By Mark Nicholson

 We tend with good reason to think of tears as a bad thing, as something that comes when we are in the worst of circumstances, in a dark night of the soul. I can assure you that as a church planting missionary for many years in a remote and difficult place, there were all kinds of tears that I shed personally. Tears come from pain and suffering. They come from loss and yearning. There are tears in persecution. There are tears in weakness. There are tears of frustration. There are tears of heart brokenness. There are tears of pleading and struggling with the Lord. There are tears of absolute, abject exhaustion. On the bright side of the story, there are tears of joys and triumphs in the grace of the Lord as well. I can assure you that as a church planting missionary, I have cried every single one of those types of tears. And often, again, we think of tears as something that would only come during a time that we want to get past.

By that token, it’s often just easy to say, Hey man, I’d rather not cry tears. I’d rather not feel the kind of pain and sorrow that bring tears. That’s understandable. There’s a theology of crying and weeping and lamenting. I’m not here to tell you that I’m an expert in the theology of weeping. I might be an expert in having wept over a lot of things in my life. I feel that way anyway. Jesus reminds us in the Sermon on the Mount that those who mourn are blessed. They’re blessed because they will be comforted. David reminds us in the 30th Psalm that weeping lasts for a night, but joy comes in the morning. And there is a certain good that is often produced by the proper application of tears to a situation.

I’m telling you all this because I have a photograph of a pastor in Africa on his knees on a stage in front of other people weeping and wailing to the Lord. He’s weeping and wailing because he is in the midst of being taught the PassionLife Four Questions theology on abortion. In the first question we examine the question of life, where life comes from and how it’s valued. It’s very exciting and challenging and there’s a lot of joy and excitement about life. In the second question we examine the whole theology of the shedding of innocent blood and how God feels about those who have innocent blood on their hands and how we can have innocent blood on our hands without ever having meant to or intentionally entered into murder or the taking of an innocent human life for any specific intentional reason. The pastor in the photo is recognizing that by his silence he has been complicit in the shedding of innocent blood at his church and this happens often with us at PassionLife. We go into these various churches and pastors assume that they have a very good theology and a very good hold on the issue of life. They usually do. What they usually don’t have the best hold on is the theology of the shedding of innocent blood and how it affects the conscience and their relationship with God and how they can bring the guilt of the shedding of innocent blood on themselves unintentionally by being silent when innocent blood is being shed around them. As we develop this theology a lot of pastors realize that by their silence on the issue of abortion, they have entered into complicity and therefore they need to repent and cry tears of lamentation, grieving and wailing. There is something so beautiful and so powerful about a Christian who cries over their sin or a non- believer who is just recognizing the depth of their sin and poverty before God. Again, this is why when we share the Gospel, we really have to talk about sin. People don’t like to talk about sin, but if we don’t understand our sin and understand the depths of our depravity and the lows to which we have sunk, then the highs really don’t feel all that high. The mountaintops really don’t feel all that mountaintop. The joy doesn’t bubble up from within out of thanksgiving and gratitude for what God has done.

We have pictures from all over the world of leaders, of congregational members, young mothers, but more often than any other case for us are pastors standing and weeping in front of groups of people and saying I have made the mistake of not speaking up on this very important issue. These are beautiful things. Again, John Ensor reminds us that we have a whole book of the Bible dedicated just to teach us how to weep, how to lament, how to cry well, and for what reasons, and how to let repentance bubble up many times in an expression of emotion that is visceral, humble and painful. So our pictures of leaders all over the world show an awareness that they have innocent blood on their hands even though it was completely unintentional in almost every single case. Yet they realize how important it is that they get down on their knees beside their congregational members or even out in front of a group of pastors for which they are the pastoral leader or the leader of the pastoral conference in his regional area in Medellin, Colombia, weeping and confessing to the pastors that are under his direct report. It takes humility. That’s a powerful testimony and we’re thankful for it. I assume that many of you, like me, have prayed a lot of prayers that included repentance, tears of humility, tears of realizing where our failures are before a loving God. Those tears so often, as David said in the 30th Psalm, are turned into tears of joy. Laughing and shouting often comes as a result of proper lamentation over sin. Examine your hearts, brothers and sisters. Let God reveal inside of you places where you have not recognized that you have failed Him and have come up short. Weep over those things properly and then let Him turn those into shouts of acclamation for His glory and His goodness in being able to heal and repair.

Another way of doing this is just to join us on our PassionLife trips. Join us in prayer, follow our newsletters, get our text messages while we’re out in the field, weep with us as we weep with those who weep and shout and celebrate with us as we celebrate with those who have found repentance. We thank you for being a part of the PassionLife Fellowship.