Jesus Wept

I finally got to read the story of Lazarus today. It is fairly odd that I have ran my eyes over the book of John maybe two or three times in my life and I don't remember ever catching it. I feel like reading the New Testament for me is similar to defragmenting a hard drive; I have to read over it multiple times, and each time I retain only a piece and if not misunderstand, forget everything else. Everything about it so unbelievably poetic and sometimes I could swear that books al-throughout the Old and New Testament point to one another in their constant usage of sheep, trees, blood, streams, and fathers. I refuse to believe that I'm looking too deep into these texts. My simple response is "Yes, my God is that good."

I became very disheartened just now as I stopped in the middle of chapter 12. Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, passed away. Now, the biography of Mary and Martha is completely unimportant to me. All I know and I feel like I need to know about Mary is that she was a woman who was bold in her love. She knew what true love looked like and she washed the feet of my Jesus with whatever she could. These sisters' brother died, and Jesus heard about it. Friends and local acquaintances stopped by their house to talk to them and be there in their time of grief. I have never lost a sibling, but I know a sister of mine who has lost a brother and she was emotionally broken for a good while.

When Jesus was on his way to offer his gift of healing, Martha approached him in great faith and told him "If you were here earlier, my brother wouldn't have died, but I know that your holy power stands and is bound by nothing." (I'm paraphrasing it all) Jesus tells her that her brother will rise. Mary was not around when this verbal transaction occurred. When she did see him, she fell on her knees and said "If you were here earlier, my brother would not have died!" I don't know exactly how she approached Jesus, but I know that if I lost my brother, I would scream. What I find so interesting about this part of history is that Jesus doesn't respond saying "What is wrong with you? Do you have little faith? You know I will heal your brother." Instead, he cries. He cries with her. He cries with her friends. Of course, the story ends with him raising Lazarus from the dead. He knew what he was going to do before he left. He told his friends before he even hit the road that he would raise a man from the dead. It didn't minimize the holy grief he felt.

I figure: Just as I will never know how much praise I neglect to show God, how much worship I allocate to smaller things, how all-powerful and justly angered he is at sin, I will also never know how much he loves and is willing to wait for his children.
I said that I was disheartened by the story. The reason not being in anything that Jesus did. The chapter goes on and ends and it gets to a point where "The chief of priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of [his resurrection by Jesus], so many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus."

These were Jews. These are Jewish leaders plotting to kill their own "chosen people." Where is this high-minded holiness that the Pharisees are parading and gloating about that gives them a right to bubble over with self-righteousness and judging hearts. They spit on the Gentile and kill the Jew. Where is the alliance? I doubt it is even among the Pharisees; at this rate they would probably twist the dagger into each other if one of them were seen conversing with Jesus. It is pride and selfishness from the inside of each individual. Jesus really did need to come. What is sick about it all is that sin never changes and somehow, in some way, this is still going on today.