The Weeping Heart

 “Then Jesus wept”

 (John 11: 35 - NLT)

These three words, recorded of Jesus as he stood outside the grave of a friend, appear to be the only indication in the whole of the Bible that God has the capacity to cry. Given that men and women are created in his image perhaps it would be unnatural to believe he could not.

Yet it is a difficult concept for us to grasp. We can understand a weeping Jesus but may have difficulty understanding the tears of our Father God who undoubtedly wept with him.

The tears of Jesus on this occasion, a reflection of the Father’s heart, appear to have been produced initially by the tears of others – he was affected by their emotion. As one old hymn writer put it - “He sympathises with our grief”.  But those surrounding Jesus on that occasion also recognised his tears as tears motivated by love, for they said – “see how much he loved him”.

Recent medical research has made an astounding discovery about tears. Although different emotions will produce different chemical properties in each tear – the molecular structure of every human tear is identical – they are cross-shaped!

There is an eternal tear, which flows from the heart of the Father. If ever I doubt his love – I look at a tear – so designed before the foundation of the earth in the shape of a cross – His cross – His suffering, yet at the same time His greatest joy and victory – for through it we are made his children. How can we ever doubt his love and care?