This tiny but potent verse is the shortest in the English Bible. It tells us that Jesus was compassionate, that he cared and that he had a reason to weep. Jesus never did anything by accident.
However, this powerful little verse also brings to mind several questions. Was Jesus expressing his sorrow in tears because of his friend's recent death? I think that if I were him, I might be snickering under my breath in an anxious expectation of what I was about to do. I would be tense in the moment and ready to see the people's reactions as I raised my three days dead friend. Jesus knew that this amazing example of the future resurrection was just moments away.
Or was Jesus just reacting like a person is supposed to act at a funeral. The, "Weep with those who weep" mentality. At an earlier resurrection he had told the mourners to stop wailing because the little girl was not dead, only sleeping. At that declaration it was the crowd who reacted with laughter. At least for a minute or two.
Some believe that Jesus was weeping because he had lost a friend. However, earlier he had told his men that he was glad that he was not in Bethany when Lazarus was still alive, because his coming death and soon resurrection would be used to glorify his Father.
Jesus would weep over Jerusalem as his gaze drifted into the coming days when Jerusalem would be destroyed by the Roman army. In his mind's eye he could see details of that disaster that brought him to tears. Shortly before his own death he would be overlooking the city whom he had come to save and whose people had rejected him for the last time.
Amazingly, Jesus did not weep in the Garden of Gethsemane. His sweat poured out like drops of blood but the evangelists are silent about his tears.
The exact reasons that an omniscient God man cried are as mysterious as that God man. Real men do cry. They can express their empathy, sympathy and love through tears. Tiny tears, seemingly so insignificant are kept by God. That amazing thought is so poetically expressed in Psalm 56:8, Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?
Jesus wept. At the appropriate time you should too.
Comments
Post a Comment