Good Friday I

Part I

Jesus Wept. 

Jesus wept. The shortest verse in the bible.

Two words which speak volumes about our God, human and divine. Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus his friend.  He wept also for Mary and for Martha. 

Perhaps he also wept for himself as he experienced the pain that rips apart everything we are.  When we lose people or things we love, our hearts are torn in two, and from the depths of our broken heart, wells up the water of the soul. 

Tears are a natural response to loss. The tongue fails and our speech is silent, but often at such times, the heart speaks and the eyes utter tears. 

And our tears become a language in themselves, they mean so much more than words can ever mean. 

Tears are the poetry of the soul and the consolation of the spirit. They say a picture paints a thousand words, and through a tear you can see a thousand pictures.

When God became incarnate, his divine being embodied our human nature.  Took on our flesh.

When God became human, God experienced all the turmoil, and longing, and loving that we experience, all the sorrow, all the pain, all the uncertainty…

And because Jesus wept, we know that our God, is a God who weeps as well. A God for whom tears matter. 

A God, who through his own tears, can interpret ours.When Jesus wept at the grave of his friend, his tears told a story.

His tears were prophetic. A whole world of what would come to pass, might have been seen, in the tears that Jesus shed for Lazarus.

Contained in each drop was his future betrayal by Judas,  Peter’s denial, the corruption of those in authority, the baying of the crowds for his blood, his own arrest and torture.

Contained in each drop were the future pains he must obediently endure, the nails being hammered into his hands and feet. 

Contained in each drop was his future yearning for water, but the taste of vinegar and gall, a vision of cruelty beyond compare seen through his tears. Blood as earthy as iron, dripping from his crown of thorns and mingling with his salty tears 

Contained in each drop of Jesus tears, were the faces of his Mother, and Mary and Martha, and John and the disciples whom he loved, weeping this time for him as he breathed his last.

In each of his tears Jesus could see his own face, calling to the Father from out of the deep;  As he wept, both day and night, on the lonely hill of calvary- he only heard the voices whispering ‘where is now your God?’

At the grave of Lazarus, in each of one of Jesus tears there was a shadow of all that must be soon endured, before the light of glory could be seen, before the tomb could be opened, before the dead could be raised.

Jesus, like everyone else, had to sow in tears before he could reap in songs of joy….

Jesus might have wept again on the mount of Olives, in the garden of Gethsemane- in the Garden of tears.

It was in that garden that Jesus, in pain and anguish said, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with pain and anguish, with sorrow to the point of death’. 

We are told he fell with his face to the ground, weeping into the earth, the second Adam taking on the sin of the first-

‘Father if you are willing, remove this cup from me’ ….

‘don’t make me go through this’…he said, ’can there not be another way…..?

And then through his tears he cried out to God again 

‘not my will but yours’….

there in the garden of tears, our heavy load, he chose to bear, ‘not my will but yours’. 

And he cried, there in the garden, those tears we all cry, when we know something impossible has to be done, when something has to be said,when we know something is unsolvable, just a messy tangle of life. When we offer up to God all that we are, we fall into his hands, at a loss as to how to go forward.

And though we feel abandoned, we hope that God will hear our cry and somehow our tears open a door into something else, they can herald a breakthrough, a cleansing, the water always finds a way through.

Jesus wept again on the cross, and for whom did he weep then?  

What can you see through his tears on this day, when they are mingled with his blood?

Can you see his mother in pain, as the sword that Simeon talked of pierced her aching heart?  Can you see the disciples left alone afraid and ill-equipped? Or can you see Pilate who chose power and politics over justice and mercy?  Or Ciaphas who could not see the light because he was blinded by tradition? Can you see those who shouted abuse for no reason other than their own insecurity? Can you see those who stayed silent as evil prevailed? 

Can you see in Jesus’ tears from the cross, the crowds who jeered and shouted ‘crucify’, and the soldiers who cruelly mocked him as they put a crown of thorns on his head?

Jesus wept for all of these. 

They were in his tears on that day, 

‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do’

they were all in the silent prayers of Jesus sorrowful heart, 

in the words that only God could interpret.

Jesus wept for all these and more…He wept for all those who have betrayed him, and all those who have loved him, those who are in pain, and sorrow too, those who are lonely, or lost, those who have their own cross to bear…those who would join him in paradise on that day and on every day since.

And perhaps Jesus, also wept for himself- as he was torn from the heart of his Father and left desolate on the cross, when he had done all he could do, and had given all that he could give. 

As Jesus wept that day on the cross, God his Father also wept, as the sky turned black and the foundation of the temple was torn in two. 

The earth shook, the heaven’s trembled. And in that moment, the Holy Spirit -in a song of lamentation, hovered over Jesus watery face.