As a midwestern male, and possibly as an American male, there are really only a few instances where it is socially acceptable to cry in public. The most obvious one is the death of a close friend or relative. Most the others can be summed up into some type of birth taking place (again mostly contained to close friends, relatives, and your own children’s), or some type of deep pride in your country / friends / relatives / children. About the only emotions that are OK to display in public are excitement, romantic interests, and anger.
Even in fairly extreme situations, emotionally, I and most people around me tend to shut down our emotions. Occasionally going to be alone to let loose a flurry of these publicly inexpressible emotions like hurt or sorrow.
Lately while studying the Bible I’ve noticed that this behavior seems to be in stark contrast to what people do when faced with tough situations, including David, Elijah, and Jesus. (Luke 19:41-44, Luke 22:41-45, John 11:33-36, and Matthew 26:37-38)
It is odd to me that there is such a hard-stop in my head that keeps me from any kind of open display of sadness. I wonder what that voices in my head telling me to ‘suck it up’, and ‘keep your cool’ are. Is it a middle-school bully, is it a misplaced sense of pride, is it a desire to appear smart/calm/cool/intellectual/tough/even keeled/etc? Is it the words of responsibility and toughness my father spoke over me as a kid when my mother was going to the hospital for depression? Or is it some type of cultural detour from any negative emotion directly to anger, more than a hard stop.
But Jesus doesn’t say that to people who are hurting, and that is how I know those voices are almost entirely bad. Jesus doesn’t dismiss, and he doesn’t tell people to be tough or independent. Jesus sweats blood and cries out to God over the pain he is facing, and he weeps in public over other’s loses and other’s pain.
I’ve come to think this says four things about my life in the Kingdom of God.
1. Outward emotional signs of pain are not me (or whoever) being overly-emotional, weak, or stupid.
2. Frequency of public displays of pain should not be limited because of concern about others opinions on that frequency. A lot of times I think I’m not willing to express hurt or pain for fear of what my stalwart Minnesotan brothers may think about how often it happens.
3. The more your pray for people in general, and the more you pray for God to change you to be more like Jesus, the more you find an odd sense of supernatural connection with their pain. It is as if you are seeing the pain that God feels about a person going through tough stuff. I think that this is a spiritual gift of compassion, which is not often discussed in the circles I’ve run in.
4. Being a follower of Jesus, and working to see the Kingdom of God advance in this country means bearing pain. This is not the “Life sucks but Jesus is Good” kind of pain, it is not simply commiserating pain. But it is a whole heart and soul, burden-sharing kind of pain. And it isn’t pleasant, but it isn’t pleasant in a hopeless kind of way. It is more of the having faith for the sunrise in the midst of a cold dark night kind of unpleasant. And it isn’t endured, but instead is experienced, relieved, and healed, because that is part of how Jesus moves through us for the sake of others.
I want to live these four things out more, because right now I’m not. I want to help people by living with them, not above them, beneath them, or detached from their pain. And hopefully these points, especially #4, will be a common string running through my life, instead of just a few moments amongst many much more normal, compassionless ones.
Someday, I believe God is going to open these flood gates in my life, and I think that will be a great step forward in helping people experience the real power in the Gospel. Because being open to emotion, and open to tear provoking compassion, is one part of being bold with love of Jesus.