Breaking God's Heart

“Jesus wept” John 11:25 is the shortest verse in the Bible.  Yet it is filled with implications.  It allows us to not only see Jesus’ humanness, but how He our God, also has feelings.  You see, our God does grieve.  But are we, mere humans, capable of breaking His heart? 

 

I am helping teach a tenth grade English class.  We are getting ready to read the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel.  It is the story of the Holocaust from a survivor’s point of view.  I decided to pre-read the book primarily since my dad’s family were Holocaust survivors.  I had heard his stories over the years.  Yet, having heard them so many times, had become somewhat de-sensitized to the horror of it all.  And yet, I knew that if I read it, all my feelings toward it would come back; the shock, the horror, reliving the past as I had heard it told.

I started the book with much trepidation.  I knew that it would stir an avalanche of feelings in me.  Furthermore, my father passed away over twenty years ago.   I knew I would have no way to discuss and process what I read.  However, I needed to read the book; not just for classroom knowledge but for self-knowledge.  So last week, I began the book.

Within the first twenty-five pages, my stomach was lurching.  What I was reading was incomprehensible.  Given the “right” set of circumstances, I saw where people could turn from helping one another to going into complete survival mode and not reaching out to anyone – ignoring the cries of relatives in order to save oneself.  They went from believing in God to questioning whether or not there was a God.  It sickened me, but more importantly it made me incredibly sad.  In order to protect myself, I began to draw back from the book and read it with a more universal view.  How did God view this madness known as the Holocaust?  Could it be that He could watch and be as grief-filled and full of compassion as myself?

            In the Bible, grieving is defined as having great mental anguish.  God grieves in many places in the Bible.  The Bible also tells us that God has compassion.   Passion comes from the Latin root compassio.  It is an ecclesiastical loan-translation of Greek sympatheia which comes from syn- "together" and pathos "feeling".  In other words, to have compassion means to suffer with someone.  So, let’s look at how God has grieved and shown compassion in the Bible. 

In Matthew 26: 36-45 it says, “Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” ³⁷ He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. ³⁸ Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

³⁹ Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

⁴⁰ Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. ⁴¹ “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

⁴² He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

⁴³ When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. ⁴⁴ So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.

⁴⁵ Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners.

Jesus agonized over His fate.  He asked his disciples to remain awake with him; this shows his human side, fraught with emotions.  After all, He was not just God incarnate – He was a human as well.  Even when he was alone with His Father, He prayed to Him.  He not only asked God to take away what He knew was going to happen but He begged Him.  Like us at times, His spirit was broken; He was weak.  However, He ultimately surrendered to His Father’s will.  Why?  "For God so loved the world..." John 3:16 

In Matthew 9:35, it talks about Jesus healing the multitudes.  Verse 36 says, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them …” Yes, he could feel their suffering.

Compassion is interesting.  It is something that if you have too little of, it is not good.  Conversely, if you have too much, it can also be a bad thing.  Ever hear the expression, too much of a good thing?  That’s compassion.  It takes you to a place where you can literally feel the suffering of another in your very soul.  I know this because one of my greatest gifts is compassion.  It is also my Achilles heel.  I literally can feel the pain of another.  Compassion can be so overwhelming that you can actually go to a place of grief because you suffer with the other person.  In my experience, grief and compassion are intertwined.

In Genesis Chapter 6, God is grieved when he sees how wicked mankind has become on earth.  Genesis 6:6 says, "the Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain."  Imagine, creating so much anguish in our very own Creator that his heart feels pain.  The One who made us, actually regretted having created us. 

So, how do you suppose God felt when he looked down and saw mankind removing the humanness in others?  Taking men, women and children to a place that knew no limits to degradation and cruelty.  And for what?  Because of their religious beliefs?  The color of their eyes?  Whether or not they survived depended on their strength or lack thereof?  I know that just reading about it made me cry.  I was horrified; even, sick to my stomach.  How did our Creator feel?  After all, mankind is His creation.  He is perfect, and yet, we fall so far from His grace and mercy.

The book took me to many places I didn’t wish to go.  It explained my family history for me.  My father’s family never made it out of Nazi Germany.  Interestingly enough, it was through a single act of compassion that he did.

He told me a story of how he was staying at someone’s house.  One night, the SS was going door to door, looking for Jews.  When the SS came to the house where he was staying, it turned out that the soldier was an old school friend of my father’s.   Imagine…a childhood friend with whom you played now coming to round you up to take you to a concentration camp.  Well, as it turns out, his friend had compassion.  You see, rather than put him on a cattle car and hauling him to a concentration camp, he told my dad to get out; that things were getting very bad.  Despite his politics or belief system or for whatever reason he joined the Nazi regime, for a nanosecond, he remembered that this was his old friend.  And he told him – it’s bad.  The soldier left and never reported him.  My father left his home country and came to the U.S.  He sent for his mother at a later time.  He had several failed attempts at getting her out but eventually, succeeded. 

However, he lost the rest of his family; his father, sister, brother-in-law and a young niece.  I never really understood how his sister died until I read the book “Night”.   She was shot during the liberation for not keeping up.  I could never understand that; how does one who is liberated get shot?  By whom?  The Allies?   After reading the book, I realized the liberation was actually the Nazis moving prisoners from camp to camp.  In essence, she was shot and killed by an SS soldier for tripping and falling.

I think everyone knows that I am a Christian.  My father never had a problem with my converting to Christianity, which I did at the age of fourteen.  In fact, he asked the pastor of my church to protect me if the Nazi regime ever came to power again.  At the time, my young mind couldn't imagine why he would ask such a question; now I know.

But this story doesn’t end there.  As I think back on that night that the SS soldier came to the house, I wonder; what prompted his spirit to give my father such wise advice as to get out?  What made him decide to spare him, rather than yank him out of that house like so many before him?  And what would have happened if he had done that?

The answer is pretty clear.  First of all, my father’s family would have been completely exterminated.  That means, I would not be here to tell this story, since I would not have been born. Personally, I believe this is an important story -- one that needs to be told.  Yes, Elie Wiesel told his story but there are so many more stories out there.  Each one different but with a common thread.  God's chosen people were being exterminated. Had that SS soldier followed orders, I would not have ever existed.  And yet, God in his mercy understood that.  He allowed my father to live.

How exactly do I think our Creator reacted to all this evil on the earth?  As he does now….He grieves it. That makes me incredibly sad.  He has done everything to redeem us and to love us – even to the point of breaking His Son; the ultimate sacrifice, our Savior and Redeemer. 

There’s a song by the Sidewalk Prophets called “You Love Me Anyway”.  In it the lyrics say,

“I am the thorn in your crown
But You love me anyway
I am the sweat from Your brow
But You love me anyway
I am the nail in Your wrist
But You love me anyway
I am Judas' kiss
But You love me anyway
See now I am the man who yelled out from the crowd
For Your blood to be spilled on this earth shaking ground
Yes then I turned away with a smile on my face
With this sin in my heart, tried to bury Your grace
And then alone in the night I still call out for You
So ashamed of my life, my life, my life
But You love me anyway
Oh God, how You love me

The song is, in essence saying, we are all culpable for Jesus’ death.  Let’s face it – we are sinful beings and whether we were physically there or not, we are the reason Jesus died.  It’s a pretty convicting song. 

So, is mankind capable of breaking God's heart?  Yes, we are.  God grieves. “Jesus wept”.  And yes, we are quite capable of breaking our God’s heart.

 

 

 

 

           

 

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