Thoughts & Homilies

Jesus Wept
March 17, 2002

God of life and goodness, hear our prayers. Call us from our tombs,
And make us messengers of your compassion.

"If you had been here, my brother would not have died," cried Martha.
"Could he not have done something to stop the man from dying?" wondered the crowd.
The answer is "no".
Lazarus died. Jesus died. We all die.
There has never been an exception.
Our readings today are about dying and grief.
John tells us what happened when Lazarus died.
When Jesus saw Mary weeping, Jesus wept.
There are powerful messages in that short, short sentence.
"Jesus wept."
Jesus did not come to Bethany,
look at the sadness all around,
put his hands on his hips,
shake his head and say: "You people where is your faith?"
He didn't say
"He is not going to suffer any more.
"You'll be okay with time."
He didn't say that.
He wept. He grieved.
And in that moment, he made it all right to feel the loss of people we love,
to feel anger when they are gone from us, and sadness that we miss them
and feel lonely without them.
He joins Mary and Martha in their sorrow.
He is telling them that their pain is his pain.

Most of us have been to funerals.
What do we dread most about them? Talking to the grieving family, right?
What do I say? Will I sound stupid? Will I say something trite?
Will I make them feel worse?
Notice the pronoun - "I" "I" "I" "I"
We tend to think so much about ourselves
instead of those who are grieving.
Actually - you don't have to worry about the words, or what to say.
No words will take away the sadness anyway.
What grieving families remember most
is that people came,
they cared,
they shared their grief.
When many people share the grief, it does not seem as crushing.
We never have to face death alone,
even when we are alone.
We know that Jesus grieves and weeps with us.
Death is very much a part of being human.
Grief is also part of being human.
When we love people, we suffer when they are no longer with us.
Even Jesus who knew that he would die himself, die for us,
he grieved because a friend was gone.
He also grieved because the mourners and the family of Lazarus,
those who loved him, were so sad.

Jesus is Lord.
He is God's own son,
divine and human
He knew all that God knew about life and death
And still he wept.
He cried with those who grieved.
But he does more than that in this Gospel.
There is hardly a scene more startling,
more revealing of God's infinitely lavish power,
than the sight of Lazarus,
standing at the entrance of his own tomb,
still wrapped in his burial linens,
but alive!
God tells Ezekiel in the first reading,
"Then you shall know that I am the Lord,
when I open your graves and have you rise from them>"
Nothing is beyond God's power.
It is never too late.
With God's own spirit within us, all things are possible.
This is what we believe.
This is the heart of the Christian faith.
By now our Elect, the about to be baptized, know this.
They now have the full picture.
God quenches our thirst with living water
God opens our eyes that we may truly see.
God calls us from our tombs
and gives us life that never ends.
Water, Light and Life.
All this is theirs in Baptism, two weeks from now.
All this is ours by our Baptism.
Faith in a God who weeps with us.
Faith in a God who raises the dead to life.
"I am the Resurrection and the Life.
Whoever believes in me will live even if he dies,
And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?
Martha said "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe…."
What do you say?

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