Jesus Wept

February 28, 2021 • Second Sunday in Lent •
Reading: John 11:17-44
(adapted from The New International Version)
Scott Sprunger, guest preacher

Greetings Church of the Village,

            I’m glad to be joining you again in worship. And I’m also glad to be speaking with you during this season of lent. I confess, in the past lent has been my favorite season in the liturgical calendar. It’s a more somber time in the Christian year, beginning on Ash Wednesday when we remember that we are made of dust, and to dust we will return. And over the next 40 days we follow Jesus in our hearts through his entry into Jerusalem, his betrayal, his trial, his torture, and eventually his public execution by the state. During lent we turn our attention to those parts of the human experience we’d rather hide from- pain, brokenness, fear, isolation, and even death.

            But here we are- in the midst of a pandemic that has already killed two and a half million people globally, in a country where racialized acts of terror are codified by law, and children are forcibly separated from parents who travelled hundreds of miles to find a better life. So perhaps you, like me, feel that you’ve already spent enough time lingering in the experience of pain, brokenness, fear, isolation, and death. In a way, the last twelve months have already felt like a prolonged Lenten season. But my hope is that as we return once again to this Lenten journey, we will at least encounter the experience of grief in a new way - one that yields new wisdom and abiding truth.

            I want to talk with you today about death. Death and the grief that it leaves in its wake. Each one of us has encountered death intimately in the last year. Some of us have lost our dearest loved ones to illness or injury. All of us carry the weight of death as we watch the number of daily COVID infections skyrocket. And at the same time we are moved to fierce and desperate action by the impunity with which police officers have stolen the precious lives of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Elijah McClain, and so many others. Each one of us has encountered death intimately over the last year.

            I encounter death through my work as a hospital chaplain. When I go to work, I often sit with people on the worst day of their lives. I extend a compassionate presence and listening ear while families process the news that their loved one has died of a sudden heart attack, or car accident, or stillbirth, or random act of violence- or, increasingly, complications related to COVID-19. I’ve simply lost count of the number of hands I’ve held, while patients transitioned from this life to the hereafter. And as a result of safety precautions implemented by my hospital, sometimes I am the only person in the room, holding up an iPad with Zoom so that a family can watch from the front lobby as the life in their loved one’s eyes fade.

            Through my work, I often dwell on those parts of the human experience we’d rather deny or forget- illness, death, grief. Grief is one of the most potent forces in our lives. It is unpredictable, inescapable, and devastating- and yet most people are profoundly unprepared to navigate it.          

            As a chaplain, I know one thing about grief and that’s that there’s no way around it- you must go through it. One thing we say at my hospital is that you have to say hello to grief now so that you can begin to say goodbye to it later. But embracing our grief like that is hard. And in my experience, the number one obstacle to processing grief in a healthy way is when we shame ourselves for how we feel. We tell ourselves: I should be crying more, I should be crying less, I need to be strong for my family, I should feel less surprised, I should be over it by now, other people have it worse so who am I complain?

            A few months ago my grandmother died in hospice after years of declining health. At first I felt guilty because I could not cry about and I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. Then a week later I broke down in tears as I was getting ready for work. I cried so hard that I had to call off at the last minute because I knew I could not walk with others through their grief while I was still navigating my own. But then I felt guilty for not being stronger and keeping my emotions hidden. But the truth is there’s no one right way to grieve.

            In the hospital, I’ve found that we Christians are uniquely gifted at shaming ourselves and other people as we tread the choppy waters of grief. We fill uncomfortable silences with theological niceties: They’re in a better place now, God needed another angel, their suffering is over, it was God’s plan, you’ll see them in heaven one day.

            I remember one time I was talking with a 90 year old woman who had lost a pregnancy decades ago on Valentine’s Day. She had so much unresolved grief because her mother told her, “this baby was your valentine to God.”

            Most of the time these messages come with good intentions, but in reality they emerge from a place within ourselves that is deeply uncomfortable with suffering. We as Christians love hope. We love optimism and good news. And we try to fix problems that simply have no solution.

            It is impossible to love another person without opening ourselves to the reality of grief. Love is not only the condition for grief, but grief is the condition of love. To quote the Friday’s episode of the popular series WandaVision, “What is grief, if not love persevering?”

            The gospel of Jesus Christ is fundamentally about love, and so it is inescapably about grief too. And I cannot help but think of God. God loves us more deeply than our minds can comprehend, so what is God’s grief like?

