Why Did Jesus Weep?

Tom:

We’re continuing with the Gospel of John and we are in chapter 11 and we’re picking up with verse 31.“The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there.

Dave:

Well, Tom, we’re kind of picking up in the middle here.Just to set the scene, Jesus has come back to Bethany, he is still outside the town and Mary hasn’t known, she’s at home weeping with her comforters, professional weepers probably, some of them.

Tom:

This is Mary, the sister of Martha.

Dave:

Right.Martha has met Jesus and now she has sent word to Mary, The Lord is here, and that’s why Mary gets up and takes off and they think she is going out to the grave to weep and so they follow her.Sorry Tom, carry on with verse 32.

Tom:

“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”—in other words, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Dave:

Yes, reproving him a bit, and of course, we’ve been through that with Martha, and she knows that the Lord could raise him even now, but Mary doesn’t say that, she’s just saying, “Lord, why didn’t you come when we called?”Well, actually, by the time he got the word, we found that out earlier, it was too late anyway.Because, when he got there Lazarus had been four days in the grave and he only waited two days before he left.

Tom:

Dave, don’t we do that from time to time and we love the Lord, we know the Lord, but don’t we say, Lord, why did this have to happen, why did that have to happen?

Dave:

Yes, we just can’t help it, Tom.We could go back to the beginning, God, how come you let Adam and Eve sin?Why is all this horrible stuff in this world? And even when you do resurrect Lazarus, he’s going to die again.It’s horrible.Tom, what am I, twenty years older than you are? Something like that, and Ruth and I were just noting the other day, so many of our friends are dying off and I just say, Lord, it’s not fair!You know, old age, you just can’t stop it.We have these people who say, well, it’s never God’s will that anybody should be ill and if you’re a real Christian walking with the Lord—in fact, we got a letter the other day from someone who is quite ill and some charismatic friends are telling her it’s because there is sin in her life.If you weren’t sinning you wouldn’t be ill.Well, everyone who has taught this—

Tom:

They die, they get sick and they die.

Dave:

—They either have died or they are dying.We can’t look back on history and prove that born-again Christians, who believe, as they say, that healing is in the atonement.I believe healing is in the atonement, ultimately healing in the resurrection but not the healing of every disease right now.And the people who try to say that—I could give names and I won’t—they sneak off for operations. You don’t see them for a while, well they are off somewhere getting an operation but—

Tom:

Dave, wouldn’t this whole movement really stand out, wouldn’t they be so unique, wouldn’t people be researching them to the nth degree?This would be magnificent!

Dave:

Some of them would at least live to 120, 150, maybe 200, but there is no indication that people who believe this live any longer than anybody else. In fact, some of them live a shorter time.So, Tom, it’s a tragedy, it’s horrible, and what sin has brought into this world.And Mary, we can understand, we sympathize with her—“Lord, if you had just been here my brother wouldn’t have died.”

Tom:

Verse 33, “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.” And then verse 35, “Jesus wept.”

Dave:

That was the favorite verse of all the kids in Sunday school, the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.”But when he says, “Where have you laid him?” He knows where he, is but he’s letting them tell him.“Okay, where is the grave? Let’s go to it.”We see here the sympathy of Jesus.

Tom:

Empathy.

Dave:

Yes.He is not hard hearted.I believe that God groans over this world.He wept over Israel—“I don’t want to punish you, but because of your sin I’m going to have to.”

Tom:

Dave, could that possibly happen outside a personal, intimate relationship?A God who loves us and I don’t know how he could have feelings if he wasn’t a personal God who, again, intimacy here. This is the way and how he loves us in part.

Dave:

Well, God is love the Bible says, and we would not be able to love one another if we were not made in the image of God.God tells us we are to love everyone.We are to love our neighbors as ourselves.We are to pray for those who despitefully use us.We are to do good and even love those who hate us.And yet there is a teaching that the God who tells us that and who has put that in our conscience does not love everyone, he has predestined millions, probably billions to eternal torment and he does this for his good pleasure.I don’t believe that’s the God of the Bible.And when Jesus says, “Bless those that curse you, love your enemies,” and so forth he says, “that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”And that tells me that my Father in heaven, he loves everyone too.He even blesses those that curse him.You have Jesus on the cross saying, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do, and these are the very ones who nailed him there and who are cursing him and mocking him. So, we see in Jesus, who is God manifested in the flesh,—“I and my Father are One,”—we see the sympathy, the love, the compassion of God himself.That brings us back to the old question we have had a number of times, Well, then why doesn’t he remove all evil? Why doesn’t he stop all suffering and all sin?Because he has given us the power of choice and that brought sin into this world, and sin brought death.And Lazarus, even though Jesus raises him from the dead, is going to have to die again—“it’s appointed unto man once to die”—because of man’s sin.But to teach that God—He could take everybody to heaven, he could cause everybody to go to heaven, he could cause everybody to believe in Jesus, he could even stop all sin and suffering in this world.Really? And he doesn’t do it? What kind of a God is that? I would stop it all if I could, you would. Every humane person would stop all suffering, sickness, death, sin, if they could.You say God can but he doesn’t?I don’t believe that’s the teaching of the word of God.It says his tender mercies are over all his works and he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.And I think we see that in Jesus here, but it’s going to continue.Death is going to continue, sickness is going to continue, disease will continue and it gets worse and worse in the human race as man’s sin brings him into further disobedience and rebellion against God, because God has given us the power of choice so that we could love him.

Tom:

Dave, these next two verses tell us something about how people view God, picking up with verse 36, “Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!”Now, there’s a plus on Jesus’ side—“Oh, he’s a kindly, good man, look how he loves.”And some of them said, “Could not this man which opened the eyes of the blind have caused that even this man should not have died?”Now my point here is, there’s always going to be a mixed view of Jesus and it’s interesting today people are trying to say, Oh yes, well, he was this and he had these good points but he’s not this and can’t be that and so on and so forth.They are really rejecting Christ aren’t they?

Dave:

Well, they are wondering.Apparently they have never seen Jesus raise the dead, he’s already done that, and they put him on the level of a human being, as you are saying—“This man, look how he loved him.”You know he did open the eyes of the blind, could it be that he might have healed him; he could have healed him so he wouldn’t have died.But they don’t seem to have the faith that he’s going to raise him from the dead and we get that.Jesus groaned and he knows their thoughts, he’s groaning again, he comes to the grave, it was a cave, a stone lay upon it.Jesus said, Take ye away the stone.Martha, the sister of him that was dead, said unto him, “Lord, by this time he stinketh, he’s been dead four days.”

Tom:

Practical Martha.

Dave:

So there doesn’t seem to be much faith there.And Jesus says, “Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?Then they took the stone from the place where the dead was laid.And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.And I knew that thou hearest me always:but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou has sent me.And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth.”Well Tom, I guess our time has gone, but Lazarus is going to come forth and we really need to come back and deal with some of these verses.

Tom:

Right.