Seeds of New Life

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were written right after a small group of exiles had returned to Israel for the first time after being in Babylon for 70 years. When they see the city of Jerusalem, it is basically in ruins. We’re told that those few who remembered the past when they saw the city, they wept.

Piece by piece, Nehemiah, their leader, focuses his efforts to pull the people together, to pick up the pieces, rebuild, restore, and to start over.

Starting over is hard. When you are sitting there in the shattered ruins of life as you know it, you’re pretty vulnerable.

It strikes me that in life, there are ever moments of loss, rebuilding, restarting. Some of it heart wrenching: the death of a loved one, divorce, job loss. Some maybe even positive, but tough nonetheless: starting a new job, retirement, children moving away.

There is indeed a time to grieve our losses, to lament. It is important not to gloss over that, not to skip it. Even the impulse, God I know I’ve not done this well, I’ve messed up. I know I need to change, sometimes it is important to feel that too.

With lament and grief, if we stuff it, or bury it, it often comes back to hurt worse later on. It often comes out in weird ways. So it is important to do it.

Pastor Leonard Sweet tells about an ancient Jewish commentary on the book of Genesis that claims when Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden, God bestowed one more gift on the condemned couple. God gave them the gift of tears. This would ensure that “when grief overtakes you, and your heart aches beyond enduring, and great anguish grips your soul, then there will fall from your eyes this tiny tear. And your burden will grow lighter.” The midrash continues, suggesting that when Adam’s and Eve’s first tears landed on the earth, the first “garden” outside of Eden sprang forth. The tears of anguish and abandonment became tears of new life and new hope.

Sweet claims that “Our tears are liquid prayers. When they rain down, they flush out our guilt. Our tears rain down and release our fears. Our tears rain down and renew our souls.”

May you come to see that our tears are a gift. But we don’t grieve as those who are without hope. We weep as those who trust that our tears are seeds of new beginnings. And we weep as those who know the God who brings life out of death, and who has promised to make all things new.

Let us pray: Help us to grieve, O God, but not to get stuck there. Accept our tears as prayers and use them as seeds of new life; through Christ our Lord. Amen.