Why Jesus Wept

 Jesus wept. Famously, this statement in John’s Gospel is the shortest verse in the Bible. Much of the commentary on this brief passage asks why Jesus wept. The only possible biblical answer to that comes from the people who witnessed Jesus’ behavior at the tomb of his friend, Lazarus. When they saw him weeping, they said, “See how he loved him!” They assumed Jesus’ love for Lazarus caused Him such grief that he wept. This may well be true, since the Bible plainly says that Jesus, being fully human, bore all the emotions of any normal person. However, the larger context of the event begs for a more nuanced explanation of Jesus tears.

Reset the clock back to when Jesus first learned of Lazarus’ predicament. When He was told Lazarus was sick, He replied, “This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, in order that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Then, after waiting two days, Jesus announced that they would be going to Judea. This concerned some of his disciples who reminded Jesus that He had recently been under threat of stoning by the Jews there. Jesus responded with an interesting exclamation: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I can awaken him.” Two verses later, it is revealed that Jesus knew Lazarus was dead.

The use of the metaphor of sleep for death is important if we are to understand what Jesus was doing and why He wept. When Jesus approached the grave of His friend, the dead mans’ sister, Martha, came out to meet Him. She was concerned that Jesus had not come in time to heal her brother, an attitude that proves she knew Jesus had the ability to do so. Then she exhibited a greater faith when she said, “Even now I know that whatever you ask God, God will grant you.” Jesus told Martha, “Your brother will rise again.” Her reply was, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” She was expressing a belief that was widely held by many Jews of her day. Jesus was about to broaden her ideas about resurrection.

When Jesus approached Lazarus’ tomb, it had been three days since he died. Even with the Jewish embalming practices, a dead body would begin to decay after this amount of time, a fact that Martha pointed out to Jesus. Even in her enlarged faith, she believed it was one thing to heal a sick person but giving life to a stinking corpse was out of the question. The language describing Jesus’ inner feelings at the tomb is unique. John says Jesus was “deeply moved in His spirit,” and he was “troubled within Himself.” I believe John is trying to tell us that something other than human grief was bothering Jesus. Saying His spirit was moved takes it to another level beyond emotion.

This reveals the deeper issue that I believe may have prompted the weeping by Jesus. There was a spiritual battle going on not just over the life of Lazarus, but for the very souls of all those who were present and those of us who read the account now. Death is a spiritual enemy that Adam’s sin introduced into human experience. When Jesus stood at Lazarus’ tomb, He knew He was striking a preliminary blow in the battle He was ultimately going to win on the Cross of Calvary. I believe one reason why Jesus wept at Lazarus’ tomb was because His friend’s death reminded Him of all the pain, misery, and death that had followed the disobedience of Adam in the Garden. He also wept because He knew there would be people who did not believe in Him; He knew people who don’t believe in the resurrected Christ face a fate far worse than physical death.

So, Jesus wept. He undoubtedly felt sad at his friend’s passing because of how it affected Lazarus’ sisters and others who loved him, but He knew it was not permanent, so I don’t think that was His main reason for His tears. Jesus knew that the incident was orchestrated to bring glory to Him and His Father. If we are true followers of Christ, being remade in His image (as commanded), we should be able to look at death the same way Jesus did. We should be weeping for a lost world that denies the Risen Savior.  Weep for a loved one’s death, yes, but not as those who have no hope.

There is another possible explanation for why Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus that I never thought of until I wrote this. Jesus could have been seeing Lazarus as a forerunner of every believer who would be buried in the waters of baptism, the likeness of Christ’s own grave, destined to be resurrected to new life when they came up out of the water. I weep every time I witness a baptism. Don’t you? Maybe Jesus wept tears of joy knowing that Death was soon to die. Maybe Jesus was seeing death the way one of my favorite English poets, John Donne, saw it in his 10^th Holy Sonnet:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

 

Here is another short poem recorded by the Apostle Paul,

“Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?

Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

 

When we achieve that victory, we may weep for joy as well.