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March 10, 2004
Midweek Lent #3
Luke 23:27-28
Pastor Robert Raasch

Crying Tears

1. Tears of Pity
2. Tears of Remorse

In our midweek Lenten services this year, we have been considering the theme, "The Sounds of the Passion." Each week we've focused our attention on a different sound associated with the final hours of Jesus' life. So far, we've heard the ripping cloth and the clinking coins (and the tramping feet). Well, today we're taking up the 3rd (4th) sound associated with the Lord's Passion. In this case we listen to the sound of:

Crying Tears

Now maybe when you came today and saw that our theme was crying tears, you maybe wondered how we were going to produce that sound for the sermon. I know my wife wondered that. Last week she asked me how I was going to come up with the sound of crying tears. I told her that I figured I'd just preach for about an hour and a half. And by the end everybody would be crying-crying for mercy. Actually, that's not what I'm going to do. Instead, I'm going to ask you to imagine the different times when tears fell to the ground in connection with Jesus' passion. I can think of two distinct occasions when tears were shed. And in each case, the tears represented a little different emotion. There were:

1. Tears of Pity
2. Tears of Remorse

First, Tears of Pity. You know what pity is, don't you? Pity is when you feel sorry for someone, or feel sorry for something. When your little daughter comes running into the house holding a dead baby robin, and the tears are just streaming down her face, those are tears of pity. She feels sorry for the bird. She empathizes with the bird. She wishes it would have never happened.

Well, wasn't that the emotion that these women in our text were experiencing? Luke tells us that Jesus was trudging the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrow, that path that led from Pilate's palace out to the hill called Golgotha. As Jesus traveled that path, first carrying his cross and then trudging beside Simon who carried the cross for him-as Jesus traveled that path, Luke reports, "A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him."

In Middle Eastern culture it's not at all uncommon for people to show their emotions in a very public manner. In Jesus' day, funeral processions were not quiet and subdued. Rather, they were loud and charged with emotion. So it was with what may well be called Jesus' funeral procession. He was marching off to die. And so, these women were crying. As they watched this bruised and beaten man, as they saw the blood and the thorns, as they listened to the ridicule heaped on him by the elders and soldiers as they saw all that Jesus had so unjustly suffered-how could they not sympathize with him? How could they not feel sorry for him? Is it any wonder that they were crying tears for Jesus-tears of pity?

In fact, those of you have seen the movie, the Passion of the Christ, may have seen some of those same tears. Yes, you saw tears streaming down the dirty faces of Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus there on the movie screen. But maybe you also saw or at least heard the tears of others in the movie theatre. The quiet sobs and misty eyes of people who were hurting for Jesus. People who had never really seen, never really thought about what Jesus went through. What kind of tears were those? Weren't they also tears of pity? People were feeling sorry for Jesus, just as those women who followed behind Jesus felt sorry for Jesus.

The question is, how does Jesus feel about people who merely feel pity for him? I think we find the answer in Jesus' words to the women who were shedding tears for him on the way to Calvary. Jesus turned to them and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and your children." Now, what did Jesus mean by that? Two things: First, Jesus was offering a warning about what was in store for the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the future. He tells them in the next breath, "For the time will come when you will say, 'Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.'" Jesus is alluding to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies-a time when people would wish they didn't have children-rather than have their children suffer though such devastation.

And yet, Jesus is not just speaking to those women about he future of their city. He's speaking about the future of their souls. Jesus is calling these weeping women to personal repentance. He's asking them to see where they fit into the picture. Jesus wanted these women to understand that the agony they saw him enduring was not on account of his sins, but rather, it was on account of their sins. "Weep not for me," Jesus says. "Weep for yourselves."

My friends, isn't the same thing true today? If our number one emotion as we witness the passion of the Christ is, "Oh, poor Jesus. I feel so sorry for you. It was a shame that you have been so mistreated"-if that's how we walk away from the Passion, then we've sadly missed the point. What does the Prophet Isaiah say? "(Jesus) was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities" (Isa. 53:5). Or as St. Paul puts it, "Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins" (Rom. 4:25). You and I need to see ourselves in the picture.

