Sermon for 25th February 2007

Jesus weeps our tears – 250207SUam

Reading: John 11: 1-37

Jesus wept. The shortest verse in the Bible, yet two words of deep significance.

What brings tears to your eyes? And I don’t mean peeling onions! What touches you so deeply that you can’t hold back the tears.

My family tell me that I’m very much in touch with my feminine side. When we watch a film on video at home, they seem to watch me very closely at any point that gets at all emotional. And the cry goes up, “Look, Dad’s got tears in his eyes!”

Our reading from the Bible today was about the death of Lazarus and how Jesus returned to Bethany to raise him back to life. Jesus often went to stay at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus in Bethany. Their home was for him a place of peace where he could unwind from the pressures of the crowds, the challenges of the Pharisees. We read that Jesus loved this little family. And now Jesus returns to the village of Bethany to find that it is a place of mourning. Lazarus has died and many people are at the home to comfort Mary and Martha.

And when Martha hears that Jesus is coming she rushes out to meet him. And her words echo our feelings when we lose someone close to us. She says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” And the implication is, “But you weren’t here, were you? You could have done something for Lazarus but you didn’t, did you? Why did you let us down like that? We’re your friends. We trusted you and you never showed up.”

Sounds familiar? Have you ever felt that God has let you down? That you have trusted him to come through for you, and…nothing? Was someone sick or dying, and you cried out for healing, and you were sure that your prayers would be answered, and then the pain of losing someone you loved, and not understanding why God hasn’t done anything.

Mary and Martha had sent a message to Jesus as soon as it seemed that Lazarus’ illness was serious. But Jesus had simply stayed where he was for two days without making a move towards them. Why didn’t he hurry back to heal Lazarus? He tells the disciples that Lazarus’ sickness would not end in death. The disciples probably thought that he meant that Lazarus would recover, though Jesus is actually meaning that although Lazarus is going to die, that is not the end of the story. This sickness is going to end in Lazarus being raised from death. Jesus tells them them that this sickness is for God’s glory. I wonder, how often when we are unwell does it occur to us that it might be for God’s glory? But why does Jesus put this little family through the torture and agony of the death of Lazarus, the mourning, the burial?

Yet Martha still holds onto her faith in Jesus. She says, “I know that God will give you whatever you ask.” There is still the hope of the resurrection when we shall all meet Jesus and meet each other again. And Martha is clinging onto that hope. And Jesus tells her that he is the resurrection and the life. It is in him that everything comes together. And Martha accept that he is her hope for the future.

And then Mary arrives, and a lot of here friends with her. And it starts again. “You should have been here. You could have done something. Where were you?” And in the midst of this great out pouring of grief stands Jesus.

Jesus had told his disciple that Lazarus’ sickness was going to result in God’s glory. And so you might expect Jesus to be standing there with a smile on his face, saying, “Hey! Guess what I’m going to do now! You ain’t seen nothing yet! I’m going to blow your socks off!”

But Jesus didn’t do that. He simply stood there with the grieving sisters and their friends. And He wept.

What was it that caused the Son of God to stand there weeping? Why was he so affected by this situation?

We can’t begin to know everything that was going through his mind at that moment. But the Bible does give us some clues as to the way he felt.

John tells us that “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Jesus had left the place of glory at the right hand of the Father, and had taken on our humanity. And so faced with this outpouring of family grief, Jesus wept with them. It wasn’t that he decided to weep for effect. He he wept because he couldn’t hold back his tears. He wasn’t an outsider, an observer of this very human drama. He was a part of it, in every sense. He identified with these people, not because he was supposed to, but because he couldn’t help it – he was one of them. Isaiah tells us that Jesus is a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. And it was in situations like this, where he was gripped by real human emotions, deeply moved and troubled, that Jesus showed us his humanity.

