Strength of Tears

Tears are considered as a sign of weakness by some people. But I would like to quote some examples from the Scriptures to prove that there is strength in tears.

Tears are part of life

Long ago a wise man said like this: a time to weep and a time to laugh, there is a time for everything…a time to mourn and a time to dance (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4). The Psalmist said, “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5). Strong men and women cried. The primary example is Jesus, when he came as a human being on this earth. Few of the occasions when Jesus cried, are: while Lazarus died and when Jesus was burdened for the city of Jerusalem (John 11:35, Luke 19:41). Regarding his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, the author of the book of Hebrews says, “During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission”  (Hebrews 5:7). Tears were a part of the life of Jesus. It is the same with us.

Tears for personal reason

While Jesus’ tears are for selfless reasons, we have evidences of  women and men  who cried for personal reasons and God seeing their tears, and answering them. Luke makes a mention of a sinner woman. She stood behind Jesus at his feet weeping. She began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. While the men around her got furious, we see Jesus accepting her tears as a sign of hospitality and love. And for sure it was a sign of repentance. Jesus forgave her sins (Luke 7:36-50). The experience of the sinner woman is a must experience for all of us, men and women, to shed tears for our misdeeds not only on that ‘one’ particular day of salvation, but we are called to keep working our salvation with fear and trembling on a regular basis ( Philippians 2;12).

In the case of Hannah, a very personal situation in her life triggered her to cry. But the good thing about her is that she shifted her focus on God and went to the temple and cried and made a vow out of that for a public cause. The result: prophet Samuel was born who brought a spiritual revival to the nation of Israel (I Samuel 1). Prophet Hosea makes a mention of a man named Jacob who cried. Hosea says that Jacob struggled with the angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favour (Hosea 12:4). The incident is narrated in Genesis 32 where we find him earning God’s blessings. He was guilty of earning blessing from his dad, Isaac earlier through a tricky way. Now he repents and earns it in a manner fitting in God’s sight (vs. 24-29).

Tears for public reason

This is a must for all. Nehemiah was broken for reasons that broke God’s heart as well. Time and again God poured out his anguish through his prophets regarding the sinful life of the Israelites and the impending punishment. And finally the judgement came. When the walls of Jerusalem were broken and burnt by enemies, Nehemiah wept and prayed (Nehemiah 1: 4).  Jeremiah, a prophet who lived during the exilic period,was called as a weeping prophet. His book of lament is what we read as Lamentations in the Bible. Does not what he saw in the exilic situation, the same, in many countries of the world today? Have a look on Jeremiah’s lamenting context:  My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.  They say to their mothers, "Where is bread and wine?" as they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away in their mothers' arms.  (Lamentations 2:11-12) A heart of compassion in us only can cause good things to happen to needy people. The following verse can be our prayer: Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people (Jeremiah 9:1).

Tears are noticed by God

The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry (Psalm 34:15). God saw the tears of Hagar and responded to her need (Genesis 21:17). King Hezekiah wept bitterly when he was dying of a disease. He was healed (2 Kings 20). We as God’s children, when we walk through the valley of weeping, I am sure, it will become a place of refreshing springs, where pools of blessing collect after the rains! (Psalm 84:6) All who are worn out from sobbing, who drench their beds every night, wet their pillows from weeping like how David did (Psalm 6:6), let us get encouraged that God keeps track of all our sorrows. He has collected all our tears in his bottle. He has recorded each one in his book (Psalm 56:8). He will answer, in His time.

No tears in eternal life

Tears are a result of pain. And so the good news is: there are no tears in eternal life! God will remove all of our sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. The Bible says: for the old world and its evils are gone forever (Rev 21:4). On the other side, there will be tears and gnashing of teeth in eternal hell (Luke 13:28). All who truly repents for their sins and accepts Jesus as their Lord are led to a place of no tears!There is strength in tears to earn showers of blessings here on this earth and in the new heaven and new earth that we are going to inherit.

Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy! (Psalm 126:5)

From Fullness to Fullness

Years back a woman named Naomi went through deep frustration and pain. Death of dear ones tore her apart. Emptiness and boredom set in her life. Life tasted bitter all of a sudden. "Don't call me Naomi, "she told them. "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me." (Ruth 1:20-21). Naomi means pleasant one. She renamed her Mara, meaning bitterness. Death of the dearest men (her husband and her two sons) in her life, for sure took a toll on her attitude to life. While losing dear ones made a negative impact in her life, the good thing in her was that she started to work on the one positive aspect of her life. She worked on the one leftover, living person in her life, Ruth, her daughter-in-law (the other one walked away) who was a symbol of true faith and love.

Can anything good come out of two widows, one an elderly woman and another one, in the prime of her youth? Why not? God operates through instruments, most often, humans and through divine leading, to bring hope in times of frustrations and disaster. The last three chapters of the Book of Ruth in the Bible tells us how Naomi worked on creating a new life for Ruth using her Yahwistic cultural practices and how the foreigner to a new faith, Ruth, obeyed her mother-in-law’s counsels. Yet nothing would have worked, but for Boaz, a man who basically respected a foreign woman who by then has started to work in his farm.

The climax of the story is that Naomi’s story ended in fullness. She went to Moab holding hands with three men in her life, her husband and their two sons. Her story ends in the last chapter, she being surrounded by another set of three persons, all of them newly added in her life, Ruth, her second husband, Boaz and their son Obed. King David and the King of kings, Jesus were born in this family line. No wonder, it is a story of fullness to fullness.

The women said to Naomi: "Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth." Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him. The women living there said, "Naomi has a son." And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David (Ruth 4: 14-17).

Here are few lessons from Naomi’s life for us to be used as instruments of fullness in the hands of God:
1. Work on the positives in life.
2. Use God-given wisdom to grab opportunities, like how it came to Naomi in the form of local culture. Be sensitive to God’s leading.

3. In families, we need to raise not only girls who are always taught to obey, but also raise Boazes who would respect women and redeem battered women. Most frustrations in families and societies have a possible solution when we properly raise boys and girls in our homes, while they are very young!

Let us be assured of the fullness which Christ has promised his followers to grip us in the agonising situations of our life. Jesus said: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10). He always leads us from fullness to fullness!