When was the last time you cried in front of someone? Did you find yourself embarrassed by your tears? Maybe even apologizing? I don’t cry—like really cry—very often these days, but a few months ago I found myself in my therapist’s office having one of those “ugly cries.” And I was mortified.
It might only happen once in a blue moon. Or it may happen often enough that you think about buying stock in Kleenex. But most of us have had the experience of crying in front of someone and feeling the need to awkwardly deflect or apologize for our tears.
This embarrassment can come from cultural discomfort with overt displays of any emotion, positive or negative. But many Christians have absorbed a quiet suspicion of sadness in particular—a subtle shame around grief and the tears that flow when it overwhelms us.
The Good News of the Resurrection and God’s New Creation, when it is preached carelessly, can plant a nagging anxiety that being overcome by sorrow and grief is somehow a failure of faith. After all, we say Christians are an “Easter people”—a people of hope. We’re supposed to “live with confidence in newness and fullness of life,” as our Catechism tells us. “Good Christians don’t cry” is literally something I heard from an adult growing up
Don’t get me wrong: the hope of Resurrection is vital. Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints with Isaiah’s confident announcement that hunger is satisfied and death is swallowed up. We remember John’s vision of mourning and crying and pain being removed when the first things pass away and all things are made new. We see gilded images of the saints—depicted with placid composure or heavenly ecstasy. And we pray to arrive at the “ineffable joys” of these blessèd beacons of “virtuous and godly living.” This hope is good news.
And yet, against this backdrop, the tears which run down our faces can start to seem like evidence that our faith in the resurrection isn’t strong enough. The sorrow that troubles our hearts can start to feel like evidence that must not truly believe the Good News. If we did truly hope in God’s promises, wouldn’t that banish the tears from our eyes? Wouldn’t we be able to face the sorrows of life without crying?
But how can we not cry in the face of the sorrows—big and small—which we endure in this life? How can we not grieve when we look at the world and its brokenness and pain? How can we not sorrow when civilians are slaughtered and starved in senseless wars? How can we not weep when death snatches loved ones away far too soon? How can we not shed tears when the long loneliness of this life takes its toll on our spirits?
Belief in the resurrection and conviction that God will make all things new does not take away the pain of children starving or siblings dying. Look to today’s Gospel: Saint Mary and Saint Martha are rightly called saints. They are some of Jesus’ closest friends. They believe in the resurrection of the dead. But their beloved brother, Saint Lazarus, is dead. How can they not mourn? Of course they mourn. Of course they shed tears.
Not very saintlike, we might think. Where is the statuesque serenity of “true” faith in the resurrection? And yet when Jesus arrives and sees them crying, he doesn’t tell them to stop. John makes a point of telling us twice that Jesus is troubled in spirit and deeply moved by the sight of his friends overcome with grief. Jesus doesn’t chide them for not trusting in the resurrection. He doesn’t disparage them for not facing their grief with saintly composure. He weeps with them.
Jesus cries. God cries. The one who is the resurrection and the life joins these saints in grieving the death of their brother. He shares in their suffering and sheds tears with theirs. And only then does he transform their pain by raising Lazarus from the dead. Only once he has shared with them the bitter heartbreak of death does Jesus give Mary and Martha (and Lazarus) a taste of the resurrection—that inheritance of the saints in light.
Far from being embarrassing signs of inadequate faith in the promises of God, the sorrow and grief suffered by Saints Mary and Martha becomes a place of encounter with Jesus—the literal embodiment of all God’s promises. Jesus does not try to prevent them from crying. He cries with them, turning their weeping into a witness to God’s promised salvation. Jesus doesn’t erase their grief. He meets them in their grief—the pain of death mingled with faith in the resurrection—turning that grief into a glimpse of the ineffable joys prepared for his saints. Jesus doesn’t just wipe away their tears. He sanctifies the tears of these saints by shedding his own. He turns their tears into streams of grace—soothing their wounds and cleansing their souls like streams of holy water.
This is the heart of the holiness we honor today as we commemorate the whole communion of saints. The holy men and women we celebrate are not statuesque icons of distant serenity, unmoved by grief or pain because of their unshakeable faith in the resurrection. No, they are people like us—people who struggled, who suffered, who wept. Mary and Martha and all the saints are people who shed tears when their loved ones died, whose hearts broke over the carnage of war.
But in their lives, we see that our sorrow does not negate our faith in God’s promises. Our grief does not nullify the hope of resurrection. On the contrary, our grief is precisely where Jesus meets us to give us a glimpse of that heavenly glory. He weeps with us and turns our tears into holy water—evidence of his healing, sustaining presence.
So, next time you find yourself apologizing for your tears, or feeling a quiet shame over the sorrow you carry, remember the tears of the saints we honor today. Remember Mary and Martha, who wept for their brother and were met by Jesus himself, who wept with them and transformed their weeping.
The saints do not show us that holiness requires us to be immune to grief. They show us that holiness comes when we allow Jesus to transform our grief and learn from him to weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn. Our faith and our hope in the resurrection are not a wall against the world’s sorrow, but an encounter in the midst of that sorrow with Jesus, who meets us there, turning our grief into a glimpse of resurrection and our tears into streams of holy water.