For most of my adult life I've carried in my wallet a short poem on sorrow by a Scottish missionary named Geoffrey Bull.
It can't but sober us to picture Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), and crying with his friends near Lazarus' tomb (John 11:28-36), and agonizing in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44).
The thought of Jesus' tears assures us that in our times of sorrow we have a Lord who sympathizes with us in the deepest of ways. Grief was so much a part of his life that Scripture gives him title Man of Sorrows. "He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3).
The Lord's tears also remind us that heartache is the price of loving others in a fallen world. If we would love like Jesus, we must learn to weep like Jesus.
"I am speaking the truth in Christ--I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit--that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh" (Romans 9:1-3).
O Lord, I have not learnt to cry,
Perhaps I laugh too oft for true conformity
To Thee and Thy rough Cross, or try
To love Thee without sorrowing—
Talk but touch not, thus they heed not.
What heart, O Lord, moved through the garden?
I too have slept, but wake me, Lord,
E’en though it be to love with tears.
It can't but sober us to picture Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), and crying with his friends near Lazarus' tomb (John 11:28-36), and agonizing in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44).The thought of Jesus' tears assures us that in our times of sorrow we have a Lord who sympathizes with us in the deepest of ways. Grief was so much a part of his life that Scripture gives him title Man of Sorrows. "He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3).
The Lord's tears also remind us that heartache is the price of loving others in a fallen world. If we would love like Jesus, we must learn to weep like Jesus.
"I am speaking the truth in Christ--I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit--that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh" (Romans 9:1-3).
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