How Tears Can Improve Our Vision
When Mary allowed herself to cry it changed her empty tomb
feeling
Larry Thorson
Scripture Text: John 20:10-18
Jn
Jn
Jn
Jn
Jn
Jn
Jn
Jn
Jn
New International Version Bible
That empty tomb feeling. It’s what you feel when something happens
that you didn’t expect and you’re really not certain how it’s all going to work
out. You don’t know if you feel mad,
glad, or sad but you do know that you feel bad.
That empty tomb feeling; what the followers of Jesus may have felt when
they unexpectedly found his tomb empty.
Miriam the Magdalene
Everyone has a different way to deal
with their empty tomb feeling. Last week
I talked a little about Mary Magdalene. Her
actual name was Miriam, the Hebrew version of Mary so named after the Jewish
prophetess of Exodus 15:20-21 and the sister of Moses and Aaron. She didn’t have a last name as was common in
those days. She was called a Magdalene
because she was from the tiny fishing
She’s first mentioned in the New
Testament in Luke 8:1-3 where it describes how Jesus had cast seven demons out
of her. Seven was the number of
completion or perfection which means she was completely captivated by the
demonic when she met Jesus and required deliverance by an external power. In other words she was stuck in a cycle of
demonic captivity and Jesus delivered her the first time. That’s important to remember for later in our
study. As a result of being delivered
she gave up everything and followed Jesus, helping even to provide financial
support for his traveling team. She and
some other women were the first people to his tomb on the first Easter.
She did something none of the other
followers of Jesus did on that first Easter.
It says in verses 10 and 11 that the disciples went back to their homes
but Mary stood outside the tomb crying.
This is an important distinction because it affected her empty tomb
feeling.
Crying as a Relief Tool
It says that she was crying. Tears come for a number of reasons. The primary reason is to keep the cornea from
drying out. Another is to cleanse the
eye of dirt. A third is to relieve the
body of sinus drainage. Perhaps you’ve
had watery eyes during a cold or with allergies. It’s good that it drains otherwise we’d have
worse headaches than we have.
The fourth way tears come seems totally
disconnected from the other three ways.
Somehow we have an emotion button in our brains and when it’s touched
the eyes water up. When my dad died in 1991 I went to the funeral home with my
mom to make the arrangements for his burial.
The funeral director asked us to bring the suit that he would be buried
in. The suit my mom picked out was the
suit he was married in. It was just the
year before that my sister and I threw a big 40th wedding
anniversary party for our parents and we had various items from their marriage
on display. One of the items was the
wedding dress our mom wore and the suit my dad wore. For some odd reason during the days leading
up to and around my dad’s funeral the thought of that suit brought tears
instantly to my eyes even though for two years my dad had been suffering and
there were many other reminders of him that didn’t evoke any emotion at
all. Somehow that suit somehow pressed
an emotional button that produced tears in me.
I hate watching syrupy Disney underdog
hero movies with my son. Something in
the movie sparks an emotion and it’s like it sends water to my eye. “Dad, are you actually crying, over
this?”
Emotions become more evident the more
tired one gets. We have less resistance to
the thoughts that produce tears. Unfortunately
crying is often as a sign of weakness in our culture. The sign on our building says that we’re a
Presbyterian church. Traditionally
Presbyterians have been book oriented.
Our membership across the country tends to be more educated as an
average than the Baptists or non-denominationals. We pride ourselves in being able to use our
minds to reason things out. Reasoning
doesn’t bring many tears. In fact crying
is irrational like my tears about my dad’s wedding suit. So in our worship services we’re often more
concerned about being rational, reasonable, thinking people than
emotional. I’ve often heard
Presbyterians say if they wanted to be emotional in church they’d go to a
Baptist or Pentecostal church. So we
don’t cry very often in our services.
That’s unfortunate.
The emotion within us that causes
tears indicates that something is there.
I’ve seen it happen most often when we serve communion in church. Communion is a powerful experience. Sometimes it’s tears of joy, sometimes it’s
tears of pain. Crying is as much a God
designed function to relieve the soul of its emotional pressure as blowing your
nose relieves the head of its physical pressure. I say all that to say, crying in public is ok
because it indicates that you’re alive.
How Tears Improved Mary’s Vision
Look with me again at v.11. “As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb” Now she’s already been in the tomb once that
morning and saw that it was empty. You’ve all probably had this
experience where you can’t find something but the last place you remember
seeing it was in some drawer. Over and
over we’ll turn that draw over hoping that maybe we just overlooked it the
previous times. I think for Mary it was
so hard to believe that Jesus’ tomb was empty so she had to look back in one
more time.
