Sunday, March 22, 2026 - Jesus Wept
March 22, 2026
Deborah Laforet
“Jesus Wept”
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by your
Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
How many of you have seen the Pixar’s animated film, “Inside Out”? IMDB (the Internet Movie
Database) describes it in this way: “After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to
San Francisco, her emotions, Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness, conflict on how best to navigate a
new city, house, and school.” That description gives the basic premise but doesn’t really touch on the
major plot point.
You see, these five emotions inside Riley’s head help her to express her feelings but they also
take care of her memories, especially the core memories, which look like these beautiful, coloured orbs.
Of course, Joy, wants all of these core memories to be yellow, which represents joyful memories. The
problem comes when Sadness touches one of these beautiful yellow orbs and it turns blue, causing
Riley, who has just moved to a new school, to cry in front of her class, which then causes a core memory
that is full of sadness. Anger, fear, or disgust are one thing, but Joy does not want any of Riley’s core
memories to be sad. The plot gets much more involved when Joy and Sadness have to leave Riley’s
“control station” in head to save all the core memories, which have been lost, but this journey forces Joy
to work with Sadness, and to ultimately understand how important it is to be sad and how expressing
that sadness and making room for sadness makes Riley a more whole, and complete person.
It’s profound. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch.
Today, as part of our Lenten series, we are talking about sadness. Now, no one truly likes to talk
about sadness. Of all the emotions, it’s the one our culture really tries to suppress and hides. Again, like
fear, anger, and disgust, sadness is seen as a negative emotion, one that we try to get past as quickly as
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possible. Tears are often seen as a sign of weakness or failure. We apologize for them, and many of us
cry silently, so as not to bother anyone with this strong and deeply felt emotion.
Sadness is an emotion with which I tend to struggle a lot. I find sadness to be very difficult to
express, and almost impossible to share. I wish I could just freely weep when I feel sad or feel
comfortable sobbing on someone’s shoulder. I’m working on it, but in the meantime, the sadness often
sits inside of me, weighing me down, and holding me back in many ways.
So, let's talk first about the benefit of crying, of the freedom of expressing our sadness.
1. Crying creates balance. Crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system slowing breathing and
heart rate. It can create a sense of relief. It also helps your body digest food and rest better.
2. It provides emotional pain relief. Long periods of crying can help relieve physical and emotional
pain. When you cry, your body releases oxytocin and other endorphins associated with pain relief.
Crying is also an important part of the grieving process, and helps process loss.
3. Crying, contrary to what many think, is a mood booster. Crying can lift your mood. Emotional tears
contain stress hormones as well as the mineral manganese. Manganese is associated with anxiety,
irritability and nervousness, so crying is one way to release tension. Keeping your emotions and
stress inside is linked to poor immune health.
4. Finally, you can find connection through your tears. For many, crying in front of others is very
uncomfortable and make one feel very vulnerable. As awkward as it may feel, one of the greatest
benefits of crying is the social connection you may experience with others. Tears prompt others to
offer support, ultimately making you feel better. Tears may be shared and create depth to a
relationship.
This morning, Candy read a beautiful story from John’s gospel, and it’s not only beautiful
because Jesus raised his friend from the dead. It’s beautiful because of the emotion expressed in this
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story, not only by Mary and Martha who had just lost their brother, but by Jesus, who had lost a good
friend. No one hides their sadness in this story, and the mourners are surrounded by community, there to
comfort them in their grief. We read that when Jesus saw Mary weeping, and the other mourners as well
- everyone seemed to be in tears - he was troubled in spirit, moved by the deepest emotions. When the
mourners offer to take Jesus to where Lazarus was laid, he then weeps.
Thus far, we have looked at four emotions: fear, anger, disgust, and sadness. Next week is Palm
Sunday and Trinity United will be joining us for worship. We’ll look at another emotion on our wheel:
surprise. We’ll also be celebrating PIE day, which stands for Public, Intentional, and Explicit, three
words we use as an Affirming Church to guide us as we create a space of belonging for everyone, and
we’ll also be recognizing the Transgender Day of Visibility. We’ll also be celebrating communion.
It’ll be a lot, so I thought today, we would take some time in community to talk to each other
about our feelings. We heard earlier how crying is a form of social connection and that our tears prompt
others to offer support, ultimately making us feel better. Sharing our tears can create depth to a
relationship. I think this is true of all of our emotions.
I invite you at this time to talk someone near you or take some time in silence to think about your
own emotions - how you process them and express them, and how you share them with others. With
what emotions do you struggle the most? What comes easiest? I’ve put the seven basic emotions from
the emotional wheel on the screen, along with these questions. Take about ten minutes.
(Ten minutes in conversation or in silence.)
We live in a culture where emotions are seen as weakness or where people in power can easily
express them and those on the margins are condemned and locked up for expressing them. We’re
encouraged to express them with therapists and social workers, which isn’t a bad thing, but might not be
as urgently needed if we could freely express our emotions and support one another through them.
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An easy-going, justice seeking, Affirming community might be one of those spaces where we
can learn to share our stories, our feelings, our thoughts, without being condemned, without being seen
as weak, and even being seen as strong and valued. A loving, faith community might just be the perfect
place to start breaking down these cultural norms.
May God give us the strength to express our emotions. May Jesus be our teacher in how we
share our feelings with our community and with those we love. And may the Spirit be our guide in
creating a kingdom on earth where we can have all the feels and be loved and supported through them.
May it be so. Amen.