Good Grief with Broken Harps

Good Grief with Broken Harps

Good Morning Friends,

Last night the guys went out as the women’s circle met at church. We talked a lot about fishing but also about the death of a churchman young than us all around the table. Now as I walk outside this morning I see Moon Shadows and it reminds me of a song but the birds are not singing this morning to bring it to life yet.

The animals are not crying out one to another yet. Still I listen. Then I pause waiting for the sun to rise but it too is not yet ready. It is time to turn to scripture and am drawn to Jeremiah and I think this is not the Jeremiah in my youth who sang Joy to the World. Oh the dark sorrow upon this man! His heart was sick. He sensed as perhaps you do that the world is just not right. Too many strings broken. Friends, the era in which Jeremiah lived is like our own in so many ways. But strangely the weeping prophet was not experiencing something that was all bad as it relates to his response. He had in his water music of holy weeping what I would call Good Grief with Broken Harps.

Scripture: You who are my Comforterin sorrow, my heart is faint within me. Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away: “Is the Lord not in Zion?  Is her King no longer there?” “Why have they aroused my anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?” “The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.” Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me.  Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 (NIV)

“Time’s coming”—God’s Decree— “when I’ll establish a truly righteous David-Branch,
A ruler who knows how to rule justly. He’ll make sure of justice and keep people united.
In his time Judah will be secure again and Israel will live in safety. This is the name they’ll give him: ‘God-Who-Puts-Everything-Right.’

Jeremiah 23:5-6 (MSG)

Jesus wept.

John 11:35 (NIV)

Message: The grief of Jeremiah is not a pretty sight. When Michelangelo painted him on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he presented him in a posture of despair. His face is turned to one side, like a man who has been battered by many blows. His shoulders are hunched forward. His eyes also are cast down, as if he can no longer bear to see God’s people suffer…to see them sin. His hand covers his mouth. Still the scripture of prophecy of the hope of Christ is soaked in his lament. He moans his mourning in a blues key that has the faintest hint of resolution. His grief takes over his life not like a cuss word but like a cancer. We want the Jeremiah who claims that God knows the plan for us… to prosper not to harm. But somehow that Jeremiah is hidden. Here nothing else will do but tears and the amazing thing is that the tears relieve the tension and frustration and stress of the situation. Here the tears are a way to purge pent up emotions so that they do not remain in the body as stress. Here tears lubricate and cleanse our eyes so that they do not get irritated or infected. Here crying decreases our heart rate and we become calmer. Friends, if you have felt this sorrow you will know there is an honesty and candor born in the anguish. Pretense and machismo seems so pointless. Here tears flow with such force that they birth of child of promise. And amazingly the plan for hope is seen clearer after tears. Friends a hope worth having is forged in adversity, hammered out on an anvil and fired in the heat of anguish. Here there is healing for a sin sick world through Jesus Christ. Here we realize that there is something worse than going to hell and it is the taking of someone with us. Here we realize that there is something better than going to heaven and it is that we would take someone with us.

Pray we not swallow our tears in silent numbness. Pray we refuse to be silent in the face of terror and injustice. Pray that when joy is gone that hope gains strength. Pray we do not underestimate the power of tears. Pray we experience the cleansing hope of Christ as we cry. Pray we experience a blue bird perched in our presence that might take flight but decides to stay and sing of tears that echoes the song in our soul…the tune of our time. Pray with me, as at last I hear the birds calling out, that we realize that we too have cords to play with the notes that are left.

Blessings,

John Lawson