My grandmother took the Bible very seriously, and subsequently, her church took the Bible seriously and therefore wanted to make sure their children took the Bible seriously. On Sunday mornings, children gathered around a teacher telling stories from the “Good Book” assisted by characters placed on a felt board. Before the lesson, the teacher would ask each child to recite a memorized Bible verse. When I visited, my Mammaw would prepare me. Each child seemed to have a strategy for the recitation mostly employing Psalm 23 or John 3:16. Our tactic was toward something short and memorable. One Sunday morning after a young girl had recited a long passage and her classmates were squirming from all the smiting and begetting, I gleefully popped up from my spot and proclaimed, “John 11:35—’Jesus wept!’” Taking my seat, I was unaware that by quoting the shortest verse in the gospels, the attempt to take the Bible seriously had failed miserably.
John has always been a bit elusive because his portrayal of Jesus is incongruous with his gospel peers. Gone is the Jesus who is drawing all people into the Kinship, and in his place, is a performer of signs. This Jesus is turning water into wine or walking on water forgoing his Jewish beliefs about a loving providence in favor of self-promoting “I am” statements. There is a severe tilt in the formula, and Jesus loses his humanity.
Yet, toward the end of the book, there is John 11 where Jesus weeps. A first reading of the story can leave any reader puzzled. Lazarus is very ill and Jesus brushes it off, becomes geographically confused, and pronounces his dear friend as needing sleep. The disciples are perplexed, while Mary and Martha alternate between anger, sorrow, and disbelief because Jesus does not arrive until four days after the funeral. John beefs up the story like a politician’s public relations team spinning a commentary to always portray the candidate in the most favorable light. This slant may boost Jesus’ public image, but it has little to do with the story at hand:
grief.
Grief is an inexplicable phenomenon in a life that is filled with loss. The simple demise of a friendship, a loved one, or a significant token is so difficult to understand that we wrap the phenomenon in metaphor and say, “We lost our Sadie,” or “Our brother has passed.” These phrases are rightfully employed because such loss leaves us with a body devoid of the human spirit. The joy, pain, exhilaration, depression, excitement, boredom, fulfillment, tragedy, and love that makes our spirits dance and writhe through this world simply vanishes. In its place, there is nothing but void. This makes me think that maybe, just maybe, it is not death that upsets us and hangs around heavily on our shoulders in figurative language, but the true fear is not living.
We are certainly feeling the grief of not living during the COVID-19 crisis. The parts of life that make us human and connected have suddenly ceased. We can no longer visit our aunties in their senior living environments, shake hands with our neighbors, or attend a movie. We are nervous about our health, and we are more anxious about the uncertainty of our future. Together, we are seeing the shifting of the elements that made our daily life vibrant. Like Jesus in this peculiar story from John, we are in denial and feel a bit lost on our journey.
Luckily, the story also has Mary and Martha. These are the brave sisters that face their grief and name their sadness. “Our brother has died,” they repeatedly say. Simultaneously, they are identifying their grief and providing Jesus with an entryway to express his sorrow. Thank God for these courageous and faithful sisters who show us all the spectrum of emotions experienced during loss. Mary and Martha know the courage needed to face loss, and the faith needed to practice resurrection. With this they become the story’s teachers, leading Jesus to see the not living of Lazarus’ body. They teach him that such despair can only be met with tears, and convey the courage needed to let loose their brother’s spirit from a binding death. This is the freedom that they give Jesus.
The grief we are feeling is real, and we will need to find ways to help each other name and experience this loss. We will need to find new ways to listen to each other, hold each other’s sadness, and be there when we need to weep. Now, today, with tears in my eyes, when I look back on my Mammaw’s strategy to have me memorize a bible verse, I think maybe we didn’t fail so miserably after all.
-Brian Crisp
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