He Weeps Anyway

Context

Lazarus has been dead four days by the time Jesus arrives. The funeral is over, the relatives have gone home, and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, are left alone in the silence.

This was the close-friend tier. Jesus stayed at their house, ate at their table. When Lazarus got sick, the sisters sent one line: the one you love is sick. No demand, just the assumption he would come. He didn't. He stayed where he was two extra days, on purpose.

Story

Martha runs out to meet him on the road before he can reach the door. The first thing out of her mouth isn't hello.

"Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

It's the sentence she has been rehearsing for four days. The one you draft in the hospital parking lot and never send.

Then Mary comes out and falls at his feet, says the same words, and just cries. The whole hillside is crying with her. And the strangest thing happens. Jesus knows he is about to call Lazarus out of the tomb in ten minutes. He has the ending. He cries anyway.

He doesn't pull out the spoiler to comfort them. He stands with his friends and lets himself feel what they feel, then yells into the cave, and a man dead four days walks out still wrapped in his grave clothes.

What We Learn

We assume that if God is going to fix a thing, he must not be that affected by it, that his power to resolve a situation cancels out his presence in it.

This story says no. The ending doesn't make the loss any less real to him. Whatever you're sitting with that feels four-days-late, he isn't standing outside the cave being efficient about it. He's the one crying outside the cave with you.