"When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.' When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to him, 'Lord, come and see.' Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, 'See how he loved him!' But some of them said, 'Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?' Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, 'Take away the stone.' Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, 'Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.' Jesus said to her, 'Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?' So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, 'Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.' When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, 'Lazarus come out!' The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "'Unbind him and let him go.'"
When was the last time you cried? When was the last time you saw someone cry? Perhaps not that long ago. But here’s something that may go back even further: when was the last time you saw a man cry?
Brad had never seen his dad cry before. There were times he wondered if he ever would—if it was humanly possible for him. In everything that had happened to them in the last year, his dad hadn’t shed anything….even with mom’s death, and with moving and a new school and getting used to just the two of them… But one night at dinner Brad and his dad were eating, just talking about their day…and then…during a brief moment of silence…Brad…farted! And they both laughed! But his dad kept laughing...and laughing… And soon Brad couldn’t believe what he saw—his dad was crying, really really crying! And it was not just that a trickle had been turned on his dad’s eyes…but Niagra Falls was literally flowing down his cheeks! Brad said, “What’s wrong dad?” “Do you really want to know?” “Yes!” “Well, your mom was an amazing woman. But she did have her little quirks. When you just….did that…you reminded me of this time when…at night, we were asleep…and…she farted….she it was so loud she woke us both up! We laughed so hard! Wow…do I miss her…”
Tears indeed, for women and men, are a natural part of grief for us all. And Jesus is no exception. He doesn’t avoid holding back what triggers his floodgates. But up until his friend Lazarus died, his followers hadn’t seen him show that emomtion before. In fact, Jesus is so much in control I bet his followers were like Brad, wondering if this was some man of steel, or someone who truly felt what they felt. As he comes to Lazarus’ grave, Mary and Martha tell him Lazarus is dead—this is for real. And Jesus weeps. He wails. He lets it all hang out in front of everyone. For Jesus these tears mean that there was something he cared about…deeply. Jesus weeps and enters in to what he has lost—a friend. He enters into the grief of all who had cared deeply for Lazarus too. Jesus’ tears are not a pity-party, they are not wishing this hadn’t happened. Jesus’ tears feel the pain of loss, the pain of a world where we all shed tears when we lose someone we care deeply about.
But Jesus’ tears don’t just bathe his own face in water, Jesus’ doesn’t let his weeping stop there. Jesus tears go on to become the waters through which he passes to raise Lazarus to new life. At the beginning of John’s Gospel Jesus invites James and John to be his first disciples, to “come and see” (Jn 1:39), to follow him. Now, 10 chapters later, the tables are turned. Mary and Martha invite Jesus to “come and see” the reality they see, the reality of death. Jesus wades through his tears to go and see what no one else wants to see, what is stuck behind that stone in the cave, so he can bring new life. Out of tears, tears born from his love for the world, Jesus pours out waters that bring about resurrection life upon Lazarus, who comes out from the tomb, who was once dead, but because of Christ, he lives!
Jesus pours out those waters for us in our baptism—waters that peel away the strips of cloth that clothe us with death. Jesus sheds waters that place on us instead the white robes of righteousness through baptism. Jesus’ tears turn that death of Lazarus, and the death we all face, into a passage into God’s resurrection mercy.
Today on All Saints Sunday, we remember our loved ones and all our brothers and sisters in Christ whom we shed tears for…whom Jesus sheds tears for. Waters flow from us today for those who have died—for all who share our hope of God’s gift of eternal life in Christ. Here at United Lutheran, it has been a particularly painful year. Death has claimed many of our beloved—some very suddenly. I have heard people saying that we have shed a lot of tears, more than usual. Our hearts are heavy. But we do shed tears for the ones no longer with us. And those tears do surround those who have died—to bathe them and wash them and make them whole in God’s mercy. Even though we have cried many tears, Jesus cries these tears with us, and turns those waters coming out of us into baptismal waters that flow as freely as God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. We look back today and weep. And as we look around we see our tears flowing with others’…creating a pool of grace. And we look forward today, and see a pool of baptismal water joining us together, for there this is a well that continues to make us wet with God’s grace.
And so the waters that come from us do not just express sadness, or anger, or whatever feelings we have for died loved ones, water we shed unites us all to the body of Christ. Jesus’ tears unite us to the body of Christ. This is a body washed in baptism, and clothed in the promise of God’s grace. Today Jesus becomes the window through which we see that we live not in a world without death, but where death gives way to Jesus’ new life. We see today that we are a people Jesus cares about deeply. Jesus’ tears, the tears that wash us in baptism, call us to care for that which we will lose. Even as we see this week loss and death all around—with many troops and civilian casualties in Afghanistan, with the streets of Chicago still getting covered with young victims of violence, with an 18-month old baby found dead in an Oak Park house this past week—with all this as what we see, we also can see Jesus weeping, weeping tears for all of them. Jesus’ weeping births a different reality, a renewing compassion that creates “a new heaven and a new earth.”
Today we are sent as a people who have nothing to lose in comforting those who grieve—in reaching out to all who mourn…and making them visible. God sends us out as witnesses to Jesus, who is the most unexpected source of tears. When we see loss, Jesus’ tears send us to bear witness to his deep, deep well of abiding love for our hurts. It is in his tears, in his waters, that he makes the world new. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment