The Tension Between Doubt and Faith, Part IV

"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died". (John 11:21)

"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'. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit.... Jesus wept". (John 11:32-33, 35)

Jesus didn't show up, Lazarus died, and everyone wept.  The part of the story I left out is that Jesus tarried on purpose, knowing that Lazarus was going to die, knowing that he was going to perform an even greater miracle than healing Lazarus; namely, that of raising him from the dead.  Mary and Martha, not knowing this, felt that Jesus had let them down.

What touches me profoundly is that when Jesus finally did arrive, he didn't rebuke Mary and Martha for being angry with him, he didn't chastise them for their lack of trust, and he didn't offer pithy condolences.  And - this is the best part - even though he was about to do something so amazing it defied logic and the natural world altogether, he paused...

Jesus was deeply moved by the emotion of his friends.  He entered into Mary and Martha's grief and their feelings of abandonment (Jesus didn't actually abandon them, but even so, he compassionately validated those feelings).  And he wept.  He wept for them and with them.

In the tears of Jesus lies most of theology.