preview

APRIL 22
JESUS WEPT
“When Mary (the sister of Lazarus) 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 (κλαίουσαν), and the
Jews who came with her also weeping (κλαίοντας), 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 (ἐδάκρυσεν). So the Jews
said, ‘See how he loved him!’” (Jn 11: 32-36)
The Lord so deeply felt the grief caused by the death of Lazarus, that in
His compassion He famously “wept” (ἐδάκρυσεν). Of course, Christ knew
of Lazarus’s coming resurrection, so it wasn’t His friend’s death, in and
of itself, that moved the God-Man to tears. It was the very real pain of
Lazarus’s loved ones, the pain of the physical separation from Lazarus,
for which Christ had such compassion.
I note, however, that the Lord did not “wail” (“klaio” in Greek), as the
people described here did. He sincerely yet gently “wept” (“dakryo,” a
gentler verb in Greek). This passage tells me, if I’m grieving a loved one,
it’s “perfectly” human to grieve. It’s even necessary to grieve,–but to do
so gently, with faith, in the light and hope of the resurrection.
As St. John Chrysostom says, "He wept over Lazarus. So should you; weep,
but gently, but with decency, but with the fear of God. If you weep thus,
you do so not as disbelieving the resurrection, but as not enduring the
separation. Since even over those who are leaving us, and departing to
foreign lands, we weep, yet we do this not as despairing." (In John 62.4)
117