Having served for years as a medical missionary in Central America, Molly lay alone on the floor of her hut having just been raped by a group of armed men. As she lay there weeping, all she could think was “Where were you, Jesus? And . . . Why?”

I’ve known and prayed with many who have experienced what Molly experienced, or worse. They are all haunted by the same question: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Last week we heard our Lord’s words in John 10, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I say that you are gods?’” What god every prayed, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Christ’s friends suffer horrible abuse: stoning, beheading, flogging. Both Peter and Paul were flogged but then, miraculously delivered from prison by an angel and an earthquake. But the miracles only make it worse. If I were Peter or Paul, I’d be thinking, “Thanks for the angel and the earthquake, but maybe next time you could show up a wee bit earlier — like before the flogging!”

It’s Christmas time — when we remember the miracle of our Lord’s birth and the miraculous flight of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus into Egypt at the prompting of a dream. But if I was a young parent in Bethlehem, having just witnessed the slaughter of my baby boy at the hands of Herod’s henchmen, I’d be asking “Why? Why didn’t everyone get a dream?” All we’re told is that it had something to do with weeping: “Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah... Rachel is weeping for her children.”

In John 11, Jesus receives word from Mary and Martha that his friend Lazarus is deathly ill, and Jesus responds, “This illness is not unto death [thanatos].” Weird, considering what we read next.

John 11:5-21, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he [rushed to his side? No.] He stayed two days longer in the place where he was... He said to them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep.’ ...Then Jesus told them plainly ‘Lazarus has died [apothnesko]. ...But let us go to him.’ Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had been in the tomb four days. ...Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’”

Isn’t this our question: “Why? Why didn’t you come earlier?”

John 11:25, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me [or ‘everyone, living and believing in me’] shall never die.”

Confusing? We struggle with the Biblical concept of death for several reasons:

1) We are already dead or, at least, were dead (John 5:24).

2) Physical death is an expression of — or metaphor for — spiritual death. We’re each like a cut flower in a vase. A body part severed and bleeding out. Separation is death.

3) Death is not real... at least not the way Life is real. Jesus is “the Life,” Eternal Life. So, death can only be experienced on the timeline — where we believe the lie that we are each our own cause — and in space —where we believe that we are separated from God.

4) The death of death, the second death, is Eternal Life, infinite communion, and Divine Fire.

When you lose your old psyche — the lie that you are man making himself God — and believe the Truth that God is making himself you, you lose your life (psyche) and find it in Christ. You begin to live the life (zoe) of Christ, Eternal Life... even here, even now.

And when you die (apothnesko), you have no dealings with Thanatos (the Greek god) and Hades (who ruled the underworld, according to the Greeks). Like the thief on the cross, you say “Hello, Jesus!” and enter paradise (Eden) — no longer just a garden, but a city, a body, a bride... and a mother. Martha now goes and gets Mary....

John 11:32, “Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’”

There’s the question again: “Why didn’t you come earlier? Where were you?” And John has already told us: He was lingering beyond the Jordan, because He loved them and knew Lazarus was deathly ill; He was arranging for all this weeping. So, Why? Why all the weeping... all the suffering?

In Western theology, there are two classic explanations: The Free Will Explanation (And it is true that we are each predestined to choose the Good in freedom) and the Character-Building Explanation (And Jesus did tell his disciples that this would create faith, John 11:15). But I doubt that the explanations would be much help to Mary lying in the dust at Jesus’ feet weeping, or Rachel weeping for the whole house of Israel, or the mothers in Bethlehem weeping for their infants…or Molly on the floor of her hut in Central America.

After a time — as if Jesus were speaking in an audible voice — she heard, “Molly, I’m here with you. Those evil men didn’t do this just to you. They did it to me. There is no humiliation you can know that I have not known.”

At communion one Sunday morning, a friend of mine, who had been raped by a gang of boys on a school bus years before, prayed, “Where were you, Jesus?” And he heard, “I was in the blood . . . that you shed.” My friend had been cutting himself in shame. He’s shown my friend and my friends: Their scars are on His body, and His scars are on theirs.

John 11:33-35, “When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept.”

No explanation. “The Resurrection and the Life, The Word of God” just bursts into tears. Mary looks up from the dust to see the face of God weeping. Perhaps we’re all made of dust and tears.

Jesus never raped anyone, and He didn’t kill Lazarus, but how do you avoid the conclusion that He arranged for the tears — His very own tears? Apparently, His purpose isn’t to save His friends from suffering and death, but to save them from NOT weeping — as if NOT weeping is suffering and death; it is to be dead already. Jesus described Hades as this place where people “weep and gnash (grind, or clench) their teeth.” We weep and gnash our teeth when we try to fight back the tears.

I read about a four-year-old whose elderly next-door neighbor lost his wife. Upon seeing the man weep, the little boy went into the old man’s yard, climbed up onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing. I just helped him cry.”

John 11:38, “Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb.” The Lord once came to me, miraculously convicted me of my sin, and as I lay on the floor weeping as I had never wept before, I realized it wasn’t really me that was weeping. It was Jesus. It was the fountain. And now that I’ve wept those tears, I can’t tell you if they were sorrow or Joy.

We each trap ourselves in sin, which is faithlessness and manifests as rage. And He frees us by descending into us and weeping our tears in us, for us, and as us. So where is God when you suffer? He’s in you. But where are you when God suffers?

John 11:38, “Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Maybe the greatest wonder is not that God suffers with you, but that He invites you to suffer with Him — And hopefully you know that He suffered first. I only invite the most cherished of friends to come weep with me.

Years later, on furlough, Molly spoke to a group of nursing students. Prompted by the Spirit, she told her story for the first time and through tears. Afterwards, a young woman approached, pointed across the room, and said, “That’s my sister over there. Her name is Ann. She’s 14 years old. Ann was raped after school about two months ago. She won’t talk to anyone, not a word…but maybe she’ll talk to you.” Molly and Ann embraced, wept, and spoke to each other for two hours — spoke as neither of them had ever spoken before.

John 11:44, “The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go [aphiemi: “forgive”].”

But Lazarus was one guy, and he would still die; this is the sixth sign, not the seventh. So why the suffering and all the weeping? I can’t give a complete explanation, but after telling us that Herod killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem, Matthew points us to an ancient prophecy: “Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children.”

That’s Jeremiah 31:15. Next verse, “Stop weeping. They [all of Israel, dead, intermarried, dispersed throughout the nations]... shall come back.” Verse 13: “I will turn their mourning into joy...” Verse 34: “They will all know me... for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. Verse 38: “The whole valley of dead bodies and ashes [Gehenna, ‘Hell’] shall be holy to the Lord.” “Hell” will literally become Heaven, the New Jerusalem coming down.

Jesus didn’t just weep with Mary and Martha and only for Lazarus. Jesus has descended into death and hades to weep with all of us there. Jesus has descended into you to weep with you and rise in you and as you — even more as us, His body. This is the seventh sign that is the substance: Jesus meets each of us in our place of sorrow and gives us Himself. Then we bear the fruit of His Spirit, love as we have been loved, losing our lives and finding them in Him and one another. We become what we truly are: the living temple of the living God. But it all happens through tears.

“Truly, Truly... you will weep and lament... You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world... and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”

Don’t be afraid of your tears. Don’t hide your tears. And don’t use them as weapons. Just weep them with Jesus. In that place, the Christ child is born. Merry Christmas!