THE GOD WHO WEPT A HUMAN TEAR: SOME THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

Abstract

As I write this essay, there is ongoing war in Afghanistan, violence still in Iraq, and deaths are mounting because of swine flu. South of where I live in greater Chicago there were fifteen shootings on just one night. In a world of so much, manifest suffering what can the historic Christian faith say? John 11:35 tells us that ‘Jesus wept.’ In other words, God incarnate wept. But did only Jesus, the second Person of the triune Godhead, weep? What of his Father in heaven? In Mel Gibson’s movie Passion of the Christ when Jesus expires on the cross, a tear falls from heaven. Theologically considered, was such symbolism defensible or indefensible? As we shall see theologians divide in answering such a question.