Sowing in Tears

Sowing in Tears

The Ugandan church was nearly destroyed by Idi Amin's regime in the 1970s. Archbishop Janani Luwum was martyred in 1977. Hundreds of thousands of Christians were killed or displaced. A generation planted the seed of faith in tears. Two decades later, Uganda had one of the fastest-growing Christian communities on the continent. Leaders who had survived described the harvest as incomprehensible without the tears that preceded it. 'We did not understand the sowing season,' one elder said. 'We only saw the violence and the loss. Now we see the sheaves. And we understand — the tears were the water for the harvest.'

Psalm 126 is a psalm of restored fortunes — Israel returning from exile, described as 'like dreamers' (verse 1). The joy was so complete it seemed unreal. But the poet knows that what he is describing did not come cheaply. The harvest of restoration came through a sowing season of tears — literal weeping, literal grief, literal difficulty. The agricultural image is precise: a farmer weeping as he sows is a farmer who has no certainty of harvest, who plants in grief and lack. The promise is not that the tears are unnecessary but that they are not the end of the story. The one who weeps while planting will return singing. The season of sorrow is a planting season. The harvest will come. The songs will replace the tears.