Jesus Wept

Psalm 24, John 11:32-44.

The Reverend Dr. Thomas Butts tells of a little girl who stayed out at play much longer than she was supposed to stay. When she got home, her mother fussed at her for being out so long and asked her where she had been. The little girl said one of her friends had broken a doll and she had stopped for two hours to help her fix it. Her mother asked her how she could spend two hours fixing a broken doll. The little girl looked up at her and said, “I couldn’t fix the doll so I sat down and helped her cry. That little girl cared enough to cry with her friend.

Today we celebrate All Saints day, a day to remember those who have died in the Lord and gone on to their reward.   It’s hard to celebrate when we are in mourning.  When we are missing what we once had.  I think if we’re honest, we’re all in some level of grief right now. Grief for what we thought 2024 was going to be. Significant loss across our country is due to natural disasters.  Children die at schools because of gunshots.  Anticipatory grief for what could happen in 2025.  All around us, there are many who may suffer from a profound sense of loss. I count myself among them.

Our suffering and the suffering of others, however big or small, can often feel like one, long run-on sentence. There are many different responses to this suffering.  We have witnessed the gamut from anger and rage to significant random acts of loving kindness, to benefit concerts. What is our response to this seemingly never-ending suffering as Christians?

In our scripture this morning, we get a picture of what faith looks like in the face of grief and difficulty. Jesus is calling us to find him with us in our loss, our sorrow, our rage, our feelings of betrayal, our fear.  Jesus will be present with us no matter what and not turn us away.  “When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Mary, in the midst of her grief, did not put on a strong face and pretend to be stoic and unbothered. She came to Jesus directly—‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ Jesus was ‘deeply moved in spirit and troubled.’ He asks them to take him to Lazarus’s grave, to the epicenter of their grief.  He goes. And then comes for me, one of the most remarkable verses in all of scripture: Jesus wept.

Death touches us before it takes us. It touches us every time someone we love passes away. We feel its chill grip whenever  illness comes, a dream dies, or a hope dies, or a love dies. Indeed, there are a lot of little “dyings” in life. In the midst of life we are in death. Now that’s the bad news.

Here is the good news of Jesus Christ.   Jesus reverses the dark, hopeless message that, “In the midst of life we are in death.” Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever were told in Heb. 13:8 and can bring us to life within him.

I don’t know why bad things happen when they do. I do know that God loves you, and Jesus is the proof of that. In the face of our pain and in our questions, he doesn’t just give us explanations and theories.  He gives us himself and encourages us to give ourselves to others.12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 25)

Death no longer has its way. We have been touched by life – life abundant in the present and life eternal.  All the saints that have gone before and those who will be called in the future can be assured that as God’s children we are held in his everlasting embrace. We are assured in John chapter 24:14.Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe[a] in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?[b] 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

Believe this.  Jesus said it. Thanks be to God.  Amen.