Year A 5 Lent 2026 Celtic Service: A God Who Weeps

 Year A 5th Sunday in Lent, 22 March 2026

St George’s Episcopal, Fredericksburg, VA

Celtic Service: “A God Who Weeps”

Collect: Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

John 11:1-45

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

This sermon will be shorter than our Gospel reading. Please hold your applause. It is not because this is a bad passage, but it is one of the most moving accounts in the Gospels. It is only recorded here in John. And it shows us the nature of who Jesus is. And through Jesus, it shows us the nature of who God is.

So often when I hear someone say they do not believe in God, and it is not said in an adversarial or confrontational way and we are having a pleasant conversation of mutual respect, I will ask the person to describe the God they do not believe in. To a person, it is a God of Wrath and Judgment. They will remember reading Jonathan Edwards in their high school English class. American Literature was my Junior Year. And many are forced to read Edward’s sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The imagery and rhetoric are amazing. For me, the theology? Not so much. Or they may have experienced a fire and brimstone pastor in their youth. Wherever they got it, it stuck and they want none of it. They often are shocked when I admit, I would have a hard time believing in that God, too.

The miracle of the Incarnation is that we are shown that God is like Jesus, not Jesus is like God. Jesus even said as much, “When you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” (John 14:9) We project so much of our parent issues heavenward, good or bad.

Friends, so what do we see of Jesus here? The obvious huge thing is the resurrection of a smelly corpse, his friend, Lazarus. (By the way, the King James Version of the Bible has his sister say, “he stinketh.”) But we expect Jesus to work miracles after hearing all those stories about him. We expect him to be comforting and consoling to the sisters, Mary and Martha. And he was. But the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35, is here. Two words.

I was raised in a denomination where we were trained to memorize verses. The straight verse, with the reference. And while we learned the words, there was no unpacking of the meaning. It was rote memorization. And like most children in such a situation, I went for the easiest and most low-hanging of the fruit. John 11:35, the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.”

As a child, I thought nothing of it. I cried, sometimes a lot. Skinned knees. Hurt feelings. So hearing someone cried was not a big deal. Until I was socialized that “Real men don’t cry.” or “Crying is for sissies.” and other LIES along that line of thinking.

That Jesus stopped and cried over the suffering of Mary and Martha and over the death of his friend Lazarus made an impression on them then, and on me now.

We worship someone who weeps for us, who weeps with us. Ponder that.

We are not alone in our suffering. We are not alone in our worries and fears. Emmanuel, God is with us. Friends, what a thought!

Jesus still weeps. When I watch the news, looking at the state of the world, the needless suffering and fear-baiting of the weakest amongst us, I think Jesus still weeps.

Tucked away in a gut-wrenching story is a simple truth. That Angry God who wants to smite us is a boogey-man perpetuated to keep people in line. A lot of churches still preach and teach that version of their God.

But here in the text, simply and plainly, we see that Jesus was moved to tears over his friend, someone he loved.

And how many times have we said “Jesus loves you.”? He weeps for me. He weeps with me. Jesus loves me. And when we have seen Jesus, we have seen God the Father. God weeps for me, too. God loves me, too. And, you, too!

We are sinners in the hands of a loving God who would go to hell and back again, and did by the way, for us to help us find our way home.

That is a lot wrapped up in those two little words in John 11:35. Thanks be to God. Amen