Mar 14 2009
“Jesus Wept,” John 11:35
In considering this verse as the topic for this article I was struck with the immense importance of being sure to assign meaning correctly; I pray the Spirit will guide me through this attempt. This is the shortest verse in the entire Bible. Two words that convey so much meaning, that are so far reaching into the nature of Christ, that it seems nearly impossible to imagine any other joining of words that carry as much meaning as these two do. In contrast, the longest Bible verse is Ester 8:9; Here we have Mordecai dictating to the king’s scribes the instructions to the Jews after Haman’s plot had been revealed. This longer verse is comparatively easy to explore for meaning because there is so much information given in it. “Jesus wept,” is more like the opening of the gate to the celestial city and looking inside. It is the mere cracking of the shell of Divinity to see the first glimpse of God’s compassionate heart.
There are some things that will seem plain enough as we look at the heart of Christ revealed in this verse, but there is much more that can only be considered as speculation. Not being literally inside Christ’s head and heart, and not being expressly told all of the emotional foundations behind the fact that, “Jesus wept,” we have to extrapolate a bit to reach logical conclusions and probable motivations. I want to try to look at the things that Jesus must have known at the time, why He responded the way He did and what it means for us today.
The very first thing that occurs to me as I read this verse is the degree to which the human attributes of Christ exhibit themselves through the divine nature of our Saviour. Jesus came from Heaven. Heaven is a place where there is no pain, death, suffering and no tears; how odd it must have been to assume the cloak of humanity and experience the phenomena of weeping. I see this as conclusive proof that Jesus, though very God of very God, was fully man in respect to undergoing the trials and sufferings that are common to all men. The Bible teaches that God can not be tempted, but Jesus was, in all respects. To come from a place of absolute Holiness and dwell in the fallen world must have been vastly different, beyond our mortal understanding in so many regards, so too, the human capacity of tears.
There are only two occasions where we are expressly told that Jesus wept. Once over the city of Jerusalem as He entered on the first day of the passion week, and the other here, as He was about to raise Mary and Martha’s brother, Lazarus. Weeping over a city, God’s chosen city, can readily be attributed to the sorrow that demonstrates an understanding of the hardness of the people’s hearts that was to result in the destruction of the city. If they had but listened and opened themselves to the obvious evidence before them, the destruction to come may have been avoidable, but still, Scripture teaches us that it had to play out the way it did, God knew their hearts before the beginning. With the raising of Lazarus it was different, this was an individual situation, a one-on-one encounter with a man whom Jesus loved.
To understand why Jesus responded the way He did, let’s start with some of the things that He must have surely known. Jesus knew that Lazarus was already found in Him. This means that there would have been no doubt but that Lazarus was assured of Heaven. But Jesus also knew that Lazarus’ illness was not going to lead to death, that is; eternal death. Jesus knew that Lazarus was going to sleep for awhile, but also that He would raise him back up as a testimony to God the Father and who He, Himself, is; the Christ of God. Jesus knew that the Father was arranging things so that the, “Son of God might be glorified thereby.” John 11:4. This is why Jesus waited for two days before even setting out to go to Mary and Martha, Lazarus had to be dead long enough for everyone to be sure it was no mere swoon. After four days in the grave, everyone was convinced that Lazarus was indeed dead, in fact the concern was that there would be a bad odor when the tomb was opened.
Jesus also knew that Lazarus was in a far better place than the fallen world he had recently departed, and this may have been a part of the reason that the text reveals, “… He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.” This is pure speculation here as we have no explicit proof of why He groaned, nor why He was troubled. But offered as merely a possibility, there could be merit to the idea that it troubled Christ to know that He was about to pull Lazarus away from paradise and return him to a fallen existence.
So why did Jesus weep? Jesus loved Mary and Martha and He had compassion on them in their pain, as well as for the crowd of Jews that had turned out to support the sisters in the loss of their brother. Perhaps Jesus felt an element of sorrow in that the people were weak in faith and not understanding the exceeding glory of Heaven about to be displayed before them, again, this is pure speculation. One thing is abundantly apparent, Jesus was moved by the outpouring of emotion surrounding the death of Lazarus. Some emotions are contagious and sorrow is one of them. To be surrounded by mourners and not be affected by their sobbing is to be utterly cold and emotionally inhumane. Our emotions reach out through the brotherhood of man bonding us with one another in times of triumph as well as, times of trial. When someone smiles, we smile; when someone cries, we cry.
So what’s the take-away? What does this mean for us today? For one thing, it shows us that even though God holds the entire universe within the palm of His mighty hand, as though it were a kernel of grain, He cares for each of us on an individual level. God knows everything what we are going through and shares in all of our undertakings. It is too easy to get caught up in the arguments that center around whether or not Jesus is God, or whether He claimed to be God, and while establishing Christ’s divinity is often key, this verse is more about reminding us that Jesus was also fully man. We are reminded that we are adopted children, brothers and sisters in Christ. We are not only subjects awaiting the return of our king but also siblings longing to be reunited with our friend and brother, Christ Jesus.
We look at a lot of things that Jesus faced and think, “It was easy for Him, He’s God!” We think that in His Holy estate, the trials were somehow less difficult for Jesus than they are for us, but it isn’t so. Jesus is very God of very God, yes; but He was just as much very man of very man. When the devil tempted Him in the desert, Christ’s hunger was a mortal hunger, His appetite for earthly riches was a mortal appetite, His decision to not put God to the test was the same decision that we all come up against at some point in our lives. The difference was that He held the things of God in higher esteem than the things of earth, an example that would benefit all of us today. He knew that it was far better to accept the restrictions of God’s Word than it would be to run wild in fleshly lusts. Jesus made good choices, the same choices we are called upon to make, but too often fail to implement.
There is no question but that man is a fallen creature. We sin. I can not imagine the agony of pure deity being poured into a human frame. We do alright in these bodies because we are who we are, fallen sinners. For Jesus to come, pure and blameless, and to have to limit Himself in the confines of the flesh; for the holiness of God to have to wrap Itself in the rags of humanity, must have been a defilement of sorts, beyond description. Even so, He did it, and He did it for us!
I think that it must be sad for our Lord to see the errors we willfully commit, knowing that we have a spirit that longs to do better, and at the same time a flesh that is weak and one that thrives on depravity. I can almost imagine Him looking upon us with the sorrow of His breaking heart, tearlessly weeping over our sinfulness from His throne in Heaven. We are made in the image of His likeness, being conformed daily to be ever more like Him. Jesus must say often regarding us, “ Forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Christians, our lives are not our own. We have no right to do the things we do with lives bought with the blood of Christ. We surrendered our rights when we came to the foot of the cross and now we want to take them back? Never! Our lives belong to our Lord Jesus Christ, (did we not pledge ourselves so at our justification ?), and this being our situation we must die to our fleshly lusts daily, carry our crosses of affliction and follow Him! We traded our rights for His responsibilities and now stand as ambassadors of the grace of God in Christ. Once we begin serving Jesus the world will see that even though we have no rights within ourselves, we do embrace the responsibilities of living for Jesus, of living a life that is…
All for the Glory of Christ