Bleeding Heart
Bleeding Heart plant in our front yard
Does Jesus have a “bleeding heart”? I saw the plant in our yard called a “Bleeding Heart plant” and wondered about that.
When I was growing up and we visited Lynden, WA, where many of my dad’s family lived, my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandma would get together for coffee after church. Mostly everyone avoided talking about religion and politics because discussions got heated and often feelings were hurt. Once in a while, my other uncles would tease my Uncle Ed by saying he was a “bleeding heart liberal.” He was a kind, soft-hearted man I remember fondly.
The other day I wondered about my own bleeding heart. I was talking to my aunt about school shootings. She has two granddaughters I see nearly every Sunday in church. They are incredibly cute: curly hair, Gerber-baby faces, their father often holds the younger one when we stand to sing and she puts her arm around his neck and sometimes raises her hand in praise like she sees adults around her doing. Just watching them sometimes makes my eyes well up. In this discussion with my aunt, I said, “Imagine those two girlies, sitting in church, and through a window comes bullets that hit and kill them.” I had to brush away my tears and could barely get the words out. I guess I’ve got a bleeding heart, too!
Leaving out the “liberal” part, many of us have “bleeding hearts.” Sad things raise emotions in us. It’s part of being human—we are touched by reminders of things that hurt us or our loved ones.
I think Jesus has a bleeding heart. He was human, too. The first example that springs to mind is that shortest of verses, “Jesus wept,” when he cries about the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35). I’ve written before about stories of Jesus looking at people with love and often sadness—the rich man who walked away when Jesus said to sell all he had and follow Jesus (Mark 10:17-23), the look when Mary was crying at the empty tomb and Jesus said her name (John 20:11-15), the people of Jerusalem as he rode on the donkey and thought of their sad future (Luke 19:41-44), as he spoke to his disciple John and his own mother while hanging on the cross {John 19:25-27)—to name a few. I imagine that many of those times when Jesus looked at someone “with love and sadness,” there were tears in his eyes.
The Catholic tradition has images of Jesus’ “sacred heart.” Sometimes the image shows bleeding, too, such as this one, which the author of the website calls “gruesomely beautiful.”
From “Month of the Sacred Heart,” Christina Chase, June 29, 2018.
I’m glad and thankful Jesus has a bleeding heart. I am glad he looks at me with love and sometimes sadness. Jesus loves you with all his bleeding heart.