The Human Face of God

John 11: 17-36 (Full Gospel reading: 1- 45)

 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 and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. 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 have kept this man from dying?’

A couple of questions come to me in reading this scripture. The first is why was Jesus greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved? The second is why did Jesus begin to weep? Was it personal grief over his friend’s death? Was it compassion for Martha and Mary, who had not only lost a brother but perhaps a provider and protector as well? But neither of those options makes complete sense since Jesus knew, from the moment he heard that Lazarus was ill, that he would be raising him up from the dead. John was very explicit about Jesus’ foreknowledge of what was going to happen.

In pondering Jesus’ emotional responses when he arrived on the scene, I was struck by the reception he got. From Martha, from Mary and from the friends of Lazarus there was one immediate reaction to him. Reproach. No one turned to him for the kind of comfort and support that can come from a beloved friend. No one drew him into the circle of mutual grief that everyone was experiencing. No, he was rebuked for not having come sooner and for not having done something earlier.

The Lord of Resurrection and Life was rebuked. On one hand, their rebukes indicated a small measure of some sort of faith in him because they seemed to totally believe that if he had been there, Lazarus would not have died. Martha and Mary had come that far on their faith journey but they had not yet come to the kind of faith that is not based in human circumstances that are going well. They did not yet have the faith that Jesus is the Lord of all resurrection and all life. All of it. They did not yet know that no matter what their eyes had seen, their ears had heard or what their emotions dictated, Jesus and the Father are the masters of life.

But I don’t think it was the lack of mature faith that hit Jesus in his heart. John said in the gospel that Lazarus, Martha and Mary were ones that Jesus loved. This was human love and friendship. Perhaps Jesus had known them for a long time. Perhaps their home was one where he could find a place to rest, where there were some good people willing to ask him what his needs were when most of his ministry comprised interacting with crowds who just wanted him to cater to their needs. So, maybe the rebukes he received from Martha and Mary were hard for his heart to take because here were two more people expecting him to be there for them to supply whatever they thought they needed. Here were two more people not looking at him, not seeing him and not being open to allowing him to simply share their life, whatever the circumstances. I think it can come as a shock to us all that Christ doesn’t just want us to share in his life; he wants to share in our lives as well.  

Were not their rebukes really saying, “O.K. Lord, We believed in you and gave you the right labels. We’ve called you Lord and Master and listened to your teachings. If you really loved us, you would have come to us as quickly as possible and you would have kept this bad thing from happening.” Martha said to him, “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” It was as if she was keeping him at arms length. She wasn’t opening herself to him as a beloved friend or someone who would share her grief. She was still making him responsible for an outcome that would be acceptable to her. That was the basis of her faith: outcomes that were acceptable to her. 

It must have wounded Jesus’ human heart to be rebuked, to basically be accused of not caring enough and to have snide remarks made behind his back by the other Jews who were there. “But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’”

We forget that when Jesus was on earth he was fully human. We focus on his Godhead and proclaim that he was and is the Resurrection and the Life. We highlight the Fire of Divinity within him – and so we should. But we should never ever forget that he suffered when friends died, could feel the sting of exclusion and be wounded by an unfair rebuke. We need to deeply ponder the fact that Jesus experienced fear, frustration and abandonment. We need to think about what it felt like to have people crowding him all the time, always wanting, wanting, wanting. We need to stop in this particular Gospel and become deeply aware that he was weeping and that he was greatly disturbed in spirit. He was hurting.

Why should we do that? How is that going to help our faith in Christ, our Lord, and what has all this got to do with Resurrection and Life? It’s because there is resurrection before our physical deaths. There is the Great Resurrection – the resurrection of Jesus from death, the resurrection that opened the door to heaven and eternal life for us – but this eternal life is right now, right where we are and in all the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Our eternal life began in the mind of God. (“In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.” Psalm 139). Jesus’ eternal life began well before he went to the cross; it was a reality before the world was even created. Eternal life is eternal life. It has no beginning and no end so it doesn’t just begin at death. We can be resurrected and enter into eternal life the moment we say, “Yes, Lord. I believe.” That’s the divine part of journeying with Christ but there is another part to this eternal life: the present moment of being fully human just as Jesus was fully human and knowing that whatever we experience, he experienced it too and is now experiencing it with us. This sharing of life goes two ways but too often we don’t allow Christ to be with us in compassion, which means to ‘suffer with’. Instead, we hold him at arm’s length, resentful or anxious because he isn't showing up in the way we think he should show up in order to accomplish what we think he should accomplish. Or else we try to bravely suffer alone, afraid that he will judge our fears and our grievings to be signs of a lack of faith.

There is great hope for us in the fact that Jesus fully lived life. He was Fullness of Life. We need to understand that all the human emotions he experienced in no way detracted from who he was or from the completeness of his whole life. He could experience fear without it meaning he was lacking in trust. He could feel burned out without it meaning he wasn’t depending on his God enough. He could feel disappointment, loneliness, grief and sorrow without it meaning his Father wasn’t enough for him. He didn’t allow his emotions to define his relationship to God or keep him from looking his father straight in the eye. Therefore, he wasn’t spending time wrestling with guilt over simply being human. He just walked with his father moment by moment in a relationship so authentic and so connected that he could live out his humanity without fear of being judged unworthy of a relationship with God.

He knew that he was completely and utterly loved within it all, not just in spite of it all and that’s the kind of resurrected life he wants to bring to you - but he can’t do that unless you open your life and share it, exactly as it is, with him.

Listen! He is calling you out of your tomb of self-denigration and guilt. He is calling, “Come out! I want to unbind you and let you go.” He is asking to be given permission to share in your life so that you can share in his.  He wants to bring you the gift of resurrection so you can be fully human and fully alive.

Sometimes it’s easier to believe in resurrection and life after death than it is to believe in them right in the present moment and be willing to open up and be vulnerable to Christ in midst of all that’s happening and all that you are.

Share your life with him and he will share his Life with you.