Tears

“Jesus wept. These two words show that God arranged the salvation of people not coldly and indifferently, not because He had to, was forced to, but because He desired this fervently. Christ's tears reveal the Lord's inner world: He loves His creation, He grieves that death deforms people, separates them from one another, brings anguish and melancholy into the world, and deprives people of happiness…Jesus's tears show that God does not fit into the framework of human deductive reasoning. He after all loves us, co-suffers with us, and worries about us with a deeply personal, fatherly interest, while remaining perfect God—all powerful and almighty….Jesus's tears teach us not to be ashamed to weep. If Christ was not ashamed, even less so should we be ashamed. If only our tears would always be as pure, noble, and compassionate. Such weeping is pleasant to God. But there are tears of envy, hatred, unforgiven offenses, dark depression, or drunken declarations. Such tears have nothing in common with Jesus's tears. We have no need for them.” (Priest Leonid Kudryachov)

“Before He raised Lazarus, in John 11:25-26 Christ said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” Ten verses later in the shortest verse of the Bible, John 11:35, it reads “Jesus wept.” He wept even though He knew He was going to restore Lazarus to life. As heart wrenching as grief is, there’s beauty in tears of grief because their source is love; a deep love for another person. Jesus sanctified grief born out of love and shows us tears are appropriate for death and sorrow even when we know a loved one is still alive in Christ.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)

“…there is an intimate link between repentance and tears. There are other criteria, but grief is paramount, and its intensity is proportionate to the depth of repentance….Gregory the Theologian believed that everyone must weep. He even identified repentance with tears, whatever other ways of expressing it there may be: "All must shed tears, all must be purified, all must ascend." Symeon the Theologian is even more definite: "Remove tears and with them you remove purification; and without purification no one is saved.” (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese)

“We are to be Christ’s Body on earth – that is both a high calling and a daunting task. That we miss the mark (i.e., sin) at times is also reality. Then we have to repent (admit our shortcomings whether individually or collectively) and rise up and try again…Christ is divine and sinless, but His Body is composed of sinners (supposedly repentant ones). It is we, not Christ, who fail, which is why through history many saints so emphasized repentance and tears as normative Christian piety.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)

“But the righteous are revealed as well. The steadfast love of the Mother of God never wavered before the Cross. Her faithfulness is revealed. The kindness of Joseph of Arimathea is forever marked by an empty tomb. The tears of a harlot reveal the nature of love, even hidden beneath the deeds of her life. In the judgment of God, all things are simply shown to be what they truly are. Sin is seen to be sin. Love is seen to be love. There is clarity. And in the judgment of God, His own love is shown to be what it truly is – self-sacrificing, forgiving, relentless in its mercy. It is not a love that pronounces forgiveness from the Cross only to pronounce destruction on another occasion. The crucified Christ is not a revelation that is succeeded by another. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1Co 2:2). The Bridegroom comes. Judgment arrives. All things are revealed for what they truly are.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“I knew a woman who was a self-professed non-believer, though she was willing to believe. Her husband began bringing her to my parish. She attended faithfully for a period of time. One day she asked to meet with me and told me her story. With tears she said she had been in the Church during a service. She was looking at the icon of Christ on the iconostasis. “Why do I not know you?” she asked quietly. “And then I did,” she said. There was no argument, no promise of experience. There was, however, a “participatory adherence.” She was there and she was there repeatedly. Her question was not a critical examination. If anything, it was a cry of love though she had little hope of an answer.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“The silence of tears reflects our surrender to God and to new patterns of learning and living. Through weeping, we learn by suffering and undergoing, not just by speculating and understanding. The connection between tears and silence is important in this context. Tears are another way, a tangible way of addressing our pain and our panic. They are another, a passionate way of knowing our passions. They are the articulation of our grief, the wording of our desire. The greater our love, the greater the corresponding sense of grief.” (Deacon John Chryssavgis)

“One of the most serious mistakes we can make is to refuse to express our grief or to keep it bottled up…unexpressed grief …causes…physical and mental ailments. Modern psychiatry has emphasized that when the eyes refuse to cry, other organs in the body will begin to cry with all kinds of illnesses resulting. Thus a very constructive way of expressing grief is to let the tears flow. Unfortunately in our culture we often equate tears with weakness…Yet tears have nothing to do with weakness or lack of faith. When Lazarus died, St. John clearly tells us that "Jesus wept" (John 11:35). And the next verse says very simply but profoundly; "And the Jews said, 'See how much he loved him.'" The fact that Jesus wept teaches us that sorrow is natural. Jesus wept even though he is the Source of life. Tears are an expression of love. Even the sure knowledge of eternal life will not take all the grief out of the human heart when we lose a loved one. St. Paul says, "Do not grieve as others who have no hope." He is not saying that we should not grieve, but that we should grieve with Christian hope.” (Holy Monastery of Axion Estin)

