/Christian News/ — The remaining fruit salad waited in isolation as the conversation turned theological. The early evening dinner was another moment with our friend, Tracie. About three months ago her husband had been waiting to turn left when a SUV careened out of control and landed on everything that was Stephen. Gone.

Three months into a life she hadn’t planned, she sat at our table and shared in the simple discussions of simple things. Two grandchildren and our daughter and son-in-law sat with us as the satellite music channel pumped out contemporary Christian music.

Now, toward the end of our evening, eschatology was the discussion. With one grandchild in the bath and another downstairs with Dad, we three talked about Jesus and peace.

Just as she rose to leave, the music filtered through the moment and Chris Tomlin was in our kitchen singing, “I Will Rise.”

There are moments when the veneer of normalcy is stripped back and raw, unfiltered, unfettered, “I-am-so-deeply-pained-and-I-can-hardly-take-being-alive” emotions manifest themselves. This was one such moment.

Shortly after Stephen was killed, I arrived at his home with a song that had invaded my soul all morning. Taking the CD from the car, I told Tracie that this song was comfort to me as I reflected on Stephen. His knees badly scarred from multiple surgeries, his gait altered from adjusting to the pain – Stephen found getting up from a seated position a process of focused energy. Now, released from the constraints of joints and tissue, Stephen could rise and give God praise.

Tracie listened to the song and signed some of the words that wafted through her kitchen. A deep, guttural cry released as the final tones quieted. With strength of emotion too hard to describe, she cried out “It’s perfect,” her own grief intermingling with the thoughts of Stephen worshipping/Stephen gone from her.

Now, in this unexpected moment months away, the enormity of his absence was exposed as the song played and an abyss of pain filled the room.

There is little anyone can do in such a moment. Only cry. And hug. And hold. And stand in awe of the incredible immensity of grief. This was a pain not contained: it reached out and demanded our surrender to it. And we did. Janet held, I circled the three of us. A momentary thought: turn off the music! But there was no turning back – this moment could only be journeyed through, not around.

“Jesus wept,” the writer, John, tells us. He weeps at the tomb of his friend, Lazarus. How profound his weeping must have been. Those around him, those that observed him, commented about the depth of his love for Lazarus measured alongside his significant sorrow.

Jesus wept.

But so did Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus. Their grief multiplied by a torturous thought: “Where was Jesus?”

Hadn’t Jesus received the news of Lazarus’ illness? To drive the point home, the message was sent to Jesus in this manner: “Lord, the one you love is sick.” The one you love. The reasonable expectation of such a statement is that the one loved would receive a hasty response.

But Jesus waited. Two days passed before he gathered up the crew of disciples and headed into Judea and Bethany. Two days.

It’s in these moments that we most ardently hope that God is paying attention to our lives. C.S. Lewis observed during his own grief at the loss of his wife, Joy:

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There is no light in the windows. It might be an empty house. . . Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?

Martha must have felt the bitterness of this delay. Were not she and Mary and Lazarus the best friends he had? “Yes, go and do what you must,” Martha may have thought, “but when your real friends need you – COME!”

Jesus arrives too late. Lazarus is in the tomb and Mary—the one so attentive to Jesus in the past—stays in the house as Martha goes out to see Jesus. Her first words to their friend, Jesus? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

If you had been here. If only you were paying attention. If only you responded to our plea.

These words carry the pain of disappointed faith. Disappointment with the One we trusted. In these words all the words we aren’t supposed to utter come forth. Why? Where were you, God? Is it too much to care for those you love?

So broken. So unfathomably hurt. “If you had just showed up things would be different. But you didn’t. And things aren’t different.”

Martha goes to get Mary: “The teacher is here and is asking for you.” And what does Mary say when she sees Jesus? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Those who know the story know that Jesus said he would raise Lazarus. Those who know the story know that Martha, after saying things would be different if Jesus had come also said, “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

“All this confidence shows that they trusted Jesus and never wavered in their faith,” counter those who know the story. “Jesus is the resurrection and the life; he even tells Martha this,” counters the contextualist.

But do you hear the weeping? Are you standing in the room with Mary and Martha? They are mourning! And Jesus. He weeps.

Throw all the theology around and you still have grief in full display. Loss. Pain. Suffering. Hurt. Stand with us in the kitchen and wonder at the severity of the wounding.

“I will rise,” Tomlin sings. It is a hope not lost at all, but certainly pushed to the outer edges of focus at the moment. Right now, in this moment, we weep. And Jesus? I believe he was in the kitchen with us. He knows the song better than Chris Tomlin. He knows where Stephen is and where we all will be.

I also believe he was doing what he did standing outside the tomb of his friend: weeping.

Scott Downing is Senior Pastor of San Ramon Presbyterian Church in California and maintains a blog at scottdowning.wordpress.com.