He shed tears as He went with the weeping sisters and friends to the tomb of Lazarus, whom He deeply loved, dead four days and already buried, when He was about to call him back to life. His weeping was tender sympathy with their grief, and beyond them the weight of the sorrow, suffering and death of the whole sinful race in all ages breaking His heart in longing to relieve it. His tears were not from lack of power to save, for He was about to raise Lazarus, but joined a higher sorrow over blind unbelief that would plan His own death and perish without hope. In them the Son of God shows complete humanity, with natural affection and a pitying heart that knows human sorrow, trial and grief from experience. So He is touched by the sorrow of the bereaved and stands near as a tender, pitying presence to comfort, strengthen and help all who call upon Him in affliction.
Setting at Lazarus's Grave
The shortest verse belongs to the raising of Lazarus of Bethany, the greatest and most wonderful of Christ's miracles, His crowning miracle and final test for the nation. Lazarus was greatly beloved by Jesus for his strong, steadfast, unwavering faith from their first meeting and his deep love, and Jesus was knit to him and to Mary and Martha by peculiarly tender associations and a strong bond of affection, even while He blesses all who seek His help and loves all the human family.
Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters yet by divine wisdom delayed going to them, so Lazarus was dead and buried before He arrived, lying four days in the tomb even to corruption. After asking where Lazarus had been laid, Jesus went together with the weeping sisters and friends to the grave, where the sisters wept with breaking hearts and friends mingled their tears with theirs, mourning the dead while the Saviour of the world with power to raise the dead stood beside them. Afterward He brought Lazarus back from the grave and gave their buried brother back to them to unspeakable joy, showing His power over death.
As Saviour and Lifegiver shortly before His entry into Jerusalem, Jesus demonstrated His divinity and revealed the Father through this work, bringing Lazarus to life as convincing evidence of divine power and identity as the Son of God, which deeply affected people and drew a large, enthusiastic multitude to Him. The raising led many to believe and glorify God, while hardened opponents responded with greater hatred. Priests and elders witnessed this evidence of Christ's authority after four days in the tomb but refused to recognize it.
Reasons for His Tears
Jesus wept in tender sympathy with the grief of Lazarus's sisters and friends, and sadness came over His face as He wept with the mourners at the sight of death. He did not pass their sorrow by indifferently but shared it, shedding tears in view of human distress while the sisters wept with breaking hearts and friends mingled their tears with theirs. He stood beside them with power to raise the dead, yet mourned with them as they mourned over the dead while the Saviour of the world stood by.
His tears expressed love for Lazarus, but they were not shed because Lazarus was dead, since He was about to call him from the grave. Nor did they mean that He lacked power to save him.
Beyond the scene before Him, His tears came from the weight of the grief of ages upon His soul. Looking down the coming years He foresaw the suffering and sorrow and tears and death that were to be the lot of men in all ages and in all lands. His heart was pierced with the pain of the human family of all ages, with the woes of the whole sinful race heavy upon Him, including the terrible effects of transgression of God's law and the unceasing conflict between good and evil since the death of Abel. The fountain of tears was broken up within Him in longing to relieve all their distress.
He sorrowed with a far higher sorrow over unbelief, groaning within Himself at the blind infidelity of those who professed faith and should have had faith. Many then mourning would soon plan the death of Him who is the resurrection and the life and premeditate His death, closing hope against themselves and perishing without hope. After His humiliation and crucifixion Jerusalem would be compassed by Roman legions and destroyed with none left to lament.
He wept because He grieved that He could not save all whom Satan's power had brought down into death. He knew that raising Lazarus would lead to His own humiliation and death on the cross to pay the ransom. Lazarus's death was permitted so his resurrection could give final evidence that Jesus was the Son of God.
Humanity and Divine Compassion
Though the Son of God, He had taken human nature with natural human affection and a tender, pitying heart that suffers with sufferers, and His tears show His complete humanity. Because He shared humanity's trials and sufferings, He knows human sorrow, tears, trials and grief from experience. He sympathizes with those who grieve and is near as a present, compassionate helper who does not abandon them in suffering but helps, strengthens and comforts them.
In His tears He opened His heart to all the woes of men as truly a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, living a self-denying life shadowed by pain and care. Yet He was not stern and severe and joyless, nor gloomy or morose, nor devoid of warmth and sunniness. He was deeply serious and intensely in earnest with an uncrushed spirit. His was a countenance of peaceful serenity rather than grief and repining, and a heart that is a wellspring of life carrying rest and peace and joy and gladness wherever He goes.
