To See or Not To See

Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see." (John 11:32-34)

One of the tools for inductive Bible study is looking for clusters or repetitions of a thought or word in the context. A few days ago I noticed the significance of the phrase she saw Him and pondered that for some time with great benefit. Now I notice that there seems to be a cluster of references to the idea of seeing together in these three verses and beyond.

Seeing requires certain things to be in place to accomplish effectively. Seeing requires eyes that function properly as well as surrounding light to illuminate what is to be seen. Quite interestingly a couple verses later the Jews conclude from Jesus' response to seeing Mary weeping that He must have loved Lazarus. “See how He loved him” they say. But in the very next breath they try to deepen people's doubts about Jesus by harking back to a previous miracle that was hotly discussed among them when Jesus had recently healed a man blind from birth.

All of these things have to do with seeing. I believe this was no accident on the part of John the writer of this book. In this story there was an over-abundance of darkness like an oppressive cloud around the minds of all the people involved except for Jesus. It is interesting to compare this story with the end of the story about the healed blind man in chapter 9 where Jesus talked about blindness and seeing. The main reason that Jesus wept in this context was not because He was sad about Lazarus' death but because it disturbed Him so much to see His close friends so blinded by unbelief and darkness and unwillingness to trust Him.

Emotions have a way of blinding us to many things. I have just finished reading a book that has really helped to open my own eyes to this issue. It talks about God's original design for the hierarchy of our mind and how sin has reversed God's intended order to keep us in darkness, fear and headed for death. When our feelings become the dominate controlling factor in our life rather than reason, conscience and a true perception of God, then the result is always damage to our mental health and all sorts of problems can take us down.

It appears to me from the stories about them that Martha was not as prone as Mary to allowing her feelings to dominate her perceptions. She was not so easily clouded by her emotions to have what Jesus had been seeking to teach them obscured in her mind. Even though her emotions were very intense at this time, she was able to keep her reason engaged enough to express faith in Jesus in spite of how she felt. However it seems that Mary, who was likely one far more emotionally influenced, could not perceive as readily as Martha and as a result she struggled to hang onto her trust in Jesus' heart for her even though she had had many more dramatic experiences with His saving power. Jesus was saddened that His friends were still so easily overcome with darkness and doubts when He had invested so much into their lives to help them to be prepared for just such a crisis. He was saddened but not offended.

Jesus was also overcome with emotion Himself as He perceived the bigger picture that no one else could see of what was really going on in the hearts of all the people present. He knew the hypocrisy of the Jews who were pretending to console Mary but really were seeking to reinforce her despair. He saw the double-mindedness of many present who would soon clamor for His death just a few days later. He felt the effects of the suffocating mass of lies circulating through humanity and especially promoted by religion about He and His Father. These misrepresentations kept people in fear and darkness and afraid to trust God when things looked hopeless. All of this awareness pressed on the heart of Jesus and was the true reason that He wept. It was not about Lazarus at all that He wept because Jesus knew what He was about to do for him. It was about the condition of the hearts of those present and the blindness of the whole nation of Israel who were so resistant to embracing the love that Jesus had come to share with humanity direct from the throne of heaven that broke His heart and troubled His emotions..

Yet the good news is that darkness cannot remain long in the presence of light. Though it may return again and again to try to deceive and depress us, darkness is no match for light when we allow the true Source of light to come into our lives.

The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.

The real light, which shines on everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into existence through him. Yet, the world didn't recognize him. He went to his own people, and his own people didn't accept him. However, he gave the right to become God's children to everyone who believed in him. (John 1:4-5 GNB, 9-12 GW)