374. Wednesday after Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.
Lord, take us also with thee
into the grave of Lazarus. Amen.
John 11, 33-38. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold, how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
❦
Two words form the most noteworthy sentence in this Bible lesson. They have been set apart as a separate verse; and this verse, John 11, 35, is the shortest in the whole Bible, and at the same time one of the greatest. “Jesus wept.” Here he wept at the grave. Shortly after this he wept over Jerusalem, and then again during his spiritual agony in Gethsemane. The Son of God waters with his tears our cemeteries, our pleasure-grounds, and our paths to glory. His tears at the grave of Lazarus prove to us his human heart, his brotherly spirit, and his friendly feeling toward us. When you mourn the death of a dear one, you have the sympathy of Jesus. You need not fear to weep; besides which you know that your tears have been consecrated by his tears; you know that he likewise has wept, and has been tried in the same sorrow. You know that he has made atonement for the sin which still taints your sorrow by reason of your self-love and the weakness of your faith; but you know also that your tears are of an entirely different nature from the tears of the unbelievers. In the sorrow of unbelief are hopelessness and bitterness against God; in the sorrow of faith is a feeling of bitterness against sin and death, but submission to the will of God and the hope of a blessed reunion. — That which is here recorded concerning Jesus is precious beyond the power of words to express. “He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see! Jesus wept.” Always when death has come home to me, and taken away one of my dear ones, I have been stirred to thorough anger against this “king of terrors,” and have felt deep sorrow on account of our grievous offense, which has given cruel death power over us. Away with it! Let it be utterly destroyed; let it be sent back to the devil, from whom it came! It would be vain for me to cry out, and weep, and curse sin and death; but the Son of God has taken upon himself our sorrows; and he does not weep in vain; it is not in vain that he groans in the spirit against death, which reigns on the earth. For he takes sin, and buries it; and by his resurrection he promises us that death shall be forever destroyed; and hence I no longer cry and weep in vain against sin and death. Lord Jesus, we thank thee for that thou didst weep! Teach us the meaning of thy tears, and grant that in them we may find healing. Amen.*
Be thou my consolation
And shield when I must die;
Remind me of thy passion,
When my last hour draws nigh.
Mine eyes shall then behold thee,
Upon thy cross shall dwell,
My heart by faith enfold thee:
Who dieth thus, dies well.
[TLH 172, LSB 449/450, ELH 335; listen here]
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.