His weeping reveals tender sympathy and compassion as part of His perfect character. He was deeply touched by human sorrow, showed care for the sorrowful, wept at the sight of woe, and showed compassion by raising the dead. His compassion embraced those who were tried and tempted, and He wept over the pain He saw and groaned in spirit over their suffering. Yet compassion did not turn Him from His purpose, and He did not fail or become discouraged, but pressed forward so that they could gain eternal life.
Doing good was the joy of His soul, yet He was often very sorrowful and sighed in spirit, and His tears flowed many times in anguish of soul at the unbelief, ingratitude and hatred of those He came to bless and save. That same grief continues as He looks with sorrow from heaven on insensible souls on whom His richest favors are poured without effect, including professed followers who daily receive His mercies yet remain empty of His praise. His tears at Lazarus's grave were a God-like grief in harmony with and suited to the occasion, expressing compassion for human suffering.
Misunderstanding by the Bystanders
Those standing by at the grave saw the tears and heard the groaning and said how He loved him, yet they misunderstood what they witnessed. They took the weeping to come only from love for Lazarus, as if sorrow for a dead friend were its whole meaning. From that they reasoned that even One who had opened the eyes of the blind had been unable to keep Lazarus from dying. In this way they doubted His power at the very moment He was going to raise Lazarus.
Within Himself Jesus groaned at their unbelief and was burdened by it. It was the blind infidelity of people who professed faith in Him and should have had faith in Him. Their unbelief grieved Him as He went to do the work of raising the dead. His sorrow and anguish were for the suffering of those He had come to bless and save, and His tears expressed compassion for them.
Other Weeping and Future Resurrection
His tears at the grave of Lazarus were a godlike grief suited to the occasion, expressing compassion and sympathy with human sorrow. His tears over Jerusalem were different, being anguished tears over the city's rejection of Him and scorn of His love, though He had come to save and heal it. They mourned the loss of the salvation and peace the city could have received. They did not come from fear of the physical suffering and death awaiting Him, but arose from seeing its guilt and the ruin it faced after refusing its Redeemer.
Lazarus, who had lain four days in the tomb when Christ called him forth, was raised during Christ's ministry to mortal life, not to immortality. Though called from the tomb he remained subject to death and decay and was not clothed with immortality. This is unlike those who came forth at Christ's own resurrection, who were raised to everlasting life never more to see death or experience sorrow. The account thus shows Christ raising the dead and points to the time when His voice will call the dead in Christ to rise to immortal life and be with Him.
That raising of the dead fulfilled His mission as the Pattern Man just as certainly as His toiling as a carpenter while hiding His divine mission, His walking on the foaming waves of the Sea of Galilee, and His dying on the cross to lift the whole race to a new and perfect life. The mighty miracle and the obscure common labor belong to the same condescension by which the Majesty of heaven became one of us and showed Himself capable of sympathizing with all.
Comfort and Christian Example
His weeping at the grave of Lazarus shows that He loves the bereaved and sympathizes with all grief, identifying His own sorrows with those of sorrowing children. When He saw death, sadness came over His face, and He wept with the mourners rather than passing their sorrow by indifferently. Afflicted ones in sorrow and bereavement can therefore open their hearts to consolation from their pitying Redeemer and receive comfort.
That same tender, pitying compassion for human sorrow He manifests to believers when sudden death and paralyzing grief come. He stands in their midst when they call upon Him in distress and great necessity. Where human words of comfort are tame and feeble, His presence brings comfort, ever ready to apply soothing balm to heal the afflicted and oppressed.
Because He took human nature and shared humanity's trials and sufferings, He knows human sorrow, tears, and grief from experience and sympathizes with those who grieve. He is a present, compassionate helper who does not abandon them in suffering but is near to help, strengthen, and comfort them. People can therefore bring every trouble to Him in prayer. Sufferers can rejoice even in their day of sorrow because Christ is a living, risen Saviour, not in the tomb, who ever lives to make intercession for them.
His tears show that He shares the grief of the bereaved and is a friend ready to help mothers in their sorrow. He wept at the grave and is touched by a bereaved mother's sorrow. He remains ready to help mothers in their need when they trust in Him.
It is fitting to weep as He did, but such grief should have a purpose. Concern for people perishing in sin should move believers to work for their salvation, not to exhaust themselves in lamentation.
His tenderness at the sight of woe is to come into the hearts of His followers. That tenderness moves them to self-denial and self-sacrifice so they will have means to relieve the sufferings of God's children. Having the same mind that was in Him means reproducing His love, grace, and unselfish benevolence, treading in His footsteps of self-denial and giving and laboring for the salvation of the world as He did.
