…And Jesus Wept

As I read the Gospel for this upcoming Sunday, I thought about a friend who died a few years ago. We were out of the country and with limited internet or phone access. I awoke on Christmas Eve morning before dawn and as luck would have it, managed to get into my emails. My eyes went immediately to a forwarded message announcing the death of my friend. I sat motionless for a while in disbelief; then tears eventually became sobs as I felt the pain of loss. Then I thought about his young widow and children and felt their pain as I wondered how they were going to manage. I thought of my friends and considered their pain and felt completely helpless because I was so far away and I needed to be near them, not that my presence would have changed anything, but just being together and sharing our loss would at the very least, find comfort.

I suppose something about the account of Lazarus that I read (John 11: 1-45) prompted me to relive this friend’s passing this morning. Is there any story as well-known as that of Lazarus? His very name has become a well-known metaphor for revival and resurrection beyond the realm of religion.

So why did I make the connection to the Lazarus story and the death of my friend? When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”  

This Gospel speaks to us about many things but perhaps to me at least, at this time, I relate to the deep compassion Jesus had for Mary and Martha. The context of the word “compassion” as Jesus intended, I believe goes far beyond just “empathy.” It is virtually feeling the pain as if it was yours. Is there anything more human than the desire to want to help a loved one who is suffering? And while we wish we could take the pain from them and make it “all go away,” we cannot. Jesus in all his humanity wept. But Jesus in all his divinity was able to “make it better” and raise Lazarus from the dead. 

So, what about why we feel as deeply as we do for another’s joy and pain. Father Ronald Haney writes in the God Within You that “the God of mystical unity and pervasive harmony, dwelling within each of you will intensify your love for each other, will raise your love to a level above mere human affection; it will make your love sacred, creative and curative. The love between you is God and this is the atmosphere of your relating to one another.” He goes on to say that if the love between you and others is God may sound too profound, it’s the essence of what Jesus meant when he said Love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus was not just mincing words here.  

Haney suggests that the mystery of the Divine Indwelling may be best expressed by the Pauline insight rooted in Jesus’ prayer, “just as you Father, live in me and I live in you, I am asking that they may live in us, that they may be one as we are one.” God Within You p 164