You Can Believe in the Resurrection and Still Cry

By Pastor John Erickson

Sometimes we move toward the happy ending too quickly.

Someone is grieving, and we want to help. So we reach for a promise, a verse, a confident declaration that everything will be all right.

The promise may be true. Our timing may still leave the person feeling that there is no room for their tears.

John 11 will not let us separate resurrection hope from the reality of grief.

Jesus stands before a tomb. He knows what he is about to do.

And he weeps.

The people in the story have names

Lazarus is not a stranger Jesus encounters on the way to somewhere else. John tells us that Jesus loves him and his sisters, Martha and Mary.

When Lazarus becomes ill, the sisters send word. Jesus remains where he is for two days before setting out. Before they travel, he tells the disciples plainly that Lazarus has died.

By the time Jesus arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days.

That sequence is difficult. Love and delay appear in the same story. The people who asked for help are now receiving mourners.

We should not flatten the scene into a useful illustration about something disappointing in our own lives.

Their brother is dead. Their grief is real.

The extraordinary thing is that Jesus speaks hope into that place without treating their loss as unreal.

Martha brings belief and heartbreak together

Martha meets Jesus with the painful observation that if he had been there, her brother would not have died.

She also expresses confidence in his relationship with God. When Jesus speaks of her brother rising, she names the future resurrection.

Then Jesus makes the astonishing claim that he is the resurrection and the life.

He does not only point toward a future event. He places that hope in himself.

Martha responds by confessing him as the Messiah, the Son of God.

Notice that her faith has not required her to begin the conversation by pretending she is not hurt. She can tell Jesus what his absence has meant to her and still recognize who he is.

We need room for that kind of prayer.

I believe. I do not understand. I wish you had come sooner.

Those sentences can belong in the same conversation.

Mary weeps, and Jesus is moved

Later, Mary comes to Jesus and voices the same grief. He sees her weeping, along with the people who have come with her.

John describes him as deeply moved and troubled. He asks where Lazarus has been laid.

Then he weeps.

He is not standing at a safe distance, distributing explanations to people who should be handling this better.

He enters the sorrow of those he loves.

That matters because we sometimes assume hope should make grief disappear. If we really believed in the resurrection, surely we would not be so sad.

Jesus gives us no support for that conclusion.

He knows the tomb is about to be opened. His tears still belong in the story.

The miracle does not make the mourning foolish

At the tomb, Jesus tells those present to take away the stone. Martha points to the reality of four days of death, including what opening the tomb will mean.

Jesus prays aloud for the sake of those around him and calls Lazarus out.

Lazarus emerges still wrapped in burial cloths, and Jesus instructs others to release him.

It is an extraordinary sign of his authority over death.

But we should not go back through the earlier scene and decide that the sisters were wrong to mourn. Their brother had died. Jesus himself had wept.

The miracle reveals the glory of God. It does not turn compassion into an unnecessary delay before the important part.

In the ministry of Jesus, compassion is part of the important part.

Lazarus points beyond himself

Lazarus returns to this mortal life. He will face death again.

The resurrection of Jesus is different. The crucified Christ rises in victory, no longer subject to death.

That distinction is essential to Easter.

Lazarus is a sign. Jesus is the One whose own resurrection grounds the promise of final victory. Paul describes death as an enemy that will be destroyed, and the risen Christ as the firstfruits of those who have died.

Our hope is not that every family will receive the immediate miracle Mary and Martha receive in John 11.

Our hope is that death will not have the final word for those who belong to Christ.

That is a deeper claim, and sometimes a harder one to wait for.

Make room for both tears and hope

If you are grieving, you do not need to choose between telling the truth about your loss and trusting Jesus.

You can stand at a grave with tears in your eyes and hope in your heart. You can need company, counseling, time, and practical care. None of those needs disproves resurrection faith.

If you are accompanying someone who is grieving, consider staying in the moment before trying to explain it.

Listen. Bring a meal. Remember the name of the person who died. Let tears be part of the conversation.

We do not honor Easter by acting as though death does not hurt.

We honor the risen Jesus by trusting that he has faced the enemy we cannot defeat and by offering the compassion he shows to those who mourn.

The grave is real.

So is the Savior who stands beside it.