He shed tears as He went with the weeping sisters and friends to the tomb of Lazarus, whom He deeply loved, dead four days and already buried, when He was about to call him back to life. His weeping was tender sympathy with their grief, and beyond them the weight of the sorrow, suffering and death of the whole sinful race in all ages breaking His heart in longing to relieve it. His tears were not from lack of power to save, for He was about to raise Lazarus, but joined a higher sorrow over blind unbelief that would plan His own death and perish without hope. In them the Son of God shows complete humanity, with natural affection and a pitying heart that knows human sorrow, trial and grief from experience. So He is touched by the sorrow of the bereaved and stands near as a tender, pitying presence to comfort, strengthen and help all who call upon Him in affliction.
Setting at Lazarus's Grave
The shortest verse belongs to the raising of Lazarus of Bethany, the greatest and most wonderful of Christ's miracles, His crowning miracle and final test for the nation. Lazarus was greatly beloved by Jesus for his strong, steadfast, unwavering faith from their first meeting and his deep love, and Jesus was knit to him and to Mary and Martha by peculiarly tender associations and a strong bond of affection, even while He blesses all who seek His help and loves all the human family.
Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters yet by divine wisdom delayed going to them, so Lazarus was dead and buried before He arrived, lying four days in the tomb even to corruption. After asking where Lazarus had been laid, Jesus went together with the weeping sisters and friends to the grave, where the sisters wept with breaking hearts and friends mingled their tears with theirs, mourning the dead while the Saviour of the world with power to raise the dead stood beside them. Afterward He brought Lazarus back from the grave and gave their buried brother back to them to unspeakable joy, showing His power over death.
As Saviour and Lifegiver shortly before His entry into Jerusalem, Jesus demonstrated His divinity and revealed the Father through this work, bringing Lazarus to life as convincing evidence of divine power and identity as the Son of God, which deeply affected people and drew a large, enthusiastic multitude to Him. The raising led many to believe and glorify God, while hardened opponents responded with greater hatred. Priests and elders witnessed this evidence of Christ's authority after four days in the tomb but refused to recognize it.
Reasons for His Tears
Jesus wept in tender sympathy with the grief of Lazarus's sisters and friends, and sadness came over His face as He wept with the mourners at the sight of death. He did not pass their sorrow by indifferently but shared it, shedding tears in view of human distress while the sisters wept with breaking hearts and friends mingled their tears with theirs. He stood beside them with power to raise the dead, yet mourned with them as they mourned over the dead while the Saviour of the world stood by.
His tears expressed love for Lazarus, but they were not shed because Lazarus was dead, since He was about to call him from the grave. Nor did they mean that He lacked power to save him.
Beyond the scene before Him, His tears came from the weight of the grief of ages upon His soul. Looking down the coming years He foresaw the suffering and sorrow and tears and death that were to be the lot of men in all ages and in all lands. His heart was pierced with the pain of the human family of all ages, with the woes of the whole sinful race heavy upon Him, including the terrible effects of transgression of God's law and the unceasing conflict between good and evil since the death of Abel. The fountain of tears was broken up within Him in longing to relieve all their distress.
He sorrowed with a far higher sorrow over unbelief, groaning within Himself at the blind infidelity of those who professed faith and should have had faith. Many then mourning would soon plan the death of Him who is the resurrection and the life and premeditate His death, closing hope against themselves and perishing without hope. After His humiliation and crucifixion Jerusalem would be compassed by Roman legions and destroyed with none left to lament.
He wept because He grieved that He could not save all whom Satan's power had brought down into death. He knew that raising Lazarus would lead to His own humiliation and death on the cross to pay the ransom. Lazarus's death was permitted so his resurrection could give final evidence that Jesus was the Son of God.
Humanity and Divine Compassion
Though the Son of God, He had taken human nature with natural human affection and a tender, pitying heart that suffers with sufferers, and His tears show His complete humanity. Because He shared humanity's trials and sufferings, He knows human sorrow, tears, trials and grief from experience. He sympathizes with those who grieve and is near as a present, compassionate helper who does not abandon them in suffering but helps, strengthens and comforts them.
In His tears He opened His heart to all the woes of men as truly a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, living a self-denying life shadowed by pain and care. Yet He was not stern and severe and joyless, nor gloomy or morose, nor devoid of warmth and sunniness. He was deeply serious and intensely in earnest with an uncrushed spirit. His was a countenance of peaceful serenity rather than grief and repining, and a heart that is a wellspring of life carrying rest and peace and joy and gladness wherever He goes.
