Meditations on Healthy Living

John 11:35 JESUS wept.  [King James Translation]

 

This scripture is famous for being the shortest verse in the King James Bible and many other translations. This scripture occurs in the narrative that describes the death and later resurrection of Lazarus.  John describes the sequence of events as follows:  JESUS receives a message from Mary and Martha that their brother, Lazarus, is sick.  The writer John describes Mary as the same woman who poured perfume on the LORD and wiped his feet with her hair. See, John 11:2. [However, because the woman described in Luke 7:37, who broke an alabaster box of ointment, poured the expensive perfume on JESUS and wiped his feet was a disgraced prostitute, many scholars question whether this woman and Mary, the sister of Lazarus were the same woman].  JESUS loved this family but HE does not go to see about Lazarus until two days later.  JESUS just stays where HE is.  HE makes no move to go to Mary or Martha or Lazarus.  JESUS tells the others with HIM the purpose of Lazarus’ illness is not death but rather to glorify GOD and so the SON of GOD will receive glory from this situation. 

After two days have passed, JESUS tells his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.” When they arrive in Bethany, where Lazarus and his two sisters live, JESUS encounters Martha and later meets a weeping, grieving Mary, who falls to HIS feet saying, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  When JESUS sees her weeping, and the other people who came to console Mary also weeping, because Lazarus had died and Lazarus’ body had already been entombed in a cave behind a stone for four days, the Bible says, JESUS “groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.”  In other words, JESUS was deeply moved. Verse 33. The Bible says JESUS asked where they had laid Lazarus and was told to “come and see.” 

Then, JESUS wept. 

John 11:35 illustrates that JESUS not only sees our pain; HE feels our pain.  JESUS is not a neutral observer, watching human events unfold, without empathy.   JESUS understands grief.  HE understands sorrow.  HE understands our frailties.  Even if JESUS already knows what is going to happen, or that Lazarus or each of us will eventually rise, HE weeps for us.   So, when our spirit groans in our “uncertain situations; when we become overwhelmed, unable to see at times beyond our adversities, remember HE groans.  When we pray in times of weakness, having nowhere else to turn, wondering why GOD is taking so long, or why two days has turned into 2 years or longer, and we grow tired of waiting, the HOLY SPIRIT also knows and groans too, interceding and praying with us.  See Romans 8:26-27. We are not alone.  No, never alone.

This scripture is short but significant.