For Sunday
Lent 5A
Collect
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
Grief does some things to us. It rattles us. Rends us. Confuses us. One day we feel normal and the next we’re overwhelmed.
Mary comes to Jesus in grief. And Jesus grieves. The people grieve.
The grief doesn’t just manifest in weeping, though. But in anger. Frustration. And rationalizing.
“If you had been here!”
The perpetual question: what if? is weaponized by grief into an accusation. You should have been here! No matter that he found out a couple days ago and Lazarus was dead four days. Grief doesn’t present logically.
The blame shifts. So what. You should have tried. Now it’s about effort. Jesus didn’t try enough. And then, it gets even more presumptuous. Can’t you raise the dead? If you gave some dude sight, surely you can give Lazarus his life back!
The irony, of course, is that he actually does. But not because he’s shamed. But for the glory of God.
We can no doubt relate to this experience. We’ve received strange demands from the grieving. Parents, friends, loved ones trying to cope. And many of us have been the grieving one saying irrational things, demanding, trying to understand.
Jesus acts as if people misunderstand the nature of death. And invites us to stop obsessing and let go. Perhaps he knows what we don’t. We should listen to him.