But at the same time, Jesus was not only truly human, he was truly God. And so while really sharing in the grief of this little group beside the grave, he was also seeing this situation from the divine perspective. He had compassion on them. And many times in the Bible we are told that Jesus had compassion. He had compassion on the crowd of lost souls, sheep without a shepherd, at the mercy of whatever life threw at them. He had compassion on the sick who were brought to him for healing, people for whom he was their last and only hope. He had compassion on the blind men, desperate to receive their sight so that they would no longer have to rely on the pittance in their begging bowls to keep going for another day of just trying to stay alive. He had compassion on the widow of Nain, frightened and hopeless as she followed the coffin of her son, the only person she had been able to rely on to take care of her. And Jesus, filled with compassion wept not only with but also for the sisters of Lazarus and their friends as they faced the enormous dividing line between life and death, with all its mystery and heartache.

You know, this isn’t the only time that Jesus wept. Luke tells us how Jesus wept over Jerusalem, because the city was not willing to receive his care and compassion. He knew the future that was in store for the city if it rejected him, and the thought of it broke his heart. And yet, he would not force it to turn to him. He knew that when the time of confrontation came, he would be rejected and he would die for the sin of the city, for the sin of the world. And a world that rejected him might turn where it would but it would find no other hope of salvation.

The people were hoping for a Messiah who would come and grasp political power and banish oppressors from their land. They were looking for a real life comic-book Super-hero! But a Messiah who would stand and weep with the lost and lonely and bereaved – that wasn’t the Messiah they wanted. And so Jesus wept for them.

Was he weeping for us as well? Did he see the whole sweep of human history, from the time we were created in God’s image because he loved us, and yet we rebelled against him? Did he grieve for our loss of innocence, for our years of wandering, for the love we rejected again and again? Did he weep for the way we have treated each other – for the wars we have fought, careless about the value of human life? Did he weep for the oppression of people over people, for the cruelties of slavery, for the inequalities of economic opportunity that we thought about earlier?

Ken Gire, in his book “Windows of the Soul” writes:

“Perhaps there are no greater windows of the soul than our tears.

“The tears we cry are drawn from the well of who we are, a well that lies beneath the sidimentary strata of words, beneath even the Pre-Cambrian layer of consciousness itself. They may seep to the surface like the smallest of subterranean springs or shoot to the surface like a geyser. They surface for odd reasons, or for no reason at all, or for reasons so pure and right and good that no force on earth could hold them back

“So much is distilled in our tears, not the least of which is wisdom in living life. From my own tears I have learned that if you follow your tears, you will find your heart. If you find your heart, you will find what is dear to God. And if you find what is dear to God, you will find the answer to how you should live your life.”

Jesus tears defined his ministry. His tears of compassion drew him to reach out to the sick and the suffering, the lost and the lonely, the oppressed, the unloved and the broken-hearted. His compassion for sinners drew him to the cross, where he paid the price for our sin.

What is it that brings you to tears? Is it suffering or injustice or cruelty or ignorance or indifference? Or something totally different? Is God calling you to follow your heart to make a difference in an area that really concerns you?

Over the next few weeks as we head towards Easter, we are going to to be thinking about healing and wholeness. And our focus will be on Jesus, the Compassionate Healer. We will be thinking about different aspects of his ministry, bringing healing and wholeness to the the people he came into contact with. And so as we look at this weeping Jesus, my question for you is, Are you, like Mary and Martha, blaming Jesus for the tragedies in your life? For the heartfelt prayers that never seemed to be answered? For the times when it seemed that God had turned his back on you and left you to weep alone. My prayer is that Jesus will open the eyes of your heart, so that you will see that through it all he was there weeping with you and for you and carrying you through the times of distress. Open your eyes and put your hand in his. Make him the centre of your focus, and let him direct your gaze to the purpose he has for your life. He is the one who brings new life, touching your life with his compassion, bringing healing and wholeness. Make this Jesus the centre of your life, and he will transform it by his love.

Let’s focus on this Jesus now as we stand and sing together, “Jesus, be the Centre.”