Thursday, June 18, 2009

Why Jesus Wept?

John 11:35 ………Jesus wept.
The shortest verse in the Bible and also this is one of the most emotive. For the only other occasion when Jesus wept, read Luke 19:41. The completeness of the Incarnation, Christ's in the middle of us, to be one with us—is collected and hard-pressed into a single subject and verb.

The severity of the sentence contains concealed theological pageantry; here is love, compassion, heartache, and anger over our state, our imperfection, our susceptibility, chiseled down to two words: Jesus wept.

Why does Jesus weep? Does he weep for the death of his friend Lazarus? Does he weep as Martha and Mary in grief? Does he weep because of his absence made him die? Does he weep because He is Jesus, who cannot have the privilege of friends before duty?He weeps for all these things and perhaps more.

Jesus wept-The transcendent conciseness of the two original words; else "shed tears" might have better expressed the variation between the word here used and that twice employed in John 11:33, but what John may be trying to imply through "weeping," and in 11:35 is Jesus tears is not a loud wail but consist of silent tears.Lord Jesus has educated us and he sets his own example, calling God Father, in prayer, and with modest reverence, yet with sanctified boldness. In front of the Lazarus tomb, He openly addresses to God, with intense eyes with silent tears and piercing voice, that these prove to us the Father had sent him as his beloved Son into the world. He could have raised Lazarus by the unvoiced application of his power and will, and the concealed working of the Spirit of life; but he did it by a thunderous call. This was an outline of the gospel call, by which dead souls are brought out of the grave of sin.

Jesus was informed that Lazarus was sick and he remained where he was for two days. When he came to Judea, Lazarus is already dead for four days and decay had begun and obviously Jesus should know this. Ask yourself this... Why Jesus did go to Judea? The answer is plain... To raise Lazarus from the grave.

So why would he weep because his friend was dead? He knows HE will raise him and he knows he has got that power….so why does he weep…….Jesus arrives at the grave site and tells them to remove the stone that cover the tomb. Decay had begun and they continue to remove the stone from the tomb and Jesus prays a short prayer. He prayed it for the same basis for what He wept... He prayed audibly to his Father in front of this mourning Jews for one reason... Because of their skepticism Jesus didn't weep because His friend was dead... He wept because nobody is there to believe that He came to raise him.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

nice one...i liked it