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July 27, 2003
The Blessedness of Tears
The Blessedness of Tears
Psalm 126 / Isaiah 30: 18-26
Luke 6: 21b
July 27th, 2003
All of us like stories with happy endings. All the more we like stories that begin sad, then end happily. Cinderella weeps as she picks peas from the ashes around the fireplace, while her stepsisters prepare for the ball. But Cinderella who begins the evening weeping, ends the story marrying the prince, and lives happily ever after. “Blessed are those that weep now, for you shall laugh.”
So we read these words Jesus spoke and wonder what He promised. Luke, the beloved physician, makes Jesus’ promise so much more personal than Matthew. Matthew’s Gospel reports that Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn (penqou~nteı), for they will be comforted (paraklhqhvsontai). Luke personalizes this promise--not just blessed are you who mourn, but you who weep. Not just “you will be comforted,” but “you will laugh.”
When you are comforted to the point that you laugh, you are no longer sad at all. Wouldn’t you like this to happen for you?! It suggests the happiness at the end of time, when God will wipe away every tear from every eye, replacing the tears with laughter.
Four questions come to mind. First, What kind of weeping did Jesus have in mind? Second, what kind of laughter? Third, why did Jesus say the word “now?” Fourth, how does the transformation happen from tears to laughter?
What kind of weeping did Jesus have in mind? We cry for a host of reasons. You stub your toe badly, breaking it in fact; it hurts terribly; you cry. Some of you have suffered sciatic nerve damage that hurts horribly. Pain medicine doesn’t help. You cry privately. When I gave Bonnie an engagement ring thirty-five years ago, you guessed it, she cried. You suffer the loss of a loved one; you cry. You fail a test; you cry. You are convinced that you did wrong to someone, and you feel remorse; you cry. You see the tragedy that befalls someone, and your heart is wrenched. You cry. You sit in the theater watching a sad movie; you find yourself crying. We cry for many good reasons.
People also cry for ignoble reasons. Some tears show smallness of character. Maybe someone else gets an honor you thought you deserved; you cry. The tears are tears of envy and self-pity. Will God wipe away these tears too? Somehow I think so. God will change our smallness of heart into largeness of heart. So this crying will be turned to laughter too.
You and I laugh different kinds of laughter. You laugh at a funny joke. You laugh for sheer happiness when something good comes to someone you love. There is the laughter of feeling relieved, after a painful time has ended. There is also cruel laughter that gloats at the misery of others as happened in the cruel torture chambers of history, of which we were reminded in Iraq recently. What did Jesus mean, “Blessed are those who weep now, for you will laugh?”
And why did Jesus say, “Blessed are those who weep NOW?” I wonder if Jesus wanted us to understand He did not mean only laughter THEN, that is, in the “sweet by and by,” but laughing now. Eternity encompasses all time, before now, now, and after now. Jesus’ promise is to you NOW, to bring you joy for sorrow, laughter for tears. The best God has to offer us does not wait until after we die.
The fourth question we ask is, “How are tears transformed to laughter?” Does God do it automatically by special acts of re-creation? Or does the transformation somehow take place “naturally,” that is, gradually? I presume to say that God is not limited in how He brings His grace to bear on our lives. Perhaps sometimes God mysteriously changes your view so that what once made you weep now looks differently so that you smile, or even laugh. Maybe you wept short-sightedly. God spared you from what you wanted. You realize it. You laugh and say, “Thank God I didn’t get what I wanted!”
This is all well and good, you say, but it leaves a lot unexplained. Obviously, it seems, there is a lot of crying now that does not turn to laughter, even if the Son of God promises it. There are homes in Africa now that I can scarcely imagine hearing the sound of laughter. AIDS is decimating families, taking the lives of mothers and fathers, leaving throngs of orphans, some of whom will find no one to take care of them. The only laughter in the prisons of Iraq where Saddam Hussein’s sons and their henchmen tortured men, women, and children to death was the cruel laughter of evil men. Will their victims laugh? Maybe so—in the end, when all sorrow is banished. But it is fair to wonder, how can Jesus promise be applied NOW to a lot of suffering people.
Thoughtful commentators have written about what Jesus had in mind. Some believe Jesus had in mind the fulfillment of prophecy. The psalmist writes of God, “You have turned my mourning into dancing.” The psalmist wrote about Jesus. That’s what Jesus did—He turned mourning into dancing.
In the prophet, Isaiah we read, “Comfort ye my people.” This was written when Israel was in deep sorrow, far from home, in exile. It was a plea and a promise. Isaiah promised, “The Lord shall comfort Zion.” God identifies Himself, “I am he that comforts you.” Comfort that comes unexpectedly prompts laughter of joy and relief.
Jesus read one Sabbath Day from Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to comfort all who mourn.” He rolled up the scroll and said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Because of this some think Jesus may have been deliberately fulfilling prophecy in saying, “Blessed are those who mourn now, for you will laugh.” He was announcing that He was Messiah in the beatitude.
There is a lot going for this interpretation because Jesus was Messiah, and He did bring comfort. But I believe we too often relegate Jesus’ Messianic role to the sweet by and by rather than to the here and now. Jesus said, “Blessed are you who weep NOW, for you will laugh.”
Another interpretation proposes that Jesus meant to comfort only the elect that mourn for godly sorrow over their sins. They will laugh when they realize that God has elected them for salvation. God has graciously forgiven their sins, so their tears are replaced with laughter. I see nothing at all in anything Jesus said to support this view.
My own view is that Jesus was intentionally cryptic. He was stretching us, asking us to look into ourselves and at others around us. “Blessed are you that weep now, he tells you, as you are crying, for you shall laugh.” “How so?” we are supposed to ask, needing the Holy Spirit to explain this to us.
