November 15, 2015 · John 11:32–35

Healing In Mourning

And this is when Mary reached the place where Jesus was, and she saw him, she fell at his feet — her favourite spot — and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died." And when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" he asked.

“Let the Spirit be at work with those who have the Spirit within them. Together, you can bear each other's burdens. And then finally, at some point, God brings us to this place of acceptance. He lets us see these tiny slivers of hope and the resurrection. He shows me that the future of this church, of FreeChurch, is going to be awesome. That God is doing amazing things in Toronto. This is God's church, and he does what he wills, and he calls people where he wills for his purposes. And in my own life, I see, like — I know there's going to be something great that God is going to use me in ministry. And this is the part of the acceptance. He's like, ah — I weep, and yet I expect. Mourning is a part of life. It allows us to feel the reality of our humanity. You know, if you don't let your mourning out, it will just swallow you. You won't even know it. Weeping over death precedes coming back to life. Tears are the sign that hope is something that will give us much more than we ever dreamt of. So our God is a God who feels pain with us. Our Jesus is a Jesus who cries with us. He died for us. He lives in us.”