What happened next I credit directly to
the tears. It says in verse 12 that when
she looked back in the cave she saw two angels sitting where Jesus had been
laid. They asked her why she was
crying. “They
have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
That’s the same thing she had just told the
disciples. I wonder who she suspected of taking her Lord
away? But then she turns around and she
sees a figure that she doesn’t recognize.
That means Jesus was standing outside the tomb with the angels
inside.
In verse 16 Jesus
said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, a “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). At
first she had just turned her head but didn’t really get a good look at
him. Then he said her name “Mary” and
that caused her to turn her body toward him at which time she instantly
recognized him.
Remember that earlier in the chapter
Mary was there with some women friends and they ran to get Peter and John who then
ran with them to the tomb. But now
everyone’s gone. Only Mary was
left. The only reason Mary was still
there was because she stopped to reflect and to cry.
To me this is significant. Mary grieved.
She cried. That means she was
alive, she felt something. She felt love
for Jesus. Grief takes time to heal but
no one knows how long because everyone and every situation is different. I want to affirm today that allowing
ourselves to cry actually helps us to see and experience Christ unlike anything
else. Crying improves our spiritual vision and can end our empty tomb
feeling. But not all crying is
healthy. .
Crying Well versus Crying Poorly
William Giddings, a retired psychologist in his website
www.edgeoftheforest.com
published a story called Crying Well which describes a healthy way
of crying.
“Years ago as I worked with a college
student I'll call Donna, who had many problems with depression and abusive
relationships, I did something spontaneously that ended up teaching not only
her but myself something I hadn't ever realized before. She came in one day for our regular
appointment and instead of launching into what had been happening to her she
announced: "I'm not going to stay today; I don't want to talk. I'm so
depressed I just want to go home and cry." My response, which came quickly
even though I'd never thought this through this way before, was, "That's
ok, but I'm your counselor so I can't let you go until I know that when you get
home you're going to cry WELL."
Donna said "What?! Cry well?!
You're crazy! If you cry, you cry. That's it! And I just want to go home and do
it." Dr. Giddings said "But I can tell that if I send you
home right now you're not going to cry well. So let me briefly show you some
things about crying and then I promise I'll let you go." So he went on to explain the difference
between crying poorly and crying well.
Crying not directly precipitated by
physical pain is preceded by a person saying something to their self that is
'cry-worthy'!" Most of our tears are precipitated by something we say to
ourselves just before they flow.
Think of a recent movie you saw
during which you found yourself crying. Tears have in common that they are
generally wet, but beyond that one set of tears may be quite different from
another. If the movie was sad and you were thinking sad or hurt thoughts you
would have had one kind of tear. If it was joyful and you cried it was more because
you were filling yourself up with pleasure, happiness and wishful thinking.
Still wet, maybe, but very different tears.
Meanwhile, the person next to you in
the movie maybe wasn't crying. So obviously it wasn't the movie that was
creating your tears! We often say, "The movie made me cry." But the
fact is the movie just played. It was what the different people in the theater
were saying to themselves as they watched that did or didn't make them cry and
that affected how hard they cried!
There
are two ways Giddings says that we go about thinking what we’re going to say to
ourselves; linear thinking and circular thinking. Linear thinking means there is a beginning, a middle, and an end after which we move
on to another set of thoughts or at least a different angle on those previous
thoughts. Either way, the next thoughts are fairly fresh.
Circular
thinking on the other hand is repetitive.
There is no distinct beginning, there certainly is no end, and everything about
it seems like middle. When it does end it is more because the person is worn
out or gets distracted than because the thinking segment is done.
If you cry when your thinking is
Linear, you will Cry Well. Crying well means to cleanse or to release feelings.
When a person is done crying well, they feel lighter, more at ease, and usually
a little better about themselves, their world, and their prospects for having
some control. Life hasn't necessarily gotten any better, but their perspective
of life and themselves has. So they still may feel sad and hurt and down, but
they are less likely to feel rotten and depressed.
Tears
that come from linear thoughts like the following will most likely be pretty
healthy tears because the thoughts and feelings are honest and don't get into
judging and blaming about the future.
If you cry when your thinking is Circular, you will Cry Poorly. Crying
Poorly means to hang onto and go over and over your thoughts about something
painful. If those same thoughts get
embellished with further thoughts that blame others or put ourselves down about
what has happened or will happen, then the circular thinking begins and the
tears will increase and may even change to sobbing.
Here
are some examples of how the initially healthy thinking above could become
circular and unhealthy:
When a person is finally done Crying
Poorly, they will feel a little better briefly because of the catharsis, but
mostly they'll just feel exhausted and relieved that it's over, and will still
feel stuck, hopeless and helpless … all that crying would thus largely serve to
underscore how lousy their life is, how weak they are, and how out of control
they are. That kind of crying is likely to get them deeper into depression, not
out of it.”
