The Sound of Weeping
Sermon
SOUNDS OF THE PASSION
A SERMON Series FOR LENT
Have you ever conducted a private survey of the human ear? It is a fascinating experience. It's an interesting way to pass the time while waiting for your appointment in a doctor's office, or for your mate to finish some shopping, or for a plane to arrive at the terminal, or if you are sitting in a meeting that begins to drag.
This exercise is more a comparison than a survey. It involves looking carefully at human ears to see their differences in size and shape, and in the ways they are attached to the head. You'll discover that some ears are large and some small, some protrude and some lie flat against the head. You will note that some ears have glasses hooked across them, some have hearing aids in them, some are pierced, and others have ornaments hanging from them.
The obvious function of the human ear is hearing. This is what makes it such a remarkable instrument. It takes sound waves from the air which cause the eardrum to vibrate. Those vibrations are then translated into impulses which are conducted to the brain. It is almost incredible how the ear faithfully does this and how the brain perceives its tonal patterns. Perhaps we don't fully appreciate the function of this precious instrument until we are
threatened with the possibility of losing it. The ear not only enables us to hear, but also to keep our balance. If you've ever had vertigo or trouble keeping your balance, you are unusually grateful when the inner ear canals work properly.
Some months ago I walked into the den where my children were watching a football game on television. Because they like the way a radio announcer calls the plays, they had the television volume off and the radio on. Everything was well synchronized so that the action on the television screen corresponded with the sound over the radio. That is, everything was synchronized until the commercial breaks. We watched a beer commercial and listened to an automobile commercial, saw a picture of three pretty girls advertising panty hose while we heard advice about buying full-coverage insurance. We needed the sound to interpret the picture more than we needed the picture to interpret the sound. Those of us who grew up before the days of television can recall how sounds over the radio could send chills up and down the spine, especially on Sunday nights when a squeaking door announced the entrance to the "Inner Sanctum."
Back in the early 1940's, the British Broadcasting Company provided the people of England with a real spiritual experience. These were the dark days during the Second World War, and Dorothy Sayers' play, "The Man Born to Be King," was broadcast. The play portrays the life of Jesus in a reverent and realistic way. I have read that skillful use of sound effects, such as the scraping of a boat on the rocks around the Sea of Galilee and the dripping of water in the basin as Jesus washed the disciples' feet, made the story come astonishingly alive.
The season of Lent affords us an excellent opportunity to listen to some sounds - some sounds
of the Passion. Over one-third of the material in the four Gospels is devoted to that last week in the earthly life of Jesus. We call this part of each Gospel the Passion Narrative, for if tells of the entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the arrest, the trials, the crucifixion. Perhaps if can come alive to us in a different way if we turn off the picture and listen. We can use the ear instead of the eye, for if we hear, we are more apt to be drawn in. If we only watch, we may be mere spectators. So let's try to create a sound picture of the Passion, and let's begin with the sound of weeping. Are you listening?
How does if make you feel when you hear someone crying? Have you ever walked down a hospital corridor when a family has just been told that a loved one has died? Even though these are strangers to you, the sound of their weeping penetrates your very soul. Have you ever heard the moans in a courtroom when a verdict is announced and a sentence passed? Did you listen to a newscast when the media covered the funeral of one of Atlanta's black children and hear the grieving parents? Has a child's cry at night ever caught your ear, or a friend's sobbing out his failure torn your heart? They are sounds of weeping, and most of us know something about the sound of weeping. Have you ever heard the sound of Jesus' weeping?
There is a particular section of Interstate Highway 85 that I anticipate when driving toward home from the western part of North Carolina. It is on the west side of Durham. As you come around a curve on that hilly section of the highway, you suddenly see downtown Durham spread in the distance. You can spot the Central Carolina Bank and the city hall. It's a beautiful panoramic view, both in the daytime when the windows reflect the sunlight, and at night when the city glows in its own lights.
Approaching the city of Jerusalem from the east, coming from the town of Bethany, must be similar to that approach to Durham. When a traveler reaches the fop of the Mount of Olives, there across the valley, spread out before him, is the Holy City. On a particular day, years ago, a little procession could be seen on that Bethany road. Jesus is among them, riding a donkey. The people seem bright and happy as they march along in the morning sun. They round a bend in the road and the city comes into view. The procession stops; so does the talking. The sudden silence is soon broken by the sound of someone crying. If is the cry of a man - the deeply-moving sound of a man weeping. That man is Jesus.
