The tears of Jesus

Jesus wept. John 11:35

Do you cry easily? If so, do you think of it as a weakness? (It’s striking how often, when people break down in tears, they feel the need to apologise: “Sorry”, they say, as they dab their eyes.)

But of course that’s wrong: weeping is an entirely healthy reaction to pain and sorrow. Indeed (being personal for a moment) it’s one of my regrets that I am so rarely moved to tears: if anything, that’s the weakness, not the opposite.

Jesus wept. Here in John 11 he weeps at the tomb of Lazarus. Go to Luke 19 and you find him weeping over the city of Jerusalem just a few days before he goes to the cross. And the writer to the Hebrews tells us that during his earthly life “he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears… “ (Hebrews 5:7).

So… if anyone reading this gets a bit embarrassed at being a rather ready weeper, please think again!

Why did Jesus weep?

The John 11 reference seems clear: he is lamenting the death of a man described as “the one you love” (verse 3).

That seems obvious – and I don’t doubt that Jesus was sad about Lazarus. But there are times when things that seem obvious are in fact wrong, and this, I think, is one of them. Taking the passage as a whole it seems much more likely that Jesus is weeping at the sheer pitiful hopelessness of those people gathered at the tomb.

There would have been a large crowd of local people, supplemented probably by a group of others – professional mourners – bought in for the occasion. They were all doing their duty, if at different levels of sincerity.

But the spotlight falls on Mary, one of Lazarus’ sisters. She reproaches Jesus for taking so long to arrive: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died”. This really churns Jesus up inside. John says he was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled”, which very likely means that he was in fact angry (that word “troubled” is used elsewhere in Greek writing to refer to the “snorting” of horses, as we might refer to someone “snorting with indignation”).

It’s not Mary and the others he is angry with, though. No, he is angry at the grip that death has taken on the human race, what John Calvin (1509-1564) called its “violent tyranny”. Jesus is demonstrating his implacable hatred of death.

But the great thing is this: this build-up of rage explodes in tears of love: “Jesus wept”. The angry Jesus is also the compassionate Jesus.

Although the circumstances are different, pretty much the same thing applies to Luke 19. Coming down from the Mount of Olives he “saw the city and wept over it, saying ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes’…” (verses 41-42).

To this day Jerusalem is a magnificent city, especially when viewed from the Mount of Olives. And so it was in Jesus’ day. But at that time what especially drew the eye would be the temple, thought of by the people of Israel as the earthly dwelling place of God.

Yet here, with a breaking heart, Jesus predicts its soon destruction: “They (Israel’s enemies) will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognise the time of God’s coming to you” (this happened at the hand of the Romans some forty years later). There will be terrible suffering for the city-dwellers: “they will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls”.

Jesus was a devout Jew. And as he surveys the beautiful city and foresees what is going to happen to it he bursts into tears, as if to say: “Oh, why didn’t you receive me? Why are your hearts so hard? This need never happen!”

So… What breaks Jesus’ heart at the tomb of Lazarus is the people’s hopelessness; what breaks his heart here is Israel’s hard-heartedness.

I wonder what breaks his heart as he looks down on us – as individuals, as churches, as nations? We can never know, of course. But at this start of Holy Week, with Palm Sunday still in our minds, and especially with the coronavirus pandemic overshadowing us, it’s a question we would do well to think about.

However little we might be able to understand, one thing is beyond all doubt: Jesus is full of compassion for lost men and women. His tears aren’t “crocodile tears”, nor tears of self-pity; no, they are tears of intense pain and tender love.

Can you see his crumpled face and trembling lip? Can you see those tears running down his cheeks? They were shed for you and for me.

Lord Jesus, thank you that as you look down on me and see my stubborn heart and my feeble faith, you feel great and tender compassion. Help me to respond to that compassion with humility and joy. Help me to know that I am loved by you. Amen.