Jesus Weeps

You may be wondering what this next blog will be about. It’s simply a look into what the Lord’s been teaching me about Him during my time here in Turkey. This will be a glance into what my mind has been wrestling with and crying through with the Lord. Hopefully, you can find some encouragement from some of the things that He’s revealed to me about who He is.

One morning, as I was waking up to spend some time quietly with the Lord in His word, I remember just thinking to myself “I wonder what He has in store for me today?” I had just awakened from a night full of peaceful dreams, that I remembered faintly before they fully faded from my memory. Then, I proceeded onto my new morning routine, where I got to embrace the quiet morning hours to dwell in the book of John. I’ve been trying to get through the book of John for about a few months and it’s been really fun and exciting getting to just dwell in it, taking time to dive into it deeper than I’ve ever done before. With this particular morning, I had been in John 11: 28-37, titled “Jesus Weeps”.

When she (Martha) had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”

BUT WAIT!

Before going further, prior to this passage the brother of Martha and Mary-Lazarus-had been sick and had just died four days prior to the encounter in verses 28-37. John writes of the love that Jesus had for the trio of siblings. Jesus doesn’t return to the town of Bethany until after Lazarus has passed, all for the sake of his Disciples’ belief in who Jesus is. At this point, Martha goes first to meet Jesus, and says to him…

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” John 11:21b-22

Martha displays faith here. However, Jesus reiterates and reminds Martha of who He is, after her second response to Jesus’ reply that Lazarus will rise again.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26.

 After Martha’s meeting with Jesus, she proceeds to let Mary know that Jesus was asking for her. And this brings us back to  the passage above.

As I was reading through verses 28-37, I realized that both sisters had said the same thing to Jesus when meeting with him. However, there was a difference in both their grieving. When Jesus saw Mary, and the Jews that followed her weeping, Jesus was deeply moved in his spirit. According to footnotes, another word that’s used in place of “deeply moved in his spirit”, is “indignant”. Indignant means to feel or show anger because of something unjust or unworthy. And as I was reading this, it moved me to tears. Because, Jesus is weeping at the deep grief and sorrow caused by death. The indignation felt by Jesus made me wonder if Jesus was angry about the effects/consequences/results of living in a sinful world. One thing is for sure, Jesus’ love and heart of the father for the righteous things is evident here. These were just some thoughts as I sat with verse 35, where Jesus weeps.

As I thought about why Jesus was weeping, I started to ponder how he could weep for the world still, even after what they continued to do to him after this encounter. He still plead for forgiveness on their behalf, up until his crucifixion on the cross where he says “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34). From here on…just cue the tears that began to fall at the depth of God’s love, that I began realizing all over again. I listed some of the things below that came to my mind as I was pondering and dwelling in this weeping.

WEEPING AT THE LOVE OF GOD

• I wept at the renewed realization of just how VAST, DEEP and ABUNDANT the love of God is.
  He could’ve just turned His back on man after all the fails and ways man turned their eyes away from Him, like placing other idols before him. But, He doesn’t do that.
• He could’ve wiped everyone off the face of the earth during the flood. But, instead, he saved Noah and his family because Noah was an upright & blameless man (Genesis 6:5-9).
• He could’ve left the Israelite’s to remain slaves under Egyptian rule, but He didn’t, because he remembered His promise and covenant to Abraham, Isaac & Jacob (Exodus 2:24). Instead, he sent Moses who would help deliver them out of slavery & bondage in Egypt with God’s might.
• He could’ve struck all the Israelites down in the desert and be done with them there when they worshiped a golden calf (Deuteronomy 9:13-29), or when they complained about their misfortunes in the desert in comparison to what they had in Egypt (Numbers 11). But he didn’t strike them all down with His burning anger, because Moses pleaded for forgiveness with God on their behalf each time.
• Jesus could’ve chosen to refuse the cup given to him in the Garden of Gethsemane, but he didn’t. Why? Because He loved God the father and He loved everyone, that He made the choice to do so.
• I wept at the grace that’s undeserved and the mercy God has lavished time and again on the Israelites, Gentiles, you, me…Man.
• I wept at how patient God is. The day of Judgement could’ve been any day, yet we are still here with a chance to turn to him and repent. The day of judgement will come, and on that day, the wrath and fury of God will burn and consume those who continue to live according to their own ways and their own desires. The day will come when hiding under a mountain will not be enough to cover and protect from his burning wrath and righteousness. (Revelation 16).

