Short and Bittersweet

SCRIPTURE:  Jesus wept. John 11:35 ESV

THOUGHT: There’s been much said about these two short words that make up one short verse from Scripture – so much so that I wonder if I can add anything new to the conversation. But anyone who writes or speaks about it is only guessing at why the Savior of the world wept. So I’m not going to try to be overly clever or find the historical context, just going to lean into the why from my own heart.

Jesus came face to face with the grief and loss and feelings of hopelessness felt by his dearest friends and wept because he was human too. At the same time, it was much bigger. He encountered the grief of all the history of the world around death – an enemy that wouldn’t have ever been on the radar had Adam and Eve not made the choices they made. Death wasn’t part of God’s original intent.

He encountered the coming grief and loss of his own humanity, his flesh soon to be whipped and torn and shamed and crucified. He wept because he knew everything – the beginning, the fall, the rescue, the tearing of the curtain between a holy God and sinful man, the resurrection, the coming age of grace, and the final pages of the history of this planet.

In those moments, it feels to me as if worlds collided inside the Godman. He knew it all, but could give no words to the mourners before him that would comfort them – only a cry, loud enough for a dead man, “Lazarus, come out!”

PRAYER: Oh God, Jesus was you in the flesh and I know when he wept, you were weeping too as only a loving God who saw everything could. Thank you Jesus for entering our humanness and giving that crowd that day a taste of the resurrection and joy you had planned for yourself and all of us too.