Reflections on Psalm
56:8, John 11:32-44, Isaiah 25:6-9, Revelation 21:1-6a,
"You
kept count of my tossing;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they
not in your record?"
Psalm
56:8
Recently, I officiated a
funeral at an area funeral home and I noticed on my way into the room where the
deceased was laid out in an open casket that there was a framed poem set up on
a table clearly noticeable to those arriving to pay their respects. It was
placed there, I assume, by the funeral home.
The poem may be familiar to
you. It may even be special or meaningful to you. It begins … DO NOT CRY.
And then it goes on to speak in the voice of the deceased, urging loved ones
not to cry, because though he or she may be absent in body, they are present in
spirit always. When I noticed the poem on my way in to officiate the
service, I thought what a load of crap. I apologize it this poem speaks to you.
I am not denying the truth that those we love remain close to us in memory and
perhaps even in spirit, but DO NOT CRY … seriously?
Tears are sacred. They are
in some way both human and holy. Tears shed at the loss of a loved one are a
tangible sign of inexplicable grief, loss, and love. They speak when words
fail. Tears come in our darkest moments and as result of our greatest joys. We
cry when we are hurt, and we cry when joy overwhelms us. We cry when we are
moved … deeply moved. Our tears connect us to the pain of others when we feel
their hurt in a shared moment of common humanity. Our tears are our truth. They
are vulnerable and honest … and we should not stop them from coming.
How many of you have read
or watched the Harry Potter series? There is a scene in the very last movie
where Professor Snape, a character who throughout the series has been dark and
suspicious, who lurks the halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
with a scowl permanently attached to his face. He has, for all of Harry’s seven
years at Hogwarts, been hard on Harry. At times it seems sure that he is part
of the villain Voldermort’s plan to rule the wizarding world and destroy Harry.
But in the last book it is Snape who is destroyed by Voldermort. I will not go
into all the details. But there is a moment, as Snape is dying, when Harry
Potter and his friends stumble a upon him, where he motions to Harry and forces
out the these last words … “Take them.” … as he points to his own tears.
Harry looks to his friend
Hermione for something to collect Snape’s tears, and of course she produces a
small empty bottle from her pint-sized purse, a purse that could give Mary
Poppin’s bag a run for its money. Harry collects Snape’s tears as he takes his
last breath. Harry then takes the bottle with the tears to a large magic bowl
found inside Dumbledore’s office. Harry empties the bottle containing
the tears into the bowl, a bowl which already contains some sort of magical
steaming concoction. Then Harry plunges his face into the bowl, and there Harry
sees, and so do we, the story behind Snape’s tears. We learn Snape’s truth from
those tears, a truth that changes everything we thought we knew about Snape.
(And that’s all I am going to tell you, so read the book or watch the movie!)
There is something so very
true, and very biblical about this scene. JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter
series out of her own grief at the loss of her mother. Harry, the orphaned boy
who lost his parents as an infant, is faced throughout the series with the
challenge of dealing with grief, and so, it turns out, is Snape. We learn this
from his tears.
Our tears are our
truth. They tell our story ... and they are sacred. And yet we
encourage each other … DO NOT CRY. We are encouraged to hide our tears, or to
hold them back. Especially prone to this nonsense are young boys and
adult men. We have made crying a sign of weakness, when in fact it is the most
raw and purest form of courage, the courage to share our deepest truth.
Jesus wept, in today’s
lesson. He cried. Unashamed, he cried at the loss of his friend, Lazarus.
He cried in the company of Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who also wept. He cried
in the company of other mourners, who mourned with tear-streaked faces. Jesus
did not hold back or hide his tears or his truth.
According to the psalmist,
God keeps track of our tossings. I love the language of that. God is
aware, intentionally aware, of our struggles, and we are told God collects our
tears in a bottle. The psalmist then goes on to ask “are they (our
tears) not in your record?” and we are to understand that the implied
answer is of course, YES. Our stories, our truths are recorded. God
acknowledges our tears and collects our stories … not for judgment sake, but
out of love, respect and honor. Our losses, our pains, our struggles matter to
God.
