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Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children … (Luke 23:28).

This week’s Connect Devotionals will be a little different: we won’t all be writing on the same theme or passage.  Instead, we’re looking at Holy Week, each writer choosing his or her Scripture and focus.

We’re trying to slow down this week, as we pray together towards Easter, trying to pay closer attention to what our four gospels pay such close attention to, this final week of Jesus’ life and work.  

This year, I am noticing the tears.  

Tears:  As our eyes start to fill, our throats tighten; we look away, or close our eyes.  It’s hard to see clearly through the tears, to think clearly, to speak clearly, almost as if our bodies recognize that, in deep sorrow or great gratitude, we have entered a place where words aren’t what’s needed to express what’s really going on in our souls.

Tears: Just before this week, Jesus weeps at the tomb of Lazarus.  As he approaches Jerusalem, Jesus weeps over the city, “If only you recognized the day of your visitation, the time when God drew near to you, if only you knew what makes for peace.”  Many of the parables that poured from him this week feature weeping.  As he is led to Calvary, he pauses to address women weeping over his approaching doom, but says, “Weep not for me, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep for yourselves.”  Peter, once the bravado of his boasting (“Even if everyone deserts you, I never will!)  is pierced by the reality of his heart (“I don’t know him, I have nothing to do with him, leave me alone!”), goes off by himself and weeps bitterly.  On Easter morning, Mary stands at the emptied tomb, troubled and confused, weeping.

The Good News has room – makes room -- for our tears. 

If our path to Easter is sometimes a trail of tears, we can remember that we are following, that we are accompanied by, the one who wept at a grave in anger over the multiple ravages of Sin and Death, the one who wept in grief over the impermeable sinful pride of a city on the edge of an unnecessary destruction, by one who was no stranger to tears … by the time we arrive at this Friday we call Good, there really shouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.

Yes, the story doesn’t end in tears of grief, sorrow, loss and woe.  It finally will end in a different kind of tears, the tears that come when we are fully captured by a good graciousness we never saw coming.

But this week, it’s okay to slow down, pay attention, and perhaps allow whatever tears are needed to leak from our eyes.  Perhaps they are the water needed for something new to grow.

Whether you cry easily or not at all, take some time now to sit with your sorrows, frustrations, griefs, even your anger.  Don’t try to fix or explain, simply name them in God’s presence.

Call to mind those around you who are weeping today.  Pray for them, that they would be met by the one whose heart has more than enough room for their tears.

End in silence, a listening silence.  See if God has something to say or show to you: a Scripture, a memory, an image/picture.  If something is offered, receive it; if not, simply enjoy the silence that is filled with God’s presence.