“What is this salty discharge?” –Jerry Seinfeld
This is a humorous and poignant memory from the sitcom for Seinfeld fans. Jerry has broken up with his current girlfriend and suddenly discovers that he has emotions. When I first saw this episode, I laughed. However, it speaks truth to the human experience. Throughout the universe, we are connected to one another and the divine.
Bishop Al Wesley Goodwin of the United Methodist Church once said, "We are not human beings having a supernatural experience; we are supernatural beings having a human experience."
The human experience is good but can be awful when we go through tough times of loss and grief. These times can lead us to do and say things we would typically not.
Grief is like an unplanned, unexpected nuclear bomb that goes off in our body, mind, and Spirit.
It has no ending; it just goes on for all eternity. The mushroom cloud may be gone, but the impact of the radiation to kill everything in its path goes on forever. Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie[a], a Polish-French Physicist, did groundbreaking research working with radioactive isotopes. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize and then won it again for her continued work in physics. Marie Curie died in 1934, aged 66, at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy (Haute-Savoie), France, of aplastic anemia likely from exposure to radiation in the course of her scientific research and in the course of her radiological work at field hospitals during World War I.[9]When she died, her body was so radioactive that they had to line her casket with lead. Her body is still radioactive today and will be for hundreds of years.
There is a moment in John 11:35 where Jesus attends the funeral of his best friend, Lazarus. The gospel writer simply records the raw emotion displayed by saying, "Jesus wept."
I don't think the gospel writer intended for Jesus to shed a tear; instead, I think the emotions were so powerful that Jesus probably ripped his garments and fell to his knees while crying out to God.
Sometimes, that is all we can do. There are no words, just cries from the depths of our mind, body, and Spirit. We weep as an expression of the inexpressible. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:26-27 about the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer,
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God's people by the will of God. [1]
In the film Forrest Gump, when he and Jenny Walk to her father's house where she was abused physically and sexually, she breaks down in groans and unspeakable words. She begins to throw rocks breaking windows in the old home of horrors, Forrest Gump comments, "Sometimes there aren't enough rocks." When there aren't enough rocks, God hears our inexpressible groans and meets us at the epicenter of the atomic blast.
In my human experience, I have always wished that God would remove the times of loss and grief from me. However, that is not how God works. God walks through the valley of the shadow of death with us and leads us to the refreshing water where we can kneel and splash it on our weary faces. When we look up, we see Jesus fully. We see a resurrected Jesus who has experienced grief, loss, pain, and suffering—even death in the most hideous manner on the cross.
The good news is that on Friday, Sunday is coming. Mary Magdalene is the first witness to the resurrection and tells the disciples what she has seen. The disciples think she has gone mad and must see for themselves. They run to the tomb and see the folded grave clothes but leave, their faith dashed and bewildered.
I have been like those disciples. I have questioned whether God really raised Jesus from the dead. I have been to the graves of loved ones and left in bewilderment and grief. I don't want to be cliché when I say this; it takes time. Time I was reminded by a friend in my recovery group that stands for: THINGS I MUST EXPERIENCE.
As humans having a supernatural experience, it goes without saying that we will experience all this world has for us, but we don't do it alone. Jesus is with us, and when we don't know how to pray but groan, the Holy Spirit speaks in those moments.
I have found that when I experience God the most, I have to give up trying to do life myself; I have to groan and weep to God for help. It's the most I can muster, and believe me, God understands grief and groans. Remember, "Jesus wept." He was a supernatural being, and he endured suffering and loss. Even he had to cry out to God. Why shouldn't we?
During Albert Einstein's teaching career, he had an Advanced Physics class at Harvard with the top minds in the country. As he passed thefinal exam, one of the students questioned, "Isn't this the final exam from last term?" Einstein replied, "Yes, but the answers are different this term." It is our nature to wrestle with tough questions, but with time, the answers are always different, even though the questions are the same.
My awareness of the human experience is that at some point, it will end, and I will be buried; this is not that day, and it is my job to keep moving and let Jesus and my friends carry me through the ugly of life. I need to groan and weep before God and let God do what God does: bless and lift us up just as God raised Jesus from the dead.
Yes, Jerry, "we do have emotions; if we didn't, we wouldn't be fully human and present in this world."
[1] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Ro 8:26–27.
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