When the Savior Weeps

4-2-17 (Lent 5A)

Psalm 130; John 11:1-45

When the Savior Weeps

Jesus wept.  It’s such a short verse of scripture, such a tiny little piece of this huge, sweeping story of death and resurrection.  And yet, somehow it still captivates us nonetheless.  People have had the verse tattooed onto their bodies because of its powerful significance to them, and yet there are so many things, even in this same chapter, that say more about Jesus to us.  What is it about this singular verse that enthralls us and keeps drawing us back to those two simple words, time and time again?

On the one hand, it’s a simple enough explanation: the verse reminds us in the most succinct manner possible that Jesus was, in fact, human.  While the theology and the metaphysics of the incarnation will always remain something of a mystery to us despite our best attempts at trying to come to terms with the claims of scripture, we remember that the Bible and tradition both hold firmly to the claim that Jesus was both fully God and fully human at the same time.  And while each of the four Gospels certainly portray Jesus as both, each one also has a particular emphasis on one aspect of Christ or another.  Mark’s gospel features the most human of the portrayals of Jesus we have, for example, while John puts the greatest emphasis on Jesus’ divinity.  It’s why in Mark, we see a much more emotional Jesus who is more easily angered, dismayed, and frustrated, while in John we’re constantly given little reminders that Jesus knew what was on the hearts and minds of various people and had a kind of divine insight into their souls.

So for John particularly to have taken this moment to highlight and emphasize a deeply human response to Lazarus’ death from Jesus… it means that this is something we should really be paying attention to.  What is it that prompts this strong reaction from Christ in this moment, particularly given that John’s gospel has already told us that Jesus knows Lazarus is dead before he even leaves for Bethany, and that Jesus has already told his disciples that they are going to go to awaken Lazarus?  How do we come to a better understanding of Jesus’ tears in this moment, and what does any of this reveal ultimately about why this passage is so powerful, so impactful to us?

If you look at most translations of this passage, they interpret this passage pretty straightforwardly and in the way in which we are most commonly familiar with the passage: Jesus, seeing how Mary and the other Jewish people who were with her were weeping, is “greatly disturbed” in the Spirit and “troubled” or “deeply moved” at their weeping, and thus moved to tears himself.  Jesus is suddenly filled to overflowing with compassion, and at the sight of these others’ tears and in the face of the death of one of his own close friends, he loses his composure and the determination with which he had entered Bethany in the first place, giving in to his own momentary sense of grief and loss to join his friends in crying.  It’s a touching moment, moving in its own right for us, and one that we hold up as a beautiful demonstration of Jesus’ humanity and compassion.   The renowned 17th century Presbyterian theologian Matthew Henry writes about it in his complete commentary, saying: “In all the afflictions of believers he is afflicted. His concern for them was shown by his kind inquiry after the remains of his deceased friend. Being found in fashion as a man, he acts in the way and manner of the sons of men. It was shown by his tears. He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Tears of compassion resemble those of Christ.” And there’s something deeply comforting about the thought that, even in our own grief, we are quick to know that Christ grieves alongside us.

The thing about this reading, though, is that it’s more an act of interpretation on the part of the translating committees than it is a faithful translation of the Greek manuscripts.  The word that the translators interpret as “greatly disturbed” in so many translations actually indicates that Jesus was moved with anger - ebrimaomai properly translated is “to snort like an angry horse.”  And if we look at it in this light, we see a much different story play out - and perhaps as hard as it may be to admit, it makes a lot more sense in light of the rest of the story.  Jesus has been unconcerned about Lazarus throughout this whole ordeal - he already knows that Lazarus has died, and he moves toward Lazarus’ tomb with a purpose, and yet before Jesus is even able to enter into the village of Bethany, Martha has come out to meet him.  She’s filled with grief and anger, and yet she somehow expresses an expectation of Jesus in spite of her brother’s death: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”  When Jesus calls for Mary, he’s given a similar reception - “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

If you had been here… if you had been here… the expectations placed upon him, the seeming lack of belief and trust in him and in his purpose… is it any wonder that Jesus was frustrated?  Mary and Martha are so upset at what he wasn’t there to prevent that they are at least partly blinded to what he can still accomplish.  Martha hears Jesus tell her that Lazarus will rise again and she thinks that he’s talking about the resurrection on the last day.  She confesses Jesus as the Messiah, and yet even with this confession, it seems there are still doubts surrounding Jesus’ identity and ability.

