The Great Weepers

For you, O LORD, have delivered
my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.
Psalm 116:8-9 (NIV).

As we wander the earth, God knows each step that we take. Many of these pilgrimages lead to pain, but God collects each tear. In Middle Eastern cultures, it was a common funerary tradition for people to cry, collecting tears into a bottle, to symbolize loss and the extent of love for the deceased. In fact, mourners were often paid by the copiousness of their tears; as they walked, they carried cups in which to catch the falling tears. Those who mourned the destruction of Jerusalem's temple cried into such bottles which are now treasured relics.

We know, at least in our heads, that God is near to the broken-hearted and saves those crushed in spirit. We might even rely on the promise and invitation contained in Hebrews 4:16: “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” This invitation is to intercede, to groan, to lay our hearts bare much in the same way that Hannah did.

Hannah was childless; although the favored wife, she could not conceive. That one deficit left her to be pitied among women in the Jewish society in which she lived. To be childless was considered a curse from God. So great was her desire for a child that when she arrived in the temple she prayed so diligently that the priest Eli believed her inebriated. 

according to Rabbi Anne Brener, Rabbi Johanan provides ten words which may be considered synonymous with prayer. Many of these words depict the emotional state of the Hebrews trapped in the depths of slavery: cry, lament, groan, sing, encounter, trouble, call, fall, pray, and supplicate. According to the rabbis, by directing one's whole being to prayer, kavanah, one can be assured of being answered. There is some solace to be found in this promise, but Y’Shua provides something better: Come, talk to me, and I will answer you from the depths. I will give you the groans that can’t be uttered and just as my Father understood the unuttered prayers of Hannah, I too understand you.

Hannah was not alone in her distress and summons of God’s help. Other men and women of  great faith and righteousness also called out to God in tears. Rabbi Brener lists

the cries of the children of Israel from the depths of slavery, …Job as he described the depth of feeling with which he would need to express “the anguish of my spirit in the bitterness of my soul” (Job 7:11)[,] terrified Judah with his brothers as they entered the house of Joseph and fell to the ground (Genesis 43:18); Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the great fish (Jonah 2:2); and Queen Esther, as she lay at her husband’s feet, begging for mercy for herself and her people (Esther 8:3). With these role models for the prayers of our hearts, we are given permission to pour out our tears and offer them to God, and know that these deeply personal expressions are counted as prayer, just as Psalm 56 affirms, that God counts our tears in a bottle.

Jesus wept with Mary and Martha even though He know that He would raise Lazarus from the dead.  And your great Intercessor, the Holy Spirit, weeps with you now:  "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express" (Romans 8:26). Death often takes us by surprise; he  is a thief and no matter if we lock our doors, he enters. But, I love this promise and triumphant declaration of Y'Shua: "O death, where is your victory? O death where is your sting?" (I Corinthians 15:55). 

I recently learned of the death of a friend's father. This man was gracious and kind, and although I had not seen him for years,  his death still brought tears to my eyes. Then I reminded myself that God himself walks with us always. He puts our tears in His bottle, and one day He will wipe them all away. Death will someday be a thing of the past, and so will be our tears.

MJ