Saturday, February 22, 2003
Saturday, February 22, 2003
As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it.
"But, Daddy, it hurts! Waaa-a-ah!"
Then BL gave him his sternest look and exclaimed, "Look, son, big boys don't cry!" As soon as
that ancient bit of wisdom broke past his lips, BL got an immediate mental picture of a Man in his
early thirties standing outside the tomb of His best friend, Lazarus, crying because it hurt so
much. He saw a Man whose physical fiber had been hardened by years under the hot Galilean
sun, now sitting on a hillside overlooking Jerusalem, crying because it hurt so much. BL writes:
"The One who went head to head with the money changers in the Temple; The One who
ordered the roaring wind and the raging sea to be still; The One who now commands all
authority in heaven and earth; This same Man who never met a situation He couldn't handle,
Could cry From the depths of a broken heart. Yes, he says, I guess big boys do cry."
(Luke 19.41
NRSV)
Bob Laurent tells of sitting in the living room reading when he heard a terrible scream just
outside his front door. Like most parents, he can distinguish his own children's crying, and so he
flew out the door to the scene of the accident. There was his three-year-old son, Christopher,
upside down and bawling, the victim of a hit-and-run collision with a Big Wheel. In one fell
swoop, Laurent scooped his son up and had him in the house and up in his bedroom before the
neighbors suspected that his little man was a crybaby. He held his son in his arms and said,
"C'mon, son, let's dry those old tears up."
Dear God, may I express my emotion like Jesus did for those he loves. Amen.
