so true! ‘It’s better to have wet eyes and a warm, loving heart than dry eyes and be dead inside. Those tears will clear our vision to see God’s Holy Spirit in each person we meet and will open our hearts to all the love that God wants to bless us with. Those tears will strengthen our soul so that we can bring joy, compassion and healing to all those around us. God gives us tears to ease our pain and express our joy! Use them both to make this world a better place!’

Prayer: Lord Jesus, through our tears, we come into contact with Your heart, in which are love and pain, sorrow and joy. Make us compassionate like You Lord, so that our tears will flow as blessings in every situation! Amen.

Blessings,

Monisha Rebello

 

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