Come & See

Jesus said, “Where have you laid him?”

They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”

Jesus wept.

—John 11:34–35

Once

we knew where we were.

The glass held.

Light stayed put.

The world obeyed the basic rules

of cause and effect,

of prayer and outcome.

Meaning showed up when summoned.

God was mostly punctual.

We called this 'faith'—

a life where the story made sense often enough

that we trusted the gaps,

where suffering felt tragic

but legible.

Then—

a phone call that split the day in half,

a scan lit up wrong,

a body failed faster than the promises,

a betrayal that learned our name,

a grave dug while the heart was still arguing.

And the stained glass of our lives

didn’t crack.

It shattered.

Not gently.

Not symbolically.

But into knives—

small, bright fragments

that cut the hands

of anyone foolish enough

to try to make things whole again.

Nothing fits now.

The old prayers sound thin.

The maps lie.

The terrain does not recognize our certainty.

The God we knew

feels gone—

not dead, just absent,

withdrawn into a holiness

dense with silence.

We are told—

there is a peace

that passes understanding.

We look for it

at the graveside,

in the waiting room,

in the hours after the casserole dishes are gone.

We do not find it.

We are told—

there is joy

unspeakable.

But our mouths are full of grief,

and no one tells us

how to speak that language

from here.

Because we all have our Lazarus.

A name the body remembers

before the mind allows it.

A love that did not rise

when we begged it to.

A death that taught us

how long absence can last

even in the presence of God.

And still

a voice reaches us.

'Where have you laid him?'

Not a test.

Not a theological setup.

A question that walks

straight into the wound.

And we answer the only way we can:

Lord—

come and see.

Come and see the tomb.

Come and see what death has done.

Come and see the place

where prayer stopped working.

Come and stand where we ran out

of better words.

And we do not soften our questions.

Jesus—

if you loved him,

why did you wait?

If you were already on the way,

why does it feel like we were alone?

The questions stay.

They are not corrected.

They are not reframed.

They are not rushed toward hope.

Jesus does not explain himself.

He comes closer.

He stands where grief stands—

before the stone is moved,

before anything is fixed,

before resurrection has a chance

to look like victory.

And then—

Jesus weeps.

No sermon.

No defence.

No appeal to a larger plan.

Just tears—

falling into the dust,

God’s sorrow taking a body,

love admitting the cost of love.

This is the mercy—

not that death is undone,

not that peace arrives intact,

not that joy suddenly becomes speakable,

but that grief is not unbelief,

that lament is not corrected,

that sorrow is not asked

to hurry.

That the broken are not told

to be strong

for God’s sake.

Here,

in front of the sealed tombs of our lives,

we are allowed to weep with God,

not merely wait for God.

And the invitation remains—

quiet, particular, unresolved:

Lord, come and see.

Come and stay.

We are here.

Rev'd Jon Swales

Lament is a gift to the church. It corrects a form of faith that refuses to tell the truth about the world as it is—one that rushes past grief with optimism, offering reassurance instead of presence. Lament teaches us how to pray honestly when hope feels fragile. If you would like to join me for an evening exploring lament, details can be found here.