John 11:35 – Jesus wept

It is a cold, dark rainy day here at the Abbey.  I don’t believe that God brought this dark gloomy day just for me but I do believe He is an opportunist.  Since He did plan on this being a rainy, dark, gloomy day he led me to be here at the Abbey at this time to reveal the reason why He called me back into silence.

Someone once said that it always rains on Good Friday because the rain is like God crying.  Well, a glance at the meteorological records for the past hundred years or ever how long they have been keeping these records will show that there has never been a Good Friday when it rained over the entire world.  Still it is a nice gesture.  Although the death of Jesus is not to be considered a sad event to weep but a joyful event for it was His death and resurrection that gave the world freedom from spiritual death.

Nonetheless, the idea of God weeping suggests a truth that God revealed to me in my last visit to the Abbey and one in which He is expanding upon here. The Bible tells us that Jesus wept.  In the Greek that word for weep is edakrusen and in the Aramaic it is demetha which is rendered as weeping.  In verse 33 as Mary tells Jesus that her brother Lazarus has died and she weeps but this time the word used in the Greek is klaiontas and in the Aramaic it is beki.  Some translations render this as lamenting in order to show that two different words are used.    Yet both words literally mean to cry but the difference in words is not an indication the intensity of the tears but where the tears are directed.  When Jesus wept edakrusen or demetha He was weeping not because He was grief stricken or his heart was broken, he wept over the broken heart of Mary and the Jews who wept with her over the loss of their relative and friend.  Jesus knew Lazarus was in a good place but the sadness of Mary and the other Jews broke the heart of Jesus.  When Mary and the Jews wept they wept klaiontas or beki, they were weeping for themselves and their own broken heart.

As I sit here on the porch looking out over the rainy, dark, gloomy day I see the birds of various varieties fly back and forth, landing at the feeders, eating and then flying away.  There are robins, sparrows, a cardinal and even a mourning dove. Surely a mourning dove should pause and give a mournful coo over the rainy, dark, gloomy day, but alas he, as the rest, are totally oblivious to the rain, they just go about their business.

My spirit is quickened as I observe this.  I am like those birds.  Jesus’s heart is broken over a lost and dying world, but I just go about my business taking care to make sure I am well fed, secure, and comfortable in my life.

I am allowed to stay in the monks section of the dormitory and not the more modern and updated dormitory prepared for the retreatants.  I wanted to experience life like the monks. That was a big mistake. The heat is already been turned off in the archaic wing of the Monastery and it is unseasonably cold here.  I literally froze last night.  I guess I am a spoiled American living in the luxury of our modern technology that keeps everything at 70 degrees.  Let it drop to around 60 degrees and I am suffering.  Then on top of that I was late for dinner and there was really nothing left but some bread and peanut butter.  So I went to bed cold and hungry and the Lord reminded that I was more comfortable than most of the people that he loves that live in certain areas of the world.

Like those birds that I am looking at now who are totally oblivious to the weather and so focused on meeting their needs, I am so focused on my own comfort and needs that I spend so little time crying klaiontas or beki out of my need but rarely crying edakruse or demetha for the needs of others.  I find myself quietly repenting, “Oh, precious Father, forgive me, I have been so self-focused and self-absorbed trying to make my few remaining years on this planet comfortable that I am becoming unware of the tears that you cry for this lost world.  Dear Father let me enter your heart, allow me to feel what you heart feels, not just the joy but the sorrow as well.  Let me weep with you, let me weep with those who weep.”

I suddenly find that the joy and peace I have been experiencing since my arrival at the Abbey has now changed.  I am feeling restless, anxious, and fearful.  I find I have left the room of God’s heart where there is dancing and celebration and entered a quiet room His weeping room.  It was a reflection of the rainy, dark, gloomy day outside.  The rain became God’s tears, the birds became the hearts of those that Jesus was weeping for.  One little robin has now approached me on the porch.  He is just looking at me with a mournful look, he is shaking like he is shivering in the cold.  He pokes around the ground trying to find some food. He finds a worm but it escapes from him. He is now hoping around almost desperate for nourishment and I weep as I think of the multitudes that are so hungry for God who are living with a broken heart, who are themselves right now weeping because they have no job to support their families, those throughout the world who have no food.  The little robin takes one look at me as if to ask: “Are you not going to offer me some bread?”  Then he flies away.  I could have saved some of the bread I had last evening but I did not think to do that. I was too focused on myself. Kept that bread for myself and thus  I was unprepared to share it with others.  Is that what I do when I live in this world?

How we Christians are so unprepared to feed a lost and dying world because we are just so focused on ourselves. We are too busy singing and dancing to enter his quiet room, His weeping room to weep with him for the lost.  I asked the Lord. “What good does it do to just weep for the lost?”