And yet they are NOT the
end of our story. That is the lesson found in our readings from Isaiah and
Revelation. There is reason to hope. God is aware. And in some divine, cosmic
plan that is just beyond our reach, our sufferings are but a means to the end of
eternal glory. God is working beauty from tragedy, good from evil, light from
dark, life from death. And so we have been told that God will "swallow
up death forever" and wipe away the tears from our eyes. That
God will make her divine home with us, and among us, and “death will be
no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things
(will) have passed away."
Like Lazarus coming out of
the tomb after four days of death and decay, we will shake off all the hurt and
pain, confusion and death that has wrapped round us in this life, and the only
tears that will be shed will be tears of joy.
Recently my family has been
involved with an organization called Project ALS. My spouse, Laura, lost
her brother three years ago to the disease. Tom lived thirteen years with ALS …
losing the ability to walk, talk, eat and breath on his own. Eventually the
muscle, which was his heart, gave out and he died in the early hours of the day
Katy, Laura’s daughter, was to graduate from high school. As strange as it
might sound, given that Tom had been sick for all those years and was
completely paralyzed by ALS, we didn’t see his death coming. There was no
indicator that it was immanent.
Recently, Laura has been
working with Project ALS to raise awareness about the disease and to raise
funds to further research for a cure. She had been working with the students at
Watchung Hills Regional High where she teaches English. Her involvement has
stirred up memories of Tom’s passing. A couple of week’s ago I heard her mother
share a piece of the story of which I was unaware.
Tom lived with his parents
for the duration of his battle with ALS. For most of that time he required
round the clock nursing care. On the night that he passed, Sally, his mother,
came into say goodnight, as she always did. Tom had long ago lost the ability
to speak, but he could communicate through a letter board, which required
spelling words by fixing his gaze on letters, one at a time. At that point even
eye movement was becoming difficult. It was a painfully slow process for Tom to
communicate. That night he spelled CD number 6, track 10. Sally knew what
he wanted. He wanted to hear a song as he went to sleep. That night the song
was Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven.
Eric Clapton wrote the song
as he was grieving the loss of his own four-year-old son from a tragic
accident. The song asks the questions we all have about what reunion in heaven
will be like … Will you know my name? Will you hold my hand when I see you
in heaven? the song recognizes how hard life and loss can be … Time can bring down. Time can bend your knees. Time can break your heart, have you begging please,
begging please. But in the end Clapton
knows there is reason to hope … beyond the door, he sings, there's
peace I'm sure. And I know there'll
be no more tears in heaven.
It was, was a pretty
interesting pick for your last song before crossing the threshold from life to
death and beyond. Tom died that night in his sleep.
There were lots of tears
shed throughout Tom’s illness, from the moment he was diagnosed through every
loss of muscle function. And when he passed at age 44 there where plenty of
tears shed by family, friends and the community of nurses who cared for him.
Those tears told many stories. They expressed sadness, grief, anger and
frustration. They were, each and every one of them honest, because they came
from the heart of those who shed them. And they were not wasted. I believe
that God still has them … in bottle or bowl, perhaps cupped in divine hands.
God has recorded them … committed them to memory, so that one day, in some way
that is beyond my ability to fully imagine or anticipate, God will give those
tears their do. God will dry them, healing the hurt, easing the suffering,
answering our questions, drawing together with those we have lost in grand
reunion. Oh what a day!
But for now, in the
present, we ought not to hold back our tears. No need to feel ashamed or in
some sense weakened by them. They are our truth. They tell our story. And not a
single one is lost to God. We have not been forsaken, or forgotten, or ignored.
Our stories are far from over, our losses are not forever, our hurts temporary,
our questions will be answered, our fears relieved. There is a time and plan in
place for all of that … for the bible tells us so. So take courage. Move
forward. Live fully. Love deeply. Allow yourself to be moved ... even to tears.
Amen.
*It is not only our tears
God collects, yours and mine, it is also the tears of refugees and immigrants,
victims of poverty, injustice and terrorism, the lost and the lonely, angry and
the sad, the confused and the self-righteous. God collects the tears all
people. Their stories matter as much as ours.
