As a teen growing up in the church you learn that the shortest verse in the bible is John 11:35. For years, the significance of that verse was simply a bit of trivia or its ease of memorization and recall. It proved to be handy in the event of the ever-dreaded youth group pop quiz: “recite your favorite bible verse.”

“Jesus wept. ” ~ John 11:35

The novelty this verse had for me growing up caused me to ignore it while studying the Bible as an undergraduate and graduate student preparing for pastoral ministry. I took biblical studies seriously and had grown weary of the superficial treatment many Christians (myself included) had given the Bible over the years. It was not a book of trivia or novelty, but the words of life. So this verse from the Gospel of John was included in a list of oversimplified or overused verses that I mentally sequestered from real studies. This list included scriptures like Jeremiah 29:11, John 3:16, Philippians 4:13 . And John 11:35. These scriptures’ popularity and misuse made me hesitant to engage them as I attempted to be a “serious Bible scholar.”

Fast forward several years and I’m no longer trying to convince my professors or denominational leaders that I’m a serious scholar. Rather, I’m assigned as a lead pastor of a local congregation, tasked with caring for not only the people who walk through the church doors on a Sunday morning, but the community in which I find myself living. Pastoral ministry shapes an individual in a very peculiar way. It is probably safe to say that those of us who embrace the vocation of pastor have accepted that we are a bit different. But even so, we find ourselves continuing to be formed in unique ways by our engagement with the world.

For example, on more than one occasion I have found myself looking upon confused faces as I try to hurriedly explain why I just blurted out how much I love funerals.

There is a unique type of grace that is experienced through the process of saying goodbye to our loved ones. I marvel at the social dynamics that are present during these most precious moments. For a few hours or days, we are collectively given permission to grieve. Most of the time our culture tells us that acknowledging pain, loss, or grief is a sign of vulnerability and weakness. But when we gather together acknowledging that we have lost a loved one, we become a small community that gives its members permission to mourn. There is a holy transparency and fellowship with funerals that most pastors work hard to develop in our congregations under more normal circumstances.

In these quickly fleeting moments where it is expected for one to be grieving, there is a freedom to be honest about our feelings. We can be honest with others, with ourselves, and with God. And by acknowledging our pains we receive grace, find comfort, and experience healing. For the past several years I’ve wrestled with this idea of grieving as a practice in receiving grace. Experts in a variety of fields will tell us that experiencing grief is normal and healthy. Yet I’ve observed some very real barriers to our participating in a healthy grieving process

1. Grieving makes us acknowledge our vulnerabilities and weakness while living in a culture that places it highest values upon strength and independence.
2. Grieving makes others uncomfortable because nothing that can be said or done offers a quick fix to the situation.
3. Grieving requires a space in which it is ok to operate at less than our best, yet our lives rarely have enough buffer or margin to not perform at 110%
4. Grieving requires people who engage others with empathy, grace, and compassion, even if they do not fully understand what we are experiencing
5. Grief can arise due to a variety of losses, not simply the death of a loved one, yet, collectively we as a society seem to have decided that death is the only acceptable source of grief worth acknowledging.

These barriers are very real and prevent us from acknowledging the profound losses we have experienced. And because we don’t acknowledge them we make it difficult for ourselves to receive the grace and healing that comes from mourning a loss in community with others.

Sadly, Christians not only have the barriers listed above, but have added additional (unhealthy and unbiblical) barriers preventing us from grieving for apparent spiritual reasons.

1. Being a Christian means that we are supposed to be happy all the time
2. Grieving is evidence of a lack of faith or lack of trust
3. Grieving means we don’t understand that God is in control
4. Acknowledging feelings of loss means you are not acknowledging God’s blessings that you’ve received
5. Others may have experienced greater loss and to complain about your situation seems self-centered.

Despite the fact that most books in the Bible captured an individual or a community grieving some type of loss, Christians are hesitant to embrace those words of scripture as our own. We often have an unhealthy relationship with grief and a collective inability to mourn losses big and small.

