By Mark Grace, CCCNZ Ambassador
John 11:35
“Tangi ana a Ihu.”
“‘Ua tagi Iesu.”
“Jesus wept.”
This week, I'd like to do something a little different with the devotion. I'm going to quote at length from a sermon by Chad Scruggs, entitled "Jesus wept". The sermon was given in March 2023 on John chapter 11—the story of Lazarus.
"What makes Jesus so angry is the same thing that makes him weep," said Scruggs, in the online video of that service. "It is the revulsion of everything in him against the power of death and the havoc that death is wreaking in the lives of those whom Jesus loves”.
"We might say with great conviction here that Jesus hates death, and Jesus doesn't just hate death theoretically. Jesus hates death in his body and Jesus hates death in his heart. And so, for those whom he loves, who are grieving the enemy that he reviles, what does he do? John tells us that Jesus sat down in that moment, and he wept".
Scruggs continued: "That short, compelling verse means that Jesus himself is in it. He is in it with those who mourn. God himself, weeping with those who weep. God not pretending that grief is somehow imaginary or that grief should be hidden or even avoided, but in righteousness Jesus joining his tears to theirs".
"Knowing exactly what he's about to do, Jesus sits down and does what? He weeps".
"Do you see that a strong confidence in the end of the story does not undo or justify the absence of grief in the middle? A mature faith adds its tears to the sadness in our world. Jesus says blessed are those who mourn—all the while not losing confidence in how that sadness will eventually be overcome by him".
These words are powerful. Alone, they jump out from the page and reverberate in my soul. But what happened a mere three weeks later makes these words all the more potent.
Three weeks after Chad Scruggs proclaimed these words from the pulpit, a person with a gun crashed through the glass doors of the school at Scrugg's church and killed three staff members and three nine-year-old students—including his daughter, Hallie Scruggs.
It's difficult to imagine the devastation this death would have caused. But I have to hope that the words Scruggs preached before the tragedy struck would have prepared his heart for the events that followed. Listen to these words again, in light of the tragedy Scruggs would soon experience:
"Do you see that a strong confidence in the end of the story does not undo or justify the absence of grief in the middle? A mature faith adds its tears to the sadness in our world. Jesus says blessed are those who mourn—all the while not losing confidence in how that sadness will eventually be overcome by him".
