Seven Miracles - Pt 22

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” (John 11:38-44 ESV).

We have reached the final miracle in John’s Gospel, the raising of Lazarus form the dead. It may take us a while to get through this sign. However, we will begin today with the shortest verse in the Bible. It is found just before the actual account of the miracle. Jesus seemed composed as he approached the town. The sister of his dead friend met him outside. He consoled her with truth and grace. But then he saw the other sister, manifestly more emotional. And he began to weep. These two words, Jesus wept. (cf. John 11:35) carry a world of significance. While it is the shortest verse in all of the Bible, it is also one of its most powerful, and insightful. Here we find a remarkable glimpse into the glory of the Lord of the universe. It does show us the truth of Isaiah’s prophecy that Jesus would be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). However, we cannot miss that this sorrow was not his own. Because his love is great, he made our pains his own. Isaiah went on to write, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). It should of great comfort to have a sovereign who not only knows our frame and what is in us, but also shares in our flesh and blood. God himself has taken on our humanity in this man. With this humanity he also shares our emotions, even our sorrows. We are finite and frail. God gave us these emotions. We celebrate. We grieve. We rejoice. We weep. And we do so with Jesus as one of us. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus clearly manifests human emotions. When he heard the centurion’s words of faith, “he marveled” (Matthew 8:10). And he says in Gethsemane that his “soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38). No one shows us the truly human emotions of Christ like his beloved disciple John. That he loved dead Lazarus and his two sisters could not be any clearer than in this sign. Even the witnesses saw it and remarked, “See how he loved him!” Jesus did not weep because he lacked faith, but because he was full of love. In love, he weeps with those who weep. “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” (v. 33). This is our message today. If you are weeping, you have the great God and Savior, Jesus, who weeps with you. And, he has the power and mind to do something about it!