Jesus Wept

At Mass on Sunday morning, the entrance hymn was “Precious Lord, Take my Hand.”  It’s usually impossible for me to hear the whole song without crying.  The song always makes me think of funerals, and now brings me right back to my dad’s funeral, as it is one of the songs that the choir sang.  So, unsurprisingly, as Mass began, not long into the song, tears filled my eyes and started streaming down my face.  One of my first thoughts was, “Hopefully no one in the pews around me notices.”  Then, when we got to the Gospel, it happened to be the passage that contains the shortest, yet one of the most powerful lines in scripture, “And Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

This short, very profound sentence speaks volumes about who Jesus is.  Fully human and fully divine, He experienced all of the emotions that we experience.  Whatever we feel, He has felt too.  And this means that we are never alone.  Hearing the Gospel at mass after my experience during the opening song  was a sort of consolation that when tears come, it’s okay to embrace the emotion, because that’s what Jesus did.

God is not some far off and distant being who is indifferent to our lives.  But rather, God is a compassionate  and loving Father who wants to be close to each one of us.  Our God is a God who is here with us right now in this very moment and always.  And that is the amazing and beautiful reality of who He is.

Maybe you are going through something difficult right now or you have a family member or friend who is facing something challenging and it’s hard to see them suffer.  Maybe you just feel alone or discouraged.  In these times, it can be easy to ask where God is and think he is far away.  The world is filled with pain, sorrow, grief, and suffering.  Turn on the news for five minutes and you will see heart-wrenching stories of the day’s events.  We live in an imperfect world, filled with broken people, including each one of us.  But no matter what, we can still find joy because it is in the brokenness of our humanity that we are led to Jesus, the one who alone heals us and gives us peace.
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Jesus cares for each one of us so deeply.  Our burdens are His burdens that He helps us to carry.  May you always remember just how close He is.  Know that tears are okay, even when you’re at Mass on a Sunday morning, because even Jesus wept.