I cry for those of us left behind, for the lonely ones with hollows in our hearts. I trust You to sort them out as You catch them, to hear and answer each prayer they represent. Today, I cry tears that mean a hundred things at once, happy and sorrowful and desperate and hopeful. Their pain is gone, their needs met, their sorrows overturned, and that thought alone makes me weep for joy.īut knowing the end of the story, knowing the good that’s coming and has already come, doesn’t erase the heartbreak for the meantime. And I want to celebrate for brothers and sisters who get there ahead of me, the saints who have sprinted past me into Your throne room. I don’t grieve like someone without hope ( 1 Thessalonians 4:13), because I anticipate new life on the other side of the clouds. I believe that this story, like the story of Lazarus, ends in victory. I believe that death won’t get the last word because You’ve already crushed it and declared the power of resurrection over everyone who will receive it. And yet I also believe that You, Jesus, are in the business of restoring what has gone wrong. I can feel by the cavern in my chest that something is wrong, that this aching sorrow isn’t the way things were supposed to be. I believe that the world wasn’t made for death and loss. Today, Jesus, I am thankful to worship a God who became human enough to weep with me. You grieved the loss, and You grieved with those who felt that same stinging loss. You heard the stories, clutched the shaking hands, walked to the tomb, and shed tears of your own. You didn’t stand aloof, offering textbook reassurances and condescending pats on the head. Even though You already knew the end of the story-even though You knew that death wouldn’t have the final word-still You wept. Today, I remember that You wept because someone dear to You and dear to people You loved had died.
Today, “Jesus wept” means everything to me. Today, as the hope I still hold to be true collides with the waves of sorrow suffocating me.
Today, as the words of the hymns catch in my throat and render me mute. Today, as pastors and friends and family members speak about my loved one using the past tense instead of the present. Today, as I see the casket topped with flowers that blur at the edges because my eyes go damp every time I look in their direction. How different that verse looks to me today. I didn’t dwell long on the significance of Your tears. (The shortest verse, as we gleefully reminded each other, was Job 3:2, “He said.”) I didn’t pay much attention to the context of John 11: the story of how You were en route to the tomb of Your friend Lazarus, in the company of Lazarus’ sisters Mary and Martha, mere days after Lazarus’ death. “Jesus wept.” My friends and I would giggle, pleased that we had discovered the second-shortest verse in the Bible. But trust me in this-if you are in Christ, the mourning will be only here on earth you will be face-to-face with your precious Savior, Jesus Christ.Įxcerpt from The Stings of Death by Nathan Ehelmanĭear Jesus, How remarkable it is to have a savior who weeps with me.īack when I was in elementary school, I loved John 11:35 for its brevity. There will be mourning the sting of death will bring pain. Middle-aged men die children die old people die. We never know when we will be called out of this life. Death no longer holds us captive, but as a pastor for nearly a decade, I have observed that death and the trials and sorrow surrounding it have stings that catches many families by surprise. Death has no victory over the believer.Īll of this is true in a spiritual sense-death has lost its sting, victory over death has been won. Believers know that for all who are in union with Jesus, their bodies will be united to Christ after death and they anticipate the hope of the resurrection.
The Lord Jesus has taken away the sting of death through his resurrection.
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