The Sweetness of Tears

 Sometimes Christians forget the sweetness that can exist along with the bitterness of tears.  Because we live in a culture that focuses on entertainment, instant amusement, glamor, fame, and popularity, it is easy for us to jump on the bandwagon by doing our best to avoid tears, pain, and sorrow.  Everyone is searching for happiness and trying to get rid of tears.  So we turn to pills, personal trainers, makeovers, religion, sex, drink, and drugs (the list goes on) to try to attain happiness.  Of course there is a longing in every human heart for happiness because sin (in us and “out there”) has left humans an unhappy bunch.  What about tears?  Should we avoid them at all costs?  Why did Jesus say, Blessed are those who mourn and Blessed are you who weep now?  Below are some points made by Thomas Watson in The Beatitudes, as he discussed Matthew 5.4.

“1) Sin must have tears.  While we carry the fire of sin about us, we must carry the water of tears to quench it (Ezek. 7.16).  We have in  our hearts the seed of the unpardonable sin.  And shall we not mourn?  He that does not mourn has surely lost the use of his reason.

2) Gospel-mourning [the weeping of repentance] is spontaneous and free (it is not forced).  It is spiritual, that is, we mourn for sin more than suffering. 

3) Gospel-mourning sends the soul to God.  Evangelical mourning is a spur to prayer.  Gospel tears must drop from the eye of faith.  Our disease must make us mourn, but when we look up to our Physician, who has made a plaister of his own blood, we must not mourn without hope.  Believing tears are precious.  When the clouds of sorrow have over-cast the soul, some sunshine of faith must break forth.  Though our tears drop to the earth, our faith must reach heaven.

4) Gospel-mourning is joined with self-loathing.  The sinner admires himself.  The penitent lathes himself (Ezek. 20:43).  Gospel-mourning must be purifying.  We must not only mourn but turn.  ‘Turn to Me with weeping’ (Joel 2.12).  We must not only abstain from sin and weep over it, we must also abhor it.

5) Tears cannot be put to a better use.  The brinish water of repenting tears will help to kil that worm of sin which should gnaw the conscience.  Gospel-mourning is an evidence of grace.  Weeping for sin is a sign of the new birth.

6) Repentant tears are precious.  Tears dropping from a mournful, penitent eye, are like water dropping from the roses, very sweet and precious to God.  That heart is most delightful to God which has a fountain of sorrow running in it.  ‘Mary stood at Christ’s feet weeping’ (Lk 7.38).  Her tears were more fragrant than her ointment.  God delights much in tears, else he would not keep a bottle and a book for them (Ps 56.8).  Tears, though they are silent, yet have a voice (Ps 6.8).  David who was the greatest mourner in Israel was the sweet swinger in Israel.  My tears were my food (Ps 42.3).  Ambrose gives this gloss: ‘No food so sweet as tears!’  Bernard says ‘The tears of the repentant are sweeter than all worldly joy.’

7) Tears line the road to the New Jerusalem.  Perhaps a man may think, ‘If I cannot mourn for sin, I will get to heaven some other way.  I will go to church, I will give alms, I will lead a civil life.’  No, but I tell you there is but one way to blessedness, and that is through the Valley of Tears.  ‘I tell you, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish’ (Lk 13.3).

8) Christian tears will eventually end.  It is only a while that we shall weep.  After a few showers fall from our eyes, we shall have perpetual sunshine.  God shall wipe away all tears (Rev. 7.17).  When sin shall cease, tears shall cease.  ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning’ (Ps. 30.5).”

There are other reasons why Christians weep, to be sure.  I appreciate Watson’s perspective here because he gives us a good biblical way to view tears of repentance.  They don’t save us nor do they wash away our sins, but they do have a place in our pilgrimage.  So Christian weeping truly is bittersweet: bitter because it has to do with sin and sweet because it has to do with faith in Jesus the Savior.

The above quotes are slightly edited and abbreviated.  You can find the full discussion in chapters 6-10 of Thomas Watson’s The Beatitudes.

shane lems

Weeping, Lamenting, Worship

These are some great words to think about in the context of corporate worship and Christian lament, grief, and sorrow.  In this context, Andrew Byers is talking about the cries found in the Psalter.

“At some point along the way the Western church stopped associating weeping with worship.  It probably occurred about the time we stopped reading and preaching so much from Lamentations and those more ominous psalms.  We may rejoice to see a few tears in response to a moving song or message, but we seem unable to truly value the regular expression of sorrow as a necessary dimension to our worship.  Because of this, we have become less hospitable to the dispirited and injured individuals for whom the church should serve as a haven for healing.  When the depressed are in our midst, do they feel free not to answer ‘fine, just fine’ to our greetings?  Are they silently shunned when they talk of God as though he is their oppressor rather than their Deliverer?  Does the worship service provide them with a context in which they are encouraged to express their pain (and not just their joy) as an act of worshiping God?  What are the beleaguered and downcast to do when they find themselves in need singing to God with sad songs in minor keys if all that provided  are joyful refrains in major keys?”

“When the church fails to provide some outlet for crying to God from ‘out of the depths’ (Psalm 130:1), then broken souls will turn elsewhere.  To our shame the bar stool and the psychiatrist’s couch are often viewed as more hospitable contexts for tormented souls than the chapel’s pew.  By minimizing – or worse, eliminating – the biblical role of lament in the life of the church, we are communicating to the world, as well as to members of our own congregations, that they must take their struggles with God elsewhere.  Brokenness turns into bitterness when God is denied access to our wounds and when pain is removed from the context of worship.  The absence of lament on Sunday mornings is therefore promoting cynicism.  So once again, we find the church unintentionally culpable for populating our own ranks with cynics.”

What a great reminder for us!  Rather than get rid of the laments in the songs, prayers, and sermons of the church, we really should let them play their biblical role in the life of God’s people.  This also shows the value of singing and praying all the genres found in the Psalter – not just the hymns, but also the laments, cries, and pleas for forgiveness.  It’s not coincidental that laments make up a good part of the Psalter.  I think Byers is right on here.  Read the quote again!

  The Byers’ quote is found on page 161 of Faith Without Illusions.

shane lems

sunnyside, wa