Jesus Wept.

 A few weeks ago my friend died.   He shouldn’t have died.  Not just because his death was medically preventable.  But he shouldn’t have died because he was a good man, father, husband, and pastor.

I wept that week. 

The timing of his death created a cross-road.  I was in the middle of dialoguing with Bible College leadership regarding my visit when Mr. Mwaanga died.   Suddenly a flood of memories, emotions and pain from Post-Zambia-Disorder were re-awakened. 

I wept because I lost my friend.  And I wept because I wanted to run away from Zambia and never look back. 

Never again will I let myself love so deeply, never again will I subject myself to so much hurt.  My friends keep dying. The students I poured my heart into, planting seeds into a ministry which would overflow from their commitment and sacrifice.  Not to mention the many pains of the conflicts of leadership struggles and weaknesses which persist in the college/missionary realm.  As I wept, my heart ran.

Jesus wept.

Wait, what was that?

Jesus wept.

Yeah yeah, the shortest verse in the Bible, so many memory verses and you give me this one?

Jesus. Wept.

Jesus, Omniscient, Almighty, Son of God, King of Kings, Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace… wept.

Weeping that was snotty, pain filled, red-eyed, heart-aching, gut wrenching, nausea inducing...

Why did he weep?  He knew Lazarus would come back from the dead? 

He wept because he loved.  And loving hurts. 

Loving a broken world where your friends die before their time hurts.  Loving a broken people who don’t love you back hurts.  Loving and pouring your life out without seeing the fruit of your labor hurts.

Jesus’ humanity is most visible in these glimpses of emotion.  He got angry too.  He was angry because the people who were supposed to be doing ministry right, weren’t.  He got the kind of angry that makes you throw tables around.  The kind of angry that makes you run down the road in the bush screaming at the sky, throwing rocks, and punching imaginary faces.  (And being thankful it’s the bush where no one can see or hear you.)

Holistic, incarnational ministry isn’t easy.  Real, transformational, redemptive ministry isn’t easy.

Returning to Zambia is not easy for me.  And this visit is surely going to be full of challenges; physical, emotional and spiritual.  Returning means I’m not running away from the pain of love, and that pain is not easy to choose. 

But… returning does mean I get to love. 

Can you imagine if Jesus chose to run away from the pain instead of choosing love? 

I love, because he first loved. 

I weep, because Jesus wept.