Following Jesus to the Tomb
My wife has a lot of shoes. That may not surprise you. One pair of shoes in particular, however, is unique. She’s had them since high-school, and written on the heal with white-out pen is the inscription G22. In fact, all of the girls on my wife’s old pom squad have a similar pair of shoes with the same inscription.
One icy night a car with three freshmen basketball players was headed to their high school to catch a bus to the game. However, the car did not make it to the school, nor was there a game that night. The car slid on a patch of black ice at a stop sign, and the boys skated straight into the path of an oncoming garbage disposal truck.
One of the boys suffered a minor knee injury, another was in a comma for about a week. One of them, however, was killed instantly. The impact of the crash had been so forceful that the front passenger, Jared, was thrown into the window.
My wife grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone else. So needless to say, the loss was everyone’s loss. Most of Jared’s friends just called him G. Twenty-two was the number on his basketball jersey. So, in honor and remembrance of their lost friend, my wife and the other girls on the dance team wrote G22 on their shoes. It was one of the symbols that helped them grieve and became a constant reminder of his life.
People are like snow flakes—each one different and unique. But one thing that we all share in common is that at some point in life we will all experience loss. The losses may be different—the loss of a child, a parent, a friend, a spouse. Or perhaps the loss you experience won’t come in the form of death—the loss of a job, or the loss of a spouse, not through death but divorce.
How do we respond to life when we lose the ones we love? How do we go on when it feels like can’t go on? There are no simple solutions. But perhaps, by looking to Jesus—the author and finisher of our faith—we may just find the help we need.
Jesus was across the Jordan River, where John had been baptizing in the early days, when he got the news that his dear friend Lazarus was sick. The trip to Bethany, Lazarus’ hometown, was about twenty miles. Had Jesus left immediately he could have been at Lazarus’ side by nightfall. Instead, he choose to wait two more days before leaving for Bethany. By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus was already dead.
Jesus’ decision not to go directly to Bethany would provide him the opportunity, not only to demonstrate his divine power, but to relate intimately with Lazarus’ sisters—Mary and Martha—experiencing along with them the pain and sorrow of losing their brother.
As Jesus approached Bethany, the first of the sisters to meet him is Martha. But it is his encounter with Mary that reveals the human side of our Savior and the cleansing power of our...
I. TEARS:
Mary went to the place where Jesus was. When she saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw Mary crying and the Jews who came with her also crying, he was upset and was deeply troubled. He asked, “Where did you bury him?”
“Come and see, Lord,” they said. Jesus cried. (John 11:32-35)
David once wrote, “I am tired of crying to you. Every night my bed is wet with tears; my bed is soaked from my crying” (Psalm 6:6). It seems to be a universal experience, in times of suffering, sorrow, or disappointment, that a person’s bed becomes a pool of tears.
Some have actually tried to discover a scientific reason for this. Gregg Levoy, in an article in Psychology Today, claims that certain chemicals, which affect our moods, build up within our bodies during periods of emotional distress and that crying actually releases those chemicals. Biochemist William Frey has also identified three chemicals, including the chemical manganese, which are stored up by stress and says that the lacrimal gland—which determines the flow of tears—concentrates and removes these chemicals from the body.#
I still prefer M.R. DeHaan’s explanation though: “A tear is the distillation of the soul. It is the deepest longing of the human heart in chemical solution.”#
Statistically, women cry about four times as much as men. During the course of an average lifetime, the typical American man cries 1,258 times; the average, however, woman cries 4,764 times.# The Bible records at least seven occasions on which David wept bitterly. Jeremiah described his weeping as both a fountain of tears and a river of tears. And it is comforting to know that even Jesus wept. Our Savior is actually recorded shedding tears three times: over the fate of Jerusalem, over the death of Lazarus, and finally in the Garden of Gethsemane.
For all humanity, crying is a natural part of dealing with loss, fear, frustration and pain. There’s a story of a little girl that once came home late from playing with her friend. When her mother asked her where she had been, she explained that her friend had fallen and broken her very special doll.
“And,” said the little girl, “I stayed to help her.”
“How did you help her?” asked the mother.
The little girl replied, “I just sat down and helped her cry.”#
That’s just what Jesus did with Mary. Jesus didn’t cry because of the death of Lazarus. He wept for a hurting family. He wept because he understood the sorrow of those left to grieve. So, with characteristic compassion, Jesus sat down and helped her cry.
He still helps us cry today. He stills cares for each one of us. We live in a world of hurting people. Americans take 33,000,000,000 aspirins a year. Jesus knows every headache. Sixty-to-ninety percent of medical office visits are for stress-related symptoms. Jesus knows every stressor.
