Buechner in my opinion doesn't truly understand the Word of God for him to suggest that Jesus wept because of the absence of God in Lazarus' situation and in the world as a whole. The Lord God is the Omnipresent God. He is everywhere. And He is God in good times and bad. Proverbs 15:3 says that "the eyes of God are everywhere, observing the wicked and the good"
How then can this same God be absent in the world He created and loves so much.

Then why does God sit back and allow bad things happen, especially to good people?
Rom 9:10-24
¹⁰ Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. ¹¹ Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: ¹² not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” ¹³ Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
¹⁴ What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! ¹⁵ For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
    and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

¹⁶ It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. ¹⁷ For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”¹⁸ Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

¹⁹ One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” ²⁰ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”^{] 21} Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
²² What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? ²³ What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— ²⁴ even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?"

So basically God does what He does because He is God. And we do not and CAN NOT ever completely understand what He does because we are human beings. It is only when God reveals Himself to us that we can understand but only in part. That is just the way it is.

TITLE : AFRICAN WOMAN