A Tale of Two Tears
October 21, 2021 • by Sarah Morrison
Mary Magdalene was no stranger to tears. I assume you, dear reader, aren’t either.
I spent much of my life hating myself for how weepy I was. Of course, I wouldn’t have said it that way several years ago. I would have said something about trying to overcome my emotions with logic, or maybe I would have explained all the ways I tried to deflate my too-big heart. And maybe, just maybe, I would beat my Bible into a weapon by way of verses plucked out of context. Maybe I used it to cut away parts of me that God called good, that God made good.
I certainly still struggle with how deeply I feel things, but I like to think I’ve overcome a lot of that aforementioned self-loathing. Five years of working in a church revitalization had a way of making me feel softer and weaker. But the lower I got, the more I realized I looked like Christ. The more I was able to feel, palpably, that he sympathized with me. The more I saw the Father’s hand molding me, perfecting me, using my tears.
So, I want to invite you into a short journey that explores our weakness, namely through our tears. Through it, I pray you’ll relish how much your sorrows make you like Jesus, how tenderly he cares for each drop that falls from your eyes, and how attentive he is to all the circumstances that warrant your weeping.
“The lower I got, the more I realized I looked like Christ. ”
Tears of Faith
Luke 7:37-38 describes a moment in which a woman, thought to have been Mary Magdalene, anoints Jesus with perfume, washing his feet with her tears and wiping his feet with her own hair. Onlookers sought to humiliate the woman for her bold act, but Jesus defended her. He recognized the affection she had shown him and said, “Your sins have been forgiven. . . your faith has saved you, go in peace” (Luke 7:48-50).
It is in her tearfulness at Christ’s feet that she communicates her faith in who he is. Mary’s tears spoke what her words were unable to—she believed this man to be the Christ, she loved him enough to humiliate herself, and she knew she was undeserving of his mercy and grace.
Did Mary’s weeping save her? Do our tears have salvific, baptizing powers? No, but they speak a sort of certainty of the heart. They portray outwardly the inward workings of our soul. They speak what our tongues cannot. Mary’s tears didn’t save her, but they revealed a seed within her; they watered the mustard seed of faith.
Tears of Doubt
The same act that epitomizes her faith in Luke 7 later portrays her lack thereof in John 20:1-19. On the Sunday after Christ’s crucifixion, early in the morning, Mary Magdalene brought anointing spices to the tomb with the intent to preserve her beloved’s body.
Mary approached Jesus’s grave that morning to find it empty. Her mind was consumed by the idea that his body was stolen. While it is not an uncommon occurrence to weep beside a grave, most weep when the tomb is filled with bones. This grave was bare. Its emptiness should have brought great joy to Mary; She stood before the evidence that Jesus was alive, no longer dead. The resurrection was at hand, but she couldn’t see it. She wept as the accumulation of grief, fear, and anger increased in her spirit.
A man whom she assumed to be a gardener approached her in her tearfulness, asking the reason for her sobs. Mary, still overwhelmed, accused him of moving the body, and begged him to tell her where Jesus was. It was only when the man called her by her name that she recognized him as Jesus. He was alive.
She wept, and Jesus appeared.
Her eyes were clouded with salty tears, and I wonder if that is why she thought Jesus was a gardener, a stranger. In the haziness of her vision, was she unable to see her friend, her Lord, clearly? But once they fell to her cheeks, her eyes were cleansed and she was able to see unmistakably. Mary’s faith, through tears, became sight.
Christ Appears At Our Crying
For the sake of brevity, I haven’t discussed the fact that Mary wasn’t alone at the empty tomb. Some Gospel accounts mention other women who were with her, and John and Peter witnessed the empty tomb as well. Yet, we’re not told that Jesus appeared to anyone other than Mary at this point. Mary Magdalene, with tear-stained cheeks, was the first to witness the risen Christ.
Jesus likely wasn’t far when Peter and John came to his grave. It would seem that he held himself back, withheld himself from two of his closest male disciples. It appears that he waited for John and Peter to leave before walking closer. Maybe this is because they understood this to be Jesus’ resurrection. Maybe they bolted to tell the other disciples as quickly as they could. I’m not sure why Jesus didn’t reveal himself sooner.
But what I do know is this: Mary’s crying would have been a familiar sound to him. He would have recalled that moment of humility and affection as her tears washed his feet. And as a parent can distinguish the cries of her own children, Jesus, I’m sure of it, could feel the distress in Mary’s spirit. He could not withhold himself from someone he loved. He would not withhold his presence from his beloved in distress.
Saint, he calls you beloved, too.
“Our tears often express outwardly the toil we feel inwardly as we reconcile the world as we know it with the world as we ought to know it.”
The empty tomb is the crest of Christian faith. All that we are is informed by that moment. Each of us upon our admittance into the family of God are asked to peer inside the tomb of Jesus and ask ourselves if it was robbed or if he has risen. Mary’s act of weeping at the mouth of the grave is a testament to our own continued behavior in light of God’s promises.
Mary knew she loved Jesus, and she grieved his departure. She knew there was an empty grave in front of her, and she knew she did not yet see his body walking around, breathing. Her tears helped her make sense of the empty grave. Our own tears give us an opportunity to do the same, as we feel the tension of what we know to be true in tandem with what we see in front of us.
Our tears often express outwardly the toil we feel inwardly as we reconcile the world as we know it with the world as we ought to know it. Tears are the outworking of this obscurity. Tears are the testament to myself, others, and God that I am desperately trying to make sense of the pain that plagues me. Tears are a physical representation of stubbornness, a refusal to ignore the pain that weighs on my shoulders and breaks my back.
Our tears proclaim our measures of faith, or lack thereof. In the act of crying, we are being transformed. Our pain is not useless, our suffering is not unseen, and our tears are not a burden. Our tears are a gift. When we weep, God answers us in his power.
Through our watered eyes, we see Jesus: resurrected and near.
S.A. Morrison married her college sweetheart and has had the delight of partnering with her husband in ministry for the last ten years. Together, they have walked through troubled waters, being baptized in them. Her first book, With Those Who Weep: A Theology of Tears released in 2021.
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