NOV. 5, 2006 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
IS 25:6-9; PS 24; REV 21:1-6a; JN 11:32-44
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we believe and in believing we obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
In the language of the old Revised Standard Version of the Bible, John 11:35 simply states Jesus wept. Those two little words were famous for shaping the shortest sentence in Scripture…a favorite of students everywhere who had to memorize a verse from the Bible. Even it’s newer version is still a slam dunk: Jesus began to weep.
It’s one of my favorite verses – not because it’s so short, but because it’s so deep…and not because it’s easy to memorize, but because it’s impossible to forget…and not because it takes about a second to recite, but because its few letters are filled with a lifetime of meaning. Jesus began to weep.
What do those few words say to you? Why would Jesus weep?
- frustrated at the unbelief of disciples? - Mary and Martha’s pain?
- Jesus’ own pain at Death’s power? - Enemies in the crowd?
We are especially challenged in our quest for meaning by Jesus’ earlier behavior. It’s not part of our lesson for today, but when Jesus first hears from Mary and Martha that Lazarus is sick unto death, he basically says, It’s no big deal, he’ll be fine. And as if to prove that he’s not all that concerned, Jesus waits for two whole days before he responds to their cry for help.
Well, in the meantime, Lazarus dies. So when Jesus finally arrives, he is confronted separately by both sisters. Each says the very same thing: If only you’d been here, my brother would not have died.
As you would expect, everyone is crying – family, neighbors and friends – all are gathered to grieve, to soothe the sorrow, to help heal the heartache, to show support in this sad situation. And, says our lesson, when the Lord saw them all weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved…then, we’re told, Jesus began to weep.
As I was writing my sermon with this verse in mind, I was intrigued by an on-line article entitled, “Jesus Laughed.” It’s a review of the New Testament-era book entitled The Gospel of Judas that never was recognized as Holy Scripture. And for good reason.
In contrast to the rabbi who cried at the tomb of his friend, the Jesus revealed in this “Gospel of Judas” is a know-it-all and not afraid to show it. On the night of Jesus’ final Passover, as the disciples pray to God over dinner, Jesus laughs at them for being ignorant and provincial. “They do not know,” a secretive Jesus tells Judas, “that out among the stars is a blessed existence, free of the material trappings of this earthly realm.” Death, for this Jesus, is simply a way to “shed” his body and return to his “pure” spiritual existence (http://newyorker.com/printables/critics/ 060417crbo_books).
Not so with the Jesus of Scripture. Far from rejecting the experience of life, the Lord embraces it – so much so that when his friend dies, Jesus cries. Those few words tell us, among other things, that this lesson is about death: the fear it causes, the separation it brings, the waves of pain that wash over us in its wake. No, death is no laughing matter, nor is it a bump on the road to an existence where mind trumps matter, where spirit escapes the stuff of life.
From fear to grief, from sadness to salvation, this text carries us into the cradle and grave of the human experience. One thing we know is that no one can escape the sting of Death. It’s not just the inevitability of it, that Death will be the end of us all. Nor is it so much the tragedy of it, that Death cares not whether a person is good or bad, challenged or a champion, self-sacrificing or self-centered, young, middle-aged or old.
Our problem with death is that it simply exists in the first place. Ernst Becker, in his book The Denial of Death says that this knowledge is the greatest human grief: to discover that we, who are able to imagine eternity, are only allowed to live for the briefest moment of Time.
That makes us weep…and the fact that Jesus cries too is a strange but wonderful word of good news. It confirms for us what the Apostle Paul says in I Corinthians that Death is the final enemy of both God and humanity.
Jesus began to weep… shows the depth of God’s great love for all people.
Jesus began to weep… tells of God’s passion for our well-being.
Jesus began to weep…honors the pain of our grief and loss.
Jesus began to weep…reveals the gift that will one day be ours, when God himself, who knows what it means to cry, will wipe each cheek, dry each tear and offer that grace-filled greeting: “welcome home.”
Theologian Robert Capon tells us that Jesus’ gift of resurrection is complete and proven in both word and deed. Says Capon, Jesus never meets a corpse that doesn’t sit up right on the spot. There is the widow of Nain’s son (LK 7:11-17); there is Jairus’ daughter (LK 8:41-56); and there is Lazarus himself. They all rise…simply because Jesus has that effect on the dead. They rise because he is the Resurrection even before he himself rises – because, in other words, he is the grand sacrament, the real presence, of the mystery of a kingdom in which everybody rises (Kingdom, Grace, Judgment, p. 405).
Says the Gospel writer: Jesus began to weep (JN 11:35). Says the Prophet Isaiah: (The Lord God)…will swallow up death forever (and) wipe away the tears from all faces (IS 25:7-8). Says the Apostle John: (God) will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more (REV 21:4). No more tears…I like that promise. Amen.