We know that tears offer us obvious benefits. Tears wash away dust that gets in our eyes; they help to keep our delicate eyes clean. When our eyes no longer hurt, we laugh. A dear friend who had eye surgery recently was given a prescription for artificial tears to keep her eyes moist so they would heal. The tears helped her to heal, and she laughs at the improved sight she enjoys.
You lose your job, or suffer some other disappointment and you cry, and in your tears find some relief. The tears pass. Maybe the next day you get a job offer. This has happened on a Wednesday for a friend at the Work Release Facility, after crying on Tuesday evening. The psalmist tells us, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” I have found this to be true, as I suspect you have. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.”
Some believe that Jesus essentially meant that our tears should be tears of remorse for sin. Those who weep when they recognize and acknowledge their sin will confess their sin, find forgiveness, and then be happy. I believe that this may have been partly in Jesus’ mind for us.
But I doubt that Jesus, the friend of sinners, saw sin quite the way we do. We tend to emphasize sins of the flesh. We don’t notice in ourselves sins of the will. We’re big into recognizing and condemning sins of passion--adultery, murder, and the like, but greed we think of as prudence. (Remember Jesus’ story about the rich fool?) Who mourns as he accumulates more and more riches? Who grieves because he is greedy? Who even notices that he is greedy? Greed is one of those sins of the other guy.
Bigotry we disguise as culture. Who mourns because he is a bigot? Arrogance we disguise in a thousand ways. Arrogant people find it nearly impossible to weep for their arrogance. They defend themselves, hotly championing their self-centered little lives. If only we knew to weep for these sins of the will, we might find ourselves growing a little in grace.
Jesus’ words are so suggestive. I hear Jesus asking me, “What makes you cry?” Jesus asks us, “Is your heart able to be touched by the tragedy that comes to others? Are you able to blithely look the other way when the TV report shows you that people are dying of starvation in Zimbabwe and Zambia, or do you find yourself crying as you watch. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”
You respond, giving sacrificially money you intended to spend perhaps on a speedboat, or a new large-screen TV. You give out of your sorrow, and laugh as you see that your money has fed people who were starving. Your generosity has made people who were asking, “Doesn’t God care?” say, “Thank God that He cares for me.”
Or, maybe you suddenly realize you have been living a self-centered life, occupied with your own happiness, your own pleasure, and your own security. And suddenly the thought strikes you like a ton of bricks, “I am disgusted with myself. I am the center of my little universe.” And you weep in sorrow for your self-centeredness. It suddenly looks so ugly to you. Godly sorrow brings repentance, and laughter. Because you start to find yourself as you lose yourself in others. You find joy. You laugh. You remember that Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity laughed a lot, and understand why. You pick up your Bible, opens it to Luke 6: 21b, “Blessed are those who weep now, for you will laugh,” and you say, “I understand. Jesus was describing me.”
How tragic is the person who cannot weep for others. One of the dangers of living in prosperity and opportunity such as we have is that we may quite “innocently” become callous to the need and sorrow of others. Without intending to be selfish, we may live self-centered lives. Very quickly we say, “I’ve done my fair share.” We convince ourselves that our modest contributions of time and money are generosity. The most tragic need of others, particularly of those we don’t know, may be to us quite hypothetical.
We naturally become like the priest and the Levite in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, who are not touched by the pitiful sight of the man lying bleeding at the side of the road. We are about our business after all--as they were about their business. The Samaritan that we call “good,” saw that broken body; his heart was touched; he inconvenienced himself for this man he did not know. He loved his neighbor as himself. What joy it must have brought him as he left the inn to whose innkeeper he had given money to care for this broken stranger. “Blessed are those who can weep for others, for you will laugh.”
Jesus wept over Jerusalem, longing for His people to accept His care. One day Jesus will laugh, Paul tells us, in effect. God’s kind of life was displayed in Jesus’ life who loved us and wept over Jerusalem. Jesus will laugh one day.
When Jesus said, “Blessed are those who weep now, for you will laugh,” He did indeed fulfill prophecy, but I doubt that Jesus was as concerned about theological definitions as we are.
I believe Jesus intended us to understand that in a host of ways, whose fringes I have only touched upon, God will bring gladness after sorrow. God, in the end, will wipe every tear from every eye. We will gather around the Lord Jesus somehow gloriously the same as He was while He was on earth, touching with joy the broken hearted. He’ll still be the Jesus who heals the broken hearted.
Sally Miller described in her very dear, autobiographical book, how her mourning was turned to dancing after Bob, her first husband, died suddenly of cancer. God taught her to laugh again. She now dances as she heals the broken hearted, bringing them joy to replace their sorrow.
It is this Jesus in whom you and I can trust. He turns your tears to laughter—if you’ll let Him. You and I will be surprised to discover how our tears, for many reasons, are replaced with laughter. Our sadnesses, that may be a trifle self-centered, will be replaced with joy as we are taken over by the view of Jesus—who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame. Jesus wept as He viewed our need. His tears changed to laughter when our twin archenemies of sin and death were conquered on the cross. Jesus, the Author of our faith, knew personally the blessedness of tears turning to laughter. Part of following Jesus is experiencing this change ourselves, and being the catalyst for others who need their tears turned to laughter.
Let us pray: O Lord God, we understand a fragment of what Jesus meant. Help us not simply to understand, but to trust Jesus, to take Him at His word, and to be reshaped, that we may find His joy-- unspeakable and full of glory. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at July 27, 2003 09:30 AM