Why is Jesus weeping?

“Yeah, he’s ice cool, he’s hardly a push-over. He’ll keep his pose come hell or high water.”

These words come from a poem I wrote quite a while back called Iceman. It was a poem about God and his master plan for this earth and my life. 

I think that the view I had of God is a widely held view. It’s a sad view, it’s a crushing, demoralizing, suffocating view of God which should be written down only so that it can be burned along with all its sentiments. It is the view that God has a heart made of solid ice and he makes cool, nay, cold, calculating decisions regarding our fate as humans, regardless of the human or emotional cost. 

Let me reference a story I have recently rediscovered in an attempt to dispel this unfortunate myth. It’s a story about Jesus and his friends whose names were Mary, Martha and Lazarus. As the story goes, Jesus was away on a missionary trip when all of a sudden his dear friend Lazarus took very ill. Seeing that his condition was serious, the sisters – Mary and Martha, sent for him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill”. In response to this sobering news Jesus does a very curious thing – he delays his trip to visit Lazarus for two more days knowing full well that Lazarus was knocking on death’s door!

When Jesus finally arrives at the place where these friends of his live, Lazarus is already dead. Mary voices the thoughts that many of us share in her situation, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It’s an excruciating, pathetic cry of desperation. In other words, “Where the hell were you God?!” Jesus’ response to the whole situation is astounding,

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord come and see.’ Jesus wept. – John 11

Jesus wept! The person who was instrumental in this whole event and was well within his means to save Lazarus before he died now stands at his tomb and weeps. Absolutely remarkable! Jesus later raises Lazarus from the dead and causes massive celebrations and many more people to put their faith in him. The story thus does have a happy ending but there is a deeper issue which is brought to light here.

This question begs an answer – why did Jesus weep at the tomb of a man he was about to raise to life? I believe the answer is this, Jesus is not “Iceman”. Jesus is deeply compassionate. He cares about how we feel and he empathizes with us. Until the resurrection, whether it be far away or near, Jesus feels the same pain that we do and he weeps with us.

There is more to Jesus than just his “master plan”. He is a faithful friend who desperately tries to prove to us, as he did to his friends then, how faithful and trustworthy he is. It is true that he does know better than us in every situation and that he works out every situation according to his plan and he works it out for our good, but he doesn’t do it heartlessly. The way that he works will often leave us boggled, but one thing is for sure, he will always be a true, trustworthy God who is a faithful friend in good times and especially in times of need.

This knowledge of Jesus gives me some comfort in my times of sorrow and loss. I hope it does the same for you.