“Christ's tears tell us that God wants to co-suffer with us to the full extent. It was not enough for Him to weep from the heavens over our disaster. No, He came down to us, entered the crowd of weepers and wept with them…The Lord Christ's actions reach through the ages. Weeping with Martha and Mary at the tomb of Lazarus, He weeps also with us at the burials of our family and friends. We are not alone, no matter how the devil tries to suggest otherwise. However there is a time to weep and a time to laugh (Eccl. 3:4). The Lord raises Lazarus and wipes away both His own and our tears. For, all is well that ends well. It will be well for us—He will resurrect our close ones, too. And He will resurrect us.” (Priest Leonid Kudryachov)

“When it comes to the loss of our loved ones, we must keep in mind one fact: weeping for the departed, we actually weep for ourselves. The soul of a newly departed person has begun a new path, that of the particular judgment and eternal life. The departed go to their previously reposed relatives—to their beloved grandparents, to their dear friends. A meeting full of love and joy awaits them. And we weep for ourselves. It’s me who won’t see my reposed loved one for a long time; it’s me who will miss him here on earth. By crying I actually pity myself. For non-believers this is really a tragedy and a nightmare, because they do not believe in the afterlife, and for them death is the end. But God promised us that we will all see each other again there and spend eternity together. We are not separated forever.” (Priest Alexei Taakh)

“Peter is so overcome with fear that neither Christ's prediction (Luke 22:34) nor the crowing of the rooster calls him to repentance, but only the Lord's gaze causes him to weep bitterly …When Peter went out and wept bitterly it shows he really did not want to fail here and was deeply grieved that he had…Nevertheless, “through tears, what cannot be defended can be purged, for tears wash away the offense which is shameful to confess out loud.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Luke 22:6-12, NET Bible, Luke 22:62, St. Ambrose of Milan)

“ Peter . . . wept so that he could purge his sin with tears. If you want to deserve pardon, you should wash away your guilt with tears. At that same moment and time, Christ looks at you. If you perhaps fall into some sin, because he is a witness to your secrets, He looks at you so that you may recall and confess your error.” (St. Ambrose)

“To wash away the sin of denial, Peter needed the baptism of tears. From where would he get this, unless the Lord gave him this too? That is why the apostle Paul gave this advice to his people concerning deviant opinions and about how they should deal with them. He said they must be “correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth” [2Tm 2:25]. So even repentance is a gift from God. The heart of the proud is hard ground. It is softened for repentance only if it is rained on by God’s grace.” (St. Augustine)

“Tears cleanse and heal the soul. But we should be careful lest the devil drowns us in our sorrow. We should trust that the Lord embraces us in our grief over sin.tears should be ones of joy more than sorrow. Why? Because if we weep only because we have sinned, we have not yet entered into God’s salvation. When we agree to be disciples of Jesus, to be united to Christ, then we experience forgiveness and our tears are turned to joy as we realize the absolutely amazing love and grace of our God for us sinners. And when we acknowledge we have been forgiven, our next response should be a willingness to forgive those who have offended us.” (Fr. Basil, Fr. Ted Bobosh)

“Tears and compunction, then, are caused not just by a realization of our own sinfulness, but also and much more fundamentally by a grateful and tender recognition of God’s forgiving love…God is visiting you when tears come during prayer.” (Nikitas Stithatos, Elder Amphilochios Makris of Patmos)

“…as long as distress and anguish stay cramped and compressed in our hearts, they darken our thinking. When they are emptied and evaporate through the words of our supplication and the tears which flow from our eyes as we pray, they bring a great brightness to the soul. Why? Because, like the rays of the sun, God’s help has entered into the soul of the person who is praying.” (St. John Chrysostom)

“To be much for God, we must be much with God. Jesus, that lone figure in the wilderness, knew strong crying, along with tears. Can one be moved with compassion and not know tears? Jeremiah was a sobbing saint. Jesus wept! So did Paul. So did John.” (Billy Graham)

“Sometimes a person prays with his tears, even when words are missing…Your silent prayers uttered on tearstained pillows were heard before they were said.” (Bill Gothard Max Lucado)

“Contrition and compunction are its regular companions. Compunctious prayer is based on an attentive life attentive to the ever-presence of God in our life, to the purity of our heart, to the genuine humility of our spirit, and to the mystery of death which we must ever remember and contemplate…It is important to distinguish true compunction from the tears of superficiality, vanity and sentimentality.” (Monk Moses)

“When I went to my first confession,” a friend told me, “tears took the place of the sins I meant to utter. The priest simply told me that it wasn’t necessary to enumerate everything and that it was just vanity to suppose that our personal sins are worse than everyone else’s. Which, by the way, was something of a relief, since it wasn’t possible for me to remember all the sins of my first thirty-odd years of life. It made me think of the way the father received his prodigal son—he didn’t even let his son finish his carefully rehearsed speech. It’s truly amazing.” (Jim Forest)

#StJohnChrysostom #BillGothard #MaxLucado #MonkMoses #JimForest #OrthodoxStudyBible #NETBible #StAmbroseofMilan #StAmbrose #StAugustine #FrBasil #FrTedBobosh #NikitasStithatos #ElderAmphilochiosMakrisofPatmos #FatherStephenFreeman #DeaconJohnChryssavgis #HolyMonasteryofAxionEstin #PriestLeonidKudryachov #PriestAlexeiTaakh #PriestLeonidKudryachov #SacramentalLivingMinistries #GreekOrthodoxArchdiocese