…And Jesus Wept

As I read the Gospel for this upcoming Sunday, I thought about a dear friend who died a few years ago while we were out of the country. I awoke on Christmas Eve morning before dawn and despite limited phone or internet access, I managed to get into my email. My eyes went immediately to a forwarded message from John Marione announcing the death of Steve King. I sat motionless for a while in disbelief; then tears eventually became sobs as I felt the pain of loss. I thought about his young widow, Kathy and his two boys, Matthew and Andrew and felt their pain as I wondered how they were going to manage without Steve. Then I thought of the guys in the men’s group and our colleagues in Scripture study and considered their pain. It troubled me to be so far away and unable commiserate with them. I felt a need 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, bring comfort.

I suppose something about the account of Lazarus in our readings (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 synonymous with revival and new life even beyond the bounds of religion.

So why did I make the connection to the Lazarus story and the death of Steve? This Gospel speaks to us about many things however, this time, I was drawn to the compassion Jesus had for Mary and Martha and especially Mary as she wept inconsolably. The meaning of “compassion” as depicted by Jesus in this story, eclipses “pity” or “empathy” in that it implies the actual pain of the mourner, as if it was his. Is there anything more human than the desire to want to console 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.  

When Jesus saw 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 why do we feel as deeply as we do for another’s joy and pain? Father Ronald Haney writes in God WithinYou that “the God dwelling within each of you will raise your love to a level above mere human affection; it will make your love sacred, creative and curative. This love between each other is God...it’s the essence of what Jesus meant when he said Love one another as I have loved you.” 

Haney says that the mystery of the Divine Indwelling may be best expressed by 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