Jesus Wept

It used to always baffle me why Jesus wept before He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead in John 11. Most people say it is because Jesus identified and felt the sorrow for those who had lost their friend and relative. What confused me about this answer is that at least half a dozen times in this passage of Scripture, Jesus tells people that this illness was not, “unto death” but “for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified…”

If the people that Jesus said this to understood this, they should have rejoiced at the Good News that Jesus was coming and Lazarus was going to live. Instead, all the people mourned, Mary wept, and I think that as Jesus looked at the unbelieving hearts, He wept.

Jesus wept again as He approached Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-42). In Matthew 23:37-38 and Luke 13:34 we hear the cry of His heart, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”

I don’t think that Jesus just wept for the religious people and for the Jews—the people of God. I think that Jesus also wept for His disciples who did not understand or believe that He was going to rise from the dead even after he told them He was going to do this time and time again.

It is easy for us to be a Monday morning quarterback or a back seat driver. It’s easy for us to look at the people in Scripture and tell ourselves that if we were there, we would have done this or that. But I think that we can find out how we would have responded back then if we were to consider how we respond to God today.

Over and over again the Scripture tells us that Jesus is coming back. Do we live in that hope and expectation? Or do we hold on to this life and the things of this life as if that’s all there is and that’s all that matters? I wonder...does Jesus weep for us?