Back in the day... I mean WAY back in the day, when Jesus walked the Earth, young people just starting out didn't flip signs behind their backs along the roadside (or flip burgers for that matter.) No, an entrepreneurial-type might go into the "crying" business. Since there were always people passing away (and not enough true friends with real tears) they'd send in actors who could work up tears at a moment's notice.
Even today professional mourners call up funeral directors and offer their services, for a price. I understand one professional mourner who garnered a large sum ($50,000!) actually tore out chunks of her hair as she mourned during Marilyn Monroe's funeral.
I know for me when I am at a funeral I find it so refreshing to be with someone who is moved to tears. It is both contagious and freeing. One person's expression seems to give the group permission to let down their guard emotionally.
"Jesus wept." John 11:35
The shortest verse in the Bible struck me in a new way this week. Those two little words tell us that Jesus was willing to be vulnerable, and for a moment "feel" instead of "fix." His friend Lazarus (who he would later raise from the dead!) had just passed away and his emotions welled up. He felt sorry for the crowd and Lazarus's sisters Mary and Martha. He did what the book of Romans calls, "mourning with those who mourn."
A few friends who get probably the worst rap in the Bible are Job's friends who provide him nearly 40 chapters of bad advice. (Not much different than mid-afternoon TV!) Anyway, in Job's friends' defense, when Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar heard that Job had lost his possessions, his children, and was physically sick they "met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. (Job 2:11) The three men wept alound and sat with Job in silence and tears for seven days. Seven days! (How many women could be quiet for seven days?!) These are rare friends!
In our crazy lives it is easy for us each to become too busy to take on each other's pain. The impending divorce... The lost job... The wayward teen... But as Jesus showed us, being a true friend means being willing to shed real tears because of love for the hurting.
When I think about my own funeral someday I don't want plastic, paid-off mourners but true friends who are both thankful for my home-going and heart-sick. Emotion at the end of life begins with emotional investment in others now.
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