Context No. 3160 of 4322 · John

John 11:33-37: in context

33When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled, 34and said, “Where have you laid him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.” 35Jesus wept. 36The Jews therefore said, “See how much affection he had for him!” 37Some of them said, “Couldn’t this man, who opened the eyes of him who was blind, have also kept this man from dying?”

When Jesus sees Mary weeping, and the others weeping with her over the death of Lazarus, he is deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. He asks where they have laid him, and then comes the shortest sentence in the Gospels: Jesus wept. The onlookers say, see how he loved him; others wonder why the one who healed the blind did not keep this man from dying.

That two-word sentence carries immense weight: Jesus wept. He is on his way to raise Lazarus; he knows the joy that is only minutes away, and still he weeps. He does not bypass grief with the knowledge of the coming resurrection; he enters into the sorrow of those he loves and weeps alongside them. God made flesh, standing at a tomb, is not detached from human grief but shares it, moved and troubled and in tears. Whatever else this tells us, it tells us that our tears are not foreign to God. The One who will one day wipe away every tear first wept himself.

When I grieve, do I know that Jesus enters into my sorrow and weeps with me, even as he holds the resurrection in his hands?

Sources

John 11:35: "Jesus wept."
John 11:33: "He groaned in the spirit and was troubled."
Hebrews 4:15: "For we don't have a high priest who can't be touched with the feeling of our infirmities."