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Blog: March 26, 2023

Fr. Jeff and others share reflections on the Sunday readings.

March 26, 2023

“Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise.’

Martha said to him, ‘I know he will rise,

in the resurrection on the last day.’

Jesus told her,

‘I am the resurrection and the life; 

whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, 

and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

Do you believe this?’

She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord.

I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,

the one who is coming into the world.’

When she had said this, 

she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, 

‘The teacher is here and is asking for you…’

When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, 

she fell at his feet and said to him, 

‘Lord, if you had been here,

my brother would not have died.’

When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, 

he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, 

‘Where have you laid him?’

They said to him, ‘Sir, come and see.’

And Jesus wept.”


I have read some commentators that observe that John 11:35, “And Jesus Wept,” is the shortest verse in the Bible. I have not independently verified that, but if it is not, it is certainly close. In any case, that Jesus wept has always seemed curious to me. Jesus was fully aware that in just a few moments, he would raise Lazarus from the dead and the mourning would turn to joy. Many would come to believe in him. Some, however, would also begin planing to kill him. To me, Jesus’s weeping does not appear to be tied to any future outcomes. It seems to be connected to the immediate moment: the pain, sorrow, and suffering of Mary, Martha, and the others. Jesus was compassionate and, even as the resurrection and the life in person, may have also grieved his own friend’s death. Jesus is the full revelation of God. He is the Word made flesh. Yet, he also reveals to us the fullness of our humanity. It is essential to being human to be compassionate, to “suffer with” others. It is essential to the nature of God, who is love, to be compassionate, to suffer with us. 


It was sometimes a heated argument in seminary as to whether or not God suffers. As eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, God is not affected by us. We cannot add anything nor take anything away from God. Jesus, therefore, in his human nature, certainly suffered for us, but, the argument goes, not in his divine nature. My own personal reconciliation of this argument hinges on what I call the suffering of love. It hinges on the compassion of God, of the Father for the Son and of the Trinity for us all. Any parent knows this suffering when their child suffers. At the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, Simeon prophesied to Mary, “…and you yourself a sword will pierce.” This is the suffering of love. God is love (and love is an act of the will), so God suffers for us in our suffering. The Father suffered for the Son, even in the suffering of his human nature. We are meant for love. And we are meant for compassion, to suffer with others out of love. We have the hope of eternal life and we weep at the death of a loved one. Jesus shows us that these do not contradict. They are both part of the divine image in each of us. It is fully human.