Let's do that for a moment. Just for a minute imagine that there was someone who has recorded every sin you committed this past year. Every filthy thought. Every harsh word. Every dollar you wasted. Every lie you told. They're all written down on a list. And now imagine that you are escorted into a room. And there in the room stands someone you love very dearly. Maybe it's your mother or your child or your fiancée. And then the list is read one item at a time. And for every item on the list, your loved one gets hit, or kicked or spit upon. Every lie you told puts another welt on your loved one's face. Every unkind word puts a stripe across his back. As you watch in horror as this goes on for hours, as you see someone you love beaten to a pulp for your sins, as you begin to understand the direct cause and effect relationship between what you have done and what he or she is receiving, as you realize that every misstep on your part brings immeasurable pain to their body, wouldn't you just want to blurt out, "Oh, I'm so sorry! Not just sorry that you are suffering, but rather, I'm sorry that my sins have caused your suffering. I'm sorry for what I have done to you."

My friends, isn't that the emotion that Christ would have his Passion elicit in our hearts? Jesus is not looking for pity. He's looking for remorse. He wants each one of us to acknowledge, "Hey, it was my sin that nailed Jesus to that cross. It was because I treated God like dirt, because I refused to obey him, because I insisted on doing things my way, because I acted like I'm the most important person in the world. It's because I've acted like I couldn't care less about God's will for my life-that's why Jesus suffered so. My sins caused Jesus' pain. And that's what brings tears to my eyes. Not tears of pity. But rather, II. Tears of Remorse.

You know what remorse is, don't you? Remorse is the feeling that you get when you know you've done something wrong. It's the feeling of regret that comes sweeping over you when you realize that you have made a major mistake, a major error in judgment. It's the thought, "What have I done?!?"

In the account of the Lord's Passion, there was someone who experienced that emotion, wasn't there? Someone who shed tears of remorse. It was not the women following behind Jesus. Rather, it was Jesus' disciple, Simon Peter. You remember the scene, don't you? First, in the Upper room, Peter had made the brash statement, "Lord even if all fall away, I will not." And what did Jesus tell him? "I tell you the truth, today-yes, tonight-before the rooster crows twice, you will disown me three times."

Oh, how those words must have been ringing in Peter's ears when later he realized that he had done exactly what the Lord had warned him not to do. Luke records the event from the courtyard of the High Priest: "The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him, 'Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.' And then (Peter) went outside and wept bitterly." Peter cried. He shed genuine tears of remorse.

Tell me, can you relate? Have you ever done something really stupid? Something you almost immediately regretted immensely? I can remember that when I was in about second grade I had a neighbor that I spent a lot of time with. We were good friends. Got along well. But like all kids, we had our occasional rifts. We'd get into an argument once in awhile. Well, I can remember one time when in the heat of the moment, I picked up a rock and chucked it at her. Wasn't thinking. Just threw it at her. The next thing you know, she's bleeding-and I'm crying. In fact, in the end, I think I cried a lot more than she did. When I realized what I had done, I just felt so bad inside. It hurt me to know that I had hurt her.

If you think about it, isn't that exactly what we have done to our best friend Jesus? We've hurt him. By our careless actions, by our not taking into consideration the welfare of others, by the promises we've made to God and broken, we've not only hurt one another. We've hurt Jesus. And it's that fact-that we've hurt Jesus-that may well bring tears to our eyes. And if not visible tears, then at least those inner tears, those feelings of remorse, that sorrow over our sins. Or as the Psalmist put it, that "broken spirit and contrite heart."

Aren't those the feelings that the Lenten season brings out? I mean, who can listen to the Scripture's description of Jesus' death without thinking, "I'm to blame. I was right there with those Roman soldiers swinging the leather scourge. I too am guilty of his death."? And yet, let's remember there is a huge difference between acknowledging our role in his death, and trusting in his role in our forgiveness. Or to put it another way, there's a difference between knowing our guilt and believing that Jesus has removed our guilt. Remember Judas? When he saw what he had done to Jesus, he felt awfully guilty too. He may well have shed some tears of remorse. But he didn't believe that Jesus could or would forgive him for his crime. He didn't trust what God had said Jesus' death would do for him. You might say that Judas heard the first half of Isaiah's prophecy, but not the second half. Listen again. "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities." We're guilty! But how does that passage go on? "The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." By his wounds, we are healed.

My friends, there's the most important message this whole Lenten season. A message that Peter believed, and Judas didn't. It's the message that Jesus' death has paid the price for all sins, including the sins that put him there in the first place. Because of Jesus suffering and death, you can know that your sins are forgiven. You are washed clean. You are all right with God. And that my friends, is a precious gospel message that produces not tears of pity or even tears of remorse, but rather tears of gratitude and tears of joy, in our hearts and in our lives, for Jesus' sake. Amen.