Once before, we have been told "Jesus wept." (John 11:35) His weeping then was not difficult to understand and appreciate and honor. He was standing beside the grave of his friend, Lazarus, sharing the bereavement of his sisters, Mary and Martha. He was moved to tears.
Jesus' weeping, there on the donkey, overlooking Jerusalem, is a different kind of weeping, a staggeringly different kind. His tears are the tears of a love that is utterly frustrated and can do no more. "Eternal peace was within your reach, and you turned it down. You have rejected the opportunity God offered you."
It is important that we listen to what Luke is felling us here, that we really hear him describe what happened. He might have said, Jesus shed a tear, or for one brief moment those bright eyes moistened. But the word he uses makes it clear that Jesus broke down completely and wept uncontrollably. There is something almost indecent, something that makes us feel awkward and embarrassed when a strong man, normally holding himself in iron self-control, cries - cries uncontrollably. These are tears of anguish from a broken heart. It has been suggested that Jesus died on the cross of a broken heart. This incident on the road to Jerusalem indicafes that his heart was already broken before the crucifixion.
Listen. Can you hear Jesus weeping? Can you hear the sound of his crying? Do you catch fhe love and care in his sobs as he looks at Jerusalem?
We can only weep brokenheartedly when we care very deeply. A scientist may feel disappointed about an experiment that fails. A business executive may experience failure and frustration about a transaction that does not materialize. Very soon, however, each will write off his or her vain efforts as "just one of those things." The results do not break their hearts, for life in the world of science and business continues.
Jesus' experience with Jerusalem was a different matter: He cared passionately for the Holy City with all of its potential for abundant life. He knew how it was built. He was saturated with the history of its people. The city had a special sacredness to him. Everything that God wanted for his people was summed up and centered there. Jerusalem represented the world he had come to save. As he looked over it, the bitter realization that he had failed swept over him. He had said before, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! ... How many times I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me!" (Luke 13:34) This had been the passionate yearning of his heart, but his people would have none of it.
Jesus was crying because he had offered God's love and his offer had been spurned, refused, rejected. He was crushed and frustrated, and he wept because his love could do no more.
When there is a cave-in deep within a coal mine, rescue workers fight against flood water, fallen rubble, and solid rock. They take shifts day and night in their attempt to rescue those who are trapped in the mine. In spite of all their life-threatening efforts, they sometimes have to admit it is no longer possible to get any of the entombed persons out alive. When a wall collapses on victims and rescuers during a terrible fire, some people stand watching helplessly, unable to do anything but weep. So it was that day with Jesus. Jerusalem finally and obstinately refused to listen, and Jesus knew that nothing but utter disaster stared her in the face. The city would not learn the things that would give it peace, and her refusal utterly broke his heart.
This is the most accurate picture of God that I know. Too often our concept of God is limited to the Old Testament, which portrays God as judge and record keeper, ready to zap us info torment if we stray. Jesus shows us God as the forgiving and yearning parent, loving us with such deep concern and care that his heart is heavy when that love is refused, spurned, rejected.
It is no wonder the prophet Jeremiah said, "There is no sorrow like unto his sorrow." Jesus had the best to offer and if was refused. He still has the best to offer and still it is refused.
Parents whose children willfully estrange themselves from those who love them most know something of that sorrow: To bring a child to life and see that child become coarse and cheap, to dream the best for a child and see him or her choose the worst, to crave companionship and be met with indifference, to long for affection and get ingratitude, is almost more than those parents can bear. There is no pain to compare with the pain of rejection.
In a small town in the western part of our country there once lived a minister and his wife. They had a son who grew to be a fine young man with a keen mind and clean and wholesome personality. Also in that town lived a foul-mouthed, atheistic, but brilliant doctor, who became a hero to the boy. Gradually, he became estranged from his family. He grew irritable and unmanageable, contemptuous of his father's faith, resentful even of his mother's kindly concern. Whenever his parents' interest came into conflict with his friend's, the boy consistently chose the latter's way. He was completely under the spell of his atheistic hero. The people of the church remarked, "He is more like the doctor's son than the son of his own father." One midnight the minister, with a heavy heart, quietly opened the door to his son's bedroom. The air was filled with fumes of alcohol. He saw the boy's mother kneeling by the bed, stroking her son's hair and kissing his forehead. Looking up toward her husband, she said through her tears, "You know, John, he never lets me love him when he's awake."
