April 6, 2014
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Readings:
Ezekiel 37: 12-14
Psalms 130: 1-2; 3-4; 5-6; 7-8
Romans 8: 8-11
John 11:1-45
Jesus wept.
This line from John’s Gospel is the shortest sentence in Scripture, one of the most elegant and easily understood. The rest of John can be the most difficult to comprehend among the four Gospels.
Luke describes Jesus’ birth as a story of parents on the run, fleeing persecution. Later, Jesus’ first public ministerial act is preaching in his hometown synagogue. There he is run out of the place, a prophet who grated on some of his neighbors. Mark describes a staccato burst of activity, seemingly compiled by a reporter on the run, capturing snippets of Jesus’ preaching and activities. Matthew’s Gospel is seen as directed to Jesus’ Jewish heritage.
In John’s Gospel, filled with allegories and theological reflections, Jesus is more in command. We never see him as a child, and his first public witness is at the wedding at Cana, changing water into wine. He is a miracle worker, and nearly everything points to his divinity, especially the story this week about bringing his friend Lazarus back to life.
In this episode, as per usual in John’s Gospel, Jesus is in control. The friend who he loved is dying, and in a puzzling manner, he delays two days before seeing him. When he finally arrives to Lazarus’ tomb, he is berated by the dead man’s sister for tardiness. The miracle points to Jesus’ messianic mission, a Lenten prelude to the joy of the Easter miracle.
The author of John’s Gospel is leading us to contemplate the divinity of Jesus. Yet it is not one-dimensional.
Jesus wept. And in that he shares in our humanity. The weeping occurs after Jesus experiences his friends weeping over their loss. It seems almost communal.
Weeping regularly, at every petty annoyance, can be a sign of emotional illness. But those moments of appropriate weeping are a sign that we are human. They are to be valued.
The death of my younger brother three years ago was one such moment. Joe had earned high professional praise as a journalist, but I thought of him as the kid who never stopped asking questions, as the father who sang camp songs to his three children every night before they went to bed, and the brother who was always there with a regular phone call, touching base with his four siblings, pulling us together in a way that leaves a gap in his absence.
This Sunday’s Gospel indicates that we believe in a God who gets involved in messy human history, sharing the most human of traits. Jesus wept. And we are all better for it.
Peter Feuerherd is director of Communications for the Diocese of Camden and associate publisher of the Catholic Star Herald.
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