Sowing in Tears (April 6)

Readings, Psalm 126, Isaiah 43:16-21, and Philippians 3:4b-14
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May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. There might not be a more profound prayer than the one held in this simple line from today’s Psalm. It is a timeless petition, for until the age to come when God wipes all tears from our eyes, the human experience shall not be short of tears, nor the longing for them to be replaced with joy. It is a prayer we might have prayed for ourselves, for a loved one, or for whole regions and peoples wracked by ruinous calamity or military violence.
 
This sentiment, this hope, that those who sow in tears shall reap in joy, runs throughout Scripture. Could it not describe the yearning and journey of Ruth and Naomi, the prophetic hope given to slaves in Egypt and exiles in Babylon, is it not descriptive of the travails of Joseph or of Hagar. The psalm could be sung over the people of God at so many points in their history and feel as though it was written directly for them. Just as countless faithful have opened their Bible to this page and heard it speak the longing of their heart.  
 
It is fitting then, that this verse, particularly when we let it run on to the next, proves a succinct plot summary of that first Easter morning: Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. Or, in a perhaps more potent translation (from Robert Alter):
He walks along and weeps,
The bearer of the seed bag.
He will surely come in with glad song
Bearing his sheaves.
 
For does this not describe the journey of Mary Magdalene on Easter morn? She who walked, weeping, bearing spices to the tomb of her Lord, is she who comes home with shouts of joy, returning to the disciples with glad song to rouse them from their mourning.
 
Perhaps it should be no surprise that such a verse maps so poetically onto the Easter scene. For the rising of Christ, his triumph over Death, is the divine signature beneath the promise that those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. The resurrection of Christ, as Paul strives to describe, is that which strengthens us to forget what lies behind and to press on toward the goal. The resurrection is that truth of surpassing value which permits us to hope that the story does not end in tears, that the losses are not forever, that the seeds watered in tears will not grow trees of sorrow. The fields of our lives might be laid to waste by calamity and tragedy but they shall not remain barren. For the resurrection signals the coming of a day when all shall rise, and all things shall be restored to their former glory, as the great Sower arrives with glad song, heralding the in-breaking of new creation.
 
None of this is to suggest that because of this promise of glad song we need put down our laments. For as the teacher says, there is a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. The psalm conveys that it is by honouring one time that the other comes to fruition. It is by sowing in tears that the changing of the seasons leads us to reaping in joy and glad song. Had Mary not gone to attend Christ in her grief, she would not have had her heard her name spoken by her Lord and friend. Our faith is one of death and resurrection; the latter does not ignore but transforms the former. So too the griefs in our life are real, the losses profound, and there are those who know sufferings and losses which defy the understanding of all but their compatriots in the valley of death. And far too many never live to feel taste the tears replaced by laughter returning to their mouths and glad song to their hearts. The tears of today are too real to be waved away by the promise of tomorrow, the time must be taken to sow and wait before there’s any talk of reaping.  
 
In a similar way, none of this is to suggest that suffering is inherently good. That the knowledge it brings, the experience it provides, the ground it serves for cultivating transformation is enviable. There’s a line in Saul Bellow’s novel, Mr Sammler’s Planet, where a Jewish survivor of the Nazi death camps remarks, “To some people, true enough, experience seemed wealth. Misery worth a lot. Horror a fortune. Yes. But I never wanted such riches.” We recall that Christ weeps for his friend Lazarus as he lies in his tomb, even though Christ is the resurrection and the life, who can call his friend by name and lead him into life. Griefs are too awful to be envied, even if what might be sowed in their season might lead to glad song in another. Just because Joseph’s sale into slavery leads to the salvation of many, or because Hagar’s casting out leads to her encounter with God in the wilderness, this does not mean we take as necessary, excusable, or enviable the actions of others that led them there. Nor should it prompt us to say, how fortunate they suffered such woe, otherwise they would never have felt such joy.
 
May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. This is a sublime prayer, an earnest hope, a foundational promise. It speaks God’s nature to make straight the paths through the wilderness and provide water in the dessert. It speaks the Easter promise of resurrection which transforms death and allows Paul to consider the worldly privileges he lost in his dying with Christ merely excrement compared to what he has gained by sharing in Christ’s resurrection. It speaks the Spirit’s power to prevent grief being the last word, or loss the final state. It reminds us that though there is a time to weep and mourn there will be another time, if not in this life, then in the age to come, when tears shall be wiped from our eyes and all things restored to dazzling glory.
 
And while speaking this comfort and promise, the psalm also speaks our commission as Christ’s disciples living in this time between Christ’s resurrection and return. For too much suffering need not be, and too many of our fellows are denied the time, care, and justice required to move from weeping to glad song. It belongs to us, as Christ’s, to live and work with our neighbours that we might share the burden of the seed bag when they weep and work to clear away that which stifles what could grow out from their season of grief if only the world would stop dumping calamity on their heads. Let us live with our neighbours in their times of mourning and their seasons of waiting, that we might join in the glad song and shouts of joy when the time of reaping has begun. For this is the very image of Christ, who though buried in tears, rises to gather his scattered and weeping friends so they may know once more the time of dancing and laughter.