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem!
How often I would ... and you would not!"
Listen. Listen to Jesus weeping. It is a sound we must not fail to hear. For it is the sound of a broken heart! It is still the sound of a breaking heart!
This exercise is more a comparison than a survey. It involves looking carefully at human ears to see their differences in size and shape, and in the ways they are attached to the head. You'll discover that some ears are large and some small, some protrude and some lie flat against the head. You will note that some ears have glasses hooked across them, some have hearing aids in them, some are pierced, and others have ornaments hanging from them.
The obvious function of the human ear is hearing. This is what makes it such a remarkable instrument. It takes sound waves from the air which cause the eardrum to vibrate. Those vibrations are then translated into impulses which are conducted to the brain. It is almost incredible how the ear faithfully does this and how the brain perceives its tonal patterns. Perhaps we don't fully appreciate the function of this precious instrument until we are
threatened with the possibility of losing it. The ear not only enables us to hear, but also to keep our balance. If you've ever had vertigo or trouble keeping your balance, you are unusually grateful when the inner ear canals work properly.
Some months ago I walked into the den where my children were watching a football game on television. Because they like the way a radio announcer calls the plays, they had the television volume off and the radio on. Everything was well synchronized so that the action on the television screen corresponded with the sound over the radio. That is, everything was synchronized until the commercial breaks. We watched a beer commercial and listened to an automobile commercial, saw a picture of three pretty girls advertising panty hose while we heard advice about buying full-coverage insurance. We needed the sound to interpret the picture more than we needed the picture to interpret the sound. Those of us who grew up before the days of television can recall how sounds over the radio could send chills up and down the spine, especially on Sunday nights when a squeaking door announced the entrance to the "Inner Sanctum."
Back in the early 1940's, the British Broadcasting Company provided the people of England with a real spiritual experience. These were the dark days during the Second World War, and Dorothy Sayers' play, "The Man Born to Be King," was broadcast. The play portrays the life of Jesus in a reverent and realistic way. I have read that skillful use of sound effects, such as the scraping of a boat on the rocks around the Sea of Galilee and the dripping of water in the basin as Jesus washed the disciples' feet, made the story come astonishingly alive.
The season of Lent affords us an excellent opportunity to listen to some sounds - some sounds
of the Passion. Over one-third of the material in the four Gospels is devoted to that last week in the earthly life of Jesus. We call this part of each Gospel the Passion Narrative, for if tells of the entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the arrest, the trials, the crucifixion. Perhaps if can come alive to us in a different way if we turn off the picture and listen. We can use the ear instead of the eye, for if we hear, we are more apt to be drawn in. If we only watch, we may be mere spectators. So let's try to create a sound picture of the Passion, and let's begin with the sound of weeping. Are you listening?
How does if make you feel when you hear someone crying? Have you ever walked down a hospital corridor when a family has just been told that a loved one has died? Even though these are strangers to you, the sound of their weeping penetrates your very soul. Have you ever heard the moans in a courtroom when a verdict is announced and a sentence passed? Did you listen to a newscast when the media covered the funeral of one of Atlanta's black children and hear the grieving parents? Has a child's cry at night ever caught your ear, or a friend's sobbing out his failure torn your heart? They are sounds of weeping, and most of us know something about the sound of weeping. Have you ever heard the sound of Jesus' weeping?
There is a particular section of Interstate Highway 85 that I anticipate when driving toward home from the western part of North Carolina. It is on the west side of Durham. As you come around a curve on that hilly section of the highway, you suddenly see downtown Durham spread in the distance. You can spot the Central Carolina Bank and the city hall. It's a beautiful panoramic view, both in the daytime when the windows reflect the sunlight, and at night when the city glows in its own lights.
Approaching the city of Jerusalem from the east, coming from the town of Bethany, must be similar to that approach to Durham. When a traveler reaches the fop of the Mount of Olives, there across the valley, spread out before him, is the Holy City. On a particular day, years ago, a little procession could be seen on that Bethany road. Jesus is among them, riding a donkey. The people seem bright and happy as they march along in the morning sun. They round a bend in the road and the city comes into view. The procession stops; so does the talking. The sudden silence is soon broken by the sound of someone crying. If is the cry of a man - the deeply-moving sound of a man weeping. That man is Jesus.
Once before, we have been told "Jesus wept." (John 11:35) His weeping then was not difficult to understand and appreciate and honor. He was standing beside the grave of his friend, Lazarus, sharing the bereavement of his sisters, Mary and Martha. He was moved to tears.
