“Why The Tears?”
Don't weep for Jesus - weep for yourself
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Text: Luke 23:26-34
I'm sure many of you, like me, were touched over the last couple of weeks by looking into the eyes of a woman who appeared on television many times. Her mother's grave had been desecrated in a Jewish cemetery. She was interviewed about this indignity and she recounted the life of her mother, who had survived the concentration camps, had come to Canada to live in peace, and now was suffering the ignominy of having her gravesite defiled by the ignorant.
I gazed into the eyes of this woman as tears started to cascade down her cheeks, and even though the television screen is two and not three-dimensional, you could feel the depth of her pain and sorrow. Who of us would not feel the same if it were our parents' graves that were similarly defiled. Here tears conveyed what was deep within her soul. They conveyed in an outward form what was in her heart.
The same thing occurred just last Thursday night when I was talking to the mother of my godson. Her father had just died after a battle with cancer and as Val and I spoke for an hour over the phone, she in Halifax and me here, it was as if there was no separation between us - we were of the same heart and mind. As she recounted her father's life and stories of the humorous moments in his existence, the two of us had to pause and there were long periods of silence, silence filled with tears.
At times we laughed as we recounted his life, for he was a man who in his youth, and even in his maturity had practised a little bit of excess. A man who used to buy cars and drive them a little too quickly! All a bit strange for a man who was an RCMP officer. A man who lived a good life but a tough life. A man whose life had been, at one point, touched by Christ and changed forever. A life of a man I came to love and respect not only for being the grandfather of my godchild but also for being a friend. Our tears during that phone call expressed what was deep within our hearts.
Tears can speak what the heart can't otherwise say. They're powerful things. Tears can be born out of sorrow or sadness or unbridled joy when words, again, fail us. I have witnessed over the years so many brides who have reached the front of the aisle and begun to cry. I even saw in the last year a groom who cried his heart out also. They are tears though, of joy, tears that the heart cannot put into words but become the outward symbol of what is deep within. Tears are powerful.
When Jesus encountered the loss of His friend Lazarus in Bethany one simple phrase sums up the heart of Jesus: “Jesus wept.” In the last week of His life as He approaches Jerusalem, knowing that the whole of Holy Week was before Him, we read that Jesus pauses outside the great city and weeps for Jerusalem, such was the pain in His heart at that moment. You see, even when Jesus was at His most emotional, it was not His words but His tears that conveyed His real heart.
Sometimes though, tears can state what is not being felt. Sometimes tears can even be false and fabricated. Such was the case when Jesus was on the cross. In Luke's Gospel we read that Jesus looks down on some women who are looking up at Him at the moment of His crucifixion and He says something that might, on a superficial level, seem very strange. He says, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.”
You see, in the time of Jesus there was a tradition of paid mourners - women who often came from the aristocratic classes - and when someone was being executed these women would not only mourn, they would provide them with a narcotic drink to dull their pain in order that they not feel the full impact of what was taking place. These women that we hear are from Jerusalem, not His followers from Galilee, were probably the paid mourners.
Jesus says to them in no uncertain terms, don't cry for me, don't let your tears and your weeping be for me but yourselves and your children. What was Jesus getting at? Why did Jesus not want those tears? Why was He redirecting their shedding?
Well, I think it is obvious, but to help make it more obvious, I want to draw on three musical motifs - three phrases from music that have become well-known over the last 20 years. And, in remembering them we might better understand why Jesus said what He said to the women when He was on the cross.
The first image I want you to think about is from a musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Evita: “Don't cry from me, Argentina.” Jesus is saying, “Don't cry for me, my Judah.” Why? Because Jesus did not want their pity. He did not want their false tears. He did not want them to mourn and put on a show for His sake. He was not interested in their pity at all. Even now when we look at the cross, Jesus does not want our pity - He wants something more.
He wants something more because Jesus, Himself intentionally bore the cross. It wasn't as if He was just swept along by a tide of history over which He had no control. Jesus knew very well what He was doing and why He was doing it. He didn't want people's pity. He wanted them to understand what He was doing and why. It's obvious when you look at what Jesus said before His crucifixion that He had a deep foreknowledge of what was going to take place.
For example, in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus prays, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” In other words, Jesus goes to the cross knowing that He has a mission. He does it intentionally. He does it obediently. “Do not weep for me.” When Jesus went into the temple and turned over the moneychangers' table to cleanse the house of God, He knew there would be resistance. He knew there would be danger. He knew what He was doing. “Do not weep for me; I know what I am doing.”
When Jesus gathered His disciples around Him on the night before He was betrayed, He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same manner, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. Drink it in remembrance of me for the forgiveness of sins.”
For His disciples in the upper room, Jesus knew what He was doing. Don't shed a tear for me, says Jesus. I know what I am doing and I know for whom I am doing it and I know in my obedience, why I am doing it. Daughters of Jerusalem, do not have pity on me. I know what I am doing.
During the communist reign in Romania there was a very famous evangelical preacher named Joseph Tson, who was arrested many times for preaching the Gospel. He was an affront to the government and the powers that be. One day he was arrested and threatened with death. When they took him to his cell and started to interrogate him, he said:
You know, you are making a huge mistake in doing this. If you put me to death, let me tell you something, you know all those tapes of my sermons that have been circulating? They will not only be circulated but listened to if you kill me. My sermons, good and bad, will have my blood on them and people will want to know why I died and for what I died. They will hear my sermons 10 times more frequently than they do now. If you put me to death my voice will be heard like it has never been heard before. Your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying.
