JESUS WEPT!
John 11:35
By Mutryce A. Williams (MP) Master of Politics
A very close friend of mine from Zimbabwe visited my house a few days ago, after having returned from burying his twin brother. We sat, chatted, watched the news and played a little Scrabble. In the middle of the game, he broke down and began sobbing. In what seemed to be a milli-second he leapt from the chair and went to the bathroom in order to compose himself. Upon his return, we continued the game with a few awkward laughs here and there. As he sat with a forced a smile, tears streamed down his face, one after the other and his nose was running. He bit fiercely into his lower lip, as if trying to fight back each and every single tear. He then began twitching his fingers and shaking his legs nervously, as if that was supposed to ease or stop the pain that was gnawing away at him. I looked at him and when I could no longer stand to see him in such torment, I reached over hugged him and no sooner had the first syllable come out of my mouth, trembling, he pleaded, Tryce, please, please, dont tell me to be strong! If I hear that one more time, I will go crazy, so if thats what you are going to say, please dont say it? Do you have any idea how I am feeling right now? Be quiet if you must! Tell or ask me anything but just dont ask me to be strong!
Holding his shoulders, I slowly moved away from his chest, looked him square in the eye and shook my head reassuringly, I wasnt going to ask you to be strong. I said in a calming tone. You are human! Cry if you must. There is absolutely nothing wrong with crying. It doesnt make sense to have all these feelings bottled or pent up inside, that I do know. I cant tell you that I know exactly what you are feeling because I am not you, but I could try to understand. I will ask however that you dont keep your feelings bottled up because it will not do you any good. You need an outlet. You need to release it. You need to cry it out. If you need to curl up in a ball on my floor and cry, CRY! If you need to stand in the shower for hours and cry, CRY! If you need to cry for days or years to come, I will tell you to go right ahead and CRY. If you want to leave, go home and curl up in bed and cry, CRY! Nothing is wrong with crying. Werent you created with tear glands? What do you think that they are there for? Go straight ahead and cry. I will not ask you to be strong. I do not expect you to be strong. You are after all just a mortal man. You feel, dont you? If Jesus Christ the Son of God could break down and cry, then who are you to pretend to be greater than Christ? Are you greater than Christ? He was omnipotent. He was the closest thing to perfection, yet when he heard of his friend Lazarus death, he WEPT! This is the Son of God we are talking about. This is the same man who turned water into wine. This is the same man who made the blind see and raised the dead. This is the same man who cast out demons and walked on the sea. This is the same Jesus who died on cross for us. This is the same man who rose from the dead. Jesus Wept! Are you hearing what I am telling you? He Wept! You have always told me that you try to be Christ-like, so be Christ-like and cry. Jesus cried, so therefore nothing is wrong with crying. It must be a good thing! Dont you think? Cry if you must my friend! CRY! I know that you have heard all of the old adages that were meant as sources of comfort, they are good, but dont get me wrong, crying also helps. It has its purpose! I am telling you, JESUS WEPT!
There are times in our lives when we are suffering, in pain or grieving and the world looks at us and expects us, in our most vulnerable moment to be stoic or strong. The world expects us to put on this stellar performance and pretend as if we are not breaking up into million pieces inside or that our insides dont feel sore or raw from whatever turmoil we may be going through. The world expects us to act as if we have just won the lottery when indeed it seems at that moment as if our world as we know it had indeed to come to an end. We are forced to smile through it all, as if we are transfixed in a Crest commercial. We are forced to stand tall when we feel as if we are standing before huge audience, sweating under a big, bright bulb, or being inspected by the drill sergeant at a parade. All eyes are on us. It seems to the world as if we should marvel in hearing the comments, Look how good Joan holding up! or Boy, John strong man, that was a lot for him to deal with, but he managing it well! Please remember that we are all human. I dont think that in these moments we should be expected to be Gibraltars. Over the years I have heard people comment on how poised or stoic Jackie Kennedy, Coretta Scott King and Princes William and Harry were at the funerals of their respective loved ones. Have we stopped and thought that rather than stoicism that these people were just in an utter state of shock or that they were just numb and the reality of the happening hadnt sunk in as yet. Did we ever wonder what that night was like for these people? I guess not, because all we saw were these stoic figures who were expected to hold it together for the nation or the world, such a travesty.
There are those who pat us on the shoulder and quote Ecclesiastes 3 for us or tell us that weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning. These words are meant to comfort us. They are well received because these people really mean well, but we hardly hear people encouraging us to cry. People are uncomfortable or they feel helpless when they are in the company of someone who feels such pain, so I think the easiest thing for them to do is to try and stop that person from crying. By doing this they will feel as if they have helped the situation, so they wont encourage that person to cry.
Crying is seen as a sign of weakness, especially among men. They do not want to appear weak, so they dont cry. No matter how much it hurts they refuse to cry because they are constantly told that they have to be strong and they want to prove to the world that they are indeed strong, so they dont cry. None of us is omnipotent. We are all human. It is not a gender issue. We all feel. I remember last year when my aunt passed, I was told by a family friend at the funeral, Lord, please dont kill up yourself, she done gone! Lord, you going kill up yourself! As I reflect on those words I know that that lady meant well however at that time I know that I would have preferred hearing, Jesus Wept, so therefore its okay to weep! Let it out, let it all out! There was so much pain inside me at that time that it had just hurt too much for me to keep it all in. I know people say that everyone deals with grief differently and that the way in which he or she deals with it is a matter of personal preference but I think that everyone has something inside them that they need to cry out. There is a sense of relief after having a good cry. It flushes out the system as I like to say.
A few years ago, an older friend of mine mentioned that it had been ten years since her mother had passed and she said, Girl, I miss her bad, like is just yesterday she gone. You know what, on her birthday, I cry, at Christmas, I cry, Easter, well what a bawling, my children want to know if a gone off, but they accustom to me now. When I got my first grandchild, I cried. On the anniversary of her death, I cry and girl well on the date that we buried her, it seemed like the whole thing all over again. I does cry too bad. The pain eases up over the years but you will still feel a pang from time to time. I cant tell you when the crying going stop but it helps. At the time she was telling me this, I would admit that I thought her to be a bit much or overdramatic. I could now relate with her.
I couldnt tell my Zimbabwean friend that I knew exactly what or how he was feeling because we are both two different individuals, but having lost two people who were near and dear to my heart, who were essentially my heartbeats, I knew the solace that I had found when I opened up my bible to John 11:35 and saw those two simple, yet profound words, Jesus wept.
I dont think that God meant for us to be impregnable. We are human. We were made in his image and likeness but we are not gods. We feel! We have moments of weakness. We suffer. We feel excruciating pain. There are those times in our lives that we bend so much that we feel like we are going to break. There are those times that life seems so unbearable or those times when we have lost a loved one and all we want to do, is, just break down and cry. The world tells and expects us to bottle up our feelings and be stoic. Dont be afraid to let your feelings out. You are human! Weep if you must! You are not made of stone. Cry! You are just a man. Cry! Jesus Wept! Even the son of God WEPT!
