JESUS WEPT

Jesus wept.

How often do we think of Jesus weeping? I suspect that when most of us think of Our Lord, we usually visualise a calm, commanding figure, speaking in a strong, quiet, unhurried voice which exudes authority, and often compassion, but rarely passion. That may well have been how he was, most of the time.

But Jesus most certainly was a man of passion and of all the human emotions. Let us remember, for example, that when Isaiah foretold of Jesus, he wrote, He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Is.53:3 and in verse 4, Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

A man of sorrows, yet there are only two places in the Bible where we read of Jesus weeping, in Luke19:41, which we read today and in John 11:35, where He weeps over Lazarus. The writer of Hebrews refers to that event in chapter 5:7, where it is written, Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him (Lazarus) from death.

These two incidents deserve examination and comparison because they have much to teach us about Our Saviour and we have much to learn from them.

Let us look first at the story of Lazarus in the Gospel according to St. John. There are three principal characters, in addition to Jesus himself, Lazarus and his two sisters Mary and Martha. Mary, as verse 2 tells us, was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair. And in verse 5, John writes, Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister and Lazarus.

The three of them were sincere believers in Jesus, so when Lazarus became very sick, they sent messengers, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. You may remember that Our Lord gave them a most interesting answer, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified. John 11:4.

And he delayed before going to Lazarus, so that when he arrived, Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. Now, some very important things happen in this chapter, but in the interests of not getting sidetracked let me jump to the point where Mary meets Jesus, still outside the town.

Verse 32, Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept.

Those around thought the natural thought, just as many of us would, that Jesus was weeping over his dead friend. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! John 11:36.

Jesus was fully human and these were very human tears. He was moved by tender compassion for the dear friends who grieved so much over their dead brother. His compassion is made all the more wonderful when we remember that Jesus did not come to save us from our earthly afflictions, He came to redeem us from our sins.

Nonetheless, v.33 tells us he groaned in the spirit and was troubled. Jesus is always troubled by the afflictions of the believer. There is a powerful prayer on p54 of the BCP which encapsulates this. It begins, Almighty God, who art afflicted in the afflictions of thy people.

So Jesus wept, human tears.

Then Jesus fulfills the promise he made in v.4, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

Jesus says, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead for four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

He was reminding Martha of what he had told her just a little while earlier, when she met him on the road, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth in me shall never die.

Jesus then raises Lazarus, not using his own Divine powers, which he could have done, but by direct appeal to His Father. What a profound statement of his relationship with God the Father He makes by doing that.

I have dwelt on this first occasion of Jesus weeping because it is an essential precursor to the second event. Now let us turn to Luke and the second time Jesus weeps.

Jesus is approaching Jerusalem, descending the Mount of Olives, riding on a colt. It is the occasion of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the reception deriving much of its enthusiasm from the recent raising of Lazarus. Large numbers of people watch and cheer as he passes by, treating Him as a king. And as He went, they spread their clothes in the way. Luke 19:36.

There are apparently places on that descent which afford sudden and quite spectacular views of the city. Jesus reaches such a place. And when he was come near he beheld the city, and wept over it. He wept at the very moment of his triumphal entry into his beloved Jerusalem.

These are very different tears. These tears spring from the all knowing Son of God. They are divine tears.

Jesus knows that Jerusalem will be destroyed, as it was by the Romans under Titus in AD 70-71. Jesus loved the city, the Holy City and he wept for the city itself. They shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, he said, which is exactly what the Romans did.

But much more Jesus wept for the people, his people, the very people who were about to cause his blood to be shed. As St. John wrote, He came unto His own and His own received Him not. St. Luke recorded for us Our Lord’s very words, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

They are the tears of one who knows that so many souls will be crushed under the weight of sin, ignoring the supreme sacrifice of the one and only Redeemer. Jew and Gentile alike, century after blood filled century ignoring the Gospel and the Cross.

But Christ’s warning is not so much a warning of vengeance. It is rather a statement that those who reject the redemption offered through Jesus Christ will receive the justice that God the Father has promised. If thou had known, even thou, the things which belong unto thy peace. Jesus came for our salvation. And here, as he enters Jerusalem for the last time, his heart is breaking with the knowledge that His Incarnation; His life of teaching and exemplary example; the humiliation, the bloody scourging, His slow death upon the Cross and His mighty Resurrection, will all fail to move countless people to accept the Redemption He brings. If you want to understand this fully, follow with particular care the words of the Prayer of Consecration. Revisit them often and write them in your hearts.

Jesus our Incarnate Lord wept.

I suspect that Jesus, our Risen, Ascended Redeemer; our King, is weeping even now as the legions of the lost refuse His saving grace and grow ever larger.

Peter Jardine

Trinity X, 2005