When God Sighs
Mondays and sighs go together like mashed potatoes and meatloaf. We all know what a sigh is, and we’re not talking about a popular duck hunter. The sigh can mean a lot of different things depending on the circumstances. Let’s examine a few.
Situation 1: Small child, too much energy. With frayed nerves, the mother sends the child outside to play. As the door closes behind him, the mother sighs; a signal that her nervous breakdown has been put on hold. It looks like maybe she can get the house cleaned in peace and quiet. A few minutes later the back door bursts open, and in walks the child, covered in mud, tracking it across the just-cleaned kitchen floor…but he has a flower for his mother. Sigh.
Situation 2: You have spent two days finding a dry piece of timber for a logger to move to. The mill needs wood, the logger needs to work, and you need it to stop raining. The first load has left the log deck and everyone is happy. The crisis has been averted. You get into your truck to leave the site…just as a giant black cloud approaches from out of nowhere. You turn on the wipers, and sigh.
Situation 3: Driving through a section of timberlands along a dirt road, looking out the window at the beautiful woods, the green of the needles, the smell of the pine, the reflection of the water…wait, what water? Now out of the truck, approaching the water, you spy the floating sticks, the mud. A little further and you find that the drainage ditch has been dammed by some industrious beavers, beavers that had to have appeared out of nowhere because you just checked this ditch last month. Looking at the obstruction, feeling the heat of the day, slapping a mosquito, watching a cottonmouth moccasin slither across the dam, all you can do is sigh.
Charlie Brown, the comic strip character and cartoon star, was famous for his sighing. Whether it was Lucy yanking away the football at the last minute, or Snoopy walking past with his sunglasses on, or maybe the rock he was always getting out of his bag at Halloween; he would seem to meet most of these occurrences with a sigh. A sigh could best be defined perhaps by a frame from a Charlie Brown comic strip, a little bubble above Chuck’s round head, but the outline of the bubble is crooked, not smooth. The word “sigh” is in the bubble, but it is not written in the crisp lettering of the dialogue block, it is written with a scribbled prose. Sigh.
Sigh | Define Sigh at Dictionary.com____sigh (sa ) — verb 1. To draw in and exhale audibly a deep breath as an expression of weariness, despair, relief, etc.
Whether it is out of frustration, exasperation, or relief, the sigh seems to be constantly on our lips anymore. Where did the good times go? Why did the family split; why did the marriage not work out; why did I get laid off at work? Each day comes with its own set of “sighs.”
Jesus said it this way: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” — Matthew 6:34
Given this statement, it would not surprise us to know that Jesus himself must have had a few Mondays that lasted all week long; religious leaders who wanted to kill him (Matthew 12:14), disciples who just never seemed to get it (Matthew 16:8), friends who deserted him in his hour of need (Matthew 26:56).
But perhaps nowhere is the “sigh” more evident than in the recording of the death of Lazarus in John, chapter 11. Lazarus, a dear friend of Jesus, became sick and died. Specifically, the text tells us that Jesus loved Lazarus. Several days after hearing the news that his dear friend was sick, Jesus arrived on the scene. Lazarus, the one Jesus loved, was dead by now, actually having died four days prior. They lead Jesus to the graveyard. It was here that we began to see the emotion, reading that “Jesus wept” (John 11:35) at the graveyard. But into this scene comes a “sigh.” Maybe it was the loss of his friend, maybe it was the hurt and pain witnessed in the family gathered around the grave, or maybe it was an understanding of why they were all there in the first place: Lazarus died because of sin.
Sin was the root cause of his death, as it is for all of us. It traces all the way back to Adam. And while love was also at the graveside, it was the addition of sin that brought the separation and the pain. Love and sorrow do not belong together. That was not the original recipe. Yet they do in our fallen world, where daily we deal with compassion and sorrow, love and separation.
So, we find this record of Jesus, in the midst of the pain of a loved one who has died. Sharing their love, sharing their sorrow, he approaches the tomb, and upon seeing it, he groaned (verses 33 and 38). A groan is a heavy sigh, actually listed as a synonym. It is the mixing of a sigh with pain; Jesus was sighing, groaning, because of death, because of sin. The people he loved were hurting. There should be no tomb, no separation, and no sorrow.
Flash forward from that day, that day when Jesus spoke into that tomb and brought back Lazarus from the dead. That day when for a moment, sin and its effects were countered. It is now approaching the Jewish feast day of Passover. It is a Friday, and the same Jesus, who was adored by all just a week before, now from a cross, must listen to the shouts for his death. A perfect man, God’s Son, he was sent to earth for this purpose: to die. He was to take upon himself our sin, to give us an escape from sin’s penalty, and an opportunity to receive God’s love.
After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. — John 19:28-30
To even speak while hanging on a Roman cross took great effort. Hanging with one’s arms extended, the body would sag, compressing the lungs. To speak, or even draw in a deep breath, meant pulling against the nails in the hands, and pushing against the nails in the feet, drawing in a breath, then expelling it to speak. Jesus, knowing that sin was now defeated for all time, that sorrow and separation would not be forever, and that love would win, took a breath. He also knew there would be another tomb. He knew this one would soon be empty. And perhaps, as he drew that last breath, he gave up his life expelling a victorious sigh, as alluded to in the earlier definition. Perhaps it was a sigh of relief. A sigh not from the pain, but because of the victory, because weeping and groaning were on the way out. A sigh of love, that the children, dirty and muddy, could now be hugged by the Father.
Excerpt from Pines, Prayers, and Pelts, Bradley Antill, author. See more at www.onatreeforestry.com
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