            Well in this text from the Gospel of John, we catch a glimpse of God’s grief through the humanity of Jesus.

            There was a man named Lazarus and he was sick. To hear the scriptures tell it, he was a man whom Jesus loved. Lazarus also had two sisters, Martha and Mary. Mary was the woman who poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and dried them with her hair.

            And yet when Lazarus died, Jesus was nowhere to be found. He was traveling through the countryside, healing and preaching and fomenting a love revolution. But when word reached Jesus about the death of Lazarus, he stayed where he was for two days. The text never tells us why Jesus waited. Some believe that it was because he wanted to perform a miracle in front of others. But I can’t help but wonder if Jesus himself was too stricken with grief. Perhaps he too needed time for rest.

            When Jesus finally returned to Bethany, the town of Lazarus, he was first greeted by Martha. “Where were you?” Martha asked, “If you had been here my brother would not have died.”

            I love this question from Martha because it’s so honest. How often do we look at the state of our world, the state of the pandemic, the state of poverty, the state of white supremacy and gender violence in this country and ask “Where are you, Jesus? If you had been here, all those people would not have died.” It’s a hard question - one that evades easy answers.

            Jesus told her “Your brother will rise again.” At first Martha thought he was talking about resurrection on the last day when every tear will be wiped away. It’s an anticipated and abstract hope, not unlike the theological niceties of Christians today. “Don’t worry, you’ll see your brother again in heaven.” But that is not what Jesus meant.

            Then Martha ran home and told Mary that Jesus had returned. Mary was surrounded by the comforting presence of friends and family. But when she heard that Jesus had returned, she ran out of the house to meet him.

            Her question was the same as Martha’s. She fell down at his feet and cried, “Where were you, Jesus? If you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

            Jesus was deeply moved. “Where have you laid him?” He asked. So they brought Jesus to Lazarus’ tomb. First we saw Martha’s grief. Then we saw Mary’s. But now it is Jesus’ turn. Jesus wept. Jesus wept so openly that the crowd of friends and family said “See how he loved him?” But others saw it and said, “why is he crying? Couldn’t a man who heals the sick save Lazarus from death?” And that is true! But Jesus wept anyway.

            Jesus knew that the same God who shaped the universe, who hung every star in the sky, who shaped every mountain and carved every valley, can fill Lazarus’ lungs with air. Jesus not only has hope, Jesus is hope. He is hope made flesh.

            And Jesus wept anyway.

            I think this tells us something important about the nature of grief and hope. They are not opposites.

            Hope -real hope- is large enough to hold our grief without crumbling under its weight. It does not need to foist vapid pleasantries or theological niceties on to the pain of suffering. It does not force easy answers on to hard questions. Hope - real hope - knows how to sit in the pain and hold space for it.

            I want to take a moment to talk directly to those of you who are facing grief in some form or another right now, which I imagine is probably most of us. The thing I want to say to you is that it’s okay. What you’re feeling is okay. You do not need to hide your emotions. You do not need to be strong for other people. And if you are grieving, it does not mean that your faith is weak or your hope has failed. Because Jesus is the object of our faith and the source of our hope and he wept too.

            Jesus instructed the crowd to remove the stone laid across the entrance of the tomb. Then he prayed, “God, Abba, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me.” After that he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And the man who Martha, Mary, and Jesus loved- the man whose body had been wrapped in linen and laid in the grave- emerged from the tomb.

            Lazarus died. And Jesus knew that in very short order, he would die too. In fact, immediately following this story, the religious and political leaders of his community gather to plot his death. But Jesus knows that death is not the end. Death ends in rebirth. Lazarus was resurrected. Jesus will be resurrected too. If you look closely at the natural world, you’ll see that death is both the end and the beginning of life. Every animal that dies, every tree that falls, every blade of grass that wilts, builds a fertile environment for new life to grow. The earth and heavens seem to reveal the glory of Jesus’ resurrection. And we who are Christians believe in the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, and a world where all people can live in peace and justice.

            And none of that, for one second, removes the pain we feel in our hearts when we lose someone we love. There is something about grief that is so true, so profound, and so fundamental to the human experience that Jesus was just as moved by it as we are.

            I have to imagine that when Lazarus emerged from the grave, his friends and family were ready to greet him with open and astonished arms. I imagine they carried him home on their shoulders, cleaned him up, and threw a huge feast in celebration. But I also imagine that as the crowd dispersed, Jesus lingered in the tomb for some time. And wept.

(c) 2021 Scott Sprunger
All rights reserved.

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