Liturgy: “The Shortest Verse”

What is the King’s Liturgy? King’s Liturgy defines our experience together as a Christian community. It outlines the rhythms we celebrate with the Church at large: Scripture readings, Sabbath habits, and celebration of Holy Days and historical events.

This Week’s Lectionary Readings:
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
Psalm 130

This week’s liturgy is contributed by Dr. Ethan Campbell, Associate Professor of English and Literature:

If, like me, you had a Sunday school teacher who gave out candy for memorizing Bible verses, you already know John 11:35. It might not have been your favorite verse, but it was the shortest “Jesus wept.” Easy candy.

As we get older, though, and read this verse in its full context, the story of Lazarus rising from the dead, we might come to see that it truly is one of the great profound descriptions of Jesus in the Gospels.

The context is that Jesus’ close friend Lazarus has died—of what, we don’t know, but he had been sick and lying on his deathbed for a while. Lazarus’s family and friends sent word to Jesus and expected he might perform a miracle to save him, perhaps even from afar as he had done before (see John 4:46-53). But he didn’t.

Now Jesus has arrived, and he weeps for his friend. I’ve heard many pastors over the years, including my former pastor Tim Keller, says that the word “weep” here should really be translated as “bawled” or “roared”—that Jesus is actually venting his anger. But this doesn’t seem like much of a distinction to me. Whenever I’ve wept for a loved one who has died, anger has always been part of it—anger at God, at death, maybe even at the person who has gone.

What’s most striking to me about this moment is that Jesus knows Lazarus’s death is only temporary. His sister Martha knows this, too, on some level. She says, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (verse 24). As Christians, we know this, too. But Jesus also knows that Lazarus and his family won’t have to wait that long—he will walk out of the tomb momentarily.

So why does Jesus cry? A lot of commentary ink has been spilled on this question, but my favorite answer comes from the theologian Frederick Dale Bruner: “Death hurts everybody, including Jesus.”

As we have sadly been reminded over the past few weeks, death is our enemy. It terrifies us. It enrages us. It can make all of our accomplishments and our efforts at a good life seem meaningless. It can fill us with despair. It can make us doubt God. Jesus knows this, and he feels it. Death is his enemy, too. It’s an enemy he knows he will defeat (see 1 Corinthians 15:12-26), but he hates it all the same, and his heart breaks to see the effects it has on the world he created. So he weeps before his friends.

Now more than perhaps any other time in our lives, death is at the front of all of our minds. People around the world, especially the elderly and vulnerable, are suffering sickness and dying at rates that are overwhelming medical services. Here in New York City, hospitals are operating at capacity and above, bracing for worse to come, when they will have to make difficult decisions about how to distribute care. Some have already lost loved ones and are mourning.

Others are facing job losses, or family conflicts, or other uncertainties, along with their fears of the coronavirus. Many people are suffering alone. There are reasons to take comfort. In the midst of this crisis, New Yorkers are showing a remarkable sense of social solidarity, staying home, making sacrifices for those at risk, checking on their neighbors. We are finding new ways to connect with people we care about over our phones and computers.

But before we take comfort, it’s okay for us to cry. Or to roar, or to feel angry. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and take time to rest. It’s okay not to be okay, to drop the act of putting on a good face as happy Christians, to reach out to others for help.

We are living through tragic, unprecedented times. We know we have hope, but first Jesus shows us that we can weep.