The Teardrop

The painting drew my attention as soon as I took my seat in the large college-campus church. I had seen the painting many times but had never really paid close attention to it until that moment when I noticed something I had not seen before.

The painting depicted Jesus hanging on the cross, but the detail I had missed was a single tear making its way down the anguished face of our Redeemer.

My mind immediately pictured a wind-swept Golgotha—the place of the skull—burdened with three heavy crosses. We often talk about the blood our Savior shed, the crude crown of thorns on His brow, and the cruel nails driven through His flesh.

But the sight of that lone tear falling down His bloodied cheek startled me. I had never given much time to thoughts of a weeping Savior and the mental and emotional anguish that lay behind that tear. Jesus endured beatings, mockery, and the horrendous crucifixion; it is impossible for us to ever imagine the agony Christ endured as those iron spikes were driven through His hands and as the cross was raised and thrust into the ground.

With His body deeply lacerated and bleeding, the spotless Lamb of God was lifted up for all the world. What unimaginable agony He endured at the wrath of Satan and the apparent separation from His beloved Father. His quivering lips trembled as He gasped, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, NIV).

Surrounded by the forces of evil in that terrible hour, Jesus could not discern His Father’s face and was tempted to think He had been abandoned.

And He endured it all because of His love for us and His trust in His Father’s love. An inspired writer wrote, “When men and women can more fully comprehend the magnitude of the great sacrifice which was made by the Majesty of heaven in dying in man’s stead, then will the plan of salvation be magnified, and reflections of Calvary will awaken tender, sacred, and lively emotions in the Christian’s heart. Praises to God and the Lamb will be in their hearts and upon their lips.”* Truly! What love is this!

Cordell Liebrandt

* Ellen. G. White, Lift Him Up (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald®, 1988), 43.