When I moved to Winamac three years ago, I joined a church and a community in rural Indiana. Recently, many sociologists and researchers have been discussing the transition that is happening in rural America over the past few decades. All the demographic changes have had a profound impact on the people here. Places of employment and family businesses alike have shut down or moved elsewhere. Children grow up, graduate from High School, and leave to continue education or find a job elsewhere, often not returning. These close-knit families that define small town life see their proud leaders grow older and weaker. They then eventually pass away, often not being replaced by the next generation.

The church is experiencing the same types of losses; ministries have faded out of existence, dynamic church leaders have aged and weakened. The church has lost its place as a hub of community life. New leaders that they had put their hope in moved on to other assignments. The remnants are there as reminders of what once was, and many do their best to protect and care for what remains of the past. It is still a church which means that there is still new life present, but the longtime members of the church have experienced a tremendous amount of loss.

My greatest regret as pastor has been that it took me so long to see the losses that remained unnamed and unmourned. As a new pastor excited to be coming into a new assignment, I missed it. Buried beneath the excitement of a new pastoral family and a hope that a new pastor would lead the church forward was the lasting impact of a tremendous amount of loss. And I missed it. I missed it in part because they didn’t want me to see it. They did not want their new pastor to be disappointed in a community that wasn’t once what it was. They did not want their new pastor to see them as broken. So they continued to bury the losses underneath the hope that whatever was next would bring health and healing.

And I missed the profound losses buried beneath the surface because I got caught up in trying to be everything they hoped I would be as their pastor. I kept way too busy trying to be the pastor that they wanted me to be that it took me too long to hear the things not being said. But eventually I got it. I began to understand that the desires of the church and our community to go back to how things used to be was not simply out of nostalgia or comfort with the familiar, but it was an effort to regain what was lost over the years; it was an attempt to stop the pains of those losses, not by grieving them, but by recreating that which had been lost. There was a great deal of pain that had not been spoken aloud or acknowledged. The barriers listed above were very much at work in our little community.

When I started as pastor in this community I began with a concerted effort to focus on the church as a missional body; people who participate with the work that God is doing around us. If I had to do it all over again, I would still set about with a call to missional faith, but I would have included as a primary focus that one of the works that God is doing in our community is comforting those who mourn. It probably would have been the strangest thing for a new pastor to do, but I wish I could have had the insight and wisdom to lead the church through a season of naming and mourning their losses. “Hi, I’m Tanner, your new pastor. You can cry now.”

I have no idea if it would have been successful. I don’t know if anyone was willing to trust me in those early days to be that vulnerable. But I can’t help but wonder how things would be different if we all did a better job of acknowledging our losses and properly mourning them.

Life is about growth and change, but it is also about loss and pain. Often it is easy to mask the loss with the hope of the future; to move on to the next thing without ever confronting our pain in the present. But time and again I have witnessed our society’s deep need to be led in mourning. Most recently, NBA legend Kobe Bryant was killed, along with his daughter, in a plane crash. And for a moment, many amongst us had permission to mourn. Even those who were not all that interested in basketball found ourselves caught up in the moment. Current and former NBA players led us in a liturgy of grieving. There were stories told about Kobe the player, the man, the father. Moments of recognition and honor filled the TV screens and social media alike. Even some of his failures and faults were brought out and discussed in a respectful manner. As a society, we took a moment to acknowledge the passing of someone who shaped our cultural imagination for a season.

But it is not just with Kobe that this happened. For some it was the death of Princess Diana years ago. Or the death of Chester Bennington. Or Robin Williams. Or Neal Peart. Or Heath Ledger. And on we could go. People we’ve never met, but who have had a collective impact on many of us. And because enough of us sense the loss it feels like we have permission to grieve, if only for a moment.

Through all of this, I’ve come to a conclusion that might seem obvious, yet it is still important to verbalize: if loss is a part of life, then so is grieving. It does not indicate our lack of faith or hope in God. It does not mean that we don’t trust God in the future. It does not mean that we think we have suffered more than anyone else. It means that we have experienced loss, felt the pain, and properly acknowledged that so we could honor the important things in our lives and at the same time begin a process of healing.

