What
does it mean that Divinity weeps?
There
is a theological and philosophical idea that God is impassable
—that is, God does not feel neither pleasure or pain
That God is a God unmoved.
-this is a vision of God that delighted Deists like Thomas Jefferson in the 17
and 1800s, because such a God would set up clear unchanging rules with which to
base science and mathematics
—a God who wouldn’t upturn the world on a whim or abandon rationality based on
a rash feeling.
-This vision also fit with some Stoic
thought of the first century
—such a God was a God made in their image,
their ideal
—God living beyond the pull of emotion and feeling
–a Divine Philosopher, an Ideal Unmoved Marcus Aurelius or perhaps Aristotle in
the sky…
Yet,
if Jesus is God with Us, and he is! Then we must contend with the
question:
What does it mean that Divinity weeps? That God sheds tears?
Let us pray
Isaiah
writes today’s famous message against death’s destructive power while his city,
Jerusalem, was under siege.
Imagine writing such beautiful,
hopeful, defiant words, while death is knocking at the gate and seeping in
through hunger, disease and warfare.
Isaiah
writes about Death in a mythical way,
he borrows from an older Cannanite description of Death,
Death as a sort of Dragon,
a cosmic crocodile who consumes everything,
who unrelentingly eats all that is, seen and unseen,
traversing the stars until it swallows up the entire cosmos…
Say
what you will about pre-modern people, but, in their own way, they are rather realistic
about the power of death
—no hiding death in the corner somewhere and just not talking about it.
But
the good news on offer by Isaiah is that this eater shall be ate, the consumer
consumed.
Consumed, interestingly, not by a
bigger predator, which you might expect,
but instead made into a meal for Death’s prey,
for us,
by a God who loves us,
a God who is with us;
a God who takes the shroud of death and makes it into a picnic blanket,
who transforms disgrace into invitation,
who makes of death a glorious feast…
A
God who loves us and is moved by our tears and wipes them away
—a God, too, who you can imagine weeping with us,
even as those tears are tenderly swept away.
A God weeping like Jesus weeps.
One of the shortest verses in the
whole of scripture is simply
“Jesus wept.”
Moved as we are moved. These tears
for Lazarus are like the tears that Jesus will pour out again in agony in the
garden,
steeling himself for his fate,
steeling himself for his confrontation with that consumer of worlds,
dying like Lazarus died…
surrounded by the stink of death, like Lazarus’ tomb.
This
tomb where he calls Lazarus by name
—come out!
Calls Lazarus, and Lazarus listens…
after all, the sheep hear the shepherd’s voice and know it, and come, for
they know he means only good for them.
The shepherd’s voice calling him by name,
as Mary Magdalene will be called by name at the Resurrected Jesus,
as she cries for him
—called by name and then recognizes her Lord
—her Lord is risen from the death
—risen as his friend Lazarus is raised…
This
one who weeps for all who he loves,
who calls us by name,
who joins us in death that we might join him in resurrection
—he is the same one who swallows up death,
who wipes away tears,
who shares a blessed feast with us
—our salvation,
our God.
Perhaps
Jesus is a poor Stoic
—he wears his heart on his sleeve.
Perhaps
God isn’t a God that comport with solid rationality
—perhaps he is not primarily a God of mathematics or first principles or
at base a creature of science
—but that’s okay…
ours is a God of passion and poetry and prophecy and love…
mourning and weeping
—a Loving Parent, like a Mamma Bear,
who would turn over every constant and rule of the universe
in order to constantly care for those who weep and die
and are overcast by death and disgrace, crying out to be saved.
What does it mean that Divinity
weeps?
It means God feels each death,
cares for each one of us.
That
God who weeps, will also transform,
will make a meal,
will call each one by name—Annette, Roxanne, Mike… all of us…
—call us each like Mary, that we will know him,
call us each like Lazarus, that we will be raised with him.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
