Dating : Love and Lament

When Jesus’s dear friend Lazarus was very sick, Mary and Martha sent a word to Jesus to come. But, Jesus purposely delayed his visit to Bethany. Lazarus eventually died. Everyone believed that if Jesus were there, he wouldn’t have died.

When Jesus reached Bethany, it was already four days since they buried Lazarus. He knew why he delayed and what he planned to do next. Even after being aware that he is about to raise the dead man from the tomb, Jesus wept. (John 11:35) He wept with the grieving sisters and friends. Why did he weep when he could raise him from the dead?

My friend Makoto Fujimura is the artist behind the beautiful illuminated Bible The Four Gospels. He took those two words “Jesus wept” inspired him to create these illuminations.

He says Jesus wept with Mary and Martha because he knows that it is his presence they need more than his miracles. The presence and compassion that comes from genuine love in times of loss.

To Jesus, it is not just about fixing things, solving problems, or even our present-day idea of providing insurance benefits. Let us remember that God became one of us to bear our sorrows. Prophet Isaiah writes about him, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53)

This pandemic has been pitiless for many of us. Though it is not in any way close to the devastation earlier pandemics world has witnessed. But, we have lost many of our dear ones in our families and communities. Sadly many brushes off the crisis by saying that India’s fatality rate is much lower than in other countries. Around 1.4 lakh reported families are grieving beside the non reported cases and deaths due to other causes.

Besides death, the trauma because of depression, abuse, injustice, and anxiety, financial uncertainty, the daily worry of contracting the virus during this pandemic have compounded. Several of us lost our jobs, income, health, relationships, and the list goes on.

If our troubled world is not breaking our heart, we partly are the problem. Our self-centredness and indifference to others made our world a deeply broken place. Someone rightly said, “Pandemic has not broken the world; it only revealed our brokenness.”

We vainly say everything will get back to normal and everything is going to be ok. Yes, we need to be hopeful about the future, but how do we handle our present grief or trauma? It finds a place in you. How then can we find healing?

Jesus wept with Mary and Martha because he knows that it is his presence they need more than his miracles.

For healing

Is time our healer? Over time, hopelessness and cynicism lead some to bitterness, resentment, or anger, while others in hope choose joy, forgiveness, and love. Time may seem to be the healer, but it is love that heals and makes us whole, and time is just a revealer of it.

Fixing things like superheroes or giving answers like an expert cannot heal though they have their value. Neither despair nor denial can bring us wholeness. God calls us to love and share our neighbors’ grief, pains, and sufferings as he did. In doing so, God may bring healing.

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering… But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds, we are healed.” ( Isaiah 53:4,5)

Time may seem to be the healer, but it is love that heals and makes us whole, and time is just a revealer of it.

Jesus, in his teachings of the kingdom of heaven, paradoxically says, “Happy are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” He doesn’t mean being a professional mourner who mourns at deaths, nor does he tell his disciples to go out of their way looking for suffering. Another translation to the words ‘who mourn’ is ‘bearing of sorrow.’ Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “Jesus calls his disciples not to shake off sorrow as though it were no concern of their own but willingly bears it.”

Healing comes when we collectively acknowledge the pain and bear others’ sorrows for Christ’s sake within the body of Christ and outside. In that way, we bond closely as human beings irrespective of race, religion, or gender. How faithful are we to this command?

The suffering and pain are inevitable in our world, broken by sin. Through the cross of Christ, God made way for healing, beauty, and restoration.