Correct: “Jesus wept”. It’s found in John 11:35. He was standing at the graveside of his friend, Lazarus who had died just a few days prior to Jesus’s arrival there. You might say His arrival was ‘delayed’ given news had been delivered to Jesus and the disciples earlier of Lazarus falling sick and requesting that He come.
“So when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.” (6)
I’m willing to bet that had it been you or I being asked to come in this situation...we’d dropped what we were doing and left immediately. But Jesus didn’t.
In fact, we will read a few chapters later in that same gospel where Jesus mentions that He only does what the Father tells Him to do so that the world will come to understand that He loves the Father. (John 14:31). You know, sort of like when Jesus said...”IF you love Me, you will do what I ask of you”? (John 14:15)
It becomes apparent the more you come to know the Lord and study His word where you see on different occasions where He will do something (or not do something) at the risk of being misunderstood in order to convey various truths and lessons to us. One of those lessons would be a reminder that ‘God’s ways are not like our ways nor are His thoughts like ours’. (Isa. 55:8)
These can be hard lessons to learn for sure. But it is an invaluable lesson that I have had to do the ‘retake test’ over on more than one occasion. It sure is easy to drift in to a place where you think you have this all figured out...and even get a little smug about it and overconfident. Yet, Paul warned us...’IF you think you are standing firm, take heed lest you fall.” ( 1 Cor. 10:12)
Now, back to our story with Lazarus. Even at the risk of being misunderstood at times, usually coming on the heels of what seemed to be unanswered prayers, we apparently need to be reminded that God indeed does love us. Look what it says there in John 11:5 – “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. I find that interesting we have that written down for us to see and read.
We also can read there in the previous verse where Jesus responded to the news of Lazarus taking ill...that He explains: “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (4)
I have to tell you...there is a LOT packed in that one passage; and I would not suggest to anyone that I have some full revelation or understanding to what all that means. But He sure seems to have a handle as to what is going down here in this story and the end result has something to do with God receiving glory.
So He tells His disciples, who by this time have to be somewhat confused, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.” (11)
To which they reply in a nonchalant way – “Oh...well Lord...if he sleeps, he will get well.” (12)
Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.” (14)
So again, quick review here...what, according to Jesus, was the purpose of this sickness (that brought death) all about? That the Son of God would be glorified. (4)
Would you flip over to John 15:8 real quick and read that before answering this question: “HOW...is God glorified?”
(You probably know what ends up happening with Lazarus no doubt. But I can assure you, this was not about Jesus putting on some significant display of power so He could post it on Facebook or Tik-Tok and brag about how awesome He was with the hopes of gaining more ‘followers’.)
God is glorified when we bear ‘much fruit’. (John 15:8).
I could be wrong, but I really don’t see how God is glorified because of ‘great things we do’, whether it is making large financial donations to erect church buildings...or display our talents in singing or playing instruments or dunking a basketball. (That would include having a knack for taking nice pictures of God’s creation and sharing them with the public). It is very easy most times for those lines to become blurred and mention God ‘working through/in’ someone’s apparent talent...but more often than not, that person gets elevated and celebrated as well along with God...and I’m just going to tell you now that God does not share that stage with anyone. It’s not about us...it is all about Him. We have to decrease so that He will increase. (John 3:30)
Bearing much fruit...is how God is glorified. And that fruit has to do with the fruit of His Spirit being produced in us. (Gal. 5:22-23)
Oh...by the way...in order for fruit to be produced...what has to happen first? I’ll give you a hint... John 12:24.
Something has to die first. Unless that seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces...much fruit. Which...is how God is glorified...when we bear...much fruit.
Back to Lazarus... Jesus was waiting for Lazarus to ...die. Then...the stage was set for God to be glorified. Fast forward now to where Jesus returns to the town of Bethany and to the home of Martha and Mary where they are in mourning over the loss of their beloved brother.
There is an exchange of conversation and ‘what if’s’ and ‘If only you had been here’. Jesus assures them that Lazarus will ‘rise again’ (23) and immediately their response has to do with the ‘in the future’ mode...the ‘someday far off’ thinking. (24). They just don’t get it. Like most of us...we fail to see what God is trying to do because we forget...His ways are not like our ways nor are His thoughts our thoughts.
He tells them there...”I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live”. (25).
Our ‘default setting of belief’ tends to be that if we say we ‘believe in Jesus’, then some day after we die (physically) then our soul/spirit will go to heaven. In the meantime, keep going to church, pay your tithes and try not to do those big sins.
But we are missing the big picture here. As were they at Lazarus’s graveside. Jesus was not some insurance salesman who was here to pitch some fancy policy for a nice ‘time-share’ being built in heaven for the far off future. He came to offer us life today...now...and not just ‘life’ but ‘abundant life’ according to John 10:10.
We’ve been conditioned to see all this through the lens of an insurance policy that we will cash in on some day in the great ‘by and by’ after we die. We’ve failed to truly grasp what ‘eternal life’ is. And guess what...Jesus plainly tells us what eternal life is: “THIS...is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3)
And to know Him is to be known By Him which I cannot stress enough the significance and importance of here. (Matt. 7:23; John 10:27; Gal. 4:9)
So there Jesus stood....looking at all those who gathered around that tomb as they wept. Then comes that short verse: “Jesus wept”. (35). I won’t pretend to think I know what all was in His heart at that moment and the reasons that He shed tears with them. I know from reading that we have a ‘High Priest’ who can empathize with our struggles and weaknesses. (Heb. 4:15). That might have been, in part, what prompted His tears. Maybe He was thinking about His future tomb that He would be laid in and honestly, was not looking forward to. He actually prayed and asked the Father if that ‘cup could pass from Him’, then finally surrendered Himself to the will of God. (Matt. 26:39). And maybe He wept because of the blindness of the people and how they just did not...’get it’. Or maybe He wept thinking about all those who would ‘never get it’.
But all that to say...were you aware of another time Jesus wept?
No, really, somehow that escaped me as well. Go look at Luke 19:41-44. We read where Jesus drew near to the city of Jerusalem...saw the city and ‘wept over it’. Might be a good reminder for us that in scripture, Jerusalem is a picture of God’s beloved church. And in the say way that Jerusalem and it’s people had rejected Him, so do many in the church today...reject Him.
Spend some time reading over those verses as He laments...”IF you had known...even you...had you known the things that make for your peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes.” He goes on to share how an enemy will soon be approaching and build embankments and close in and surround them and how it will not be a favorable outcome for them; including the children.
He then says this is because ‘they did not know the time of your visitation’. (44).
And so He wept...again. Jesus did not come to destroy or condemn. He came to save us and to offer us true life. It is not the will of God for any to perish but to come to repentance. (John 3:17; 2 Pet. 3:9; Luke 13:1-5). But if we to come to Him, it is only so He can lead us to lay down our old, sinful lives (all of it) and die...so that we can truly live...in Him. He tells us repeatedly...that if we try to ‘save that life’, we will lose it. But if we lay it down for His sake, we will then find it.
Lazarus found it...a resurrected life. But Jesus wept for the majority who would soon find out that when you reject Him...you reject your only way out. And most won’t even recognize it until it is too late.
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