The Breaking of Mary’s Crying
Cycle
Now
think of Mary’s tears. When asked why
she was crying she blamed it on the unknown people that she thought took her
Lord’s body away. She could have said
“I’m crying because I miss my Lord so much and I don’t know how I’m going to
get along without him.” The way she was
crying could have turned out to be circular.
She could have cried herself into a stupor and never come out of
it.
I’d
like to think that when you’re in the midst of circular thinking spiraling
downward into a hole of despair that you could flip a switch in your brain and
start thinking linearly, that means knowing that there’s going to be an end to
your sadness. But it doesn’t work that
way.
Here’s
where a relationship with Jesus Christ can make all the difference in the world
for us. In the midst of Mary’s cry that
might have gone on for the rest of her life, Jesus was moved to reveal himself
to her before he even revealed himself to anyone else. What he did by revealing himself to Mary is break
the cycle of her thinking. He delivered
her from that cycle.
Remember
earlier how I said that Jesus had delivered Mary from seven demons, a number
too great to free herself from? This is
her second deliverance. That’s important
to realize. The first person in all the
world that Jesus revealed himself to after his resurrection was a woman who
needed deliverance. I think that Mary
knew because of her background of having been delivered once that she needed
deliverance again but didn’t think she was going to get it. Most of us don’t realize that we even need
delivering.
Jesus
reveals himself to those who cry. In his
Sermon on the Mount Jesus said “Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be
comforted”. He reveals himself to those
who know they can’t pull themselves up out of their mire on their own.
Conclusion
You may be crying in a circular fashion
yourself right now. The negative
thoughts don’t seem to end. It’s import
to break that cycle and to bring certain thoughts to an end. But you may not be able to do it on your
own. I recommend counseling. I also want to encourage you that if sometime
in your life Jesus broke through to you like he first broke through to Mary the
first time he can do it again in a similar fashion. If you ever feel like crying, Jesus is moved
by our tears. Tears show what we care
about. Days earlier when Mary and
Martha’s brother Lazarus had died Jesus was moved by their tears and on that
occasion raised him from the dead.
The
purpose of our series is to learn how to deal with those empty tomb feelings
when thing don’t turn out like you expect.
Crying is a good thing because it helps you to release emotions that are
swelling up within you. Crying can
become a bad thing when it begins blaming others or ourselves with no hope for
the future. If you find yourself in that
condition ask God to break that cycle so that you can move on from that empty
tomb feeling. It doesn’t mean that the
grief will be gone but the emotionally deadly cycle will be broken. Don’t be surprised that as Mary’s tears
improved her vision that Jesus may break into your cycle and give you a new
vision for the future.
Perhaps
today you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ into your life. Maybe today you’re living as if you’re in
charge and don’t need any savior to save you from anything. Perhaps today you’re not crying. Scripture says that one day every knee will
bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. Why not today say “Jesus I want you to be my
savior, come into my life and save me. I
gladly give you my life in exchange for the forgiveness of my sins.” Jesus will come in.
Perhaps
today you’re struggling with Crying Poorly or thinking poorly. God will hear your cries for help today. He can help you break that cycle if you want
it broken. I’ll pray for you now.
Study Guide
DAILY BIBLE READING
Monday Exodus
Mary Magdalene was named after
Miriam. What was Miriam’s title? V.20
Whose sister was Miriam? V.20
Tuesday Luke 8:1-3
Describe what you know about Mary
from this passage.
How do you think Jesus met
Mary?
How do you think the people
reacted to Jesus having a woman like Mary following him?
Wednesday Matthew 27:62-66
Who was worried about Jesus’ body
disappearing and why?
Who stands to gain the most from
Jesus’ tomb being empty and why?
Thursday
Matthew 28:11-15
Why
were Jesus’ enemies so determined to cover up the empty tomb?
What
would have been a better plan for Jesus’ enemies in responding to the empty
tomb even if they did not believe in the resurrection?
Friday Matthew 27:1-10
Why
is Judas suddenly filled with remorse?
Why
do you think the priests avoid taking direct responsibility for Jesus’ death?
Saturday Psalm 51
Describe
what the Psalmist is feelings (i.e. happy, sad, worried)
How
would this Psalm help you when you feel separated from God because of something
that you have done?
Sunday Matthew 27:62-66
Read
this passage again from Wednesday’s reading in light of what you have read and
thought about during the week.
_______________________________________________
NEXT SERMON: Covering Up the Empty
Tomb
Matthew 28:11-15