March 5, 2008

John 11:1–45

Wednesday in the Week of the Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A

Trinity Church, Valparaiso, Indiana

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I was raised in a time when little boys were told, “Little boys do not cry.” Little boys who do not cry grow up to be big men who do not cry. We modern Americans are much better about crying in public. Both little girls and little boys feel better about crying when life hurts. Both women and men can be seen crying in almost any contemporary motion picture. When it comes to death, however, both women and men often feel compelled to “tough it out.” Even though our hearts are breaking from the pain of grief and sadness, many of us pretend we are not “moved to tears” by the death of someone we love.

Jesus did not seem to have the same inhibitions as we when it came to the death of someone for whom he cared. Jesus’ dear friend, Lazarus, had died. “When Jesus saw [Mary] 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!’”

“Jesus began to weep.” In these four words of John’s Gospel, we glimpse Jesus in his vulnerable humanity. Have you ever stood at the grave of someone you love and felt as though part of you had also died? Have you ever looked upon someone who has died and doubted whether life could ever again be worth living? Martha and Mary, Lazarus’ sisters, confront Jesus and say what we say when confronted with the power of death. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Lord, if you had been here, my wife, my husband, my daughter, my son, my friend would not have died.

In his tears, Jesus experiences your pain and your sorrow when someone you love dies. In his tears, Jesus experiences our frustration at feeling power-less against death. In his tears, Jesus comes face-to-face with the pain only the death of someone we love can cause. In the face of death, with tears in our eyes, with Jesus who cries as we cry, we remember Jesus’ promise. In his death upon the cross, Jesus shares our full humanity as he shares even in our death. Through our own tears, we remember a promise given to us by one who would rise victorious over even the ultimate power of death.

Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” In the face of death, little boys and little girls do not need to be strong. In the face of death, women and men can weep as Jesus wept. As we face the death of those whom we love, and as we face our own death, you and I do not need to be strong. You and I need only trust he who cries with us, he who dies with us, and he who promises us an Easter victory. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die,
will live.”

Amen.

John Joseph Santoro +