Has your life changed in the last 12 months? Mine certainly has. And today is my marker. I can still see myself and my colleagues sitting in our conference room one year ago today, March 16, 2020, as I continued to recover from a mysterious lung illness that wasn’t pneumonia but wasn’t the flu but had me down-and-out for the better part of four months. We listened to our district tell us on a Google Meet what we should expect for the next two weeks.

Assessments still weren’t cancelled, but March Madness was.
We had 48 hours to get going, but we had no idea how to do that.
The c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t instability of the next little while had yet to really hit us.
We had the kids from 8-11:30 and then we let them go on the bus or in the car-rider line. We closed the doors and said, “See you in a few weeks…”

…or in 11 months.

The shortest verse in the entire Bible is Jesus Wept, John 11:35. I learned that factoid when I was 16 while reading the Christy Miller series by Robin Jones Gunn (my favorite ever ever ever). I love factoids so I know that’s why it stuck with me, but I also know this: the fact that Jesus cried for the loss of a friend means something to me, and not only during times of great loss—like these last twelve months—but in everyday life, too.

Trevor Hudson’s devotion today starts with these words: “Each one of us sits next to a pool of our own tears.” The grief and loss we’ve all experienced is never too far away, even when we think we’ve shoved it to the far recesses of our minds/brains/hearts. That’s just not the case. And I think we’re meant to keep it closer than we like to practice. Because if Jesus wept, so can I. Jesus’ tears didn’t negate his ministry and they didn’t stop him from building relationships. And I think my favorite part is that Jesus didn’t feel the need to justify or qualify his tears. He didn’t call himself a crybaby, nor did anyone else. He didn’t consider himself broken for the crying, nor did anyone else. He didn’t call himself weak, nor did anyone else. He didn’t try to hide it and nobody in the room seemed embarrassed by it. No justifying. No qualifying. Just crying. Just letting the depth of emotion for loss be what it is and be expressed how it asks to be expressed.

Lent is most known for being a period of sacrifice. We give up this one thing so we may draw closer to God, so we may make room in our spirits for the healing and the reviving work that God can do in us. Maybe that includes giving up the bravado or the false belief that not crying = strength, because nothing I see in Jesus’ life says that’s true. Maybe in crying, we draw closer to God as we express what Jesus expressed.

If you have tears inside of you today, I encourage you to not be afraid of them. Whether you’re still figuring out what happened to life in the last year, or you’ve moved on to fresh grievances that are pestering your heart, those tears all matter. Because Jesus wept, too. His friend had just died so I imagine he grieved for the loss of many things: future time with his friend, future smiles and encouragement from his friend, and even Jesus losing the picture of what he thought his life would include.

May the tears bubbling to the surface today bring you relief, healing, and intimacy with your creator. May your heart be strengthened by your tears of joy, tears of grief, tears of relief, tears of fear, tears of courage, and tears of exhaustion. And may you let your tears fall at the foot of the cross for the bearer of all burdens to care for your heart.

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