weeping prophet

Oh that my head were waters,
  and my eyes a fountain of tears,
    that I might weep day and night
         for the slain of the daughter of my people!
                                                        (Jeremiah 9:1 ESV)


The weeping prophet.

That’s a traditional moniker for Jeremiah. There’s plenty of tears to go around. Or actually, not. Later in chapter 9 Jeremiah calls for the professional mourners to come and vigorously ply their trade:

Thus says the LORD of hosts:
“Consider, and call for the mourning women to come;
send for the skillful women to come;
let them make haste and raise a wailing over us,
that our eyes may run down with tears
and our eyelids flow with water. (Jeremiah 9:17-18 ESV)

Seeing all the tears and feeling the deep-seated anguish of Jeremiah, I’m caused to wonder. How qualified am I as religious and cultural critic if my eyes are not likewise filled with tears? We rail at homosexuals at gay pride parades and hold up our condemning signs. But where is the weeping? We castigate the holders of aforesaid signs as backwards legalistic buffoons. But where is the weeping? Catholics bitterly lampast Protestants, and Protestants gladly return in kind. Where is the weeping? Right tears down left as destroyers of our nation and heritage, and the left paints the right with an extremist palate of fascist hues. Where is the weeping?

What would talk radio sound like with less ranting and more weeping?

What would our blogs and publications read like soaked with the tears of hearts shedding not condescending lament but authentic sorrow over the chasms between us?

Sitting before Jeremiah, I am reminded that in his generation when people thought of Jesus they associated two prophets: fiery Elijah and weeping Jeremiah (cf. Matthew 16:14). Jesus wept. And not just at the tomb of his friend whom he loved, but over the city that would become the tomb of his enemies who plotted his death. No lone tears were these, but a wellspring of grief poured out among a joyous throng oblivious to the harsher realities unfolding.

It was actually in watching Bruce Marciano’s performance as Jesus in those Matthew videos of a decade ago or more when I finally really heard Matthew 23. I had always only heard (and therein justified my own) venemous railing at the religious error of his contemporaries. “Blind guides! Hypocrites! Brood of vipers!” The words are stinging, to be sure. But they stung Jesus’ eyes with tears more deeply than they did the ego of his religious brothers. According to Marciano, he did Matthew 23 in one take, and he was totally surprised (as were his fellow actors) at how the scene unfolded. He became incapacitated with grief and sobbed out the final lines, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often I would have gathered you under my wings like a hen her chicks, but you would not…” Marciano literally finished the scene on his knees weeping, his head bowed, his trembling hand reaching out to his “disciples” who stood there stunned. They weren’t acting! This wasn't in the script. And it was the actor playing Peter that after a few moments of stunned silence on the set improvised and reached out his hand and helped Marciano to his feet and then supported him as they exited the scene. Totally unplanned. Hearing Marciano describe the scene and then watching it again, I realized I was looking at His reflection.

Jesus wept.

Paul’s words also come to mind. “Brothers I speak the truth in Christ – I’m not lying! My conscience also confirms it in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh…” Paul wept too. Perhaps in his intensity he too infrequently stopped to weep – hence the vigorous affirmation that, yes, he really was gutted over this.

Perhaps we need to stop to weep as well before we open our mouths or pound our fists or our keyboard. Am I even qualified to speak the truth into someone’s life let alone blog over our churches, our culture, our current political scene if I have not and indeed cannot first weep?

What inquisitor ever wept as the heretic burned?

What tribunal with tears ever placed death’s shroud over the accused and condemned?

And even if I should I feel angry nails pounded into my hands and feet, as it were, by a culture that doesn’t see, will it be from me the anguished cry, “Father forgive them,” or defiantly will I shout back my own verbal retribution?

Jeremiah wept.

Jesus wept.

Do I weep?

Can I pray that "my head were waters"?