Dirty White Shirt....(Learn...Serial Blog....8/19)

Dirty white shirt…     

How sad? How distressing? How disturbing?How unjust? How inhumane?..are some of the questions our mind wants to post after watching a short, tear-filled video in which the wife of the deceased doctor is seen pleading for the intenvention of Chief Minister in burying his husband's body at the place of her ( husband's) choice.   As though the sorrow of the loss is not enough,  this lamentation is only adding salt to the wound..

2000 years ago….Bethany, Israel

To the perplexity of the sisters, Jesus was asking them a a baffling question "Where have you laid him?".    Now, the sisters would have that maybe Jesus was asking them to show place of his burial to pay his condolences or share the grief with the family.  The Bible is silent as to the point in which Jesus actually 'shed tears'. 

The news of Lazarus death was communicated to him atleast four days before.  The Bible does not record of Jesus having cried on receipt of the news, not even on seeing the face sorrow-stricken Martha and Mary whom (the bible says) was lamenting loudly at the grave.  

I believe Jesus wept at the point and place where he was brought in front of the grave.  Why? What happened here that caused tears.  In yet another incident, when Jesus encounters the bier of a deceased young man being carried for burial, the Bible says, he had compassion on the mother who was lamenting aloud.  But there he says, "Weep not".  But here, he himself is "weeping".  Was it because he loved this family more than anybody else?  Jesus, being Son of God, is no respecter of persons.  His love is the  same for all.  His compassion is the same for all.  Then what melted the heart of Jesus who was both God and human….

I feel, in the tomb, Jesus saw, not the end of friend Lazarus, but the end of mankind, created in his own image and likeness..

I feel, in the tomb, Jesus saw, the dreadful penalty pronounced on the whole mankind, all because of the one act of disobedience of the first man…

I feel, in the tomb, Jesus saw, how miserable, meaningless and fragile the human life has become, because of the weight, power and burden of sin….whose wages they are reaping now!

Mankind, which God so beautifully, so wonderfully, so intelligently planned has distorted and marred its original splendor….

A father buys a very beautiful, very costly white shirt from abroad to his little son.  Now the father cannot wait  to adorn his child with this new shirt.   The son also likes the new shirt and on seeing it, he quickly want to wear it.  He wears and rushes to show it to his father, but in his hurry, he fails to notice one plantain leaf lying on the ground. He trips over and falls.   Though he suffers no physical injuries, the brand new shirt, owing to the fall had become instantly dirty with mud stains all over.  The father  who loves the child  also knows the value of the gift. He can neither take lightly the damage  done to the  valuable dress, nor can punish hard the child for  being  less careful …..Now the eyes of the father is swells with tears….

Jesus wants the tomb to be opened…..

                                                                                                            (to be Contd…)