This morning I ran across one of my favorite passages of Scripture in my devotional reading. Jeremiah 8:18-9:3. It is a beautifully, heart-breaking passage about grief and it strikes me every time I read it. Traditionally, interpreters have resisted attributing the shedding of the tears in this passage to God which is why a lot of Bibles insert a subtitle into the text right before verse 18 asserting that the following verses reflect the deep grief Jeremiah himself felt. I disagree. And so do a growing chorus of recent scholars who claim the principle speaker remains God Himself. Both before and after this passage, the Bible makes it clear that it is God who is the speaker but we are uncomfortable with God showing such emotion and so we try to "protect" Him by inserting Jeremiah into the text.
Why are we so afraid of a God who weeps?
First, I think we are deeply uncomfortable with the idea that God shows any negative emotion at all. Sure, we will acknowledge that God loves us. We will write songs about His love. Praise Him for His great love. And all of that is well and good. But what about God's wrath? What about God's heartbreak over our sin? What makes these words in Jeremiah so powerful is the deep, visceral grief they reflect. The joy of God is gone? The heart of God is sick? Wounded even? Mourning and dismay have taken hold of God? Can this be true? Then you flip over to chapter nine and read about God's eyes being a fountain of tears. God weeping night and day. God longing to escape his people by going out into the wilderness. Leaving his abode in the Temple. Certainly these are what Bible scholars would call "anthropomorphisms" which is a fancy term for saying they are metaphors. God speaking to us in a language we can understand. God using categories that we know to communicate His point. But just because the language is metaphorical, does it make it any less true?
Why is it so hard for us to accept that God displays a full range of emotions? I think it has to do with how we view God's perfection. His immutable nature. We rightly believe God's character is unchanging but we wrongly believe passion/emotion - or in this case grief - would force God to change. Historically this is what we call "impassibility." The idea that God is "without passion or emotion." Definitely more of a Stoic/Greek philosophical category than a biblical one, it has fully infiltrated our theology in the Western church. But the Hebrew Bible (OT) has no problem attributing deep emotion with God. God is a God of great love. Great passion for His people. Great anger when they sin. He is fiercely loyal. And yes, He grieves when they betray Him. In many different places, God depicts Himself as a jilted lover. A betrayed husband. A father whose children have abandoned him. These are strong images for God and cannot be denied.
One can break this passage down into three laments. God is the subject in each as indicated by the use of the first person pronouns. In the first lament, verses 18-20, God is in anguish over the cries of His people. “My sorrow is beyond healing, my heart is faint within me!” God's people cry out to Him for deliverance. In their arrogant attitude, they fail to understand how they could have ended up in exile and their heartbreaking questions cause God deep distress. “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not within her?” But God is not a god who stands far off from their pain. As one moves into the second lament in verse 21, we hear this startling statement. “For the brokenness of the daughter of my people, I am broken.” The verb used twice in this particular verse does indeed mean “broken” when in noun form (the brokenness of the daughter of my people), but is intensified by the verb form (I am broken). Thus, a more literal rendering might read, “For the brokenness of the daughter of my people, I am shattered.” This intensification clearly demonstrates the depths to which God has plunged in His grief and is reinforced in the opening verse of chapter 9 where He cries out, “Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” Clearly, God exhibits a divine grief so deep and moving that it cannot be contained. And this sense of overwhelming grief seemingly puts the future of the covenant at risk in Jeremiah 9:2 when God searches for a way out, a refuge to which He might escape, or as the book of Jeremiah puts it, “a wayfarer’s lodging place that I might leave my people and go from them!” This is a remarkable statement especially in light of the fact that this “lodging place” is located in the desert, the wilderness, away from Jerusalem and the house that bears God's name.
Does this put the future at risk? Does it mean God will abandon us? That God is somehow controlled by His emotions? Or loses control like we often do? Slow down. Take a breath. I think one of the primary reasons we fear an "emotional God" is because of how often our own emotions overrule our thoughts and drive us into sin. Because that's all we know, we equate an emotional God with an out of control God and that rightly makes us uncomfortable. But isn't it equally possible that God can remain unchanging in His character and yet experience divine pathos? In fact, in light of the biblical narrative, doesn't this make the most sense? God is fiercely loyal to His covenant. When that covenant is threatened by human unfaithfulness and sin, doesn't it make sense for a purely righteous God to respond not only with anger but also deep grief? Isn't that an indication of how great His love is for His people?
What if instead of projecting our own fears and insecurities about our emotions onto God, we simply accepted God at His Word? What if we sought to understand God on His terms and assumed the emotions He experiences and expresses are perfectly in line with His immutable character? Would that not free us to connect with God more deeply? Would it not help us to understand the deep love the drove Him to send us His Son? Would it not cause us to pause and reflect on how our actions affect Him on a daily basis? How our choices either bring Him joy or cause Him pain? And while that doesn't effect a change in God - for He truly is eternal and immutable - it might effect a deep change in us.