Weeping

“Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”  John 20:15

Weeping – The Passion story in the gospel of John uses a literary device to enhance the emotional immediacy of the scenes.  The verbs are in the present tense, transporting the reader into the right-now action.  It is John’s way of involving us in his screenplay.  We are not the audience – we are participants.  Jesus saying to her, “Woman . . ”  In order to capture the overwhelming nature of this moment, you must become Mary.

First, intense grief.  The death – you saw it with your own eyes – of the man of hope.  The death of the teacher who made you feel so special.  Snatched from life in ways that just don’t seem possible.  The cascade of events that propelled him to the cross.  You watched that agony.  His life beaten and tortured and pierced and mocked – taken from him when it seemed as though success was just on the horizon.  Every time you think of it, the tears just won’t stop.  The pain in your heart is almost too much to bear.

Then, confusion.  You come to mourn.  To weep over his tomb.  But the stone is rolled back.  The tomb is empty.  Angels – is that really what you saw?  And what could they have meant?  Your mind is spinning, trying to grasp what your eyes cannot deny.

Then questions.  “Why are you weeping?”  The Greek word is klaio – intense, strong, wailing and mourning, not just tears but also the shuddering heartache that moves the whole body in grief.  “Why do I weep?”   Because it is all so wrong.  It was wrong to have happened.  It is wrong not to know what has happened.  It is wrong to even stand here talking to a gardener when I need so desperately to find him. 

Once Mary wept over her life.  Now she weeps over her hope.  Have you and I been with Mary?  Have we wept over our lives that put Jesus on the cross?  Have we grieved for the price He paid for us?  And, then, have we wept over the hope that seemed lost?  All we dreamed we could be.  All the good things we wished to do.  All the grace and perfection and nobility that we desired.  It must all be wept away in klaio before we can hear the gardener’s reply.  The resurrection is not the restoration of life as we wished it to be.  It is the resurrection of life as we could never have imagined.  It is God’s doing – a new order of being, catching us completely off-guard.  Jesus did not rise from the grave as that teacher and prophet and friend we used to follow.  He rose from the grave as God.  The world is entirely new.