These words come from Psalms 42 and 43: “My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’ Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” Such tears, indeed, are difficult to bear, but where do they drive one who refuses to believe his God will abandon him? More words from these two Psalms: “Send forth Your light and Your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to the place where You dwell. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember You. Then will I go to the altar of God, my joy and my delight.”
If we allow our tears to lead us to the throne of God we may receive a different type of tears – not those of pain and suffering, but ones of thanksgiving and joy. I can’t pretend to know the pain involved in having a baby, but the most incredible tears I’ve ever seen were in my wife’s eyes as a newborn baby rested in her arms. Were her tears of pain worth those beautiful tears of joy?
As Jesus tried to prepare His disciples for His death, He used this truth to explain the things they would shortly experience. As He has promised to return again, perhaps these words are also meant to encourage us. “I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” John 16:20-22
If I had not known tears of pain, sorrow, and bewilderment last year, I would not have known tears of a different type. I cried when my youngest brother stood before a church in Chattanooga and shared that he admired my faith. I cried when family members and many others volunteered to donate blood, bone marrow, or anything else that might help me live. I cried often as cards, calls, and e-mails revealed how many people were praying for me. And I remember the tears one sleepless night when God showed me in a very clear way how the One who holds every star, every moon, and every planet in place also held every cell of my body in His hands.
It may be a couple of weeks before I get to write again. May any tears that come your way this week be ones of joy and thanksgiving for all God has done. “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His Name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.” Psalm 100:4-5
How we need the perspective of Jesus about death! Knowing it was an enemy, Jesus came and faced the penalty that entered the world through man’s sin. “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!”
Though we often just think of the physical, Jesus sees death from an eternal point of view. As close as I may have been to physical death last year, there was a time when I was worse off. I didn’t look bad. I was healthy and strong. I was popular. I had everything a man could want, but Jesus knew I was dead. When one sees himself in such a hopeless place he cries, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
If someone discovers a cure for cancer, we will all rejoice, but there is a far more deadly disease at work in this world…and people seem to pay little attention. Sin kills. “The wages of sin is death.” But Jesus came to raise the dead! Do you hear His voice?
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.”
If we are intrigued by such words and want to follow, He tells us we must count the cost: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”
And if we claim there are more urgent matters at hand, Jesus says hard things: “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead.”
And if we follow a while, we hear even harder things: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
If we resist the temptation to walk away, knowing there is no other place to go, we shall find He really is the only One with words of eternal life. And we shall discover we need not fear. “‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Corinthians 15:55-57