| “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). |
| This is the shortest verse in the Bible, yet it says a lot! When I was young, we sometimes picked this verse to memorize because it was so short, but later, as we realized what it meant, we thought of it in a different way. Here was the Lord Jesus at the grave of Lazarus, and he had lain in that grave four days. But Jesus was about to raise Lazarus from the dead; in a few minutes he would be alive and well again. Why then did Jesus weep? It is true that other friends of Lazarus were weeping, and especially his sisters, Martha and Mary. But why did not the Lord Jesus say, “You do not need to cry; I am going to raise him back to life again?” Why did He join in with their weeping? |
| It was true that in a few moments Lazarus would rise from the dead, but the Lord Jesus wept for another reason. He saw all the heartache and sorrow that sin had brought into this world, and He truly felt it with those who were so sad. They had probably seen Lazarus get sick, then get worse, and finally get weaker and weaker until he died. Jesus knew all this, and He felt it too. |
| Some people today accuse God of being indifferent to the suffering in this world, but that is not so. God cares a great deal about it. The Lord Jesus came right down into the world as a man, and experienced what it was like. Then He went to the cross, and suffered so that men and women could be saved. |
| Sometimes you and I, even as Christians, go through suffering. Perhaps someone we love gets seriously ill, or even dies. I knew a young girl (about twelve years old) some years ago whose grandmother died of cancer, and she was very upset about it. She had prayed that the Lord would heal her grandmother, but instead she died. Sometimes someone we love is involved in a serious car accident, and is badly hurt. Or maybe we lose something valuable, and it makes us very sad. The Lord Jesus cares about all that, and He wants to comfort us. He wants us to come to Him, because He loves us so much. He can comfort us better than anyone else. |
