I was hiking solo, plodding along the trail and occasionally, carefully, picking my way through the gnarly roots poised at a moment’s notice to grab a toe or entrap a heel and take me to the ground.
It was quiet. No chatter with hiking friends nor playlist pulsing through earbuds.
I listened to the trees swaying in the breeze, to the squirrels rustling through winter’s dead leaves still carpeting the forest floor, and to my own breath as I pulled on trekking poles to haul myself up the steeper portions of the trail.
I don’t recall thinking about anything until I saw them – and not for the first-time mind you – dotting the trail, a scattering of creamy white petals in stark contrast to the muddy brown dirt of the trail. They were the blossom petals fallen from a nearby dogwood tree.
Just a few days before, I remarked to my hiking partners that the dogwoods were really showing off. The woods were sprinkled with patches of dogwood in the peak of bloom – beautiful with their white blossoms brilliant and stunning in the sunlight.
Now past their peak, the blooms had fallen to the ground making way for the new glossy green leaves. Perhaps it was because I was alone and not preoccupied with friendly chatter or music in my ear that I had the thought – “Tears, they are tears. Jesus’s tears.”
Having heard the “Legend of the Dogwood Tree” relating the trees mythical connection to the crucifixion, and the symbolism attributed to the blossoms – cross shaped, crown of thorns in the center, and red-tinged blossom tips – my thought from fallen petals to Jesus’s tears was not too broad a leap.
I continued to dwell on the thought as I hiked the trail, occasionally encountering more random fallen tears.
We know that Jesus wept. He shed tears at his friend’s grave (John 11:35). As Jesus approached Jerusalem, he wept over the city (Luke 19:41). In Hebrews 5:7-9, we are told that while on earth Jesus “offered prayers and pleadings with a loud cry and tears.”
I wonder, did Jesus weep as he hung on the cross? Even as the anointed Son of God, Jesus was fully human, capable of all human emotions. Did he shed tears for himself and his imminent death on that dark day we call “Good Friday”?
He addressed his mother, Mary, and John, his friend and apostle, from the cross. Did tears of sorrow run down his cheeks as he said goodbye to these he loved?
Even as he experienced the excruciating death of the cross, did he again weep over the state of affairs in Jerusalem – the greed, the corruption, the power mongering among both civil and church leaders leading to gross societal inequities and much human suffering? Did he grieve and weep for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized of society?
I don’t know, but I want to think he did.
So, what do we do with Jesus’s grief and tears on this Good Friday? Perhaps it would be good to embrace the message of Galatians 2:20: I am crucified with Christ; therefore, I no longer live. Jesus Christ now lives in and through me.
It might be good, if we are willing, to examine ourselves individually and collectively in the truth, light and love of the Christ within.
Are we able to acknowledge and feel the heartache and weep over our city, state, nation, world – the greed, the inequities, the poverty, the oppression, the marginalization, the violence?
As the dogwood blossoms – Jesus’s tears – fell, they gave way to the shiny, new leaves and the full spectrum of the tree’s growth and maturity – a resurrection of sorts.
In embracing the full impact of Christ’s grief and tears, can we know resurrection in and through the truth and fullness of union with Christ – his grief and his tears?
That would be good!
Retired after 38 years in education and counseling, the last nine of those as school counselor serving a campus of 650+ third, fourth and fifth graders. When not traveling, she fills her days with community, charitable and civic work, along with occasionally writing for The Tyler Loop and blogging at Pilgrim Seeker Heretic, affirming the sacredness of life and the sacrament of relationships.