JOHN 11:28-37 A GOD FOR OUR SORROWS

28 And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
35 Jesus wept.
36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

In the midst of Mary’s suffering, Jesus called her to himself and she responded by going. Jesus reveals that as God he is personally concerned with our pain and sorrow as well as our obedience to him. His love is one that cannot stand idly by while his creatures suffer. Yet he respects our limited autonomy by calling us to come to him with our sorrows and not intruding into our pain. Mary demonstrated the proper response of faith by immediately going to Jesus. And when she went to Jesus she did not leave her grief at home, but appeared before Jesus with her grief in full bloom. One can almost hear her wailing her lament as he reads her declaration to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Jesus did not challenge her assertion nor did he talk her through her grief. Rather he asked her to direct him to the object of her grief and went with her. The next statement, “Jesus wept,” shows that he not only physically went with her, but Jesus joined her in her grief.

Jesus is Emmanuel, that is, “God with us.” He knows our pain and sorrows because it was through suffering that he was completed as a human being (Hebrews 5:7-10). What greater comfort is there than knowing that the God of the universe is willing to walk through the fire with us (Daniel 3:25)? Invite him into your sorrows…but do not forget him in your joys.

You are my Lord and my God, and I thank you for loving me enough to want to join me in my pain. May I always turn first to you and focus on life and not my suffering. Help me to experience my pain in such a way that I will know your redemption and be able to follow you even through the furnace of my suffering. Amen.