STILL WEEPING WITH THOSE WHO WEEP

‘God only knows
God makes his plan
The information’s unavailable
To the mortal man’
[Paul Simon – Slip Slidin’ Away]

Two and a half years ago, not long after Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, I wrote a post entitled ‘Weeping with those who weep’. Today much remains that is worthy of our tears. The war in Ukraine continues, with pictures recently appearing on our TV screens of a missile attack that destroyed the children’s hospital in Kyiv, the brutal hostilities in the Middle East seem to be escalating and this week, closer to home, the utterly horrific events in Southport which have left three little girls dead and, at the time of writing, a number of others still critically ill.

Surely we live in a vale of tears.

Now there may will be those who ask, not unreasonably, why the sovereign God of love that I profess to believe in can allow such things to occur. And my answer, of course, is ‘I don’t know’.

So instead of any of us attempting an answer, it is, perhaps, better that we humble ourselves before Almighty God and, recognising our own weakness and our own need for repentance, cry out to the judge of the whole earth who always does what is right. And as we do so, we would do well to come to Him in faith, in awe of the Holy God he is, confident that, even in the darkest of days, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases and his mercy never comes to an end.[Lamentations 3:22]

But whilst it is easy to suggest such a course of action, the question remains – in the face of such suffering, do we have good cause to believe God loves us? Having allowed the events of recent years to take place, can He really be considered to be control?

I believe the answer to both those questions is ‘Yes’ and, assured of such, I will continue to trust him even in these most troubling of times.

But where do I find the reason for my confidence?

One such place is John 11 which, to me at least, is a truly remarkable portion of the Bible. As the chapter begins we are introduced to a man called Lazarus who lived in Bethany. Lazarus, we are told, is ill, something that is as unremarkable as the fact that his two sisters were called Martha and Mary. But then we read this:

‘Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was’ [John 11:5-6]

That’s surprising isn’t it? Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters and SO he stayed where he was. I’d have expected him to do the opposite. Knowing his friend was ill, I’d have expected Jesus to have dropped everything and gone to his aid. But though that is what I’d have expected, it’s not what the scripture records. Furthermore, when Jesus’ delaying tactics seem to have backfired, Jesus again acts in a way that is contrary to all expectations when, having told his disciples that Lazarus is dead, he adds

‘and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe’ [John 11:15]

So Lazarus has died, something that is clearly a terrible thing to have happened, not least for Lazarus, and yet it is something that Jesus appears to be willing to accept. Indeed the text seems to be saying that Jesus has deliberately delayed attending Lazarus in order that he would die, not out of laziness or lack of concern on his part, but rather because of the love he has for Martha, Mary and their now deceased brother. And still more supposing perhaps is the fact that Jesus appears to be glad that he wasn’t there to prevent Lazarus’ death because, he believes, it will ultimately be for the good of his disciples since the upshot of it all will be that they will believe.

What should we make of this? Well at the very least, we should recognise that sometimes God does indeed work in mysterious ways. And that the avoidance of suffering should not always be our ultimate goal, because suffering is not something that is necessarily without purpose.

On the contrary – in John chapter 11 it becomes apparent that our ultimate good comes about from our believing in God and that, if this results from our recognising the glory of God through circumstances that involve suffering, then that suffering is far from meaningless.

This is, of course, all counterintuitive stuff – but then much of Christianity is. If the Bible teaches us anything, it is that what man may intend for evil, God can simultaneously intend for good. [Genesis 50:20], something that we see most clearly on the cross. For it was on that green hill far away that, ‘according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God’, ‘lawless men’ ‘crucified and killed’ Jesus and the glory of God was most fully displayed. Counterintuitive thought it may be it nonetheless remains wonderfully true, that ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only son [to suffer and die] so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’ [John 3:16]

But with all that said, we must not make a mistake and imagine that Jesus is emotionally detached from those who suffer, or that we can adequately comfort the bitterly distressed with a facile, ‘Smile, Jesus loves you’. On the contrary, as is also apparent in John chapter 11, Jesus cared deeply about the sadness experienced by those he met in Bethany, and, I believe, he continues to care about the sorrow that is all too much a part of our own day to day a existence. And so we read how, as he approached the tomb wherein Lazarus’ lay, Jesus wept.

John 11:35 is famous for being the shortest verse in the Bible and yet it’s two words, ‘Jesus wept’, contain so much that is helpful as we continue to hear of those who are suffering so horribly. Here are just three things we can learn.

Firstly, Jesus ‘weeps with those who weep’ [Romans 12:15]. It’s good to know that our God is not a remote deity who lacks compassion – rather he is a loving Heavenly Father who comes alongside us in our sadness and shares with us in our sorrow. I believe Jesus still weeps today – that he shares in the sadness of all those who, regardless of where they find themselves, know what it is to experience genuine unhappiness. His tears are not a sign of his being weak. Rather they are an indicator of the strength of his love.

Secondly, our tears are not a sign of weakness on our part either. On the contrary, Jesus’ tears reassure us that it’s right for us to weep, that real tears are an appropriate response to real sadness, that Christianity isn’t a religion of the stiff upper lip in which grief is dismissed with insensitive assertions that ‘all things work together for good’ even though fact remains gloriously true for all those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

In first Thessalonians 4:13 Paul writes to his readers in order that they ‘may not grieve as others do who have no hope.’ With these words he makes it clear that it is appropriate for us to grieve – but that we should remain hopeful even as we do so. As Jesus stood outside the tomb in which Lazarus lay, I believe his tears were no less real for knowing that he was about to bring his friend back to life. Jesus grieved too – but not as one who had no hope.

