"Jesus Wept"

When Lazarus died, Jesus wept.

Blotchy tears, I am convinced. (insert some sort of jargon about greek roots and stuff here)

Because his friend, whom he loved, was dead. Buried. Gone.

He felt the pain as deeply as any of us would have (or do).

He could have kept his friend from dying. He knew all along he could save him. But first he let the community hurt. Long. And he dared join them there.

Could it have been so that he could rejoice just as jubilantly when his friend emerged (hopped out of...?) from that tomb? He met Mary (used her hair to wipe perfume on Jesus' feet Mary) and Martha in their low to lift them high.

I was confused as to why the story of Lazarus was our sermon tonight when Mark began. 'Til then it clicked.

He stooped. To lift us out of this.

Whatever this is to you.

He lowered himself to helplessness, finality, and the feeling of irreversability.

The drop in his stomach, the lump in his throat.

And even with the power to raise Lazarus, Christ would not do it without knowing that God would get the glory.

With the power to climb off that cross, Christ would not do it because he knew that would not glorify God. So he died.

And Mary and Martha wept.

Tears (blotchy ones) that Jesus knew.

As far as they knew, the situation was helpless, final, and irreversable. The only person they'd even known with the ability to reverse death was dead. Refused to use his power, knowing the glory was not in escaping death, but in beating it. In redeeming it.

He focused his power on redemption. He focused his power on humility.

Before he spoke Lazarus out of the tomb, Jesus said to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world." (John 11:25-27).

The glory is not in escaping the pain, but in having it redeemed. Letting Christ beat it.

Martha focused on the power of Christ's redemption. She focused on humility.

And Lazarus walked out of that tomb.

Once Jesus was buried, the power that commanded such a miracle seemed gone.

He wept like us. He got wounded like us.

But his power to heal is so far beyond me.

"He was in the world, and though the world was made through him,

the world did not recognize him.

He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name,

he gave the right to become children of God--

children born not of natural descent

nor of human decision or a husband's will,

but born of God."

(John 1:10-13)

When he rose from death, Christ proved for all that nothing is helpless, final, or irreversable.

He knows the power of my tears. Because he came low.

Then he resurrected on high.

He stoops with his wounds, tells me to feel them because he knows.

He wept.

But he also rose. That I would know the power of those wounds.

Sin has lost its power, death has lost its sting.

As with Jesus, though, it is not just about having the power. It's using that power to the glory of God. And feeling powerless outside of the grace and guidance of God.

I weep for it.

So did Jesus.

He joins me in the longing, and he leads me to the joy.

So I say, "Happy Easter, happy Spring, happy every little thing!"