He Wept So We Could Rejoice

Every parent knows the feeling, the feeling that leads to tears. Sometimes they are tears of joy, sometimes they are tears of disappointment and at other times tears arising from sheer exhaustion from lack of sleep as you deal with a crying, inconsolable baby. When one of God’s children has a baby, I love to go to the hospital and marvel all over again at the indescribable gift Father has handed that couple. I am awestruck every time I gaze at another wonderful creation of our loving Father – and then I cry. It’s embarrassing at times, but I have no control over it at all. Gods amazing love gift just completely overwhelms me and I am reminded again so powerfully of a love so profound, so amazing, so divine it demands my life, my soul and my all.

This coming Easter Sunday we will be considering the subject of the tears of Christ. The words are simple – “Jesus wept” – but the meaning is so profound it surpasses all human ability to comprehend. He wept over Jerusalem, He wept at the tomb of His dear friend Lazarus and He wept in the garden of Gethsemane, crying out in an agony of soul so deep and bitter He sweated drops of blood – “Father, if this cup could just pass from Me” – but it didn’t, and He drank that cup to the last of the dregs in order that you and I never need to. It is humanly impossible to understand the full extent of what it meant for Jesus to “become sin for us who knew no sin that we may become the righteousness of God in Him.”

He set the heights of the mountains, He set the boundaries of the seas, He created the stars and set the planets in motion, He entered our world as a helpless baby, He paid the price for our salvation and He has prepared a place in Heaven for each of us, yet with all of this, His own sons and daughters in the faith come to Him by choice. Where will you be this Easter as we gather to worship Him and celebrate all that He means to us – He leaves the choice with you.