Application: I tend to "choke up" pretty easily. It's rather annoying at times, because I don't know when it's coming. Could be something really poignant, could be a stupid puppy chow commercial. But every now and then, it's while I'm preaching. This is especially mortifying in the moment, because I feel a hundred eyeballs glued to me, and I have to figure out how to power through. Must just be the stoic, American "bro" masculine conditioning I've gotten over the years. But it's uncomfortable.
I find it interesting, though, that the idealized, super-charged Jesus we find in John's Gospel, the one who always has the perfect comeback, the perfect teaching moment, the one for whom absolutely everything is going exactly according to plan...this is the Jesus who weeps. He doesn't break down like this in the synoptic Gospels. Just here in John, here in the right place and time, when people need to see, here he cries. And what the people see is love.
Chances are, most of my "verklempt" moments will not be as well orchestrated. But I know that sermons I remember from my childhood often involve the preacher being vulnerable, and maybe getting a bit emotional. We don't just "tell" the Gospel to each other. We witness.
Thank you, Lord, for making me who I am...which is sometimes a messy heap of man-tears at seemingly inappropriate times. Help me embrace it, as Jesus did, and find strength in compassion.
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