Weeping With Those Who Weep

-March 21, 2023-

Good morning, happy Tuesday,

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”

(Romans 12:15).

Yesterday we considered how we should rejoice with those who rejoice, sharing in their joys, victories, successes, and blessings. Today, we will mediate on weeping with those weep, sharing their pain, sorrow, grief, and hardship. This is can aptly be described as a vale of tears. When we are born, we cry and when we die, others cry for us. As we travel through this world, there will be many tears shed. So many that it can fill a several buckets. In fact, it is estimated that we will shed some 64 liters of tears in a lifetime.

The believer in Christ not only cries for himself but also for others. There are two components that lead to weeping with those who weep: sympathy, feeling for someone and empathy, feeling with someone. Both are needed. Jesus while on earth wept on two occasions we have record of in the gospels: one at the graveside of His dear friend Lazarus, and once over the city of Jerusalem. John 11:5 says tenderly, “Jesus wept.” Though He knew He would raise Lazarus from the dead, He still felt sorrow for His two sisters, Mary and Martha, also His beloved friends.

Weeping with those who weep shows our love, compassion, and care for someone we are close to. Sometimes we even cry for strangers who suffer war, abuse, deprivation, pain, and loss. As believers we are members of the body of Christ. We have a special bond, and we are often closer with our brothers and sisters in Christ than we are with our natural family members. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:26, “An when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”

May the Lord help us to be kind, loving, sensitive, gentle, and comforting to others in their time of need. It may be a hug, a kiss, a touch at just the right time, The expression, “be a shoulder to cry on,” is very real and meaningful. Let’s be that shoulder. It is so sad when people are all alone in life with no one in this world to cry with them. It is doubly painful. Jesus will always be there for us, even if no one is is.

Have a blessed day being there for someone and sharing their sorrow. God comforts us so that we can comfort others. Often our tears are the best “words we can speak,” to those who are grieving. Stay safe and healthy.

Being there and showing we care,

Dean