SUNDAY SERMON: Enough to make a grown man cry

By Rev. Stephen Baldwin

NT: John 11.1-45

My mawmaw, who was my grandma on my dad’s side, loved country music. When we went over to her house, you could count on watching Hee Haw and the Grand Ole Opry. We even went to the Opry in Nashville on a family trip once, and I thought my sweet, strong, mountain of a grandma was gonna melt when she saw Portner Wagoner walk out on stage. 

Do you remember Porter Wagoner? Rhinestone suits, blonde, wavy hair, custom leather guitar straps, he was a superstar in the 1960s and 70s. Dolly Parton even got her start on his TV show. And my grandma loooooooved Porter Wagoner. 

He was more famous for his persona than his music, but one song of his has made its way into our everyday vernacular, and we still say it now, decades later. Whenever we experience something deeply touching or emotional, we say it’s…enough to make a grown man cry. Which was one of Porter’s more well-known songs. 

Today’s scripture has that same effect on folks. Mary and Martha beg Jesus to come heal their sick brother. For days, he waits, knowing his friend Lazarus is dying. Eventually, he goes to Mary and Martha’s. They run out to see Jesus and tell him he’s too late. If he had only come when they called then their brother would not have died! And he cries. Jesus grieves his dear friend. Then he asks the crowd to roll the grave stone away, and he calls to Lazarus, “Get up.” And sure enough, Lazarus walks out. Resurrected in front of his good friend. It’s enough to make a grown man cry. 

This is one of Jesus’ most human moments. He loses his friend, who he could’ve saved, and it visibly affects him. Let’s talk for a minute about tears. Why do humans cry? 

The famous scientist, Charles Darwin, who had an answer for everything, never understood crying. He wrote, “We must look at weeping as an incidental result, as purposeless as the secretion of tears from a blow outside the eye.”

That lines up with Tom Hanks’ character, Coach Jimmy Dugan, in A League of Their Own, who famously tells his women’s team, “There’s no crying in baseball!”  

Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist, disagrees. He says tears are an important signal. He’s not talking about the tears you get when cutting an onion or when a baby is crying for his mother or when an athlete wins a gold medal; those tears are obvious enough. Those are tears of scent, fear, and celebration. They make sense. But what about an adult who is driving down the road and suddenly begins to cry? How does that make any sense? He says that particular thing happens all the time, though people seldom admit it. And what about the adult who grieves for a loved one? Or hears a song that makes them well up inside? Why do humans cry? Because they’re sad? We all get sad. What makes a person cry? 

Pinker says it’s a signal of surrender. In a moment when there’s too much for us to process, but we haven’t yet shut down, we weep. We signal to anyone watching that we are helpless and need support. So for Pinker, humans weep because of something complex going on in our God-given bodies that we can’t understand, which also has this amazing way of building a connection with others. 

When Jesus weeps, it surely is one of his most human moments. It shows he cares. Because he had empathy for others. Because that’s the Golden Rule. Because faithful people care about each other. Because he knew Lazarus was sick and dying. He knew he could help. He also knew he couldn’t go. Why not? Because this was bigger than Lazarus, bigger than friendship, bigger than the bond between Jesus, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Because they needed to see a resurrection. Because Jesus’ time was almost up. Because Jesus would soon die. And because they needed hope when that did happen, that God could find a way out of no way. 

In that way, Jesus was both powerful and helpless in the situation. He was powerful enough to stop it, and also helpless because he wasn’t supposed to stop it. 

Helplessness is a pain unlike most others. We can’t work our way out of it. We can’t help our way out of it. We can’t do much of anything about it. It’s enough to make a grown man cry. And men in particular struggle with tears, because we aren’t supposed to show them. That was the whole point of Porter Wagoner’s song; it takes a lot to make a grown man cry. 

When it happens to Jesus, it’s yet another teaching moment. He signals his powerlessness to a moment bigger than himself, and others reach out to support him. Mary and Martha go with him to the tomb. Thomas says, “Let us go so that we may die with him.” The crowds gather round the tomb. And when Jesus says to Lazarus, “Come out!”, they all believe. They have formed a connection that will last a lifetime, and nothing will shake their belief again. Jesus weeps because he cares; may we all be so fortunate as to have someone who cares so much for us. 

Randy Cornelius, of Vassar College, puts it plainly: “We cry because we need other people. So Darwin,” he says with a laugh, “was totally wrong.”

This is a story about a topic as old as time. It’s about pain and suffering and death, whatever you want to call it; it’s the same thing. The helplessness of it can be enough to make a grown man cry, and that may be exactly what’s needed to build a connection. Because when tragedy strikes Mary and Martha, Jesus’ tears lead to a family and a community reunited, on solid footing for the difficult road ahead. Helplessness leads to hopefulness. Death leads to life. Surrender leads to victory. The tomb leads to rebirth. Tears lead to joy. Amen.