I wonder how often Jesus has cried with us as we have endured grief and despair. But in the process, He became sin and endured death on the cross. Jesus came to break those chains of sin and death. We know the wages of sin is death and that because of one man’s sin (Adam), death has consumed all humanity. At that moment, I believe He also wept over the destruction of sin. Even though He had come to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead, we get a glimpse of how our brokenness and grief touch him. He was so moved with sympathy and compassion by their tears that he wept at that moment. Verse 33 states, “When Jesus saw her (Mary) weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” Martha and Mary went out to meet Jesus separately, but both said to him, “If you had only been here, Lazarus wouldn’t have died.” They had seen Jesus heal, and they believed He was the Messiah. Many mourners had come to comfort the family and pay their respects. In fact, he had been in the tomb for four days. Jesus delayed His return, and by the time He reached the town of Bethany, Lazarus had died. Verse 3 says the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” Those words show a very close bond. When Lazarus became sick, Mary and Martha immediately called on Jesus. As a child, I did not understand the significance, but as I read the passage now, it reveals so clearly the divinity and the humanity of Jesus.Īs we read John chapter 11, we are reminded of Jesus’ friendship with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. The same is true today: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life he who believes in Me will live even if he dies’” (John 11:25).Growing up going to Sunday School, I remember being taught that the shortest verse in the Bible was found in John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” When called upon to recite Scripture, I always had that one in my memory bank! But there is so much meaning and depth in those two small words. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus had eternal life because they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, but most in Jerusalem did not believe and therefore did not have life. Our Lord wept differently in these two instances because the eternal outcomes were entirely different. That future was less than 40 years distant in AD 70 more than 1,000,000 residents of Jerusalem died in one of the most gruesome sieges in recorded history. Here, wept is the same word used to describe the weeping of Mary and the others in John 11:33, so we know that Jesus cried aloud in anguish over the future of the city. As our Lord approached Jerusalem and thought of all those lost souls, “He saw the city and wept over it” (Luke 19:41). Earlier, the Lord had said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it” (Luke 13:34).
In Luke 19:41–44 the Lord is taking His last trip to Jerusalem shortly before He was crucified at the insistence of His own people, the people He came to save. Only the one true God could have performed such an awesome and breathtaking miracle, and through this miracle the Father and the Son were glorified, and many believed (John 11:4, 45). The Father wanted these witnesses to know that Jesus was the Son of God, that Jesus was sent by God, and that Jesus and the Father had the same will in everything (John 11:4, 40–42). So Lazarus spent four days in death’s grave before Jesus publicly called him back to life. But preventing a death might be considered by some to be a chance circumstance or just a “minor” miracle, and this was not a time for any doubt. If Jesus had been present when Lazarus was dying, His compassion would have caused Him to heal His friend (John 11:14–15). The original language indicates that our Lord wept “silent tears” or tears of compassion for His friends (Romans 12:15). Yet He could not help but weep when confronted with the wailing and sobbing of Mary, Martha, and the other mourners (John 11:33). Jesus did not weep over the death itself since He knew Lazarus would soon be raised and ultimately spend eternity with Him in heaven. Jesus wept (John 11:35) when He gathered with the sisters and others mourning Lazarus’s death. John 11:1–45 concerns the death and resurrection of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha and a friend of our Lord. When Jesus wept, He showed all these things. In the Gospels our Lord wept as He looked on man’s misery, and both instances demonstrate our Lord’s (loving) human nature, His compassion for people, and the life He offers to those who believe. Two passages in the Gospels and one in the Epistles (Hebrews 5:7) teach that Jesus wept.
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