And yet Jesus nevertheless shows compassion - he asks Mary where Lazarus is, and Mary and the people with her tell him to “come and see.”  And it’s in this invitation that we see Jesus begins to weep.  He hasn’t made it yet to the tomb - he hasn’t seen the stone marking Lazarus’ grave and the seeming finality of death with which he is about to be confronted.  And yet he is already weeping - the people looking on are split between sympathy and scoffing: some think he’s weeping out of love for Lazarus, while others wonder themselves why he couldn’t have done anything, particularly after having healed the blind man.

But what if it’s the invitation to “come and see” itself that makes Jesus weep - not out of grief or love, but out of sheer and utter frustration?  The invitation to “come and see” echoes throughout John’s gospel - we hear it early in the narrative, first from Jesus himself as he invited the disciples to join him, and then from the disciples as they invite their companions to come and see what wondrous things Jesus is doing.  And in every invitation to “come and see,” it’s an invitation to see something new, an invitation to new life - until this moment.  Because in this moment, the invitation to “come and see” is not an invitation to see Jesus demonstrating the power of God, but an invitation to witness death, to see the evidence of despair in this world.

Is it any wonder, then, that Jesus weeps in the face of these things - whether out of compassion and grief, or out of sheer frustration… or even some strange mixture of both?  When it comes to getting to the bottom of the passage, the scholars and interpreters have gone round and round for centuries - and yet, perhaps there’s a benefit to letting these two different interpretations sit in tension next to one another.  To suggest that Jesus doesn’t perhaps feel some sense of loss or grief over the death of his friend is to deny Jesus of any shred of humanity, and yet to suggest that Jesus joins his friends in outright grief and despair over Lazarus’ death ignores the purpose of John’s Gospel in the first place.  We have to remember that John writes everything in his account with two very specific purposes in mind: every event in John’s narrative is designed with the intent of bringing glory to God in order that whoever sees it may believe and have life.  And so of course Jesus can feel sympathy and compassion for his friends as they grieve, and even share in their sense of loss - but Jesus does not dwell in that sadness, and this is what must make him so irritated - that, even in the face of the Messiah, even as Martha declares her belief in who he is, he is still met with unbelief, and in the face of that unbelief - even in the face of death itself… Jesus is angered and moved into action to call Lazarus out even from the grave itself.  Out of the invitation to come and see, to stand witness to the finality of death, Jesus speaks life back into being - and once again invites us to come and see the power of God at work in our world, that not even the grave can thwart God’s love.

In this season of Lent, as we are invited into this passage together, we are called to live into that tension ourselves - we are a people who live in the promise of Christ that such things as death and sin do not have the final answer, that love and life have the final victory in God.  And yet we also face the frustration of the reality of living in the “already and not yet” - we know the promises of Christ, and yet we echo the words of Mary as we profess our hope in a day that we know is yet to come.  As we live into that tension, I think we need to see Jesus in both windows of interpretation that this passage gives us: we can find comfort in knowing that in our own moments of grief, we have a savior who weeps alongside us - and yet even at the same time, we know that our savior does not leave us in that grief, but instead points us toward the hope and promise of the resurrection itself.  And in that promise, we hear a renewed invitation to come and see - not to bear witness to the finality of death, but to the promise of healing and life unending.  May we be bold to live into that tension and always find our hope in that promise.  To God be the Glory.  Amen.