His weeping reveals tender sympathy and compassion as part of His perfect character. He was deeply touched by human sorrow, showed care for the sorrowful, wept at the sight of woe, and showed compassion by raising the dead. His compassion embraced those who were tried and tempted, and He wept over the pain He saw and groaned in spirit over their suffering. Yet compassion did not turn Him from His purpose, and He did not fail or become discouraged, but pressed forward so that they could gain eternal life.
Doing good was the joy of His soul, yet He was often very sorrowful and sighed in spirit, and His tears flowed many times in anguish of soul at the unbelief, ingratitude and hatred of those He came to bless and save. That same grief continues as He looks with sorrow from heaven on insensible souls on whom His richest favors are poured without effect, including professed followers who daily receive His mercies yet remain empty of His praise. His tears at Lazarus's grave were a God-like grief in harmony with and suited to the occasion, expressing compassion for human suffering.
Misunderstanding by the Bystanders
Those standing by at the grave saw the tears and heard the groaning and said how He loved him, yet they misunderstood what they witnessed. They took the weeping to come only from love for Lazarus, as if sorrow for a dead friend were its whole meaning. From that they reasoned that even One who had opened the eyes of the blind had been unable to keep Lazarus from dying. In this way they doubted His power at the very moment He was going to raise Lazarus.
Within Himself Jesus groaned at their unbelief and was burdened by it. It was the blind infidelity of people who professed faith in Him and should have had faith in Him. Their unbelief grieved Him as He went to do the work of raising the dead. His sorrow and anguish were for the suffering of those He had come to bless and save, and His tears expressed compassion for them.
Other Weeping and Future Resurrection
His tears at the grave of Lazarus were a godlike grief suited to the occasion, expressing compassion and sympathy with human sorrow. His tears over Jerusalem were different, being anguished tears over the city's rejection of Him and scorn of His love, though He had come to save and heal it. They mourned the loss of the salvation and peace the city could have received. They did not come from fear of the physical suffering and death awaiting Him, but arose from seeing its guilt and the ruin it faced after refusing its Redeemer.
Lazarus, who had lain four days in the tomb when Christ called him forth, was raised during Christ's ministry to mortal life, not to immortality. Though called from the tomb he remained subject to death and decay and was not clothed with immortality. This is unlike those who came forth at Christ's own resurrection, who were raised to everlasting life never more to see death or experience sorrow. The account thus shows Christ raising the dead and points to the time when His voice will call the dead in Christ to rise to immortal life and be with Him.
That raising of the dead fulfilled His mission as the Pattern Man just as certainly as His toiling as a carpenter while hiding His divine mission, His walking on the foaming waves of the Sea of Galilee, and His dying on the cross to lift the whole race to a new and perfect life. The mighty miracle and the obscure common labor belong to the same condescension by which the Majesty of heaven became one of us and showed Himself capable of sympathizing with all.
Comfort and Christian Example
His weeping at the grave of Lazarus shows that He loves the bereaved and sympathizes with all grief, identifying His own sorrows with those of sorrowing children. When He saw death, sadness came over His face, and He wept with the mourners rather than passing their sorrow by indifferently. Afflicted ones in sorrow and bereavement can therefore open their hearts to consolation from their pitying Redeemer and receive comfort.
That same tender, pitying compassion for human sorrow He manifests to believers when sudden death and paralyzing grief come. He stands in their midst when they call upon Him in distress and great necessity. Where human words of comfort are tame and feeble, His presence brings comfort, ever ready to apply soothing balm to heal the afflicted and oppressed.
Because He took human nature and shared humanity's trials and sufferings, He knows human sorrow, tears, and grief from experience and sympathizes with those who grieve. He is a present, compassionate helper who does not abandon them in suffering but is near to help, strengthen, and comfort them. People can therefore bring every trouble to Him in prayer. Sufferers can rejoice even in their day of sorrow because Christ is a living, risen Saviour, not in the tomb, who ever lives to make intercession for them.
His tears show that He shares the grief of the bereaved and is a friend ready to help mothers in their sorrow. He wept at the grave and is touched by a bereaved mother's sorrow. He remains ready to help mothers in their need when they trust in Him.
It is fitting to weep as He did, but such grief should have a purpose. Concern for people perishing in sin should move believers to work for their salvation, not to exhaust themselves in lamentation.
His tenderness at the sight of woe is to come into the hearts of His followers. That tenderness moves them to self-denial and self-sacrifice so they will have means to relieve the sufferings of God's children. Having the same mind that was in Him means reproducing His love, grace, and unselfish benevolence, treading in His footsteps of self-denial and giving and laboring for the salvation of the world as He did.