Jesus Wept

"When He (Jesus) had heard therefore that he (Lazarus) was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was." (John 11:6)

It appears that, as Christians, if we would be wise, then we must become foolish; if we would have power, then we must become weak; and if we would know true life, then we must experience death. This, of course, runs contrary to all that we think should be true. Concepts such as these are alien to our natural reasoning, and to all of our human inclinations. We always want to excel, we always want to be blessed, and we always want to have all the answers; but God often works the opposite to what we expect.

Chapter 11 of St. John tells the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead. Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, very much. When He heard that His friend was sick, however, Jesus waited two more days before going to him, knowing that Lazarus would die during that period. He told His disciples before they left to go to Bethany that Lazarus had already died. "Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead." (John 11:14) Jesus knew, though, that God intended to raise Lazarus. Therefore, He was more concerned with getting there after His friend had died, than before. This was a difficult lesson that Jesus was demonstrating here. One so profound that even Martha, the doer, and Mary, the worshipper, could not see it; and Jesus' disciples could not grasp it. This lesson is truly a matter of life and death, however.

There are things in our lives that we are very reluctant to let go of - things that hinder our effectiveness for the Lord - and these things we protect and seek to preserve at all costs. These are the things that the Lord will allow to die (I'm speaking in a spiritual sense right now). These are usually innocent things that steal our time and our attention from the Lord. It may be something that inflates our pride, like our fortune, or our intellect, that hinders us from touching lives. It can even be our religiousness that destroys our true spirituality. Our goal as Christians should be to say with Paul, "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." (Philippians 3:7-11)

This, then, is the lesson that is so hard for us, as disciples, to understand: that we must be willing to let go of anything in our lives that would displace Christ, and count it as dung, waste, and refuse. We must be made "conformable to His death" in all things in order to know the "power of His resurrection."

Jesus, when He finally reached Bethany, told Martha, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?" (John 11:25, 26) Here, Jesus was referring to more than just physical life and death - He was also meaning spiritual life and death. He was about to demonstrate that He could overcome even the death of the body. If He could do that, how much more is He able to empower us in this life to be delivered from the wages of sin?

In verses 33 t0 38 of John 11 we read, "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. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! 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? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it." Many over the years have made the same mistake. They suppose that Jesus was grieving and mourning over His friend's death. But this is not what caused Jesus to weep. It was the lack of understanding, and the unbelief of those that were near Him that moved the Lord to tears! It was their belief that the Son of God was sent to fix everything. Martha said to Jesus at one point, "If Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." They believed that He would set up His Kingdom then and there, and there would be no more suffering, no more tears, no more persecution by the heathen, etc. This is the same trap we often fall into today. We think that the Lord will fix everything, and that we will never have to suffer as long as we are walking with Him; and when things don't go as we would like them to, our faith is shaken. Peter said, "Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." (1 Peter 4:1)

Isn't it amazing that, with all of the suffering and wickedness that our Lord witnessed in the world, the one thing that would cause Him to cry would be our unbelief? This is because it is our faith that overcomes the world. We must be so very careful about what we believe, however. Many believe anything that a preacher says to them, and they become unstable, like waves tossed to and fro on the sea. Jesus is building a Church that is without spot and wrinkle, and it is going to take a lot of washing to get us clean, and a lot of heat to get the "wrinkles" out of our lives.

In the end, we know that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. As a result, Lazarus became so effective in his ministry and witness that the Jews conspired to put him to death right along with Jesus. This is the real proof of ministry. Folks will abide much of scripture to be spoken to them, but when it comes to resurrection power and a person who is walking in new life and dying to self, they become offended. This is the power that the church needs to possess today if it would change the world. This is the hope of the gospel that we are share with the lost. Jesus is the resurrection and the life! "He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?"