The world has been torn apart by a thousand devastations, maybe more.  I have never before witnessed a collective shattering like this where most mourners aren’t looking to stake out sides but simply witness, then lament.  It is in times like these where I’m always more deeply drawn to prayer, to silence, to language, to voice that can soothe something of our fears.  

One such voice that came at exactly the right hour was the conversation between Kate Bowler and N.T. Wright on her podcast Everything Happens.  Kate asks him what Scriptures give comfort when life suddenly comes apart, to which he expounds on John 20, a passage that is commonly preached at Easter.  It is a story of mistaken gardeners and resurrection, of agony and of angels.  

To be frank, I have heard this passage preached dozens of times that it can lack luster, once robust, now routine.  But these words enchanted me anew.  Mary Magdalene had come to the tomb to weep over Jesus, but instead she finds two angels.  John and Peter had joined her, quickly and matter-of-factly, but instead of angels, they only see grave clothes.  

Wrights’ argument between the two experiences is that the only difference is in the offering of her tears.  He tenderly reflects, “I’ve often thought that maybe tears function as a kind of lens through which one might just see angels…John 20 is all about new creation, but it’s about new creation glimpsed through tears.”

Tears become the mirrors into which we may gaze at the eternal New born in our nows. Eyes that pay attention and glisten as injustice abounds can offer a curative vision of the possible.  Beauty, truth, love wait in the clear, windows unsealed into the soul of the world.

Grief then is not something to run from, but to welcome as part of the living, and being human in the tense and tender world.  Grief is the posture, the honor it is to bear with, to bear witness to all that still suffers.  And it is the invitation to behold the new life and wholeness that God has been long laboring for with groans too deep for words.

We are trusted to participate and co-labor with God in this work.  As the community of the aggrieved and still-hopeful hearted, we wonder and weave, sculpt and sing, mold and model after the creativity of a God who never slumbers, but re-strings the world with tears in their eyes.

Like Mary Magdalene, we must imagine more than what empire takes from us, the death surrounding us, stealing what is holy and irreplaceable.  We must offer our tears, glimmering with light, holding vigil with angels.  These tears that water the seeds blooming in inhospitable places, outposts of resurrection, pressed in like a promise.  

We must listen as the rocks quake and cry out, orchestrating songs worth eavesdropping on.  We must wait and watch as danger scatters at dawn’s first sparkling.  We must open ourselves to the compassion replacing confusion from still-scarred hands.  Because it is precisely here, we recognize the single note that is Love’s true tuning fork, the Voice that echoes our name.