Don't Cry

“Don’t Cry Alone”

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• □  John 11:35
  •   “ .”
  •   Brennan Manning: “When Jesus wept . . . , the ground of all being shook, the source of all life

    trembled, the heart of all love burst open, and the unfathomable depth of God’s immense,

    inexhaustible revealed itself.” (Lion and Lamb 128)

  •   William Blake, “On Another’s Sorrow”:

    Think not thou canst sigh a sigh, And thy Maker is not by:
    Think not thou canst weep a tear, And thy Maker is not near.

    O He gives to us His joy,
    That our grief He may destroy:
    Till our is fled and gone He doth sit by us and .

  •   Adam Clarke: “It is abolishing one of the finest traits in our Lord’s human character to say that he wept and mourned here because of sin and its consequences. . . . The soul of Christ was troubled, and he mingled his sacred tears with those of the afflicted relatives.”
  •   Clark Pinnock: “Scripture speaks of the of God. God’s heart can be close to breaking (Hos. 11). God knows his people’s condition and feels their pain (Exod. 3:7f). God and mourns over them. Even for Moab God says, ‘My heart ’ (Is. 15:5). The issue for Christians is not whether God could suffer but how God could . . . . He would be less than God if he lacked sympathy or refused to share in the suffering of creatures.” (Most Moved Mover 89)
  •   N. P. Wolterstorff: “. That is why he suffers. To love our suffering, sinful world is to suffer. God so suffered for the world that he gave up his only Son to suffer. The one who does not see God’s suffering does not see his love. God is . Suffering is down at the center of things, deep down where the meaning is. Suffering is the meaning of our world.

    The of God are the meaning of history.” (In Pinnock Most Moved Mover 90)

  •   Isaiah 63:9—“In all their affliction, He was .”
  •   Desire of Ages: “His tender, pitying heart is ever awakened to sympathy by suffering. He

    with those that weep.” (533)

• □  An anonymous letter
• □  Galatians 6:2
  •   “Carry each other’s , and in this way you will fulfill the law of .”
  •   It is not enough to know that God suffers with us—though He feels our pain, too often we cannot

    sense His .

  •   1 Corinthians 12:26—“And if one member suffers, the members suffer with it; or if one

    member is honored, the members rejoice with it.”

  •   “Jesus did not shun the weak, unfortunate, and helpless, but He helped such as needed help. He

    did not confine His visits and labors to a class more intelligent and less faulty, to the neglect of the unfortunate. He did not inquire whether it was agreeable for Him to be a companion of the poorest, the most needy. These are the ones whose company He , the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”(2T 75)

  •   GROW Groups
  •   Frederick Buechner: “Sometimes, by the grace of God, I have it in me to be to

    other people. And so, of course, have we all—the life-giving, life-saving, and healing power to be saints, to be , maybe at rare moments even to ourselves.” (The Longing for Home 28)

    To carry and to care just like Jesus