Jesus Wept

 

Cohen’s “Come Healing” is a great hymn.

This in particular is a remarkable stanza. It explains original sin:

Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
The cruelty or the grace

But this is even deeper:

O, troubledness concealing
An undivided love
The heart beneath is teaching
To the broken heart above

And let the heavens falter
Let the earth proclaim
Come healing of the altar
Come healing of the name

“The Name” is how an Orthodox Jew refers to God himself. 

God himself is broken-hearted. God needs healing, and it is up to us to help. God is love, and there is no love without pain. God loves us with an unrequited love. We hurt him beyond measure, enough that he was prepared to die.

Jesus hears of the death of Lazarus.

He needs us. He created us because he needs us.

What? God has emotions? God has needs?

Of course he does. As Blake points out, the greatest thing any human can imagine is a perfect human. A being lacking emotion would be less than human, not more than human. Just a cyborg presence. God loves, he can be angry, he can be amused, he can be sad.

He is reaching out to us, like a lover,  vulnerable like a lover always is.

And let the heavens hear it
The penitential hymn
Come healing of the spirit
Come healing of the limb.

The Vaisnava Hindu metaphor of the Rasa-Lila: each soul dances with God.