In Mark 15, as Jesus dies upon the cross, he cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It’s a quote from Psalm 22. What’s going on? John Dickson reckons:

“This is not a cry of self-doubt from Christ’s lips, as if he is here questioning his identity and mission. It is his deliberate and agonising identification with the suffering poet of Psalm 22 and therefore, with all those who have cried out to God ‘Why?’. There on the cross, so the Bible insists, God intentionally enters our pain and misery, getting his hands dirty and even bloody. This is God at his most vulnerable and yet at his most glorious.”

(If I were God, I’d end all the pain p.66)

Two random things about teardrops: 1) I’ve noticed teardrop tattoos underneath the eyes of some rough nuts while doing street work. They signify the loss of a friend or a loved one. Check out wikipedia for more specific info. Interesting. 2) One of my favourite songs from 1998 is Teardrop by Massive Attack. Watch the vid. Newtown Faulkner has a very cool cover of Teardrop. Watch it below. Here are 4 vignettes of ‘tears’ in the Bible:

1. Tears of the Oppressed – in Ecclesiastes 4, the Teacher looks and sees the “tears of the oppressed – and they have no comforter”. There are a number of examples in the Old Testament of tears. Often they are in the context of sin, despair and brokenness. (Revive have a song from this passage)
2. Jesus anointed by the tears of a sinful woman – from Luke 7. We don’t know her name, but this ‘sinful woman’ breaks down in front of Jesus, anointing his feet with her tears. Jesus declares her sins forgiven.
3. Jesus’ soul is overwhelmed with sorrow – in Mark 14 Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane. It doesn’t use the word ‘tears’ but I presume that Jesus shed many tears as he was ‘overwhelmed with sorrow’. Jesus knows the real pain of the cross he is about to endure. His body was broken, so that broken people – like the ‘sinful woman’ above and like me – can have their sin dealt with.
4. Jesus wipes every tear from their eyes – the final vignette in this ensemble is breathtaking. In Revelation 21, Jesus wipes away every tear from the eyes of his people. No more death. No more crying. No more pain. With God. Brilliant.

Are you one of his people? Do you long for that day?

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Newton Faulkner Teardrop vid below:

Continue Reading…

Since referring to Habakkuk in Thursday’s post, I’ve continued reflecting on the book. The ending of Habakkuk is stunning. The last 3 verses show an amazing joy in adversity. They’re quoted below. I actually quoted them a year ago. The photo in that post is of our then pretty much dead orange tree… ironically, I recently took to it with an ax!

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there is no fruit on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will triumph in the LORD;
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!

Yahweh my Lord is my strength;
He makes my feet like those of a deer
and enables me to walk on mountain heights!

Habakkuk 3:17-19 (HCSB)

“That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

“We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form.”

“And now, what was the purpose of it all? What did He come to do? Well, to teach, of course; but as soon as you look into the New Testament or any other Christian writing you will find they are constantly talking about something different-about His death and His coming to life again. It is obvious that Christians think the chief point of the story lies here. They think the main thing He came to earth to do was to suffer and be killed.”

~Quote from C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

What do you reckon? Lord? Liar? Lunatic?