JESUS WEPT
(Friday, July 5)
“Then Mary, when she came where Jesus was and saw him, fell at his feet, saying 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 deeply moved in spirit and troubled; and he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept.” (Jn 11: 32-35)
On this Friday, on which my dad just passed away in the early hours of the morning, I am thinking about how the Lord shares our human grief over the death of a loved one, when we share it with Him. When Lazarus’s sister Mary fell before Him in tears, surrounded by friends who are also in tears, Jesus allowed Himself to be so “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” that He wept with them. Even though He knew that He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, He wept, because He knew their grief was real, within real time, in which human beings experience profound pain at the physical death and separation from a loved one. He also allowed Himself to be led, by the mourners, to Lazarus’s tomb (as if He didn’t know where it was), thus leading the grief-stricken to participate in the healing He was bringing them.
Thank You, Lord, for weeping with us. Let me let myself be led by You, through the grieving process, in which You participated with us, even as You lead us and a departed loved one to new life. “Lord, I have cried unto You, hear me!” (Ps 140: 1a)
