And Jesus wept

Hidden in the middle of John the Evangelist’s riveting story of the raising of Lazarus is perhaps the most revealing statement about Jesus, son of God, son of Mary, friend to Martha, Mary and their departed brother Lazarus. About this same Jesus who is, we believe, savior, of the world.

“And Jesus wept.”

Three little words—perhaps the shortest verse in the New Testament—sum up the full weight of our humanity that Jesus bore: God from God, Light from Light, wept by the grave of his friend. An experience that, sooner or later, all of us experience, in the loss of a parent or partner or child, a mentor or a friend whose presence rounded out and gave meaning to our life. “Sorrow’s springs are the same,” the poet reminds us. We weep for our mortality, as Jesus wept for his own.

Jesus knew what he was about, when Martha rushed out to him on the road, and when he found her sister Mary staring at the wall in her house where they had often welcomed Jesus into their family circle. Jesus knew that that circle had been broken, and at least in this one case, could be restored. There was a teaching to be taught, meaning to be delved into, a promise to be made and signed there in at a grave outside Bethany. There, only days before his own betrayal, his infamy, his torture and death, he made what was perhaps his most daring assertion: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me will never die.” 

Yet Jesus wept. He wept for the death of his friend and the grief of his friend’s sisters. For what lay immediately before him. For Lazarus’ mortality, and his own, for his own human weakness, fear, and loathing for what he clearly saw awaited him in Jerusalem. Luke tells us that when he approached the Holy City, he wept over it as well: wept for the tragedy of human injustice and arrogance, but mostly for the tragedy of human suffering and death that he himself had to endure.

The story of the raising of Lazarus does not mitigate all that suffering once for all or make it go away, except for a moment. And that’s why Jesus wept. Sorrow’s springs are the same. The deepest meaning of the story is that because Jesus passed through death’s dark door, he was unable to unlock it forever from the inside, and open the way for us all to resurrection and light.

Blessings,

FR. TOM LUCAS