“Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she 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 had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying? Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.” (John 11:32-38)
Jesus is God (John 1:1,14), and therefore how He responds to Mary (sister of Martha and Lazarus) and the people here gives us an accurate picture of how God responds to us when we are angry at Him, and even blame Him when tragedy strikes home.
When Mary tells Jesus to His face, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died”, Jesus, God Incarnate, does not get mad or combative. In fact, the Scripture says He was moved deeply, greatly troubled. When we come before God in prayer, in the depths of our grief, mourning, and loss, it is okay to pour before Him our entire heart, even if we are angry, confused, disappointed, doubtful, and frustrated against God. He will not strike us with lightning for doing so. In our pain, God does not begrudge anger, even blame, against Him.
In fact, God weeps with us. Think about that for a second. Would a mayor go out of his way to sit and weep with us in our loss? Or a congressman? A governor? President? But the infinite, eternal God of the universe will and does. It’s not wrong to be sad, furious, and depressed at all the evil in this fallen world. God understands. He knows this pain, because He Himself witnessed the death of His own Son on the cross, when Christ gave His life as an atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world.
God weeps with us, even while He knows He will one day put an end to all suffering and evil. This is all the more remarkable when we read, in the previous verses, that Christ already had in mind beforehand that He would raise the dead man Lazarus. Despite knowing He would eventually bring Lazarus back to life, His heart was still pierced by the grief and the pain that He saw all around Him.
His compassion gives us hope, even while we do not understand His ways. This brings to mind another Biblical character, Job. We know from reading the first chapter of that book the cosmic events that led to his suffering. But Job is never told any of this during and even after his trials. While we know that God is perfectly holy and is not the source of evil and sin, He doesn’t always give us a comprehensive answer as to why He allows these things nonetheless. What God does provide in every situation is Himself. Our peace is not in answers, but in Him. Our comfort is not in revenge, but in Him.
He is a God of compassion and He cares. He is not some distant deity, coldly indifferent to the moments of our lives. He cares. This God actually cares. In the book of Revelation, God promises (twice — Rev. 7:17, 21:4) that He will wipe our tears from our eyes. But in the meantime, like Lazarus, we must die first before Christ will raise us up to life. In fact, this whole world will die, before it can be wholly renewed. And as the end of the book of Revelation tells us:
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4)
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Author’s email: micahdagaerag@outlook.com
