The shortest sentence in the Scriptures is “Jesus wept.” It was on the occasion of His arrival at the home of Lazarus who had died four days before. He encountered the crying and wailing of those who had loved this disciple and was soon weeping Himself. In doing so the sinless Son of God ratified grief as the proper human response to loss. Elsewhere in the New Testament we are told to “mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice.” At no point does God condemn this kind of expression of sorrow. Why would Christ condemn what He, in His humanity, had experienced himself?

It has been said that human beings grieve because on a deep level we know that something has gone horribly wrong with our existence. We were designed for unbroken communion with the God who created us, with all the peace, acceptance, meaning and permanence such communion implies. When we fell as a race and death entered our reality we lost the world in which we were designed to exist. Ever since the Garden all flesh has cried out in the pain of displacement from whom and where we were meant to be. We have been banished from paradise and not yet restored to the place of fully realized atonement that our resurrection will bring. The only right response to the loss that sin visits upon us as we live in this “between-time” is to lament. As long as we live “East of Eden” we cannot help but cry out with the innate sense that something we once had we have no longer. This is true for both believer and unbeliever. It is part and parcel of the human condition.