Jesus Wept. So Why Won't We?

Yesterday morning - the day after Easter - I woke up still thinking about resurrection. THE Resurrection! It was still fresh on my mind and flooding my thoughts. My heart was truly full. And then my phone rang. My friend Amy called to tell me that her brother, Mike - one of my lifelong friends - had passed away unexpectedly. She was in shock. So was I. In fact, I still am.

You're never ready for these phone calls. We aren't wired to be OK with a young husband and father of 2 suddenly being ripped away. It doesn't make sense; at least not in the way we want the world to make sense. These things never do. As I hung up the phone with Amy I immediately felt a wall going up. As I began making phone calls, letting friends know what had happened, trying to answer people's questions with answers I didn't have, I could already feel it happening within me. I've felt it before, so I knew what it was. My heart began erecting a barrier and building a dam. I have to be strong. I have to be here for others. I have to hold it together so I can tell Morgan. Morgan needs me to be strong. Everyone needs me to be strong. I'm sure sometime later I'll allow it, but right now...under no circumstances...am I going to allow myself to grieve.

I tell myself things like:

Mike's in a better place.

Mike is with the Lord.

Mike is home, for cryin out loud! He's with Jesus! How awesome is that!?

It's incredibly awesome for Mike. But the fact is it really really sucks for the rest of us. It's hard. It's painful. It's like ripping a hook out of your heart and your intestines. It's mind-numbing. Unexplainable. It leaves you wanting answers and placing blame. Grief takes every physical, mental, emotional, chemical, and spiritual fiber and synapse in your body and ignites them all simultaneously. We know this. And yet, we will call upon every stubborn resource within us to attempt to suppress, beat down, and contain this eruption. 

Why?

Why won't we just allow ourselves to grieve? To hurt? To cry?

I really don't know. I actually don't have that answer. 

But I do know we somehow have to get past this. We somehow have to learn to grieve.

In Psalm 56:8, King David describes the depths at which the Lord cares about our grief:

"You have kept count of my wanderings; put my tears in your bottle. 

Are they not in your book?"

There is not one single moment or instance or morsel of grief that I walk through that the Lord does not walk through with me. There is not one single drop of a tear that you or I shed that the Lord does not take notice of and shed with us. He doesn't just take notice; he grieves with me. He knows my pain.

Take note and consideration of this, though:
If I refuse to actually walk through the grief, he can't walk with me.
If I refuse to vulnerably allow those tears to flow, the Lord can't "put my tears" in his bottle.
The Lord can't grieve with me if I don't allow myself to grieve.

In John 11, Jesus returns after his friend Lazarus has died. His sisters are beside themselves. They don't understand why Jesus didn't come and heal Lazarus. [Of course, we know that Jesus winds up bringing Lazarus back from the dead. He allowed a death so that he could bring about a resurrection. We know this. They didn't.] As Jesus is swarmed by the crowd of friends and family, he asks them to take him to the place where they've buried Lazarus. When they arrive, everyone breaks down. Tears are flowing. Grief is there. Fully present. And what did Jesus do?

"Jesus wept."

Friends, if we think Jesus was weeping because Lazarus had died, I think we're wrong. He knows that Lazarus was about to walk out of that grave. Jesus knew that his own death & resurrection would ultimately defeat the grave! Jesus wasn't weeping or broken for Lazarus. He wept for his friends. 

He saw their heartbreak and felt it erupt within him. 

He saw their tears and he could no longer hold his own back.

Right before this, John tells us: "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."

Jesus grieves with those who are willing to grieve.

Jesus wept. So why won't we?

I think something within us has incorrectly connected having peace about death with having a refusal to grieve. Like if I know the Lord and I have great peace about eternity, that this somehow also means I can't be sad or broken when someone I love - who also shares that peace about death - dies and is no longer here with me. This is messed-up thinking. A peace about death DOES NOT EQUAL a refusal to grieve! 

This Friday - and for the immediate forseeable future - I will celebrate my dear friend Mike's life. I will remember our friendship. I will laugh about memories and tell stories and share his legacy. But I will also grieve. I will hurt. I will cry. And my Lord and Savior will be right there with me. He'll put those tears in his bottle. He will bear the weight of my sorrow. He is there. He is always there in our grief.