Hearing that Jesus is perturbed and deeply troubled at the grief of His friends seems strange at first. Yet, It begins to make sense when we realize what he truly is angry with and why. To understand it we need to reflect back on the last few weeks of Lent and the Gospel readings from John.
These past three weeks of Lent we have been hearing about the power of Jesus, revealed through His miracles, and His power and desire to give us life through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yet most importantly Jesus is seeking to reveal to us the truth of who He is...the Son of God...the Savior of the World.
Our first reading reminds us of the encounter between Jesus and the samaritan woman. Jesus thirsting for her faith...offering her the gift of faith through the power of the Holy Spirit. She accepts and is transformed.
In the story of the man born blind Jesus restores sight bringing hope to a desperate man and a bleak situation. Jesus restores sight to us continually through the forgiveness of sins, calling us to follow Him and live by his commands so we remain free from sin.
Today, Jesus reveals his absolute power over death. Lazarus is truly dead...been in the tomb for 4 days! Jesus raises Lazarus...Jesus conquers death! Jesus plainly reveals his reason for these miracles. He acts to reveal to us the Glory of God…”Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”. Jesus conquers sin, sickness, death and brings us eternal life. All of these manifest that Jesus IS God and with Him we have no reason to fear nor grieve without hope.
Now we can better understand why Jesus is upset. Jesus is perturbed and deeply troubled because He loves and cares for all of us. Jesus is perturbed and angry at the reactions of the people and that which has caused it. People are grieving without hope in their unbelief... and sin, sickness and death have led to this desparate grief. Jesus is angry and grieves himself. Jesus loves His people so intensely and is deeply distressed and angry at that which causes such deep sorrow and despair in His people. Jesus is perturbed and angry NOT at His people, but rather at sin, sickeness, death and unbelief because He is moved with tremendous love for us. Jesus cares for us. He wants to destroy the sin, sickness and death that weakens our faith and leads us away from Him!
The coronavirus pandemic is causing similar desperate grief to us and our world today. The Gospel and readings today come with the message of hope! Jesus cares and grieves with us, but differently. He is perturbed and angry at that which is hurting us, His people. He is here to destroy the sin, sickness and death that cause our grief. He can do it, yet He needs our faith! There is only one thing that Jesus asks for in today’s Gospel, “Take away the stone.” Jesus commands the same from us today. Act in faith and remove the obstacle that prevents Jesus from working within us...our own unbelief. Jesus will destroy our unbelief and deepen our faith; we only need to ask.
Will Jesus end this pandemic immediately? I do not know, but He certainly can. What He will do is restore our hope when we reach out to Him in faith. Jesus is perturbed and angry but not with us. He loves us and asks us to let him destroy all that is causing our suffering, sorrow and grief... sin, sickness, death and unbelief. Jesus offers himself to us in the Eucharist...He desires to enter our hearts and increase our faith and hope. Jesus, take away the stone of unbelief from us and our world and raise us to new life!