The Sadness of Joy...

I've often wondered why Jesus wept at Lazarus' tomb. I've heard many sermons on it and none of them have ever really settled the issue. Jesus, of all people, knew exactly what was going to happen. He even knew that through His death and resurrection that death would be defeated. Shouldn't this corpse walking out of a tomb been a moment of victory? Didn't Jesus realize that it would foreshadow His own resurrection? Shouldn't He have been filled with anticipation as people saw the power that God has over death? And yet there it is in black and white, the easiest Bible verse to memorize, "Jesus wept." (Jn. 11:35)

I think that I have a better understanding of this now. It happened last week as I presided over a funeral of our friend Janice. Janice went home to heaven at age 42, leaving behind 3 children: Ryan, 20, Rob, 19, and Heather, 18. Janice has fought cancer for the last 18 years. We have known her for the last 2 years, and her kids have spent time living with us while she was in the hospital. (More info on that here.)

I had worked hard on my comments for her funeral. Although it was sad to say goodbye (even temporarily) to someone so young, my hope was that the funeral could celebrate the end to her battle with cancer. A battle that was won by Jesus. In order to help keep that focus clear in the service, I wanted to end my comments by reading from I Corinthians 15:50-58 from "The Message".

50I need to emphasize, friends, that our natural, earthy lives don't in themselves lead us by their very nature into the kingdom of God. Their very "nature" is to die, so how could they "naturally" end up in the kingdom of Life?
51But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. We're not all going to die--but we are all going to be changed. 52You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes--it's over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we'll all be changed. 53In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. 54Then the saying will come true:

Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
55Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?

56It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. 57But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three--sin, guilt, death--are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
58With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don't hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.

That should bring people to the joyous point of remembering that death's hold on us is only temporary. The last word belongs to Jesus. Janice's battle is over. She has been victorious. And verse 58 tells us to throw ourselves into Christ's mission, knowing that He can complete all that He has set out to do. I envisioned reading the passage with power, confessing with confidence the joy that we have from Christ's defeat of death.

But what actually happened was that as I read I became so overwhelmed with sadness that I could barely finish the passage. And it was at that moment that I realized something. Sin, it's hold on us, and the ramifications it has for our lives is something so terrible that we should not gloat in our victory. Yes, Jesus has the last word, and in that we can have hope. But our rebellion against God has filled this world with such pain and misery that at times our joy has to be laced with sadness. That's part of living in a fallen world - a situation that will not be remedied until the Kingdom comes in all its fullness. Having a taste of what Jesus offers helps us to see the horrible reality of what the world has a little more clearly. Seeing what is to come brings us joy, but also overwhelms us with sadness for what is.

It's a bittersweet feeling that my friend Matt Auten has appropriately named "the stab". That sense of happy sadness or painful joy that reminds you of the celebration to come while showing you the desolation of the world all around you (and even in you).

So I think that's why Jesus wept. Yes, He knew the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven. He knew the power and promise of God. But that knowledge only made Him more susceptible to the pain of the death of Lazarus and the sadness of those who loved him. And by experiencing that He was able to transform it into resurrection joy. As we know the joy of God better it emotionally stretches us to higher heights. But the view from those heights constantly reminds us of the depth to which sin will carry us. Our call is to embrace the sadness and let God transform it in and through our lives.

So it's important to remember God's words through Paul...

Death swallowed by triumphant Life! Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now? ... With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don't hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.