Jesus Burst into Tears

Jesus began to cry.
-John 11:35

Have you cried lately?  I mean, have you shed tears?  Specifically, have you shed tears over someone else's plight?

Jesus shed tears.  He burst into tears when they were taking him to Lazarus' tomb.  Why?  The surrounding verses tell us that he was moved deeply and that he loved the man who died and his grieving sisters.

But, what makes Jesus tears so astonishing is that he is God.  He and Father are one.  Many verses in John teach us about Jesus' divinity.  He is God, so we should listen to him and follow him.

History is filled with man seeking after God.  Who is God?  What is God like?  Jesus comes and reveals himself as equal to the one God, and we start to learn about the Trinity; God in three persons- the Holy Spirit being the third person.

But that is not the most amazing part or the key.  What is the most amazing and unique thing about Jesus that sets him apart is that he is God and man: fully God and fully man.  Jesus was not an avatar or the greatest actor ever.

Some people believe Jesus was the greatest performer ever.  Remember the paradigm of Lord, liar, or lunatic, from Josh Mc Dowell?  He was one of the three, goes the thought.  There are folks who say, "liar".  So, to them, it was all an act and, like the rest of us, he was acting his way through life, perhaps with some good intentions or perhaps not.

What Jesus really is, is Lord; he is God.  But Jesus is peculiarly different in a many special ways from other persons who claimed to be God.  One of the these was that he was fully man and fully God.

A demonstration of that was when Jesus wept.  He wept and it was real.  He did not burst into tears as a liar or a crazy person.  God cried.  Let that sink in.

The One God, revealed in Jesus, wept.  It was not anything but authentic.  Lee Harmond wrote:

But, you see, gods don’t weep. To the Greeks (and all of the Gospels were written in Greek and among the Greeks) the primary characteristic of God was something they called apatheia, which means total inability to feel any emotion whatsoever. This verse, one commentator of John supposes, may be the most astonishing verse in the Gospel.

The God we serve is fully sympathetic with our human frailty.  Jesus knows how we hurt.  We can never say, "God does not empathize or sympathize with my pain".  He feels it.  He knows every physical and emotional pain.

I once heard the story of a person who stood up and gave a prophetic word in which they attempted to bring a word from God, saying, (paraphrased) "my people, I know how sad and depressed some of you are, please know that I get depressed too."

This would-be-prophet had it wrong.  God does not get depressed, or get in a 'funk'.  Jesus bursting into tears does not mean he lost control, that the sadness of the situation pushed him over the edge, or that he was hopeless.  When God cries, he does not lose faith, hope, or love.

Christianity, unlike all the other religions, is not about mankind seeking God; but about God seeking mankind, out of pure love.  All of that is wrapped up in the the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ, "the Christ, God’s Son, the one who is coming into the world", as Martha said in John 11:27.

"Jesus wept", or the more accurate translation of, "Jesus burst into tears", should astonish us and cause us to realize, he loves us: he loves me!   The fact that Jesus wept should give us no reservations about letting Jesus into every painful moment of our lives; letting him walk with us through everything and every place in our life.

Give the Lord Jesus the key to your 'chamber of horrors', that room where you store your worst memories that affect you, even though you don't want them to.  Let him take that painful thing onto his shoulders and let him lift you up.  He is your consolation.