They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn as for an only son.
Zech 12:10
We must grieve more for offending God than for the loss of dear relations. ‘In that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to girding with sackcloth’ (Isa. 22.12): this was for sin. But in the case of the burial of the dead we find God prohibiting tears (Jer. 22.10; 16.6), to intimate that sorrow for sin must exceed sorrow at the grave; and with good reason, for in the burial of the dead it is only a friend who departs, but in sin God departs.
Thomas Watson. The Doctrine of Repentance.
