Jesus Wept By Rachel Dyachenko
I have a friend and colleague who once pointed out to me the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35, “Jesus wept.”(KJV) The context is Jesus as he learns of his friend Lazarus’ death. A short, powerful statement that calls for a dramatic pause and a deep breath.
Our Word Made Flesh Community in Moldova had its own “before and after” dramatic moment on February 24, 2022, when the unthinkable happened. I remember that morning vividly because I was startled awake by what felt like a distant earthquake. This was the day Russia launched a full-scale invasion into Ukraine. On that awful morning some of us physically felt the ground shaking in neighboring Moldova when some missiles landed close to our border.
I went through the motions of getting ready and quickly dropped off my daughter at preschool. I told one of the teachers the horrific news, and I will never forget how her face fell in shock and disbelief. Despite months of warnings that some kind of invasion seemed imminent, with Russian troops a-massing along the border, few of us living in the region truly believed Russia would make such an incredulous and atrocious move.
Afterward, I headed to La VIA Community Center where we run an after-school program for children and youth. I took off my coat and joined the staff around a table. We start every day with prayer, so we already had a time and a space to be together in this moment that sent shock waves across Europe and throughout the world.
In these thirty minutes together, before we were catapulted into action, I remember crying as we shared our shock and disbelief. “This is the absolute worst possible scenario we could have imagined,” I told the staff. We wept together not as a sign of weakness but as an acknowledgement of deep grief over the evil that was transpiring before our eyes.
Once the tears dried, we quickly got to work networking with other Christians to offer support to those fleeing for their lives, and even welcoming strangers into our homes to spend a night or a week or a month during their journey westward.
I can say with confidence that tears are a gift, meant to move us and tell us that something is not right. Having that time to cry together during staff prayer was a beautiful expression to our grief and lament together. We continued to meet daily for prayer during those traumatic weeks, and the connection we shared, —carrying the burden together— helped us be resilient in service even as many fled Moldova in fear.
The paradox about grief, sadness, lament and mourning is that they are so closely connected to joy.
As humans we are able to feel love and joy on the one hand, but we also are able to feel deep sadness and grief on the other hand. In work like this—among the poor, where we are so often confronted with trauma and difficult situations—the tendency can be to shut down our emotions to protect ourselves and avoid painful feelings. But the irony is that when we numb ourselves in order not to feel the pain, we are simultaneously cutting ourselves off from the ability to feel joy.
I used to fear that if I let my tears flow it would be like a faucet and I wouldn’t be able to turn them off. But I’ve found that grief is more like a wave—it comes and it subsides. And it’s actually only after allowing grief to come through that we find some space for joy, gratitude and hope.
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When we see incredible injustice and suffering, the emotion that often accompanies grief is anger. These are two very typical emotions that we see in young children: tears of sadness or fits of rage. As we grow older, we are often conditioned to suppress these two basic emotions.
But sadness and anger are not too much for God to handle. In fact, He invites us to come to Him with our big emotions. He can handle it.
A prayer practice that helps me bring hard emotions to God is to slowly read and pray with the Psalms. Take for instance Psalm 112:6-8. These words now leap off the page for me as I think of and pray for the people I know—my brother-in-law fighting in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, his wife, and his daughter, who long for him to be safe and to finally come home:
“Surely the righteous will never be shaken;
they will be remembered forever.
They will have no fear of bad news;
their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear;
in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.”
Fear of bad news has become familiar to me, and this Psalm gives me the words to pray against that fear and for my Ukrainian relatives who also know about fear of bad news. I can pray that they will be without fear, and “look in triumph on their foes.” Praying with the words of this Psalm has become deeply meaningful. We need each other, and we also need the words of Scripture which can help us to express our prayers of lament and give us courage to get up and keep fighting for justice, praying together that “the plans of the wicked will come to nothing.” (Ps. 112:10)