Tears and Talk {Part 2}
Last week, we shared the first post in this two-part series, “Tears and Talk,” by Pastor Colin Smith. Read the first post {here}.
Talk: Don’t Hold It Back!
The entire book of Lamentations is an expression of grief. It puts grief into words. Lamentations is a sustained outpouring of grief in which painful details of all that has happened, and all that was lost are poured over again and again. That is what grief does. That is what grief is like.
Leslie Allen quotes the words of Shakespeare in Macbeth,
Give sorrow words: The grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o’er fraught heart, and bids it break.[1]
In other words, if there is a grief that won’t speak, it tempts the heart to break.
If you read Lamentations, from beginning to end, you will be struck by the repetition. Grief is like that. It is not linear. It circles back over the same ground. Every detail of what has happened is rehearsed.
Imagine a priceless vase or ornament is dropped on the floor and smashed to pieces. The woman who loved it kneels down. She picks up the pieces, one by one. She looks at each one in detail, turning it round, as if to remember where it once belonged.
The vase was loved and so when it was shattered, every piece was worth picking up, no matter how small. A grieving person will often want to talk about the smallest detail of their loss. It is as if every broken piece is taken up and wept over. When you listen, you may feel that the detail was small, but it is part of something that was supremely valued, part of something dearly loved.
God has given us a whole book of the Bible that is a sustained outpouring of grief, in which the loss is put into words and it is expressed over and over again. Surely in this, God is telling us something very important about how to grieve. Tears and talk – let the words flow, and don’t hold them back.
One writer cites the story of G. K. Chesterton, whose sister Beatrice died at the age of eight: “Chesterton’s father responded by turning Beatrice’s picture to the wall, getting rid of all her possessions, and forbidding anyone to mention her name.”[2] In other words, he was saying, “We are moving on.”
Thankfully, our culture is much more in touch with the importance of speaking about pain and loss. But a grieving person can only speak about their pain and loss if other people are ready to listen. There are two sides to every story.
Part of our responsibility and part of the way to help those who have lost a loved one is to help keep the memory of them alive. What they wonder is: Does anyone else remember? Does anyone else care?
This reminds us of the importance of the ministry of listening in the body of Christ. Lamentations gives us a picture of what it means for God’s people to grieve together. We are called to “rejoice with those who rejoice” and “weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15).
There are two sides to weeping with those who weep. The first is that there must be brothers and sisters in Christ who are ready to listen, ready to sit with the one who grieves and identify with their sorrow. But if this is to happen, the one who grieves must be ready to allow some brothers or sisters into their own sorrow.
Here is a difficult challenge to those who are grieving a loss: It is very easy to put on a ‘brave front,’ and to say that you don’t want any sadness, to tell others that you only want to focus on the celebration of a loved one’s life, and then to determine that you will only do your weeping on your own. That’s not what we find in Lamentations.
God calls your brothers and sisters to weep with you. With whom will you share your weeping? Who will you allow, by the grace of God, to share in your sorrow and loss?
The body of Christ is part of God’s provision for you. They are given the privilege and calling to listen, so allow others into your grief, your sorrow, and your loss.
Tears, Talk and Christ
The Bible tells us that Jesus wept. When Lazarus, who Jesus loved, died, our Lord came to Bethany. When he arrived, Martha came out to meet him, and later her sister Mary. These two women were grieving the death of their dearly-loved brother.
- “When Jesus saw her [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (John 11:33).
- And he said, “Where have you laid him?” (11:34).
- They said to him, “Lord, come and see” (11:34).
- Jesus wept (11:35).
Why did he weep? Christ knew that in five minutes he would raise Lazarus from the dead – the resurrection is five minutes away for this brother! He told Martha, “Your brother will rise again” (11:23). But he did not say to Martha, “Don’t grieve.” He did not say that. He is the Resurrection and the Life, but he weeps with Martha and Mary over their loss. Jesus wept!
God is always intimately involved in the grief of his people. There is a beautiful verse in the book of Psalms that speaks of God gathering all our tears in a bottle. If you don’t know it, I hope you will note it, so that you will remember it.
You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book? (Psalm 56:8).
Every tear you have ever shed is completely known to your heavenly Father. Not one of them is ever forgotten by him. The tears of God’s children are precious to God. They are part of why he sent his Son into the world.
There are many wonderful statements in the Bible of why Jesus Christ came into the world. In one of them the Messiah says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to… bind up the brokenhearted… to comfort all who mourn… that they may be called oaks of righteousness” (Isa. 61:1-3), so that you may be able to stand and not be destroyed in your grief.
Our Lord was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3). In the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow” (Mat. 26:38 NIV). When your soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, your Savior has been there. You have a Savior who knows what it is to weep!
You also have a Savior with whom you can talk. There is a great gulf between this world and the next. You cannot talk to your loved one who has died. But if your loved one was in Christ, he or she is with the Savior, and you can talk to the Savior about your loved one who is now in his house. You can tell the Savior how much you miss them and how much you love them. You can bring the pain of your loss to this Savior who is familiar with sorrow and grief.
One day Christ will wipe away all tears from your eyes. Literally, the Bible says he will wipe all tears “out of” our eyes (see Rev. 21:4), as if he would take away not only the tears, but the tear- ducts themselves (in the resurrection body), because they would no longer be needed. It is not only the tears that God will take away, but also the sorrow and loss that gave rise to them. Lord, hasten that day!
Now that day has not yet come. And until then there will be tears. But there is also the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief, who says in this book, “See if there is any sorrow like my sorrow” (Lam. 1:12). He plumbed the depths of sorrow when he suffered on the cross. And no one is more ready or more able to walk with you through the valley of grief, sorrow and loss than Jesus Christ.
[1] Leslie Allen, “A Liturgy of Grief: A Pastoral Commentary on Lamentations,” Baker Academic, 2011, p. 24.
[2] Peter Barnes, The Loss of A Child, p. 17, Banner of Truth Magazine #292, 1988.
[Post Credit: Unlocking the Bible]
By Colin S. Smith. © Colin S. Smith. Website: UnlockingtheBible.org
Colin Smith (@PastorColinS) is senior pastor of The Orchard Evangelical Free Church in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and a Council member with The Gospel Coalition.
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