Jesus Wept

By the time Jesus arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has been in the tomb four days.

Mary and Martha had sent word days ago: Lord, the one you love is sick. Jesus had stayed where he was, two more days. Now he comes. The first thing Martha says when she sees him is the thing she has been turning in her hands the whole time he was missing: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

He does not argue with her. He does not explain his timing. He moves toward Mary, who is still weeping, surrounded by the village.

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.' When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

-- John 11:32-33

The Greek for deeply moved, embrimaomai, means a snort or a groan, the sound of a horse pulling against its bridle. The Greek for troubled, etarachthe, means he was shaken in himself. This is not composed sympathy. This is grief in his own body.

Jesus wept.

-- John 11:35

It is the shortest verse in the Bible. It is also one of the most stubborn. Jesus knows what he is about to do. He has already told the disciples Lazarus will rise. The miracle is two scenes away. And still, the tears come.

He does not skip them. He does not say, no need, I'll handle it. He weeps with Mary at the tomb of his friend.

Only after the tears does he say, Take away the stone. And only after the stone is moved does he say, Lazarus, come out.

Lazarus does. He comes out bound in his grave-clothes. Jesus says, Unbind him, and let him go.

Some of us have built a habit of skipping the tears. We learned somewhere that grief was inefficient, or that strong people do not cry, or that feeling things slows us down. So we found ways to push past the sadness as quickly as it surfaced. A drink. A scroll. A new ambition. A relationship. Anything to keep moving.

The story does not let us do this.

The God who raises the dead is the same God who weeps at the tomb. Jesus refuses the spiritual shortcut. He stands at the edge of his friend's grave and lets the loss go through him before he speaks resurrection over it.

If your habit has been to silence sadness with whatever silences best, this story is asking for something simple and slow. Let the tears come.

Some sorrows cannot be fixed. They can only be felt. The grief of a parent who hurt you. The grief of a body that has not behaved. The grief of years you cannot get back. The grief of a self you wanted to be by now. None of these will be undone by efficiency.

They will not destroy you, either. They will move through. The God who weeps with Mary is the same God who calls Lazarus out, who says, Unbind him, and let him go. The grief is part of the resurrection, not opposed to it.

Today, before you reach for the next quieting thing, take a minute with what hurts. Let the tears come, if they come. Tell him about it the way Mary did, even with the if you had been here. He does not flinch from that prayer.

He has wept here before.