(Continued from last week …)

“Jesus wept,” from John 11:35, is often quoted because of its well-known shortness, and out of motivations to highlight Christ’s humanity. As the onlookers in the passage themselves say in verse 36, “See how he loved [Lazarus]!” Thus, some Christians also say: He loves you too, just as much — then stop without going further.

I hope no one would argue Jesus was weeping for only any reason besides genuine grief. Still, it seems readers should instead be asking, along with the crowds: if He loved Lazarus so much, why did He not come to heal Him sooner?

This same question is repeated three times. Great preachers point out that repetition like that, especially with writing space limited to the ancient authors, should make us pay close attention.

The Apostle John does show Christ’s humanity in this account. But His deity, and the fact that He is the resurrection and the life, are meant to be the main theme.

Further in

In any teaching about this passage, I’d love to hear more about all aspects of His reaction.

Jesus was not only sad. He was sovereign. He was not only human. He was divine. He was not only “deeply moved in his spirit,” but “greatly troubled” (verse 33).

So why was Jesus troubled, if His reason was simply sharing His friends’ grief?

The answer lies in the chapter’s main theme. In His weeping, He not only empathized with Lazarus’s grieving sisters; He was also reacting to the crowd of Jews (also in verse 33). Why was that? Because they were not believing in Him.

This is made even easier to see from Jesus’ own given reasons for why He delayed in coming, first to His disciples, and later to Lazarus’ sisters.

What were the reasons He gave His disciples?

1. He wanted to glorify His Father and Himself — that’s the first reason He gives (verse 4).
2. He wished to show them His light (verses 8 to 10). When they stumbled over why He would walk into what could be a very dangerous situation, He illustrated their problem by suggesting it was like they were walking by night, outside of His light.
3. He wanted to encourage them to believe, for their own sake (verses 14 to 15). He even said He was glad He had delayed, so as to build up His disciples’ faith in Him.

What were His reasons for Mary and Martha?

1. It was because He loved them. Note what could seem a strange line of reasoning in verses 5 through 6! “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

   One might say: well, some kind of love that was. But who could accuse Jesus of being cruel? He loved Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and so He stayed away and did not heal Lazarus immediately. From our perspective, especially if we were there and did not know the ending, it could make little sense. But He knew better.

2. He would prove He was the resurrection and the life (verse 25).
3. He wanted Martha and Mary to show they believed in Him (25 to 26).
4. He wanted them never to die in an eternal sense — a more important issue than dying temporarily, as Lazarus had done (verse 26).
5. He would show them the glory of God — by implication in a way they would not have seen if He had merely healed a sick Lazarus (verse 40).
6. For the benefit of those around Him, He prayed to His Father and said He wanted observers to believe God had sent Him (verse 42).
7. And the greatest reason of all is implicit in verses 45 through 57. Jesus’ resurrection of Lazarus, and the resulting faith of Mary and Martha and surely Lazarus himself, is merely a subplot in John’s main story. After Lazarus was brought to life, Jesus’ religious enemies upped the ante. That brought the Lord’s death even closer — the tension is increasing.

   Thus the same Lord Who resurrected Lazarus would later resurrect Himself, from a death He also planned, for the glory of God. This shows Who Jesus was, and why He came, so that you, gentle reader, may also believe in Him and have life in His name (John 20:31).

I wish I could hear an awesome sermon about all this. This feels like an outline for one.

And I can’t get over that first point in the above list: that Jesus delayed coming to Lazarus because He loved him, and his family. A greater goal was in His mind: His own glory, and the far more profound need for people to believe in Him as the resurrection and the life.

How often has the Lord delayed coming, delayed a healing, or not healed at all, for reasons that only He can know, because He loves us more than we would if we could decide what He did?

How often is He grieved, but still worked differently than we would, for greater reasons?

How often has He wept, not only because He empathizes with our losses (any non-Son-of-God person could do that), but instead because He wants us to understand that He is the resurrection and the life, sent from God the Father, Who will be glorified!

Some Christians have a kind of teaching method that is cute or helpful in small doses. But too often it is quite annoying: what I would call the Fun Fact About the Bible(!) style.

For example, who among us has learned, from just about any church or Sunday-school circular, this Fun Fact about the Bible? “Jesus wept,” in John 11:35, is the shortest verse in the Bible! ¹

Great. Wow, the shortest verse. Does that make it less important? Or maybe more important? Does it matter at all? Who divided those verses anyway? (Hint: not the original writers.)

But who among us knows why Jesus wept in the first place?

I hadn’t thought about it either, at all — that is, until a friend reminded me of the passage’s context. This illustrates well one of those little myths that gets about Christendom and needs to be set straight. Maybe, thanks to God’s grace, it doesn’t wreck a whole lot, and by itself it certainly won’t prevent someone from being truly redeemed. But what might we miss anyway?

Ye have heard that it was said …

“Jesus wept” (John 11:35) because He was very sad that his friend Lazarus had died.

Figure A:

In a Christian small group, someone shares her struggles with personal sickness, or conflict in her family. Perhaps a relative has died, or is about to die. In a sincere attempt at comfort, a friend pats her hand and reminds her, “Remember, ‘Jesus wept.’ He knows your pain.”

Figure B:

A devotional book, by a popular Christian author, is all about the humanity of Jesus. He was just as human as you and me, the writer says earnestly — Jesus felt all the emotions we do. Jesus got angry. He was tired. He was hungry, thirsty, loving, and He wept when a friend of His had died (John 11:35). Remember, Jesus may weep for your troubles, too.²

What’s the truth in this?

Jesus was certainly a Man, 100 percent — as well as being 100 percent God. I can’t fully get that, and sometimes (especially if we’re not wary of overcorrecting one excess with another) the comparisons can sound odd. He ate, slept, got sick, went to the bathroom, and best of all, suffered and died the cruel, physical death of a man — but with wonderful spiritual results.

What’s the lie in this?

Will anyone argue that Jesus was not really weeping because He was grieved? I doubt it — and I won’t! But to focus on His human nature in this, without also including the reasons He gives for His divine, sovereign actions and choices, downplays the main theme of the story.

The tension is breathtaking in the account of the death and resurrection of Lazarus in John 11. Jesus reacted in many ways like any person would in this situation. Yes, He felt their pain. But He had also held back from healing Lazarus for an even more important reason than to assuage someone’s grief. Rather than work a quick healing for His friend, He was planning to manifest Himself in a way that could have been His most publicly divine act so far in His earthly life.

What’s the Word?

The scene: After suffering through a long sickness, Jesus’ friend Lazarus has died. And oddly enough, though He was told in advance, He had already spent at least two days delaying in not coming to heal Lazarus. John 11 must be read in full to see this truth, but here’s an excerpt:

The reason for Jesus weeping? Based on the different reactions from the crowd, it is twofold.

Notice that John doesn’t leave the onlookers’ reaction at “See how he loved him!” There’s more.

Rather, the author’s paragraph ends with a question, which strongly implies the reader could be asking the same thing: “could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” Their confusion reflects that of the disciples earlier (verses 5 through 16).

(Next, we’ll go further in — if Jesus wasn’t only sharing their grief, why else did He weep?)