A man who chooses the Jesus script is…
A man who stands at the funeral of a friend and weeps openly.
Did you ever see your father cry? What about your grandfather? Times are changing, but in the not-so-distant past it was rare to see a man cry. Men were taught to be tough as steel. They were discouraged from showing emotions. Somewhere along the way, a script for manhood was handed to them that involved an absence of tears. In turn, men raised their sons to toughen up and never tear up.
As followers of Jesus, our cues for manhood are shaped by the Jesus script for masculinity. The apostle John, a friend and follower of Jesus, captured this experience that showed the depths of emotions that Jesus, who was both God and man, felt.
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
—John 11:32–44
It can be tempting to skip to the end of a familiar story. When you know that Lazarus will be raised from the dead, it’s easy to fast forward through the parts that preceded the miracle. But it’s often in the in-between when God does some of his most important work.
Mary fell at Jesus’s feet sobbing over the loss of her brother. She was heartbroken. She was confused. Why couldn’t Jesus have been there and prevented this death? Jesus glanced around and saw the crowd weeping. Embracing the emotion of the situation, he did the same thing: Jesus wept.
Yes, he knew what was about to happen. And even if he didn’t raise Lazarus from the dead on that day, he knew Lazarus’s future was secure. But he felt compassion for those who were hurting and grieving. He felt sorrow. He shed tears, not behind closed doors but in public, in front of those who knew him well.
A man who embraces the Jesus script can stand confidently at the funeral of a friend and weep openly. He is not ashamed of emotion. He doesn’t try to hide it or walk away.
What keeps you from showing emotion to those around you? Is there a script you’ve been carrying that was handed to you that you need to throw away so you don’t pass it along to another generation? Take your cues from Jesus on how a man should handle emotion. Let his script be the one you choose to follow.
