While the disciples (notably Judas) grumbled, Jesus commended her, saying, “She has done a beautiful thing to me…. She had to respond with a direct, intuitive, but also intentional, act of devotion. She intuited in Jesus’ tears that every miracle of Jesus drew Him a step closer to His sacrificial death. She barged into a closed room of disciples, crushing open her alabaster jar of nard, worth a year’s wages, that she was to keep for her wedding.
Later, Mary responded by running to Jesus with her most important possession. Rather than suicide, Jesus’ tears lead to abundant life. Rather than to despair, though, Jesus’ tears lead the way to the greatest hope of the resurrection. His tears remain with us as an enduring reminder of the Savior who weeps. Jesus’ tears were also ephemeral and beautiful. For the Japanese, the sense of beauty is deeply tragic, tied to the inevitability of death. Kawabata, too, committed suicide a few years later. Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata quotes from Japanese post-war writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s suicide notes: “But nature is beautiful because it comes to my eyes in their last extremity” ( Japan, the Beautiful, and Myself, p. Hakanai bi (ephemeral beauty) denotes sadness, and yet in the awareness of the pathos of life, the Japanese found profound beauty. Cherry blossoms are most beautiful as they fall, and that experience of appreciation lead the Japanese to consider their mortality. John took note.īeauty, to the Japanese of old, held together the ephemeral with the sacred. Jesus was not only a Savior but proved to be an intimate friend the glory of God shone through such a deep friendship with the Son of Man. Soaking the hardened ground of Bethany, Jesus’ tears commingled with hers. Jesus’ tears transformed Mary’s view of her Lord. The authorities then sought to kill Lazarus, and Jesus continued His path toward the cross. Lazarus came stumbling out of the grave, and many began to believe in Jesus. A deep emotive response prepared the way for a resurrection moment. Through those tears, Jesus pronounced, “Lazarus, come out!” (v. Instead, He made Himself vulnerable, stopped to feel the sting of death, to identify with frail humanity, who struggled to know hope. Tears are useless, even wasteful, if you possess the power to cause miracles. If He came to Bethany to show His power, the fact that He is indeed the Messiah with the power to resurrect the dead, why did He not simply wave His “magic wand” to “solve the problem” of the death and illness of Lazarus? There would have been an immediate celebration, and all the tears would have been unnecessary. Why did Jesus weep? He delayed coming to Bethany “so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” ( John 11:4), and, when He arrived, informed Martha that He is “the resurrection and the life” (v.
DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP JAPANESE FULL
His tears, shed in response to Lazarus’ death and Mary and Martha’s grief, are full of embodied truth, beauty, and goodness. Published in September, 2010 Tabletalk magazine.
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