“ wept.” Ezekiel 37:1-6, 11-13a; :1-45 excerpts RSV Dr. David Cozad Blacksburg Presbyterian Church Sunday, March 29, 2020

“Jesus wept.”

It’s the shortest verse in the , but it packs as big a wallop as any. That’s why I have always fantasized about standing up to preach

and uttering just those two words, and then sitting down, leaving an astonished congregation

to decide whether they are disappointed or delighted to go without the other 14 minutes of verbiage.

Because if there are any two words in scripture that could preach an entire sermon, “Jesus wept” is your candidate.

So much of the biblical witness is encapsulated in those two words.

After all, the Bible is an intensely realistic book. It does not shrink from portraying life with all of its warts and blemishes, tragedy and chaos. There is plenty of fuel for weeping.

Now, you and I are not much into negative stuff—let alone weepy and gloomy. We prefer to go away from Sunday worship

feeling uplifted and encouraged.

Yet on this day, let’s step into this story, and walk around in it for a few minutes, and allow ourselves to feel something different.

Because this is the season of Lent, a time for looking inward, a time of penitence, a time for confessing

that we have managed to make as much of a mess of things

as our spiritual ancestors did in the time of Jesus and Lazarus.

And that is why no two words capture the spirit of Lent better than “Jesus wept.” But then, they carry freight that goes well beyond Lent or this particular story in John. So don’t think for a moment that the tears of Jesus were solely for the death of Lazarus. Truth be told, there were

a multitude of reasons why Jesus wept—and why Jesus weeps yet today.

Jesus wept for a world in which things like Lazarus happen every day—tragic illnesses and pandemics

that break our hearts and take our friends and loved ones, or airplanes that fall from the sky,

or all manner of people who just can’t seem to catch a break with rent or food or broken down cars.

Jesus wept—and continues to weep.

Jesus wept for a world where people make their judgments about everything in terms of, “What is best for me?”

Mary and wanted Jesus to come heal their brother because they didn’t want to lose him.

And when he arrived at , they scolded him, saying, “If you had come sooner, Lazarus would have lived!”

And family friends who were hanging around as mourners whispered among themselves, “Surely this great healer

could have gotten himself here sooner and done better by his buddy Lazarus.”

But no one seemed to be thinking about, “What does God want to happen here?”—an especially pertinent question,

since Jesus perceived that God might have a different agenda

for what would be revealed through the illness of Lazarus.

And even today, what we call “enlightened self-interest” rules as the highest and best standard for what we should want,

and seldom is any thought given to trying to see as God sees.

Jesus wept—and continues to weep.

And Jesus wept in a world where tyranny intimidated people from doing the right thing. The disciples knew how Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters.

But they also tried to keep him from going to Bethany, because it was too close to , where the religious authorities

were already looking for a pretense to arrest him and bring him to trial.

And Jesus knew that raising Lazarus would seal his own fate. Read ahead in John’s gospel, and you will see

that the spreading word about this amazing act of mercy

is the straw that breaks the camel’s back for the scribes and . They can tolerate no more.

Not only does it show them up, as people who claim to speak for God, but they don’t want to risk getting the Romans all riled up,

over a would-be Messiah who doesn’t seem at all that interested in running off the Romans

(which after all, is what the Messiah is supposed to do).

Ironically, the religious leaders themselves had sold out in order to maintain an uneasy peace with their Roman occupiers,

while Rome itself lived in constant fear that someone, somewhere, might be gaining on them.

And even as the world is trying to come together today to fight the Coronavirus pandemic, the forces of self-interest

and tyranny and authoritarianism seem to show an endless talent for re-inventing themselves,

re-emerging every time the forces of peace and justice pause for breath.

Jesus wept—and continues to weep.

And Jesus wept for a world in which economic priorities had become skewed, and acts of kindness and devotion

were met with suspicion and derision.

According to John, it was this Mary, sister of Lazarus, who earlier had washed Jesus’ feet with her tears of penitence and had anointed him with expensive ointment, which Jesus saw as preparation for his burial.

But you will recall it was Judas who protested that Mary’s ointment should have been sold and the money given to the poor—

a transparent act of posturing that caused Jesus to gag.

“The poor you will always have with you,” he had replied to Judas. Yet today, there are so many who piously

quote that line as an excuse for looking the other way and doing nothing.

Jesus wept—and continues to weep.

And if we are honest with ourselves, Jesus weeps for a world in which the likes of you and me continue to disappoint,

with all our foibles and follies and shortcomings.

Some of it may be evil in our hearts, but more of it is probably just plain old distraction and sloppiness.

I had a seminary classmate who received a paper back from one of our professors; it was a hastily thrown together,

poorly researched study of a different passage. And the professor’s only comment,

scrawled across the top of the page, was “Jesus wept.”

How often do you think that sentiment might be an apt description of our own haphazard attempts at discipleship?

But perhaps the biggest problem is that we just don’t know. Try as you and I might to see as God sees,

it just doesn’t seem to be within our human powers to grasp the Holy One’s intentions for us;

we simply can’t muster the wisdom to be what God wants us to be, even when that is what we most want to do.

Jesus wept—and continues to weep.

But friends, there is at least one good thing to come of all this suffering and sorrow and falling short that causes Jesus to weep. And it is something we should never lose sight of.

It shows us a God who is not removed from the cares and woes of the world. It shows us a savior who redeems the pain of the world

not by rising above it but by descending into it.

It witnesses to a love that can save us because it has allowed itself to experience even the worst of what you and I have experienced,

even the worst stuff that we can dish up.

Now, along about now you may be thinking that you would prefer a more John Wayne/Clint Eastwood type of savior—

more macho, and definitely less weepy.

That type of savior might be easier to follow, more attractive to our fantasies of self- sufficiency and above all,

keeping one’s cool and appearing to be above the fray.

But I want to suggest to you this morning that Jesus’ kind of savior is one that will take you a lot further.

Don’t mistake his weeping for a lack of confidence, don’t mistake his passion for a lack of proper perspective.

Jesus is who he is, Jesus does what he does, precisely because he wept, and continues to weep. He allows himself

to be vulnerable to life and to us, thus demonstrating once and for all

that God is not too holy, too above it all, to give his life for the likes of you and me.

But here’s the really good news: Jesus wept—and continues to weep—because he doesn’t just weep from sorrow.

Even more so, Jesus wept—and continues to weep—for joy.

He wept for the joy that he was about to bring to Mary and Martha, in raising their brother. And even though he knew it would get him crucified, he wept for joy in the knowledge that even that harsh penalty would be to God’s glory.

Why? Because it would lead to his own resurrection—the event that redefines human life.

So here on this fifth Sunday of Lent, you and I are given a sneak peak at the joy that lies ahead in two weeks.

In the raising of Lazarus, the die is cast, that Easter will surely come.

“Unbind him, and let him go,” he said of Lazarus. And to you and me, even in the midst of pandemic fears

and all of life’s normal disappointments, he says, “You are unbound now. Come forth from the tomb to live again.”

Jesus wept.