The Sound of Jesus Weeping.

I’ve been staring at this screen for what seems like hours, trying to find the words to begin this post. The emptiness of the screen mirrors the emptiness in my heart. Or is it fullness? A heart full of grief, of frustration, of heaviness…

This past week has been just that. Heavy.

Last Tuesday my family made the difficult decision to put down Wally, our wire-haired dachshund. I got the call while I was at work, telling me to come to the vet to say goodbye. It was completely unexpected.

Then, on Friday, another shock. My boyfriends Grandmother passed away. I couldn’t believe it. She was so young. I thought I’d have more time to get to know her, to hear her stories, to share some of mine… Now I never will.

Also, today, 3 years ago, my beautiful Aunt Denise lost her fight to cancer. Beautiful, brave, and gone much too soon. I’m wearing orange for her right now, the color of the sunset. It was her favorite.

I feel heaviness because no matter what science says,
death is not natural. The God who made ferns and daisies, stars and koalas, ladybugs and mustangs, pine trees and frogs, didn’t create them to die. And He didn’t create us, in his image, to die either.

No, death is a result of sin.

Jesus himself, when his friend Lazarus died, wept at his graveside, though he knew moments later, he would raise him back to life.

I’ve wondered before… why did he weep?

I’m sure the pharisees shook their heads, appalled that one who claimed to be a Rabbi couldn’t keep his emotions in check. It would have been much more appropriate and culturally acceptable for him to contain himself and be a confident and joyful calm amid the storm, patting the shoulders of Martha and Mary and telling them not to be emotional. I mean, he did know Lazarus was going to live again.

And yet….he wept.

I think he wept because although he was about to raise Lazarus back to life, the story wasn’t over for him. Lazarus would still have to face death once more.

He wept because not only Lazarus, but all of his children, from Adam and Eve to the that last of mankind, would be consumed by this calamity called death, a curse he never intended, but instead we chose.

He wept to show us that sin grieves God deeply.
For the wages of sin is death.

He wept, I believe, to show us that it is good to grieve over the ones we lose. Though oh, so painful, it is right.

I have wept this week. And my heart continues to weep, for my words can’t breathe life back into the ones I’ve lost. Unlike my Lord, I am incapable of cleaning up the debris that death leaves behind.

At times, it makes me so frustrated. I want to know, more than anything, what to say to comfort a bruised and bleeding heart. I want to be able to fix something that I know can never be fixed.

And I feel these things, and my heart grows heavy. I ache with the ones I love as they weep. But although I don’t have the power to resurrect, one exists who does. He is God incarnate, the lion and the lamb, the perfect integration of mercy and justice. The prince of peace.
The all-knowing one.

And I look up to heaven, and I hear a sound.
It’s a sound so beautiful and so tragic,
it makes my heart soar and tremble all at once.

It’s the sound of my Lord, love embodied.
It’s the sound of Jesus weeping.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.”
-Hebrews 4:15