“Jesus Wept.”  John 11:35

I recently attended a grief counseling class with 15 other people who have experienced the death of a loved one.  During one of the sessions the instructor asked us to share the most ridiculous things that were said to us after our respective loved ones had died.   The responses were startling.

I’ll never forget the worst thing that was said to me after my dad passed away.  Despite having a firm grasp on that memory though, I’ve still managed to say some unhelpful (i.e. dumb) things to friends of mine who were grieving. Sadly . . . I should’ve known better.

Here is the problem: death shakes our whole foundation.  When it gets anywhere near us it either: (1) turns us into babbling cliché spitting buffoons rivaling the idiocy of Ron Burgundy reading off a teleprompter; or (2) causes us to avoid our grieving friend as if they had something contagious.

 

In John 11, Jesus has one of those uncomfortable encounters with a pair of grieving sisters (Martha and Mary) who just lost their brother, Lazarus.  Interestingly, when he meets face to face with his friend Mary, he has little to say.  In fact, his response became the shortest verse in the bible: “Jesus wept”.

This is a confusing passage to me in light of what happens next (Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead).  Why the tears?  Why not explain to her that everything will be fine and begin with the miracle?

There’s a scene in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Magician’s Nephew between a young boy named Digory and Aslan (the great Lion, creator and king of Narnia) as Digory’s mother is dying. The boy begs Aslan:

“But please, please – won’t you – can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?’” Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.”

The tears that Jesus cried that day—and continues to cry with us­—are just like that.  Tears so big and so sincere that he must really be sorrier about the painful events of our lives than we are ourselves.   

So, why such big tears?   Because He knows our brokenness. He knows we weren’t designed for death. He knows there’s no words which will fix the sadness of a grieving friend.  

So He grieves with us.

Jesus ended up resurrecting Lazarus from the dead.  The party afterwards must have been epic. Yet, this was just a bandaid on a gun wound.  Jesus knew Lazarus’ resurrection wouldn’t solve the real issue: that our bodies would still be subject to death and decay (the great human dilemma).

However, the resurrection of Lazarus foreshadowed the solution: a greater resurrection.  One which would solve the human dilemma.  One which would free us from decay. 1 Corinthians 15:42.  One which would put an end to pain and death and wipe away all of our tears (Isaiah 25:8; Revelations 21:4).  The resurrection of Christ.

Here is how theologian Tim Keller puts it: “The resurrection of Christ means everything sad is going to come untrue and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken.”

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Caring about a friend through big tears and a sincere heart provides a degree of consolation that no cliché, religious, or philosophical words could ever hope to.  So let’s grieve with them.

We don’t have to fix them (“I used to want to fix people, but now I just want to be with them” – Bob Goff).  That’s not our job.  We can hand that over to Jesus. 

In the words of Gregory of Nazianzus, He’s the only one “who cries, yet causes tears to cease.”

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FOR A SEARCHING SOUL

C.S. Lewis (a former atheist) was a literary scholar who concentrated much of his work on historical literature.  He makes an interesting argument pertaining to the veracity of the gospel accounts.  Here is a quick summary:

Ancient fiction was nothing like modern fiction. Modern fiction is realistic, and it didn’t appear until about 300 years ago.  The gospel contain tons of random details (e.g., John reports that “Jesus wept”; Mark reports that Jesus was asleep on a cushion in the stern of a boat; Peter was 100 yards out in the water when he saw Jesus on the beach; Peter jumped in the water and together they caught 153 fish; etc.). Such details were not in any ancient literature, and the only explanation of them is as recollections of eyewitnesses.  Lewis states: “I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this.”  

For his own part, Lewis had little doubt that the Gospel of John was reliable history. Lewis continues: “Either this is reportage, or else some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic, narrative.”