Jesus Wept

I was driving down the road a week or so ago and there was a Gospel song on the radio. I was half-listening to it but I caught enough words to realize they were discussing Lazarus' callback from the dead.

I thought on that event and remembered this was the passage where Jesus wept. And I began to wonder why.

Why would the Son of God be weeping when He knows He is capable of all things, including raising the dead?

What would cause Him to be so moved?

And I got an interesting answer from the Holy Spirit.

He wept because He realized and felt the despair the family and friends had in their hearts because He had not yet conquered death through His own death and resurrection. The promise of Heaven was not yet undeniably secured for humans and death was still a sentence - yet Mary and Martha still hoped and believed on Him.

He was agitated because He hated death and knew at that moment the world was still bound by its power. He knew he could call Lazarus back from the grave but the sentence of death would still be in place.

He was torn in His spirit because He agonized over what was soon coming with the Passover and His crucifixion and how He was going to suffer (remember the drops of blood-sweat in the Garden) but He was also acutely anxious and chomping at the bit at that moment to see it come so the end of the sentence of death could be eradicated.

All those emotions, and more that what I had been told, swirling in His spirit. Enough to bring weeping tears to His eyes.

We've all been there. The times we live the overwhelming emotions that you understand why people in the OT used to rend their clothes. The times we just want to scream and get it ejected from our own spirits so we can focus even more intently on the duty we are assigned to do.

He lived that, too. And after His release He raised the dead. We don't have a High Priest who didn't experience what we do on a daily basis. He's the perfect intercessor.

What comes for us after we push through the emotions?

Below is an excerpt from the passage:

John 11 (From the Amplified, compliments of BibleGateway.com):

³⁰Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the same spot where Martha had met Him.

³¹When the Jews who were sitting with her in the house and consoling her saw how hastily Mary had arisen and gone out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to pour out her grief there.

³²When Mary came to the place where Jesus was and saw Him, she dropped down at His feet, saying to Him, Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.

³³When Jesus saw her sobbing, and the Jews who came with her [also] sobbing, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. [He chafed in spirit and sighed and was disturbed.]

³⁴And He said, Where have you laid him? They said to Him, Lord, come and see.

³⁵Jesus wept.