Tears of the Saints

I don’t cry. I “tear up.” Like at the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I feel my face heating up, my nose getting tingly, and a little dam of water building in my eyes. I can usually manage to keep my decorum, though.

Crying publicly wouldn’t be so bad if it were a matter of allowing a single, dignified tear to trickle down my face while I utter in complete composure, “That was beautiful.” But crying is usually a messy affair, what with the shaking shoulders, contorted face, and snot running out of the nose. That never happens in the movies. You never see a long string of mucus coming from the nose of a sobbing actor. They’re poised, even when they cry.

Numerous times the Bible talks about those who lifted their voices and cried. They wept because of their sins, they wept because of the sins of others, and they wept for what could have been—for what should have been. It sounds so wonderfully undignified, doesn’t it?

At one point King David and his men came to the town where they had been living, only to find it in ruins. According to 1 Samuel 30:4, “David and the troops with him wept loudly until they had no strength left to weep.” These guys weren’t overly sensitive pansies. They were warriors—the kind of men who would make Jean-Claude Van Damme look like Cindy Loo Who. And they wept until they couldn’t weep anymore.

For the past six years, I have immersed myself in the plight of the poorest of the urban poor. Through my work with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, I began a series of short-term mission projects where young adults have the opportunity to live and work in slum communities. My family and I spent a summer in a garbage city on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, where residents must make their living off of other people’s trash. I know of women forced into prostitution, of 8-year-olds who work 12-hour days, of perverse warlords who conscript children into armies, and of the kind of poverty that can trap a family for generations.

Often, as I am interacting with this kind of stuff, I fight back the urge to weep—but that can’t be healthy. Maybe God would be pleased for us to shed tears for all the things in this world that are utterly outside “His kingdom come and His will be done.” For those living on the streets, for little girls forced to have sex, and for poverty so deep it makes people stop caring about themselves.

I finally got a chance to really weep with a group who was studying desperate urban poverty with me at a conference. I got up and recounted the verse where Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matthew 5:4). I said that Nehemiah wept for all the unfulfilled promises for the temple and for the city of Jerusalem, both of which lay in shambles.

I called for those who wanted to, to weep out loud. I forbid the attempt to manufacture tears. I forbid guilt over not crying or carrying burdens that only God was meant to carry or being weirded out by those who were wailing. I just said that if you wanted to weep out loud for all that is messed up in this world, then you could do it. Then I got down on the floor, and I cried loudly. It was such a relief—so cathartic. I was not poised, but I was filled with purpose. I wept until my shoulders shook and my face was contorted and snot was running out of my nose.

I could only say, “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” but it was perhaps the most articulate prayer I’ve ever prayed.