When I was reading through John this morning, I came across this verse. It's the shortest verse in the Bible, but I think it gets passed over too often. There's so much to take away from those two words.
To really understand all the meaning packed into this verse, you have to know what's going on in the context. Here you have Jesus coming to the side of his grieving friends at the death of their brother, Lazarus. Now when I first heard this verse as a kid, I assumed Jesus was weeping because his friend had passed away. It made sense. But when I really started reading this passage today, a little more came to mind. Why would Jesus be crying when he knew he had the power to raise Lazarus from the dead? That really took this verse to a completely different level for me. Maybe Jesus was crying because he also felt the heartbreak his friends were experiencing. He empathized with them. He was fully human and therefore had human emotions and experienced pain. He wept. I think you can also take a lot from that word "wept". He didn't just shed a few tears, he "wept" with his friends. He mourned with them. He hurt with them.
I think we sometimes forget about the humanity of Christ. We set him up on this unreachable place. He's this velvet painting with a halo around him. Too often we see Christ as two dimensional when we need to understand he had human emotions and human reactions. But He was still sinless and had complete faith in his Father.
In Luke 14:36, we see Jesus praying in the garden to His father. He calls out to God, "Abba". We see his intimate relationship with his Father just from the way he calls out to Him. Then Jesus prays with such intensity blood and sweat drop from his brow. Now I used to be under the idea that Jesus was upset because he knew he was about to die. But Jesus' inner struggle was on a much deeper level than that. It wasn't until I read David Platt's comments on this passage that it hit me. It shook me as a new understanding washed over me. Jesus knew that when he took the fate of the world upon his shoulders by dying on the cross, he was also taking on the wrath of God in a concentrated, unfathomable form. This wasn't just wrath from one person or for a few sins; this was the wrath of all the sins the world had committed, that were being committed, and would be committed forever until the end of time. Therefore, separating him from His Father. That was what weighed so heavily upon His mind. Yet even in His humanity, (emotions, pain, and all) He did what He was sent to do. No complaints. Only humble acceptance.
If we fail to recognize the humanity of Christ, we miss out on the beauty of the story. God sent His only son to live a life on earth as a human. He felt sadness, pain, and fear. He was tempted. He was no stranger to the obstacles we face. But even in his humanity, he still had complete faith in God and did the work of His Father. We are to live as examples of Christ because He was the example set for us.
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