here's life

This evening I went to a bible study. We were talking about Jesus's response to Lazarus's sickness, and death and why He did what He did. As we read through the passages, where they tell Jesus that Lazarus is sick, and all that follows, I was entertained by a song my dad wrote that describes the whole sequence with much musical melodrama. I think it could have helped shed some light on the feelings behind what the people say. For example, we talked about Thomas's "Let us go and die also" and it was said that he was saying, "Jesus is going up to Judea where He will be killed, let's stick with Him to the end!" The song, however, shows Thomas the doubting Eeyore responding to Jesus:

"Lazarus is Dead!
"And I tell you plainly,
"But that the glory of God might be shown,
"Come, let your faith grow in you!"
"Come, let us go and die too"

We also talked about Jesus weeping, and the guy who was teaching it stressed that Jesus wasn't weeping because Lazarus was dead -- He knew all along that it was going to be ok, and that he wasn't dead for long -- but rather He was weeping because of the pain that the others were feeling, as well as their sin and unbelief. I know that Jesus did not despair, and that He very much knew that Lazarus wasn't gone forever. But I also think that it is ok for Jesus to weep because Lazarus was dead, without it being out of unbelief and hopeless sorrow. Now, of course my family is not Jesus, and we do have doubt from time to time, but when we were at the gravesite the other week, in the rain, singing of Jesus's victory over death, even though nearly all of those there knew that we would see Grandma again, we still cried. Death is sad. Possibly it is that our faithlessness has tainted us, and so we link death with final, nevermore, perishment. But I don't think so. If our tears had been proportional to our unbelief, we would have just blown our noses loudly, and frowned. No, death is sad, even to the believer. It is a reminder that sin still has a physical effect. We know however, that Jesus has, is, and will ultimately, conquer[ed,ing] death, but until it is over we will feel the effects of death everyday. Those without hope see life and say "This is as good as it gets?" but those with hope know that no, this is not as good as it gets, whether life is good or bad, it always will get way better.
Not that anybody really needed to hear this, I just can't usually get words in edgewise at bible study, if I actually think of something good to say.