Christmas Devotional

The TWC 2020 Advent Devotional is here, highlighting “Names and Attributes of Jesus”.

(Pick one up at Trinity Wellsprings Church on Sunday Nov. 29th or sign up to receive daily devotionals during Advent or download the PDF or enable push notifications on the TWC Church App.)

One of the attributes of Jesus that stirs my soul is the portrait of Jesus as The One Who Wept from John 11:35. Here’s my own story with one of the shortest verses in the Bible, from Central Africa:

A one-day year old baby in Equatorial Guinea had died. A pastor’s family was grieving. The little lifeless body lay on top of the family room coffee table under a white cloth. The young men in the family joined with the family and friends in this small home, sweating profusely and visibly dirty from digging the grave out behind the house.

The grief was palpable.

Unasked questions ricocheted throughout the home. The cause of the death? Totally unknown. The baby had just…died. No explanation. No reason. Everyone felt, I think, a profound sense vulnerability and helplessness.

And, I was supposed to say…what exactly?

This was too early, way too early, for doing theological gymnastics. If I had tried to land a double back handspring at that moment (theologically-speaking, of course!) nobody would have been helped.

So in the midst of this grief, I preached softly on one of the shortest verses in the Bible: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

I had unanswered questions just like everyone there. My heart was in my chest like everyone there. Tears were welling up in my eyes like everyone else. Yet, two thousand years ago, Jesus had a friend. His name was Lazarus. And Jesus loved him enough to weep at his death.

Somehow, that matters.

Those tears profoundly affected the whole village of Bethany. The people noticed: “See how he loved him!” Those tears, I believe, were the most important human tears ever shed. The tears of Jesus give us license to feel profoundly, to hurt achingly, and to lament acutely. The heart of Jesus was big enough to weep because the heart of Jesus was big enough to love.

Today, your task is simple: can you ask — indeed plead — for God to give you that kind of heart, as you follow Jesus, The One Who Wept?