Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are on her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is no one to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies. – Lamentations 1:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 17, 2017): Lamentations 1

William Butler Yeats penned these words:

Come away, O human child:

To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping

than you can understand.

They are the words of one who knows the tragedy of life, and maybe, for a moment, wishes that he could be a child again. We all have those moments. The death of someone close, moments of disaster, a diagnosis of sickness, all of these shared elements of life and more have the power to drive us to tears and make us wish that we could return to the innocence that we once knew. But we also know and understand that weeping goes hand in hand with the pleasures of life: if we never love, then we would never know the pain of love lost. If we never know sadness, we will never know real happiness.

Jeremiah is often called the weeping prophet. His voice of woe – and his tears – were rejected during his lifetime. But the truth is that he had a lot to cry over. He stood at the tipping point of his civilization – he saw what was to come and, in the short term, all he saw was pain in the future of his nation – a nation that he loved.

It is impossible to watch the pain of those that we love and not weep. We all want and dream of the very best for those around us. And when that is interrupted – even when they are the ones that are at fault – all there is left is a deep sorrow. For some, the response is not to love – to hold everything at arm’s length and let nothing get close enough to cause the pain that might lead to tears. But the price of that lifestyle is high – if that is our response we will never enjoy the pleasure of love.

So Jeremiah dared to take the risk; he loved. He loved a nation – and a people. Their rebellion did not stop his love, and their pain was the cause of his tears. He cannot help but look down on the defeated city of Jerusalem and imagine the tears of the city crying with him. Both the prophet and the city cried bitterly over what might have been but wasn’t.

The Christian church is built on the same risk that Jeremiah too; it is based on love. The church balances itself on the point between our love for a God that decided to bend down to earth and redeem his creation, and the sure knowledge that his action was the cause of the death of his son; the one who came to save us was also the one who died. Our gatherings are celebrations – but they are also a reason to weep. And as we worship, both emotions are very appropriate.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Lamentations 2