Similarly, as the conflict in Ukraine drags on, the death toll in the Middle East climbs ever higher, and terrible violence is perpetrated on the streets of our own sleepy seaside towns, we too should weep. But as we do so, we too can be confident that there really are better days ahead.

And thirdly, Jesus’ tears didn’t stop him loving those for whom he wept. As Jesus wept, not only did he know that he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, he knew that he himself would soon die too. Furthermore, he knew that his raising Lazarus would be the very act that would provoke those who opposed him to start making their plans to put him to death. [John 11:53].

Their hardness of heart must surely have saddened Jesus further. Even so, he didn’t flinch from his purpose, the reason for which he came into the world. Such was the courage of the man who was, and is, God, that he set his face towards Calvary – in order that he might bear there the punishment for our sin.

Jesus didn’t enjoy being crucified – rather he endured it – for the joy that was set before him.

For it was there on the cross that Jesus dealt with the horror of sin, securing our salvation and guaranteeing that, in time, all death and all sadness would one day come to an end. He knew that the cost of raising Lazarus to life would be his own death – that that was the price that had to be paid if we are, one day, to be resurrected too.

Jesus said,

‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live’ [John 11:25].

This is not just wonderfully true – it i also verifiably true. Because having said these words, Jesus called out to Lazarus and summoned him from the tomb. And having done so, the man, who had by now been dead for four days, did indeed come out, as was witnessed by the many who were present in Bethany that day. Like them, therefore, we have very good reason to believe, not only that Jesus’s claim hold up, but also that God does indeed love us and that, irrespective of what we may be experiencing, He really is in control.

And it is by believing all this that we will be enabled to grieve hopefully, sustaining us, not only when those we love die, but as we approach our own death too.

Regardless then of how we die, whether it be the effects of old age or ailment, the consequence of conflict or cancer, the result of either violence or a virus, there will still be a place for tears – our own, the tears of those who love us and, if John 11:35 teaches us anything, those of Jesus too. But those tears will come to an end. Because Jesus wept that we might know eternal joy – he died that we might experience everlasting life.

Until then, however, we must not allow ourselves to merely wallow in our unhappiness, imagining somehow, that our tears are, in themselves, enough. We must not let our sadness stop us from helping others. Instead, rather than mere displays of sympathy, we must allow our sadness for the plight of others, and the hope we have in the gospel, to motivate us to act – to both share the good news of Jesus, and to help others in any way that we can as we seek to love our neighbour as ourselves.

That task is, of course, too great for any of us, and at times we are likely to find ourselves overwhelmed by the needs of others. But there is no shame in being asked for more than you’ve got, and only being able to give that which you have.

At the start of the war in Ukraine, I remember seeing pictures of pushchairs being left for Ukrainian refugees on the platform of a Polish railway station. They were a powerful reminder that, though it’s unlikely that any of us will ever change the world, each and every one of us can still make a world of difference to somebody who needs our help, that no act of kindness is too small to be of value. Let’s not imagine otherwise.

Irrespective then of how we’re feeling today, whether we’re happy, sad or a combination of the two, let us all continue to cry out to God, the one who really can help us in our deepest need, the one who is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think [Ephesians 3:20], and the one who can even raise the dead.

And let us take some comfort from the fact that, when it feels like the weight of the world is on our shoulders, it is God, and not us, who holds the whole world in his hands. He can be trusted – because He knows what he’s doing – even in those moments when it seems to us he doesn’t.

We may not be able to see how God is at work in our sadness and suffering, but by faith we know that he is. More than that, we know that our light, momentary, affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory. And in that we can rejoice – confident that our suffering is doing something and that our pain has a purpose too.

Even so, let’s not forget that even pain that is purposeful still hurts. And when it does, rather than telling those who are hurting to simply cheer up, let us be those who are content instead to continue to weep with those who weep, remembering as we do so, that the one who does that best of all is Jesus Christ himself – the one who, I am absolutely convinced, will one day wipe all our tears away.

Related posts follow below but to finish, a couple of songs that bring me comfort in difficult times.

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Related posts:

To read ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here

To read ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’, click here

To read ‘on the FALLEN and the FELLED’, click here

To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here

To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here

To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.

To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here

To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here

To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here

To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.

To read ‘Monsters’, click here

To read ‘On Sleeping like a Baby’, click here

To read ‘But this I know’, click here

To read ‘But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope’, click here

To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here

To read ‘The Promise Keeper’, click here

To read ‘Hearing the grass grow’, click here

To read ‘Because the world is not enough’, click here

To read ‘Do you hear the people sing?’, click here

To read ‘Faith and Doubt’, click here

To read ‘Real Power’, click here

To read ‘Foolishness – Law and Gospel’, click here

To read, ‘But this I know’, click here

To read ‘Rest Assured’, click here

To read ‘The Resurrection – is it just rhubarb?’, click here

To read ‘One Day’, click here.

To read ‘General Practice – still a sweet sorrow’, click here