WEEPING AT THE SIN OF THE WORLD

• I wept because the Sin I was born into. It wasn’t God’s original design for us to be born into Sin.
• I wept because ultimately, Jesus died on the cross to take upon himself the wrath of God, that I and all of us are deserving of, while he didn’t deserve it.
• I wept because the hatred and malice of the human heart, and the sinful nature is what led Jesus to the Cross.
• I wept because it was hard for even Jesus to take the cup given to him (Matthew 26:36-46). Yet because of His love for the Father, he obeyed. He did what others before him could not do.
• I wept because of the rejection of Jesus that I once lived in. Just like the Israelites that rejected Jesus when he walked among them (Luke 19: 41-44).
• I wept at the betrayal that Jesus experienced. Not just from his one disciple that He still loved, despite knowing that he’d be betrayed.

WEEPING AT THE PRICE THAT WAS PAID

• I wept at the price that was paid with the life of Jesus on the cross.
  -The cost of freedom from sin and slavery was big. A ransom paid by God so His children who were undeserving of forgiveness could be set free by the chains of sin. A life for a life.
• I wept for the renewed life received through the only one that could fulfill the price tag.
• I wept at the undeserved grace and mercy given by God.
• I wept at the unworthiness to receive the help.

DO NOT WEEP FOR JESUS

• I wept for Jesus. For the rejection, suffering, ridicule and mockery that he had to endure up to his crucifixion.
  But…Jesus says something that stood out to me in Luke 23:25-31. As Simon of Cyrene gets pulled in to carry the cross behind Jesus, a great crowd follows while He is being ushered to Golgotha. In the midst of the crowd, women are crying and mourning for Jesus. He turns to tell them…

“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us’, and to the hills, ‘Cover us.” For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

• I’m still pondering and sitting with this passage.
• Jesus resurrected on the 3rd day after his death and is now at the right hand of God the Father. There is no need to cry because He has overcome death and will be returning again at any time!

THERE IS HOPE!

This is where I’ve landed with this study. I’m still sitting in this and instead of weeping and crying now, I’m praising God for His love through the person of Jesus Christ, so that we may receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

God truly loves his creation so much and wants to be with them at the end of days. And being separated from them wasn’t his original design from the beginning. Rather, because sin had entered into the picture through the fall at the beginning with Adam and Eve, we are born into the world with a sinful nature. God’s love for his creation is deep and abundant, it is steadfast. He is faithful, and unchanging, Holy and righteous. Because of who He is, we see God repeatedly make a way for His people and children to go to him when they’ve fallen or stumbled. For example, with the Israelites in the deserts, it was Moses as the intercessor on their behalf to plead their case. Even after Moses’ death, time and time again, the Israelites strayed away from God’s commands and worshiped other idols. They repeatedly forgot God and lived in accordance to their fleshly desires. And because of that, we see Priests, Judges and Prophets raised and chosen by God to be the intercessory mediators between Israel and God to remind them of Himself and to appease His righteous wrath through sacrifices of repentance. That repeated over and over until the day that Jesus was crucified on the cross. Jesus was born and came to fulfill the law established by God to the Israelites (Matt. 5:17-18). He walked in perfect obedience to God’s will and did not stray like his ancestors had before him. He was, and is, the only way to the Father (John 14:6) by becoming the sacrifice that was perfect and blameless (Hebrews 5:9), bearing the wrath of God for the sins of the world. He is the Great high priest (Hebrews 4:14-17) that pleads our cases at the right hand of God.  John 3:16-18 says:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

God’s love for the world spans beyond our understanding, & Jesus’ sacrifice and love for the world moved me to gratitude and worship. I have assurance that I will be joining in on the wonderful promise of God. Having eternal life with him one day is so much better than the alternative…living in eternal torment. My weeping soon turned to tears of gratitude and joy after spending some time dwelling in this.

I hadn’t originally planned on posting this on Easter weekend. But the Lord always has perfect timing. My hope is to encourage you to SEEK for yourself WHY Jesus wept. Do you know WHY Jesus died on the cross? If not, I encourage you to SEEK that out with the Lord in prayer and in the Bible.

The below are just some of the characteristics of God that was revealed to me in this time of study.

GOD IS…

Gracious, Merciful, Faithful, Steadfast in His Love, Patient & slow to Anger (Exodus 34:6-7), Holy, Righteous, Forgiving, Alpha & Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 21:6a), Sovereign, Love, the Great I Am…and so much more! The list goes on!

God bless and thank you for reading until the end!