Before vaccines, families used to have pox parties when one of their children got a childhood disease. The idea was since everyone got these diseases eventually, you might as well get it over with. This idea came back when COVID-19 started spreading. Given these diseases give immunity to people who get them, there is some logic to “getting past it”. (Vaccines are safer, of course.)
Jesus wept.— John 11:35 (ESV)
This is famous for being the shortest verse in the Bible. If you had asked me a few weeks ago what Jesus wept for, I would have said it was probably Jerusalem. But on Sunday our pastor pointed out that Jesus was weeping for his friend, Lazarus. Jesus came to visit and instead of a joyous reunion, he found his friend dead in the tomb for four days. So it’s a perfectly natural human response to tragedy.
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Only the story is a bit strange.
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.—John 11:1–6 (ESV)
Earlier this year my aunt died. I was fortunate enough to sit with her for a few days, to hold her hand, to hear stories, to observe the hospice nurse’s care and to watch my aunt sleep as the effects of morphine kicked in. I’d rather she were alive, but I’m grateful to have had those days with her. Jesus didn’t get that chance because he said “This illness does not lead to death.”
And, of course, Jesus could have healed Lazarus as he healed many people in the crowds that came to him. He could have fulfilled his own prophecy if he just left when he heard his friend was sick and dying. It’s also strange to weep when he would soon raise Lazarus out of his grave. Our response is the same as the response of the people who saw him weep two millennia ago in the sleepy town of Bethany:
So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”—John 11:36–37 (ESV)
Jesus cares for us and could come again with a new heaven and a new earth at any moment. All suffering would come to an end. As the spiritual says “no more crying there”. So why doesn’t he come? Jesus has one answer:
It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.— John 11:4b (ESV)