Jesus' weeping, there on the donkey, overlooking Jerusalem, is a different kind of weeping, a staggeringly different kind. His tears are the tears of a love that is utterly frustrated and can do no more. "Eternal peace was within your reach, and you turned it down. You have rejected the opportunity God offered you."
It is important that we listen to what Luke is felling us here, that we really hear him describe what happened. He might have said, Jesus shed a tear, or for one brief moment those bright eyes moistened. But the word he uses makes it clear that Jesus broke down completely and wept uncontrollably. There is something almost indecent, something that makes us feel awkward and embarrassed when a strong man, normally holding himself in iron self-control, cries - cries uncontrollably. These are tears of anguish from a broken heart. It has been suggested that Jesus died on the cross of a broken heart. This incident on the road to Jerusalem indicafes that his heart was already broken before the crucifixion.
Listen. Can you hear Jesus weeping? Can you hear the sound of his crying? Do you catch fhe love and care in his sobs as he looks at Jerusalem?
We can only weep brokenheartedly when we care very deeply. A scientist may feel disappointed about an experiment that fails. A business executive may experience failure and frustration about a transaction that does not materialize. Very soon, however, each will write off his or her vain efforts as "just one of those things." The results do not break their hearts, for life in the world of science and business continues.
Jesus' experience with Jerusalem was a different matter: He cared passionately for the Holy City with all of its potential for abundant life. He knew how it was built. He was saturated with the history of its people. The city had a special sacredness to him. Everything that God wanted for his people was summed up and centered there. Jerusalem represented the world he had come to save. As he looked over it, the bitter realization that he had failed swept over him. He had said before, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! ... How many times I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me!" (Luke 13:34) This had been the passionate yearning of his heart, but his people would have none of it.
Jesus was crying because he had offered God's love and his offer had been spurned, refused, rejected. He was crushed and frustrated, and he wept because his love could do no more.
When there is a cave-in deep within a coal mine, rescue workers fight against flood water, fallen rubble, and solid rock. They take shifts day and night in their attempt to rescue those who are trapped in the mine. In spite of all their life-threatening efforts, they sometimes have to admit it is no longer possible to get any of the entombed persons out alive. When a wall collapses on victims and rescuers during a terrible fire, some people stand watching helplessly, unable to do anything but weep. So it was that day with Jesus. Jerusalem finally and obstinately refused to listen, and Jesus knew that nothing but utter disaster stared her in the face. The city would not learn the things that would give it peace, and her refusal utterly broke his heart.
This is the most accurate picture of God that I know. Too often our concept of God is limited to the Old Testament, which portrays God as judge and record keeper, ready to zap us info torment if we stray. Jesus shows us God as the forgiving and yearning parent, loving us with such deep concern and care that his heart is heavy when that love is refused, spurned, rejected.
It is no wonder the prophet Jeremiah said, "There is no sorrow like unto his sorrow." Jesus had the best to offer and if was refused. He still has the best to offer and still it is refused.
Parents whose children willfully estrange themselves from those who love them most know something of that sorrow: To bring a child to life and see that child become coarse and cheap, to dream the best for a child and see him or her choose the worst, to crave companionship and be met with indifference, to long for affection and get ingratitude, is almost more than those parents can bear. There is no pain to compare with the pain of rejection.
In a small town in the western part of our country there once lived a minister and his wife. They had a son who grew to be a fine young man with a keen mind and clean and wholesome personality. Also in that town lived a foul-mouthed, atheistic, but brilliant doctor, who became a hero to the boy. Gradually, he became estranged from his family. He grew irritable and unmanageable, contemptuous of his father's faith, resentful even of his mother's kindly concern. Whenever his parents' interest came into conflict with his friend's, the boy consistently chose the latter's way. He was completely under the spell of his atheistic hero. The people of the church remarked, "He is more like the doctor's son than the son of his own father." One midnight the minister, with a heavy heart, quietly opened the door to his son's bedroom. The air was filled with fumes of alcohol. He saw the boy's mother kneeling by the bed, stroking her son's hair and kissing his forehead. Looking up toward her husband, she said through her tears, "You know, John, he never lets me love him when he's awake."
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem!
How often I would ... and you would not!"
Listen. Listen to Jesus weeping. It is a sound we must not fail to hear. For it is the sound of a broken heart! It is still the sound of a breaking heart!
