The words are found in John 11:35, and in my day any child who memorized scriptures knew that verse. The passage was popular during Bible memory competitions and often would be the first to be recited.
Why would Jesus, the Son of God, cry?
His friend, Lazarus, was dead. As soon as Martha saw Jesus, she told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. But even now, whatever you ask of God, God will give it to you.”
The woman wasn’t telling Jesus anything He didn’t already know. Jesus knew who He was—the eternal Son of God. But Jesus also knew Lazarus. He was a special friend.
Jesus assured Martha that her brother would rise again, and the woman full of faith answered, I know that she will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life,” Jesus answered. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).
Mary came out of the house weeping and fell at Jesus’ feet. She told Jesus the same thing her sister did: “If you had been here our brother wouldn’t have died.”
Relatives and friends stood by grieving.
Jesus groaned in his spirit and was troubled. “Where did you lay him?”
They said, “Lord, come and see.”
But Jesus, groaning in His spirit, cried. Tears tumbled down the cheeks into the beard of the Son of God while grief tore at His insides—just as it does us when we lose a loved one.
Scripture tells us Jesus was tempted in all points as we are, and apparently he experienced many of the same emotions we do when he walked the earth in flesh and blood. We mortals sometimes experience anger, or confusion, our faith becomes tattered, and some turn their backs on God when they lose a loved one.
Not long ago I heard of a good Christian man whose baby, profusely handicapped at birth, quit serving the Lord when the child died and the father hasn’t entered a church since.
Yet, the same Savior who cried at a funeral and sees every sparrow that falls came to earth to bring eternal life to every person. That father’s little child is whole in heaven and Jesus cared when it died. Sickness and death came about because of sin and Jesus came to destroy the curse Satan brought on mankind—death.
At Lazarus’ tomb Martha knew what Jesus was going to do. “But Jesus, my brother has been in the grave four days. By now the body will be decaying” (my paraphrase).
Then they took away the stone in front of the cave-tomb and Jesus, still groaning, suddenly shouted, “Lazarus! Come forth.”
Lazarus stood up, wrapped up in burial clothes like a mummy and was able to move his feet enough to get outside where they could unwrap him.
Jesus had power over death there, and He had power over death Himself when He walked out of the tomb after three days.
Jesus had said, “He that believes in me will never die.”
When we read or recite John 3:16, we should remember Jesus’ tears over a friend who died. The love mentioned in the verse means something: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”
Jesus wept because He longs for the day when death is no more. “God will wipe away every tear for their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pan, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
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