One thing strikes me really powerfully in the story of the Raising of Lazarus. It’s just two words, "Jesus wept." He wept. Now this is his beautiful humanity coming forth. We know that Lazarus and Mary and Martha, they were close friends of Jesus. He wept for his friend. And I think that's powerful. It's powerful to understand that weeping can be a holy moment, and that sometimes we're tempted to hold back our tears, but weeping can be profoundly human and profoundly healing.
How many times when I am onsite providing grief support to a person whose coworker had died that the person in front of me is holding back tears. Yet, let them come. Tears are a source of comfort. They help to relieve the sadness and bring calm to the body and soul.
The story of the Raising of Lazarus is a crucial, climactic moment in John’s gospel where we really get to experience a living Jesus. You realize this is the turning point where events start to race downhill toward Jesus’ crucifixion. This is where we might start to see the Son of God look more like us. In this story we see Jesus crying, feeling both love and grief. From here on we’ll see him feeling apprehensive about his fate. We’ll hear him pray for his disciples. He’ll even humble himself to be their servant and wash their feet. He’ll tell them to love each other as he has loved them. We’ll even see him, as he suffers on the cross, make arrangements for the care of his ageing mother. Now we see Jesus’ true humanity.
I think John wants to give us this picture of a genuine and relatable Messiah so that we may believe in him. When we meet someone and we share in their vulnerability, don’t we have a new relationship with them? Don’t they become more genuine? Don’t we believe in them more? To “believe” in John’s gospel doesn’t mean simply to assent that something may be true. The word in Greek is pisteuo (pisteuw). It means to put trust and confidence in something. When Martha says in verse 27, “Yes, Lord, I believe,” the Greek form of that word means “I really, really believe!”
The gospel calls us to believe in the things of Christ—love, compassion, prayer, humble service, and care for others. Belief in Christ means God can bring new life out of death. No matter where we are on life’s highway, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over. There is always a word of faith to proclaim, a deed of love to be done, a blessing to hope for.
Lord I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that like Martha despite the tears, despite the sadness, despite our doubts, we can say: “Yes, Lord, I really, really believe!”
While the gospel story is about the promise of a new life with the Lord, I had the humble privilege of being asked to serve as the wedding photographer for Ben and Saiesha’s wedding. Being a wedding photographer means you can pick up on the little, unexpected moments.
The promises they made to one another include love, compassion, prayers and humble service and care for one another till death. Hopefully, the photo above captures the God moment when they spoke these vows to one another. The unexpected moment in the gospel had to be when Lazarus eyes were open and Martha and Mary were shocked to see their brother alive again. I am sure there were tears, but these were tears of joy. My unexpected moment is when Fr. Don, the dad of the groom, smiled after he had told his son to kiss Saieha, his new daughter-in-law.
