Thank you. 
That was a gracious was of getting us back on topic without complaint or suggestion we go elsewhere with that discussion.
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True. I googled a bit, and could not find any either. Guess will have to read the book. It sounds like it would make a good group study.
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It’s not for nothing that the most frequent mandate in the Bible is “Do not be afraid” or one of its multiple variations – “Fear not!”, “Be anxious for nothing”, “Do not be afraid!”, and the like. (I think someone decided that there are 365 instances, one for each day.)
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…
1 John 4:18
It’s not our perfect love! It is our Father’s, if you belong to him, and he only does what is good for both him and us. So I try to catch myself whenever I’m being anxious about ANYTHING, and imagine crawling up on Father’s lap even when court is in session in the throne room, so to speak, and his strong arms will comfort me and shield me.
Hence (and from) the last verse of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”:
In his arms he’ll take and shield thee
Thou wilt find a solace there!
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I think the claim Christ wept because he was sad at the loss of His friend Lazarus is a misconception.
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If we read the passage in context, Christ was told Lazarus was very sick days before and yet he mad no effort to rush to Lazarus aid for another 2 days…
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Christ clearly had something in mind here and intentionally delayed his arrival such that Lazarus would pass away. He (God), intentionally let Lazurus die!
Now to address the weeping text specifically…another source has made the following commentry about this
“> Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’” (John 11:32)
At this point, people had gathered with Mary and Martha as they mourned the loss of their brother. When Jesus heard their words and saw the sadness of the people around Him, the Bible tells us He became very moved and wept.
"Jesus Wept" - 3 Reasons the Savior Was Weeping
My take is that Christ weeping, given He let Lazurus die in order to raise him again, was for the lack of faith in those around Him…he wept because of their anguish. God notices when we are sad, He is a loving God who did not create us for death, and so death it makes God sad too because it’s a reminder of the corruption that sin has brought into this world…physical death (as well as separation from God…spiritual death)
So sickness is ultimately deathly…if we are unable to beat sickness, we die (spiritually and physically) but God has the power to overcome death. Christ demonstrated this lesson when he raised Lazurus from the dead.
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I think you are right in all the reasons you give for Jesus’s weeping over Lazarus’s death. However, as the God-man Jesus knew better than any other human what Lazarus experienced. As a man, Jesus experienced all the complexity of human emotion. Grief over his friend’s suffering would be a normal, human response.
Additionally, Jesus knew what he would be facing himself. Lazarus’s death comes very shortly before Jesus’s own. Before his arrest, we see Jesus’s very human, emotional fear in the face of his own anticipated suffering. There is no reason to believe that these things were not on his mind in Bethany.
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Regarding this:
@jpm, I found the book in my Bookshare subscription and looked it over. Chang brings up the idea of mindful breathing and ties it to Jesus in Chapter 3:
In addition to getting present to nature, a second powerful and Jesus-centered way to get present is the mindful breath .
The practice of mindful breathing has become popular in the broader culture. You may have practiced mindful breathing at a work meeting, in a yoga class, or in any number of other settings. Some Christians are uneasy about mindful breathing out of fear it originated from spiritually problematic sources. But this practice has a profound biblical basis.
John 20 shows how mindful breathing can be traced directly to Jesus. At this point in the story, Jesus has been crucified, resurrected, and has even appeared to the disciples. However, the disciples are in a state of intense anxiety. John 20:19 states that they are cowering behind locked doors “for fear of the Jewish leaders.” They are being bullied by imaginary scenarios of the future where they are arrested and perhaps even crucified like their leader.
Jesus appears suddenly among them as they huddle together in their anxious state. Once again, we see that anxiety is the meeting ground for Jesus. Pay close attention to what happens next in John 20:21–22 (emphasis is mine): “Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” Jesus is being “mindful” in his actions here. His action of “breathing” is deliberate, not some throwaway, random detail.
The mindful breathing of Jesus physically embodies what is happening spiritually: Jesus is giving them the Holy Spirit. Jesus is about to leave the disciples physically and will not return until some unknown time in the future resurrection. But he won’t leave them—or us—alone.
(Curtis Chang, The Anxiety Opportunity: How Worry is the Doorway to Your Best Self, pg. 36)
I find this an enormous stretch of the biblical text; it makes me pretty rashy. I don’t think it’s necessary for Chang to stretch the text like this to recommend or defend as physiologically sound, the breathing and prayer practices he recommends. The Christians who would find mindfulness practices purely new-agey are not going to be convinced by this interpretation of Jesus’s promise of the Holy Spirit. People like me who have other (no doubt personal) issues with all things “mindful” probably won’t be convinced this way either. Without a more direct, scriptural connection, I think the book would have been stronger if he had left this out.
That being said, in Chapter 5 he gives a good overview of how he practiced this type of breathing and connected prayer (Breath Prayer) and how it was helpful to him.
As you said, Phil, this could be a useful book for a group study. And as with every book, the group would have to decide to move past whatever disagreements they might have with Chang’s hermeneutics to the merits and demerits of his practical recommendations.
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As per usual, an excellent podcast. Thank you for this. I’m adding Curtis Chang’s book to my reading list.
Regarding the topic of grief - exactly when grief is “selfish” or sinful likely doesn’t have a crisp definition.
I liked the discussion about Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane, “If it be possible, take this cup from me. But not my will but yours.” So Jesus felt grief for the coming loss of his earthly life. For us humans, we have worth to God, and hence we should treat ourselves as of value. But we can easily become selfish, and a big part of the Christian life is to fight against selfish desires.
I have been finding that a place where grief can seem selfish to people is when we grieve the loss of a companion animal. That is a personal grief, and most people think one should just move on.
The podcast with Curtis and Jim reinforced my understanding that is okay and even healthy to grieve. But the result should ultimately be to draw us closer to God.
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It’s still a relationship (and maybe really only a unilateral one with a cat 
…but I still like cats ). And the bigger proportion or depth of a relationship is to the overall number or degree of relationships with others, maybe the more severe the grief is? (Just thinking out loud in text there. ; - )
So certainly there should be a generous latitude in allowing others to grieve over whatever without being judgmental. Prefaced by prayer, obsessive grieving could require some helpful words or action on another’s part though.
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Are you sure? I would feel very sorry for an elderly person who is mourning the lost of a beloved companion animal while those around her think she should just move on. She needs more sympathetic friends.
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(I did not think he was agreeing with those people.)
No one is denying the situation. No one is being callous or uncaring. It would appear that the word “selfish” carries too much baggage for you.
Dwelling on a loss is unhealthy. I have seen a mother neglect the rest of her family by obsessively mourning the loss of her first son as a teenager. She visited the grave with fresh flowers every day for the rest of her life and had no interest in the life of her remaining son. That is selfish with all its baggage.
I have argued hyperbolae. The reality is, as usual, at a midway point.
Richard
Yes, my only point was that grief can be very personal thing, and hence focused on self. It is okay to grieve, but it can easily become selfish, and we must be aware of that. Then, there is shared grief, where a loss affects a community of people. But I didn’t necessarily want to open a long discussion on grief.
so very right Kendel. Thank you for adding this wonderful insight to my thoughts.
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The pot has called the kettle black! “Grief” is a Humpty Dumpty word for you.
I have no idea what you think this means.
I know what grief is.
Richard
Why? He was/is fully human, and humans react to loss with grief.
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