Jesus Wept

March 24, 2023
Author: Hannah DeVivo

Peace be with you!

Today we will examine the Gospel for this coming Sunday, the 5th Sunday of Lent.

John 11:1-44

Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill. So the sisters sent word to him, saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.” When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in a day? If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if one walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” He said this, and then told them, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.” So the disciples said to him, “Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved.” But Jesus was talking about his death, while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep. So then Jesus said to them clearly, “Lazarus has died. And I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe. Let us go to him.” So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go to die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. [But] even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said to him, “I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, “The teacher is here and is asking for you.” As soon as she heard this, she rose quickly and went to him. For Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still where Martha had met him. So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw Mary get up quickly and go out, they followed her, presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”

So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.” Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.

Jesus Wept

Of all the many sentences in the Bible, this short one has been one of the most impactful for me. Jesus, being the third Person in the Trinity, is perfect. In His divinity, He knows all things. It has been hard for me to reconcile this truth with another truth: in Jesus’ earthly life, He was fully human. When I think of the times that I have cried in my own life, it often came from a lack of understanding or an inability for my mind to see the bigger picture. Jesus knew the bigger picture; He had perfect understanding, yet He still cried. Why is this?

The tears of Jesus are significant for many reasons. One of them is that we were not created to endure separation. The true emotion of sadness that Jesus expresses from the death of a loved one shows that it wounds the very center of our souls. It is an evil that entered the world from the disobedience of Adam and Eve. Even though Jesus knew that Lazarus would be united with Him for eternity, and that even in their earthly life Jesus could (and would) raise him, He enters fully into the sorrow that comes with the loss of a friend. It shows us that it is right to grieve at times. It is okay and normal to feel sadness, anger, and confusion when someone dies because we were made to be in communion with God and with each other.

Another significance of the tears of Jesus is that He felt all the emotions. He allowed Himself to enter fully into our human experience so that He could say to us “I have been where you are. I have felt what you feel. I have heard, seen, and felt your pain. I can and will grieve with you as someone who has been through it.” We do not pray to a distant God who is so far removed from us that our trials are meaningless to Him. We pray to a God who entered our broken world in order that He could reach out and touch us. We pray to a God who came out to meet us where we were when we couldn’t make the full journey to Him. Brothers and sisters, you pray to a God who pursues you. He bared his own innocent heart to the brutal pain of this world so that he could unite Himself to you. This leads us to another magnificent truth: with the unification of Jesus’ suffering comes the unification of His resurrection!

We are United to the Crucifixion and the Rising of Jesus

When our first parents Adam and Eve sinned, they opened the door for evil to enter the world.

“The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man." By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed”—a state and not an act……..Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back toward God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 404-405).

If we accept the truth that we were born into the contracted sin of Adam and because of this are inclined to evil, we must also accept the truth that through Baptism we are united to Christ’s victory! The Sacrament of Baptism imparts Christ’s grace to us and turns us back to Him. As the Catechism says, “we are summoned to spiritual battle.” This life will indeed be fraught with temptations and losses as the enemy fights for our souls, but along with the best artillery of prayer and fellow soldiers of angels and saints, we also have the benefit of knowing who will win in the end. Christ defeated death and darkness. In clinging to Him, we will emerge victorious as well! I hope you feel encouraged and hopeful as you fight the spiritual battle. As always, my prayers are with you.

Before You Go

How do you feel about the fact that Jesus cried?

Do you feel connected to Christ’s death and resurrection?

Did you learn anything new in this article?

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