What are tears? Why do we have them? What purpose do they serve? They seem to be a peculiarly human affliction. Other species eyes will water or tear up due to pain or irritation, but they are not really crying. Only people spill emotional tears, only humans weep. And not all tears are equal. Research has shown that there is a chemical difference between the tears you shed while cutting an onion, for example, and those that flow during grief.
The Bible is full of tears, but it is not a sad book, it is just a very real book, because life is filled with tears. There is even a book titled “Lamentations” where Jeremiah (the weeping prophet) says “my eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground..” in another passage he complains that he does not have enough tears.. “Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain..”
This tells us something about tears that may sound odd to you; tears are a gift.
I do not know why our hearts must be broken in this life so often. Maybe so they can be softened; maybe so they can be hardened; maybe both, depending on which is needed most. I do not know the ultimate reason for the tsunami of sorrow that may be drenching you with tears right now, God has given me no such insight. It has been said if pain were water the whole world would drown.
But if I could give you a tidy philosophical or theological explanation for the pain you are made to endure, would it help? Of course not. Yet, your tears are a gift from God. If we did not weep, the pain and sorrow would build up in our hearts and cause them to explode. Tears are the price of love. When the object of love is missing, then that love has nowhere to go, and so it leaks out of our eyes. Our tears are a gift for telling us, and others, that something is wrong.
The older I get, the more I weep. I weep for my children and grandchildren who must grow up in such a remorseless and unforgiving age. I weep for marriages I see dying for no reason, except hard hearts. I weep for the young I have known that have died from this horrendous plague of opioid addiction. They had so much pain that they let painkillers kill them. I weep for a father who has become a ghostly image of his former self; his mind kidnapped and savaged by the demons of dementia. I weep for a mother who I used to complain about, but I have not been able to touch for a year because of some damned virus.
I weep, and you weep. We all have our reasons. But our tears are not the enemy in this place. In fact, sometimes, they are the only defense we have against the true enemy. For when wickedness or loss comes and imprisons our hearts, tears are a mercy, a release. Tears are a gift.
God sees all your tears. He counts them. They are never lost. The Bible ends with a promise: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes”, it goes on to say there will be no more crying. There will be no more tears, we will not need them. Can you imagine never having to mourn? Neither can I, but I believe it.
“Jesus wept.” John 11:35
“Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Psalm 30:5