Jesus, on the cross, was saying the self-same thing. He knew what He was doing. His supreme weapon over evil, sin, violence and tyranny was the cross. Daughters of Jerusalem, don't weep for me. I know what I am doing. Don't cry for me, my Judah. But Jesus then turns the tables for He says, “Weep for yourselves.”
In 1985, in the face of terrible famine in Africa, Canadian musicians came together in a group called “Northern Lights” and recorded a song written by Vallance, Adams, Paiement and Foster: “Tears Are Not Enough.” In the face of the terrible disaster of famine, it's not tears and sentiment that were needed. The opening stanza goes as follows:
As every day goes by
How can we close our eyes
Until we open up our hearts.
It's not sentimentality that's needed in the face of the world's problems, it is something far more. It is a commitment to solve them. The women who were looking at Jesus on the cross had no idea who was being crucified. They also had no idea that in crucifying Him, their source of peace, life and hope was being removed. It was being taken away but they did not understand it as He understood it. Oh, no. They simply thought that a criminal was dying on a cross. His garments to be passed around and sold. But no, Jesus was dying for the suffering of the world. Jesus was dying for others.
“Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves.” The problems of the world are around you. The destruction of Jerusalem is about the come. Terrible things are going to take place. Be concerned about those things. Don't shed a tear for me, for tears are not enough in the face of world suffering. I believe that Jesus wanted these women to turn from their pity to God. Turn from wailing over Him to shedding a tear for the needs of the world.
At the end of the 19<="" sup="">century the great Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor, woke up one day to a huge surprise. He saw an obituary in the newspaper with his name on it. Now, I'm sure that all of us have, deep within our own souls, this great fear that we will wake up someday and find an obituary with our name on it. Do you remember the joke about the man who got dressed every morning as long as the obituaries didn't contain his name? Can you imagine seeing things about your life in print when you're not yet dead? Well Alfred Nobel did, and the epitaph said: “Dead: Alfred Nobel, the discoverer of dynamite, which has killed more people than any other discovery in the history of mankind. Today, peacefully and in wealth.”
Alfred Nobel was horrified by this for two reasons: First of all, he was still alive. Secondly, it was his brother who had died and the papers had erred. But Alfred Nobel determined that for the rest of his life he would change. He said, “How fortunate it is that I have been given the opportunity to rewrite my epitaph midstream. I can now change and so have it written with a different ending.” He then committed himself to create the Nobel Prizes. A prize that would celebrate those who worked for peace and justice in the world. Prizes for scientists and writers who would do what he wasn't doing. And so, he committed himself to change, to look at the state of the world around him and not just at himself, to work for peace and not for destruction.
When Jesus looked down from the cross on these women, He wanted them to change. “Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.” In other words, weep for the problems around you. Concentrate on the needs of others, not on me. I'm okay. I know what I'm doing.
There is one image, and it is of tears that lead us to a sense of contrition.
There was a group in the 1980s called “Tears for Fears.” (I loved their songs from the first and was sorry when they stopped recording, but I understand they will be making a comeback soon.) “Tears for Fears” Jesus feared for Jerusalem. He feared for His own people. He knew the power and the tyranny of Rome and He was anxious to stop the Romans. But, He said, “Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.” Look at the log in your own eye, not at the speck in someone else's.
Jesus stood in the tradition of all the great prophets like Hosea, so much so that He even quoted from the Book of Hosea, that the mountains themselves will fall down from the sky. Like Zechariah, He believed that there would be a judgement on the people and the world. The cross, in a sense, is a judgement as well as a sign of peace. It is God's self-giving, but it is also God's “no.” It is a “no” to tyranny. It is a “no” to injustice. It is a “no” to sin. Jesus knew that these people had to weep for themselves.
Lent is a time for us to be like those women, to look into our own hearts and souls to find those things that are actually worth tears, and to change them. For what God really desires for us is not that we look at the cross and weep for Christ, but we look at the cross and weep for ourselves. Lent is a chance for us to look into the depths of our being and see those things that are not worthy to bring to the foot of the cross.
There is an medieval story: A woman was cast out of heaven and told to go down to earth and bring one thing back with her that God would find pleasing. She found the blood of someone who had given her life as a patriot and took it up to heaven. God said: “I do not want that. Go back again. It's not acceptable.“
She found a coin of a poor widow. She took the coin to God and He said: “No, that is not enough. Go back again.”
She then brought pages from a Bible belonging to a preacher who had been faithful in proclaiming the Word.
God said: “No, I don't want the Bible.”
She then brought the dust from the sandals of a missionary who had given his life for the sake of God and the poor.
God said: “No, I don't want the dust either.”
Until finally, back on earth she came upon this scene: There was this man riding by a fountain on a horse. He sees a little boy playing by the fountain, dismounts and watches the boy's joy and innocence and his pleasure at play. He then looks into the fountain and sees his own reflection. He sees that he has grown old, sees the lines on his face. He looks at the innocence of the boy and then his own reflection and thinks of his own sin - his lack of innocence - and sheds a tear.
The woman comes along and collects the tear, returns to heaven and presents it to God. God receives the tear with joy and tells her she can stay. God says: “I have now found what I have really been looking for, the tear of a contrite heart and a man that I know I love.“
Jesus said to the women, “Do not weep for me; weep for yourselves.” What pleases God is a contrite heart. What pleases God is a heart that cares for others. What pleases God are tears from the heart that He, on the cross, will eventually wipe away. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.