Have you ever cried so hard that nothing mattered? Your loss is so
deep and your hurt is so painful that you cry without control? In the
gospel according to John in chapter 11 Jesus weeps. The definition for that
type of emotion in the Greek is to shed tears: - weep, to sob, wail aloud.
When
you read the gospel according to John he stresses that we have a God who cares
deeply. After arriving at Lazarus, Mary and Martha’s house in Bethany, Jesus is
overwhelmed and when he saw the weeping and wailing, he too wept
openly. This was a close friend of Jesus that has just died. Even if he knew
that he would bring him back from the dead, Jesus was showing us that even God grieves
the loss of a loved one. The popular Greek concept of God in that day was of a God with no emotions and no messy
involvement with humans. John brings so many emotions of Jesus in this
passage—compassion, indignation, sorrow, even frustration. Often Jesus
expressed deep emotion, and we must never be afraid to reveal how we really feel to him. He understands all of our emotions, for he experienced them. We go
around being politically correct with everyone and hiding things from God
instead of being honest; stop trying to hide anything from your Savior. He
deeply, intimately and passionately loves and cares for you.
OK so picture this scene; the
mourners are wailing, Mary weeps inconsolably, and Jesus comes in. He
can’t help but start crying! Here is my question, didn’t He knew what would be
happening? Why, then, does He weep? Besides the obvious loss of Lazarus. Hear me out, maybe Jesus wept
because He started to think of how sin destroys, sin kills, and sin stinks.
Don’t we find this to be true? If you look around, you find it to be so? When we
look around the World and our lives, aren’t we seeing heartache and sadness in
many places all around us because of sin? Does it not break your heart and make
it heavy when you realize that so many dear precious people and strangers are
hurting because of sin?
Maybe Jesus wept because of all
the unbelief that constantly surrounded Him. He gave a promise that Lazarus
would rise to Mary and it went right over her head, no one embraced or believed
it because they thought He was just trying to make them feel better. Instead
they were all wrapped up in their mourning. Jesus was trying to tell them;
"It's going to be all right." But they said, "No, it's
not." So, too, when He says all things are working together for good (Rom_8:28), and we say, "No they're
not". Our unbelief must break His heart as well.
Perhaps Jesus wept because He
knew He was going to pull Lazarus out of Paradise and bring him back to this
planet. Poor Lazarus! So what are you crying for? Is
it your friends, your sin, your circumstances? Does your heart ache because you
don’t spend as much time with God as you would like? What are you waiting for?
Cry out to Jesus and surrender your all to Him!
RH
