In Death shall we find God's Mercy forever

In Death shall we find God’s Mercy

When someone we love and cherish passes away the flood of tears becomes our mainstay.  For a while the loss of one whom we love can become gnawing at our hearts until the peace  that can only be found within the Heart of Christ soothes our grief.   

Are tears a sign of weakness that seem to emerge from a weak person’s adherence to a passionate movie or play?  Men don’t cry is a misnomer that can categorize boys and men as weak and uncaring individuals.  However, there are men who will shed tears over numerous events, most assuredly when a child is hurt or in the last stages of cancer.  Watching someone who is close to the heart of a father lays there dying, there are no restrictions to the prognosis of what is about to occur.  

The impending loss of someone or something caused Jesus to weep, twice in his mission to save mankind.  “Where have you laid him?”  They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”  And Jesus wept.  (Jn 11: 34 - 35).

As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace - but now is hidden from your eyes.  For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides.”  (Lk 19: 41 - 43).  

Weeping Jesus felt deep emotion for his friend Lazarus who was already dead for four days.  He shed tears of sorrow over Jerusalem, the city that slays the prophets,  “:Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling!”  (Mt 23: 37). 

Tears are a necessary emotion that opens a heart and tells the brain to be compassionate over the loss of someone you love or because of the attitude from people who are blind to what they have and abuse its grandeur that could have been.

When preparing to preach to a family who has just lost a loved one, the preacher must allow for the weeping from those who only know what they no longer have next to them and will shortly be lowered into the earth.  Our only solace is to assure them that it is temporary and he/she will rise again at the resurrection of the dead.

We must always exhort the truth of the Resurrection, like Jesus who came from death of his mortal body into the light of everlasting peace.  Therefore the tears we have and the day each one will rise into eternity is our legacy of faith.  This is the message to mourners or skeptics who have yet to believe in the Risen Christ and our connection with the Son of God forever.  

Ralph B. Hathawa