Articles
If We Cannot Weep
I don’t know when it happened, and I don’t know why, but at some point men became convinced that crying (and especially crying in public) is unmanly. I think every man has felt this. We hold back our tears. If—despite all our efforts—our eyes begin to water, we do our best to hide it. Some men have done this so well that their own children might comment, “I’ve never seen Dad cry.” But we’ve got something wrong. Weeping and tears are a part of our religion. If we cannot weep, then…
How can we keep God’s commandment? “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). If we have conditioned ourselves to hide our emotions, how can we share in the emotions of others?
How can we follow Jesus’ example? One of the most powerful verses of the Bible is also one of the shortest. “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). How can we be ashamed of something that our Lord did?
We aren’t responding to our sins properly. “Be miserable and mourn and weep” (Jam. 4:9). “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you” (Jam. 5:10). Peter wept bitterly after realizing that he had denied Jesus three times even though he swore he would never do such a thing (Mt. 26:75).
We aren’t responding to others’ sins properly. The Corinthians had become arrogant about one of their member’s sinning, but they were supposed to “mourn instead” (I Cor. 5:2). Paul wept as he thought about men who had become enemies of the cross of Christ (Phil. 3:18). He also said that “for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears” (Acts 20:31).
We may not be showing others how much we love them. After all, it was through tears that Christians showed how much they would miss Paul (Acts 20:37-38). It was through weeping, that they showed their concern for Paul’s well-being (Acts 21:13). In return, Paul wrote to the Corinthians “with many tears” so that they would “know the love” which he had for them (II Cor. 2:4).
Men, if we cannot weep, we aren’t manly, we’re broken. David, the great warrior king—a man’s man, if you will—shared his response to distress. “I am weary with my sighing; every night I make my bed swim, I dissolve my couch with my tears” (Ps. 6:6). We would be foolish to accuse David of not being manly. We would be horribly wrong to think of Jesus as weak. He allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross for our sakes and endured that pain for hours on end. They wept. So can we.
I don’t know when men became convinced that we shouldn’t cry, but I know we didn’t get that message from the Bible. It isn’t easy to let go of the conditioning or of the cultural pressure, but we need to find a way. I write this as a hypocrite of hypocrites. I have known this message to be true for a long time, but to this day I struggle with overcoming the inner stigma. Join me in striving to be less ashamed and more open.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh” (Lk. 6:21)
