Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church

Homily for March 9, 2008
Liturgical Year A- Cycle II
5th Sunday of Lent
By Dcn. Ray Alcouffe
 Topic: Jesus Wept
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Gospel
John: 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45
The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.”  When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”  Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was.  Then after this he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
 
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 to meet him; but Mary sat at home.  Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”  Jesus said to her,
 
“Your brother will rise.”  Martha said, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.”  Jesus told her.  “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?”  She said to him, “Yes, Lord.  I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”
 
He became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?”  They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept.  So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”  But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”
 
So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb.  It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”  Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.”  Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe
you will see the glory of God?”  So they took away the stone.  And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me.  I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”  And when he had said this, He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.  So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”
 
Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.
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“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live.”


As I reflected on today’s Gospel story of the raising of Lazarus, my first thought was to identify with poor Lazarus. How sick do I have to be to get your attention, Lord? It’s like old Roy who was a bit of a hypochondriac. He would complain and complain about being sick until people got to ignoring him. When he finally did die, he had inscribed on his tombstone: “See, I told you I was sick!”


Of course our powerful Gospel story is not all that trivial. On the cosmic level, this is a story of God’s vision or goal for all human persons - that we will never die but that we should live in Go d’s presence forever. On the personal level, it is a story about our trust in God to fulfill this goal. It even goes down to the gut level - does God care about me? We get the answer through what has become known as the shortest verse in the Bible - “Jesus wept,” Jn 11:35. That says it all! Let’s see why.


First of all, we know Jesus as a male human being, fully human, thus in a way one of the guys. Why do guys cry?  Women have the gift of being able to easily express their emotions in tears, it is not repressed or suppressed in them.  For guys, though, we are taught from our childhood that big boys don’t cry.  This may not be universal, it is somewhat culturally conditioned, but most of us sitting here were raised that way. The greatest taunt on the school playground is being called a crybaby.  But there are exceptions when it’s OK for guys to cry if we don’t make a big scene about it by blubbering on and on.  Example: what movie has made you cry? For me the most memorable one was made about 50 years ago called Ol Yeller.  It was about a big, ugly but lovable, rogue dog, out on the frontier who muscled his way into the love of a family.  He wasn’t wanted by the parents at first because he would cause all sorts of mischief with the farm animals and tromp down the garden. Of course there was a boy involved and he attached himself to that dog and the dog to him, until the dog proved his value by protecting the family from predators. In the course of doing just this, one day he was bitten by an animal and eventually came down with rabies. Since he was now a menace and he had to be put down.  I don’t care who you are, that scene will make you cry real tears.  Still, that story, like our Gospel story has a happy and uplifting ending.


So why did Jesus cry in the Gospel story?  Yes, Lazarus was his beloved friend and he was dead.  But Jesus knew that he would bring him to life again - so why the tears - was he just playacting? Looking at the text of the story again, we see that preceding Jesus’ weeping, some strong emotions were stirring inside him.  It says, “He became perturbed and deeply troubled.”  In the original language, Greek, these words mean that Jesus was having some gut wrenching emotions and Jesus wept, meaning not sobbing or wailing as was the usual mourning custom of the culture; but meaning that his eyes overflowed with tears that streamed down his face.
Those gut wrenching emotions, where did they come from?  What was Jesus reacting to? Some say that Jesus was stung by all the unbelief around him.  He was stung by his closest disciples remonstrating against him when he said he would go up to Judea.  They said in effect, “What!  Are you crazy?  You can’t go there, they were trying to kill you just a short while ago. This time they may well accomplish it!”  Even his beloved Martha and Mary challenged him instead of greeting him when he finally came to them.  “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”  In their grief they were saying in effect, what good is it to have you as a friend, to believe in you, when you don’t answer my need?  And after Jesus reacted to this with tears, others in the crowd picked it up and threw it back on Jesus by the mocking statement, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”  Yes, Jesus’ emotions could have come from these frustrations about the inability of his closest friends to understand.


But I think there is a deeper reason here.  In the only other two places in the New Testament where Jesus sheds tears, it is in reaction to what he sees in the future.  In the first case he weeps over Jerusalem (Lk 19:41) where he sees the destruction of the holy city.  In the second, it is at Gethsemane when he foresees his own trial and death, becoming emotionally distraught.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus is affected by the absurdity of death and the negative power it has on all of us. He reacts to the tears of those around him and he foresees our own distress and our tears in the face of death.  So his tears are in response to our tears; he does care for us deeply.  That is why Jesus wept.  It is in this context that Jesus gives us the rest of the story - he goes to his friend’s tomb and faces death directly, person to person - and he wins.  In this way he connects the great cosmic truth of God’s plan for us, that we shall live even if we die, to the personal truth that God cares for each and every one of us.


It sometimes is very hard to wait for the Lord. We all sometimes come to Mass wondering why we are here.  Even when we are at our best, we put limits on our trust in God. Yes, we say with our mouths, like Martha’s response to Jesus, that we believe, and we maybe even convince our hearts that we believe deeply.  But then come those reservations welling up within us that disheartens us as we remember some unmet expectations on God’s part. These unmet expectations bring forth a residual anger, disappointment, and resentment that eat away at trust.  We didn’t get what we wanted when we wanted it and that acts like a poison.  If we choose to face these feelings alone, then gradually our relationship with God will be destroyed - which will then destroy us.  The antidote to this poison is our gathering together as we are now, in the presence of our beloved Lord.  We gain strength as we participate in Communion with him and with one another.  In this way, Jesus’ tears are tears of healing as we experience his care for us.