What can we do when we don’t know what to do? We can come to where Jesus is, fall at his feet, and he will help us cry.
Sorrow in itself, however, will never bring healing. Tears are meant to be wiped away. In the Bible, the last mention of tears is in the book of Revelation, “the home of God is now among men, and he will live with them and they will be his people; yes, God himself will be among them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. All of that has gone forever” (21:4 TLB).
The most important lesson we learn from following Jesus’ to the tomb is that tears must eventually give way to...
II. TRUTH:
Let’s go back now to Jesus’ conversation with Lazarus’ other sister, Martha. Here’s what happened:
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed home.
Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you anything you ask.”
Jesus said, “Your brother will rise and live again.”
Martha answered, “I know that he will rise and live again in the resurrection on the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will have life even if they die. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Martha, do you believe this?” (John 11:20-26).
What a pointed question—do you believe this? The most wonderful truth of following Jesus is that we get to follow him—not just in this life—but into the next. When Jesus comes again, all of the dead will be raised and those who followed Jesus in this life will be given glorious new bodies that will last for eternity.
In the Old Testament, Job—who suffered more loss and shed more tears than most of us could imagine—declared with certainty, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!” (Job 19:25-27 NLT).
Job new that even after his body was destroyed, it would one day be restored to life—or resurrected—and that he would forever stand in the presence of God. For those who dedicate their lives to following Jesus, death is not the end—it’s only the beginning. In fact, the apostle Paul compares death to the planting of a seed.
But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? What kind of body will they have?” Foolish person! When you sow a seed, it must die in the ground before it can live and grow. And when you sow it, it does not have the same “body” it will have later. What you sow is only a bare seed, maybe wheat or something else. But God gives it a body that he has planned for it, and God gives each kind of seed its own body. (1 Cor. 15:36-38)
When followers of Jesus pass on from this life and are buried beneath the earth, like a seed in the soil, we don’t simply cease to exist—we await the resurrection and glorification of our bodies, when God will give us the bodies that will last for eternity.
Even before our bodies are raised, however, our spirits won’t lie dormant in some temporary state of suspended animation. The Bible says that when we leave this body we will immediately be with Christ in our spirit, “which is better by far” (Philip. 1:23-24). But God didn’t design us to remain disembodies spirits forever; he designed us to be both body and spirit, and—even in heaven—we will look forward to the day that Jesus comes again to restore all things including our bodies. Notice how Paul continues to describe our future bodies.
The bodies we have now embarrass us, for they become sick and die; but they will be full of glory when we come back to life again. Yes, they are weak, dying bodies now, but when we live again they will be full of strength. They are just human bodies at death, but when they come back to life they will be superhuman bodies (1 Cor. 15:43-44 TLB).
In Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven, he writes, “When God speaks of our having ‘new bodies,’ do we shrug our shoulders and say, ‘I can’t imagine what a new body would be like’? Of course not. We know what a body is—we’ve had one all our lives—and we can imagine a new body, without pain and weakness.”#
Even more wonderful than the restoration of our bodies though, will be the restoration of our relationship with God. In John’s description of heaven, he writes, “I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light” (Rev. 21:22-23 NLT).
Paradise lost will be paradise restored. What was once broken down and dying will be powerful and incorruptible. And the most amazing part of all is that the full, unbridled presences of God will be experienced day and night forever and ever for all eternity. His love will wrap around you like a warm blanket, and his glory will never fade. The newness will never wear off.
And so, Jesus’ question to Martha is Jesus’ question to you—do you believe this?
After sharing Mary’s tears and reminding Martha of some important truths, Jesus walked confidently to the tomb of his beloved friend. Ordering the stone to be rolled away, Jesus commanded, “Lazarus, come out!” and a four day old dead man got up and walked out of his tomb. Jesus demonstrated his divine power and reunited a family.
We too will experience a similar reunion on the other side of heaven. We have much to look forward to. In the meantime, we still experience loss. We will still shed some tears and feel pain. Allow yourself to grieve, but don’t grieve like the world grieves—as if this life is all there is.
When you lose the ones you love, weep for them, but remember that you will see them again. If you don’t get the promotion you wanted, it’s okay to be disappointed, but realize that God has the perfect job planned for you in heaven—one that you’ll be good at and you’ll love doing. When your body fails you—your back aches, your head aches, or your stomach aches—just keep in mind that you have a strong and glorious body awaiting you.
By following Jesus to the tomb we learn that it’s okay to shed some tears over life’s loses, but that our tears must eventually give way to the truth that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, and that anyone who believes in him will live even though they die. Do you believe this?
