Bitter portion....

Grief is an overwhelming emotion.  For any person who is experiencing deep grief, it overtakes everything, the pain so searing it makes it physically hard to breathe.  The thought of the world going on while you are experiencing this crushing blow, this total shift in your universe, is almost incomprehensible.

God knows all.  God has our lives planned from the first moment until the last breath is drawn.  He knows what we will think and do and experience, and it is all according to his divine plan.

But God also knows how we feel.  God himself, in the earthly form of his son, has experienced the pain and grief of losing a dearly loved person, and he shared our human emotion upon facing that reality.

In John 11 verse 35, we read,

"Jesus wept."

Upon seeing his dear friends in mourning, he felt the human emotion of grief.  Upon seeing the body of his beloved friend, like us, he wept.  Despite knowing that he would soon bring Lazarus back to life, restoring him to his loving sisters and friends, he was overcome with the sadness and sense of loss that death induces in each one of us.

Although there are many ways to reflect on this verse, the simple truth is that Jesus was vulnerable to the pain of the human experience he was having, and in his pain, he reacted as humans do.  It is comforting to know that when we are experiencing the deepest pain life can throw our way, we are not alone.  Our Lord knows exactly what we are experiencing, what we are feeling, what the loss means, because he too has stood by the grave of one he loved deeply and felt the loss of the person whom he held dear.

As we enter this week of the Holy Passion, I think it is as valuable to reflect on the humanity of Jesus as much as the deity.  Although he was the perfect sacrifice, pure and clean and without flaw, he was also as human as we are, and felt everything we feel.  When he was crying out to God from the pain of the cross, he was beseeching God as one of us.  When he welcomed the thief into God's kingdom with him, he did so with the understanding that we have all failed and his sacrifice was for everyone.

When you feel that God has forgotten you, when you fear that life will never again be without pain or fear or misery, remember that Jesus himself felt what you feel and was overcome with the emotion of the moment.  God does not expect us to be without pain.  He knows our pain, accepts our limitations, and loves us through whatever comes in this life.  And he has promised us the unending relief of eternal life with him as the ultimate salve for the wounds we incur.

Wishing you a week of reflection and thoughtful consideration of the God who came to us as a simple man and loved us in our own simplicity.  God is good.  His love endures.  His peace passes all our human understanding, and we can rest assured that the power of the resurrection will wash away the pain of this world and bring us to the joy in the next.