Jesus wept.

John chapter 11 is the story of Jesus finding out that his dear friend Lazarus was sick. Jesus had avoided the area where Lazarus lived because there were people trying to kill him the last time he was there. In fact, when he heard the news about Lazarus, he did not immediately leave to go be with his friend, but rather stayed where he was for a few days. By the time Jesus did arrive, Lazarus had been dead for several days. Jesus was met by grieving family members. It was at this moment, confronted by the loss of a friend and the pain and grief of close friends, that Jesus began weeping.

Jesus knew he was able to raise Lazarus. He knew that everything was going to be ok. He still trusted his Father. Yet Jesus wept. He experienced pain that comes from loss. The Bible said he was deeply moved. It says he was deeply moved by the grieving family and again he was deeply moved as he approached the place where Lazarus was buried.

Many of us know the rest of the story; Jesus called for Lazarus to get up from the tomb. Lazarus raised to life and emerged alive. Jesus created a happy ending, yet in the moments when the loss was the most real and most present, Jesus wept.

I come back to this simple verse now because we find ourselves in a unique situation with the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Not only do we have concerns about the impact it could have on our heath, but we are experiencing losses on a scale that has not been experienced in some time. We are experiencing losses in a variety of arenas and our impulse is to trivialize them or ignore them. We’re feeling stuck because our typical response is to move on to the next thing rather than to slow down and work through them. But due to the nature of pandemic, we are mostly prohibited from moving quickly out of this place of discomfort. And so many of us do not want to name that which we are losing during this time or the acknowledge the pain that we feel. But I’m convinced that for us to move forward when this is all over, we must be like Jesus and weep for a moment. So I’m going to name a few losses in hopes that I’m creating a space where we all have permission to put our pains in words as well.

• A loss of control over my life: I realize that I’m not as independent as I thought I was. Others have an impact on my life and I have real impact on the lives of others.
• A loss of freedom and autonomy: Choices have been removed from me by people with more expertise or more authority than myself.
• A loss of distraction or diversion: I was anxiously awaiting the start of the MLB season so I could jump into my Chicago Cubs fandom. I’ve been stressed and anxious about professional and personal situations and was ready to enjoy watching my Cubs play a game that I love
• A loss of tradition: for the past seven years I have taken Jonas to Indy for Supercross dirtbike races. This year I had purchased tickets for the entire family to go. Supercross was the first thing in “my world” to get canceled.
• A loss of routine: I do not like surprises. I prefer knowing what to expect so I can plan effectively. This disruption of regular activities has dramatically changed my reality.
• A loss of space: I love traveling. A 30 minute drive to a coffee shop to write a sermon is as much about the drive as it is the sermon. But now I’m home or at the church office for a brief few minutes. I should not really be going elsewhere.

This is just a quick list off the top of my head. I’m certain we all have our own lists. I think of seniors in high school or college experiencing the loss of their senior year and whatever they hoped their last semester would be like. I know family vacations and gatherings have been canceled. I know important projects at work have stalled out. I know job interviews have been canceled. I know people were about to take important steps in their lives are now unable to. Weddings, funerals, children being born; all these hopes and plans are cancelled or modified. Important moments forever affected by our current situation.

“Jesus wept.”

Jesus knew that Lazarus would raise from the dead. Jesus knows that for many of us life will go on once this has all run its course. So let us not pretend that we are ok when we are not. Let us not ignore the losses that we are experiencing today. Let us not judge others when they express their pain.

John 11:35 is not the answer to a trivia question about what the shortest verse in the Bible is. It is the answer to the question about what God wants us to do when we experience real loss.

Cry.

Grieve with loved ones.

Speak the words out loud.

Write the words down.

Jesus tells us that God comforts those who mourn. God does not judge, condemn, mock, or punish us. Rather, God comforts us in our most vulnerable time. And I think, now, more than ever, it is important for us express our grief.

Jesus wept when he felt loss and pain. Will we?

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