The Shortest Scriptural Verse: “Jesus wept.” Jn 11:35 April 10, 2011, 5th Sunday of Lent: the Raising of Lazarus
Ezekiel 37:12-14 Romans 8:8-11 Johan 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45
First reading from Ezekiel
Thus says the Lord God: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus, you shall know that I am the Lord. I have promised that I will do this---and I will. I, the Lord have spoken. The Word of God
Thanks be to God
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John
Glory to you, Lord.
The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.”When Jesus heard this He said, “His sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory, so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He remained where He was two days more. Then after this he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to Him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”
Jesus became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Sir, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how He loved Lazarus.” But some of them said, “Could not the One who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”
So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to Him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised His eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” And when He had said this, He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” Now many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary and seen what He had done began to believe in Him.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Introduction
The tomb of Lazarus
The raising of Lazarus from the dead is the crowning miracle of Jesus’ ministry. In John’s Gospel it becomes the main reason why the authorities in Jerusalem make plans to put Jesus to death. John writes, “From that day on, the Jewish authorities made plans to kill Jesus.”(Jn 11:-53) As we draw near to the Good Friday tomb of Jesus (April 22), this 5th Sunday of Lent (Cycle A) takes us to the tomb of Lazarus in Bethany where everyone is weeping. There Jesus also is weeping. A very special love
Jesus had a very special love for Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus. He frequently visited their home in Bethany, a small village near Jerusalem. The gospels mention three such visits. On one visit Martha is fussing as she prepares a good meal for Jesus, and she’s angry that her sister Mary is sitting at the Lord’s feet instead of giving her a helping hand. (Lk 10:38-42) In today’s gospel, Jesus goes to the sisters’ home, after hearing that their brother Lazarus has died. (Jn 11:1-45) Again, in John’s gospel Jesus visits the two sisters and their brother Lazarus (whom Jesus has raised from the dead), and Martha is again waiting on Jesus, while Mary pours expensive perfume on His feet. (Jn 12:1-9) The shortest Scriptural verse
Three occasions in the Bible portray Jesus as weeping. (1) Luke 19: 41: “When Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city before Him, He began to weep. `Oh Jerusalem,’ He cried out, `eternal peace was within your reach and you turned it down.’” (2) Hebrews 5: 7: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, He offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death.” (3) John 11: 35: When Jesus heard that His dear friend Lazarus had died, He did not make a speech or preach a sermon or say that it was God’s will. Instead, Scripture says, “Jesus wept.” Just two words: “Jesus wept.” That’s the shortest verse in English translations of the Bible. Just one noun and one verb: “Jesus wept.” A strange new God
The sentence couldn’t be simpler. But behind it stands a monumental truth: Jesus, fully man and fully God, found Himself in the midst of human tragedy (the death of a dear friend), and He did what we would do: He wept! The old revengeful gods of ancient Greece and Rome did not weep, but they were always making men weep. In Jesus we have a strange new God who makes no one weep. What’s more, in Jesus we have a strange new God who weeps because His very dear friend Lazarus has died. And He weeps also because Mary and Martha are weeping. God wept on September 11th 2001
The revengeful gods of ancient Greece and Rome, who did not weep but who indeed made men weep, are alive and well in every age. This coming September 11th 2011 will be the 10th anniversary of 9/11. “9/11” is a terribly bland expression for an utterly horrendous event in which two 747s, smashed into the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan bringing down not only tons of mortar and bricks but also three thousand innocent human beings. That apocalyptic event piled up a heap of destruction so mountainous that it took a ten-month operation working day and night to haul away 2 million tons of debris, containing 20 thousand body parts. When that horrendous event happened, the late evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell resurrected the revengeful gods of ancient Greece and Rome, as he shook his finger at “pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and People for the American Way,” and in so many words claimed that in the horrific event of 9/11 God was “getting even” with these nefarious sinners! Shame on you, Christian preacher! The Gospel is the Good News that on 9/11 God wasn’t getting even; God was weeping! That’s how Bernie Heeran felt about it. He is a retired firefighter whose son Charlie worked at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center and was killed on that fatal day. Unlike preacher Falwell’s God, Heeran’s God wasn’t getting even on 9/11; his God was weeping! “God had nothing to do with this,” Bernie said. “God was fighting evil that day as He does every day, and He was asking us to join Him in the fight.” God wept on March 11th 2011
On Friday, March 11th 2011 an insanely massive 8.9 earthquake hit the Northern Coast of Japan at rush hour, causing a huge tsunami. Grim statistics say nearly 8,000 are dead and over 10,000 missing. That brings to mind the even more horrendous tsunami of December 26, 2004, which inundated southeastern Asia, and which ruthlessly swept away 140,000 people! As with the tsunami of March 11th the worst casualties were the living who saw their homes, their loved ones, their lives and their very reason to live swept away. Soon religious clerics were at it again, after the style of Falwell. They were offering age-old and worn-out explanations of why humans suffer. Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar said, “This is an expression of God’s great anger upon a sinful world.” An Islamic imam said, “The disaster is a reminder from Allah that he who created the world can also destroy it.” Enters a strange new God
Into such a god-awful theological world, where a pay-back god makes sinners suffer, and where a god unsure of himself has to remind people “that he who created the world can also destroy it” – into such a world enters a strange new God of Christians: He causes no one to weep. What’s more, He Himself weeps! He weeps because His very dear friend Lazarus has died, and He weeps also because Martha and Mary are weeping. Mystic theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose voice echoed through the deliberation chambers of Vatican II, writes, “It is fully in accord with the Gospel to regard God as a Father weeping across the ages over the sufferings of His children, constantly trying to heal their wounds.” (Divine Milieu) Conclusion
God was also weeping
We are all hurting people asking questions which hurting people have been asking for generations: What was God doing when I buried my husband? Or when my son was paralyzed? Or when my baby died? Or when the bus overturned? What was God doing when Islamic terrorists brought down the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan, and murdered 3000 innocent human beings on 9/11? What was God doing when an 8.9 earthquake and a tsunami hit Japan and swept away 17,000 people on March 11? What was God doing? The answer utterly surprises us, and in some strange mystical way consoles us: God was also weeping!
