Read: John 11:1-45

What strikes me most from this Gospel, other than the obvious of Jesus raising Lazarus, is the familiarity of the scene that John sets. John makes a point for us to recognize that “… many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them,” and that “… when the Jews who were with her in the house, counseling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.”

That scene is so familiar to all of us when death arrives in our lives. The people who love us most, and those who also love the deceased, surround us to support us in our grief. There is a ritual in this process that carries through all of time. Can’t you smell the good food that their friends brought to share (maybe even a casserole or two?)? Can’t you hear the gathered friends crying together, telling stories of their friend, sometimes laughing at a funny anecdote, the silence that sometimes falls among them as they ruminate on their own memories? They are all here to grieve together and to wrap Mary and Martha in their love as they are truly suffering the loss of their dear brother.

Two weeks ago, my 23 year old daughter lost a close friend to suicide. Like Mary and Martha, my daughter is in extraordinary pain over this loss. Right now, she finds it difficult to even put one foot in front of the other, but I have been observing how she and her friends are figuring out how to mourn, discerning which rituals they need to get each other through. They have spent hours on social media talking about their friend. Now they are planning a small and intimate memorial for them to get together at a beach and hang out doing crafts together, as crafting was one of their friend’s favorite things to do.

This community of mourners is coming together to grieve, to console, to counsel, and to begin to heal. I imagine there will be tears, laughter, silence, and food. As it should be.

Lord, whether it is my time to mourn or to be with those who mourn, send your loving and healing spirit into everything I say and do. Amen.
-Charlotte Burnham

Read: John 11:1-45

I imagine most of us, young and old alike, have mourned the loss of someone dear to us. After that, the “if only” wishes sometimes begin. “If only” I had called, visited, hugged, kissed, said “I love you” one last time. We wish for something different, not so final.

When my mother died, I was 3000 miles away. ‘If only’ I had been with her. Our children were with her and I’m grateful for that. Still, I wrestled with the ‘if only’ thoughts. Bye-and-bye, I remembered the happy times when we talked over everything in the world – school, boys, duplicate bridge, marriage, my babies, her grandbabies!

Just imagine the dizzying swing of emotions experienced by Mary and Martha when their friend Jesus raised their brother Lazarus from the dead. They mourned their brother’s death and then experienced such shocking joy just four days later. My own experience with rejoicing in the memories of my mother took longer than four days, but I got there. Thanks be to God.
-Sue Shepherd

Read: John 11:1-45

Jesus wept.

I will pass over some puzzling features of this text to note that when Jesus – who had delayed by two days his journey to Lazarus’ side – eventually got to the home of Mary and Martha, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days, and the mourners were keening and wailing. Jesus wept.

Yes, Martha had run out to meet Jesus before he arrived on the scene, and Martha had heard Jesus say “your brother will rise again.” Even with this hope for Lazarus in his heart, a hope he shared with Martha, Jesus wept.

The Book of Common Prayer contains a “note” on the burial liturgy which acknowledges that the rites for burial are Easter rites and are thus characterized by joy. “This joy, however, does not make human grief unchristian,” the note continues. “The very love we have for each other in Christ brings deep sorrow when we are parted by death, because Jesus wept at the grave of his friend.”

So, as the Letter to the Romans counsels, “rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” So we are to let ourselves cry. Let others cry. Share grief, without uttering platitudes to one another.

And in our hearts, we nurture the hope expressed in one of the prayers of the burial liturgy in which we pray for

“faith to see in death the gate of eternal life, so that in quiet confidence we may continue our course on earth, until, by our call, we are reunited with those who have gone before.”

O God, inspire in me the quiet confidence that trusts you even in the face of death, and so establish me in that confidence that I will be free to weep over my losses and the losses of others. Make me a member in truth of Christ’s community of compassion. Amen.
-Fr. Jonathan Weldon