Shades of Grief

John 11:21-27

Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Yet even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.” “Your brother will rise  again,” Jesus told her. Martha said, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am  the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me,  even if he dies, will live.   Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die — ever.  Do you believe this? ” “Yes, Lord,” she told Him, “I believe You are the Messiah,  the Son  of God, who comes into the world.”

John 11:32-37

When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet  and told Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died! ” When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, He was angry  in His spirit  and deeply moved. “Where have you put him? ” He asked. “Lord,” they told Him, “come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how He loved  him! ” But some of them said, “Couldn’t He who opened the blind man’s eyes  also have kept this man from dying?”

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Grief. 

Each of us respond to suffering and loss in different ways. Even a response of faith will be expressed in a variety of ways, depending on the person and the circumstance. Martha and Mary lost their brother Lazarus, and their expressions of grief had similarities and differences.

Notice how they both approach Jesus with the same first statement: "If you had been here, he wouldn't have died!" This is a statement of faith in the power of this miracle working Messiah. But it is also a bold and assumptive statement. You could even read into this a kind of bitterness: "Where were you Jesus? Why didn't you get here sooner and save his life? Why were you absent in our time of greatest need? Don't you care?"

Are these not the very questions that haunt us when faced with a seemingly meaningless tragedy? Why would God allow this when he is supposedly able and willing to protect his children from harm?

Faith is mingled with painful unanswered questions.

Now notice the diversity in responses. Martha immediately corrects herself: "I know that God will give you whatever you ask." Jesus takes the opportunity to proclaim his own divinity yet again: "I am the resurrection and the life." This all but reveals the surprise ending and empty tomb just moments ahead.

Mary does not correct herself. She just weeps. She is overcome. She falls at his feet in uncontrollable emotion. She utters her honest question and her expression of faith is a physical collapse upon the friend she trusts so deeply.

And Jesus responds with tears of his own. This translation says he was "angry in his spirit and deeply moved." What was the object of his anger? Death itself had stolen his friend away from his loving family, and this enemy was provoking the deepest emotions of God you can imagine.

To one sister he gives a declaration of words. To the other he gives his bodily compassion. Truth is here proclaimed as both personal and propositional. We hear the word of promise, that resurrection power has arrived and will be ours as well. And we see the tears, the anger, the embrace, and the body of Lazarus once dead now risen and shaking off the grave clothes!

Grief and faith will be expressed in many ways, often together. Questions go unanswered. Fears rage and anger boils as our enemy Death continues on its unholy mission.

And there is Jesus - weeping, proclaiming, and raising the dead again.