Are you one of those who thinks that a true Christian is always happy? A drummer in a Salvation Army band hit his bass drum with all his might - BOOM, BOOM! The band leader suggested that it might be better if he did not hit the drum so hard. "Bless ya, sir!" explained the drummer. "Ever since I was converted, I am so happy that I could just bust this bloomin' drum!"

The truth is that a Christian has times when tears are in order. In Ecciesiastes, we are told that there is "a time to weep and a time to laugh." No one, even a Christian, can be happy all the time. All sunshine and no dark days of rain make a desert. Lent is a time for tears. Lent is going with Jesus to Jerusalem where he suffers and dies. Isaiah describes him as "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." It was a time of tears for him - weeping at the grave of Lazarus, tears for Jerusalem, and tears in Gethsemane.

Most of us, however, don't like tears; we would rather smile and have pleasure. Some parents teach their children to repress tears. As children we were often told, "Don't be a cry baby!" Boys that cry are "sissies." At funerals we are admonished to be brave and not weep. After officiating at tearless funerals, I came to the conclusion that if no one shed a tear at my funeral, I would consider my life a failure. Because of the tears of Lent, it is not for some an attractive season of the church year. Some years ago a church periodical carried an ad for a series of Lenten sermons with the theme, Journey to Joy, and promised that the series was "sure to carry your people through Lent with pleasure." Jesus' journey to Jerusalem was not a pleasure trip; it was a pilgrimage of tears with suffering and sacrifice.

Tears are good for us. They are God-given as a part of our creation as human beings. Tears are not something to be ashamed of but to be grateful for. They give us emotional release and express our deepest feelings. In the medieval church there were petitions for "the gift of tears." Lent is a necessary time for tears, for we cannot appreciate joy without the prior experience of sorrow. To appreciate light, we must first sit in darkness. How can there be victory without the prospect of defeat? Unless we weep on Good Friday, we cannot truly celebrate Easter with joy. In these coming weeks, we will consider the tears of Lent.

In this first message of the series, we ask ourselves, "Does love make you sorry?" You probably remember the best-selling book and very popular movie, Love Story. The repeated theme was, "Love means never having to say you are sorry." Is it true or false? Love has no tears? In our text, we have a wicked woman who, out of love, says through her tears that she is sorry, and a "righteous" man who never says he is sorry. Which of the two should we be?

Love's Tears of Penitence

Our text tells us a story of a nameless prostitute who loved Jesus and of a "good" man, Simon by name, who did not really love Jesus. At least he thought enough of Jesus to invite him to his home for dinner. During the meal, a woman of the streets slips in uninvited and begins to wash Jesus' feet with her tears, drying them with her long hair, and anointing his feet with ointment she brought with her. Simon was offended by the prostitute's attention to Jesus, but he was tactful enough not to say anything about it. He thought to himself, "If Jesus were a true prophet, he would know she is a sinner and would not allow her to touch him." Jesus was a good mind reader. He knew what Simon was thinking, and so he called Simon's attention to the fact that, in contrast, he did not express his love as the woman did. "When I came into your house," Jesus continued, "you gave me no water to wash my feet, but this woman washed my feet with her tears. You gave me no kiss of greeting, but this prostitute kissed my feet. You did not anoint my head, but she anointed my feet." The reason for her devotion to Jesus was that "she loved much." Her tears expressed her penitence for her many sins, for true love is always sorry for hurting the one loved.

Do we find ourselves in the role of Simon the Pharisee? He was a religious leader. He tried hard to keep the laws of God. He prayed daily, never missed a synagogue service, and gave his tithes. From all outward appearances, he was a "righteous" man, a godly man. Yet, he had no tears of penitence for his sins of not loving people. Because many of us "good" people, who go to church, say our prayers, and support God's work need to be brought to tears of penitence for our sins. The church observes Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday - a special day of repentance. One of the Scripture lessons assigned for the day is from Joel. In it God says, "Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning ... Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep ..." We are called upon to weep for our sins.

Are we really sorry for our sins? It is customary on Ash Wednesday to celebrate the Lord's Supper. It is to be a comfort to those who weep for their sins, for Jesus in instituting the Eucharist said, "This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins ..." When I was a lad, children were not invited to come with their parents to the Communion rail. As I sat alone in the pew, I was indelibly impressed with the number of people returning to their pews with tears in their eyes. How different it is today when many return from Communion in a casual, flippant manner and often with smiles. In most churches today there is not a tear of penitence to be seen.

What causes tears of penitence? The answer is given by the sinful woman who invaded Simon's dinner party for Jesus. It was her love that caused her tears of penitence, for Jesus described her as one who "loved much." But how does love make you feel sorry and say you are sorry for your sins? It is as simple as this: If we do not love a person, we do not care what harm comes to him. When one whom we do not care for gets hurt, we are inclined to say, "Good for you. Too bad it was not worse." The young man, who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in Vatican Square, said at his trial, "If I could, I'd do it again." Obviously there was no love for the Pope on his part.

When we hurt people we love, either physically or emotionally, we are sorry to the point of tears. When a father accidentally backed his car over his little son and killed him, he sobbed and sobbed. He was so very sorry that he hurt his precious little boy. When we truly love someone, we would rather take the hurt ourselves. Though Absalom was a rebellious and disobedient son, who lost his life while fighting against his father's army, David wept, "O my son, Absalom. My son, my son! Would that I had died for you!"

