"Jesus wept"

Every day, I go walk into my place of work, a hospital full of dying people. But I don’t know them. I enter in through the front doors, quickly make my way up a few flights of stairs (because elevators are for wimps), put my lunch in the break room fridge and then make my way to the lab. It’s isolated there. The hum of machines and vents dominate the sound space. A timer will go off, an alarm will sound, the rattling of the keyboard, a cordial beep every time a bar code is scanned. I’m no doctor. I’m no nurse. I have no need of ever talking to a dying patient. I’ll spend my time in this lab for 8 hours and then walk out those doors after the sun sets and drive back home.

Patient names and identities are reduced to a series of numbers and letters, necessary only for identification of lab specimens. The initial amusement of funny sounding names and alternate spellings of common monikers wears off quite quickly.

Several times a day, the loudspeaker pierces through the monotony of the work, an announcement of an incoming trauma case, cardiac arrest somewhere within the confines of the massive medical complex, perhaps a stroke. The alarm goes off, the announcement is made, and my co-workers and I continue our work, perhaps more annoyed then anything by the siren. Our jobs aren’t directly affected by these codes. It makes no difference to us, yet it is entirely possible that death will shortly follow these sirens.

Specimens will occasionally come from the morgue or perhaps from an organ donor. But this reminder of death does little to provoke any fear or sadness in me. Again, it is a mild inconvenience to me as I must use a slightly different procedure for these items.

Only once have I realized that the shadow of death is real in the hospital. One winter grey afternoon, I entered the hospital doors. No doubt I was either griping about the long walk from the parking lot, the wind and the cold. I was greeted in the lobby by a weeping family. They were distraught, as hugs were exchanged and tears flooded their faces. Tissues were out, and heads were buried. I quickly moved past them and into the stairwell, but it was clear that something terrible had happened to a loved one. Someone was lost forever, ripped from their lives a moment too soon. It was a staunch reminder of the dark shadow that hovers over the place where I earn my paycheck. For all the business of the Medcenter, the construction of a massive state of the art building, the bureaucracy, and the television commercials with uplifting stories of survivors, the fact remains that several people enter that building, never to come out again. Their story will not be told in the next PR campaign.

The reality of death is all around us. And in the face of death, we ask, where is God? Where is the God who allows these injustices to occur, who allows these families to be cut down? Is he there? Does he care? Is he “good” as the greeting cards with the Bible verses say he is?

God is there. And I think I know his response to death. It’s found in John 11:35, the shortest verse in the Bible. “Jesus wept,” As Jesus is shown the tomb of his friend Lazarus, his first action is not to call him out of the tomb. Surely he knows that he will raise him from the dead. He has the power to do so, but first, he mourns him. He sees the death of his friend and knows that this is not the way things should be.

Before he is betrayed and handed over to be crucified, we find Jesus praying. He tells his disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Matthew 11:35). He knows what cup he must drink. He knows of the glory that will follow when he will rise in 3 days. He knows he is going to be with the Father once more. But right now, the offensive face and stench of death is right in front of him.

God sees death. He sees that it is not right. He is not a God who stands idly by while his creation suffers and moans for him, whether they know it or not. He sends his Son, to live among his creation, to walk among his people while they mock him and despise him all the way to Calvary. These people are not innocent; they are part of the problem. They willingly choose sin and death over worship and life. He dies for these people, who don’t deserve this pardon, but God “demonstrates his own love for us in this; while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

I have never seen Romans 5:8 on a sympathy card from Hallmark. But this is the reminder we all need when faced with the reality of death. God did not simply sit idly, isolated from the death. He did not see redeeming his people as an inconvenience to his perfect plan, rather it was the plan the whole time. Death is defeated. Jesus does not hang on the cross forever, and he will not be found in his tomb. But that will not cheapen the ordeal that Jesus experienced.

I leave for work in a few minutes as I finish this writing. I will be annoyed by the traffic on the way to work, the lack of parking, and the business of the day. Perhaps I have exaggerated the presence of death in my job.( Don’t forget there’s a lot of “fun” things I get to play with like dermatology skin swabs, STD swabs, and things in people’s poop!) But the shadow of death looms over the entire world. Physical death is the most tangible example we have, but spiritually people are dead everywhere I look. Relationships are dead. Dreams are dead. Hope is dead. But there is a God who wants to give us life and who is there to comfort us in this world, this side of eternity. That’s what we remember this weekend on Good Friday.

That’s what we should remember every day.