And when you offend one you love, you are more than willing to apologize and say you are sorry. In the popular TV program, All in the Family, Archie and Edith had a marital spat. He deeply offended her when he said that she was not human. She declared that in the twenty-three years of their marriage, he had never said he was sorry, and until he did so, she would not be friends with him. For two weeks they did not talk to each other. Then Archie brought up the subject. Edith asked, "Are you saying you are sorry?" Grudgingly, he grunted an affirmative answer. He really loved Edith, and he had to swallow his pride by saying that he was sorry.

This shows us the meaning and horror of sin. It grieves and offends God, one we love with our whole being. Sin re-crucifies Jesus. When we hurt him by our sins, we break his heart, for you remember that on the cross, blood and water flowed out of his heart, a sign of a broken heart. When Peter realized what his triple denial meant to the one he loved the best, he wept bitterly. When we look at the cross and see that our sins continually put him there, it causes us to tremble, tremble.

What do our sins have to do with Jesus himself? We may tell lies, but not to Jesus. We may have stolen, but not from Jesus. We may have been unkind to a friend, but not to Jesus. The prostitute in our text might have said the same: I have had sex with various men, but I didn't do anything against Jesus, for he is not my husband. Why should she weep tears of penitence in front of Jesus as though she harmed and sinned against him? It is because what we do to hurt others is at the same time done against God. St. Paul was on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians, and Christ called to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" At that time, Paul did not even know Jesus. One time David got away with murder and adultery with Bathsheba, but God was displeased and sent Nathan to bring him to repentance. What we do against our fellowman, we do against God. That is why we need to come to Jesus with tears of penitence, for we all have deeply offended and hurt the One we truly love above all others.

Love's Tears of Gratitude

Why did the prostitute and not the Pharisee love Jesus to the point of tears? In our text, Jesus explains why she loved him to the point of tears. She committed many sins, and because she came to him with tears of penitence, she was forgiven. Her love resulted from forgiveness. Jesus explained, "He who has forgiven little, loves little." He taught this lesson to Simon by telling a parable about two men who were in debt. The one owed fifty dollars and the other owed five hundred dollars. When they could not pay up, they were forgiven the debt. Which of the two loved the lender more? Simon had no trouble in giving the right answer: the one who was forgiven the five hundred dollars.

Simon, thus, did not love Jesus as much as the prostitute because her sins were many and she was forgiven much. Because she was forgiven abundantly, she loved abundantly and wept tears of gratitude. Was Simon not forgiven because he had no sins? Simon was not the kind of sinner the woman was - her sins were of the flesh, and his were sins of the spirit - pride, arrogance, and self-righteousness. These sins are far worse than sins of the body, but Simon was not aware of his sins. He was blinded by his own self-worth and pride in his religious standing.

Our generation is a repeat of Simon because of our lack of awareness of our sin. We are a sin-saturated society with the least consciousness of it. Some of us deny we have done anything wrong, like a young lady who said to her father, "Why should I apologize? I have done nothing I am sorry for." For others, sin is a normal life-style. One and a half million Americans are living together sans marriage. They call it "living together," but our grandparents would call it "living in sin." Or, it may be that we do not call wrongdoing a sin. A parent looked at her son's report card on which the teacher indicated that he was very adept in the creative use of visual aids for learning. She called the teacher to find out what that meant. The teacher explained, "He copies from the kid in the next seat." It may also be that we have no consciousness of sin because we rationalize our wrongs to be good. Here is one case:

He who drinks gets drunk.He who gets drunk goes to sleep.He who goes to sleep does not sin.He who does not sin goes to heaven.So, let's all drink, get drunk, and go to heaven!

According to Jesus, he who sins most, loves most, because he is forgiven. This does not mean that we should sin more to be forgiven more in order to love more. All of us have more sins than we can count. It is simply a matter of being aware of the sins we commit, shedding tears for what we have done against Christ, and coming in faith to Jesus for forgiveness.

Looking to Christ, Luther once said, "Thou art my righteousness and I am thy sin." It may be shocking to you to hear that Luther urged his people to be content to be sinners. What good is Jesus if there is no forgiveness needed? If there is no sin, there is no need of a Savior. Be glad you are a sinner that you may experience the mercy of God. This is no excuse for sin. Nor is it permission to live like the devil. But, the truth of the matter is that no matter how hard we try, we can never be sinless, for to be human is to sin. We have always been sinners since Adam, are sinners today, and we will be sinners until our dying hour. Know yourself as an incurable sinner who desperately needs Christ as Savior for forgiveness. The great pianist, Paderewski, had a friend whose little girl was going to give a piano recital. Out of respect for his friend, Paderewski accepted the girl's invitation to her recital. When she saw the famous pianist in the audience, she got stage fright, forgot her piece, and broke down in tears. At the close of the concert, Paderewski said nothing to her but went up and tenderly kissed her on the forehead and left. If she had not made the mistake and failed, she would not have received a kiss of love and understanding from the master pianist. Likewise, it is when we stumble and fall into sin and are complete failures that the mercy of God in Christ is experienced in terms of forgiveness.

We love Christ because he first loved us by forgiving us. For this mercy of acceptance, we cannot help but shed tears of gratitude. Now we live, not to be good, to be successful, or to be great, but to love and serve him in every way possible for the rest of our days on earth. This deep love and gratitude flow spontaneously in our tears.

We need not be ashamed nor embarrasssed over our tears of penitence and gratitude, but a time comes when tears need to be dried. With her beautiful hair, the pride of a woman, the prostitute wiped the tears that fell on Jesus' feet. Now Jesus wipes the tears from her eyes with the words, "Your sins are forgiven." Do you have tears in your eyes? Then come to Jesus, as the sinful woman did, and he will wipe every tear from your eyes with his gracious words, "You are forgiven."