I cannot presume to answer on my own authority what the tears of Christ mean. But the Scriptures give clues to the meaning of his tears. Let us look closely.
Perhaps love causes Jesus to weep. The text says that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary and Lazarus…” So in this scene outside Bethany, even though Jesus knows that this story will not end in death – he has come, after all, to raise Lazarus – still, here outside Bethany he looks upon the pain, the hurt, the grief, the sorrow of his friends, and he is moved to tears…because even when we know how it all will end, it still hurts to love. Even when we know that resurrection will follow death as surely as day follows night, there is still to be borne the pain of the widow’s empty bed, or the parent’s empty arms, or the friends’ empty days. We are told that “When Jesus saw Mary weeping, and the Jews also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved…” It is a raw moment, when the desolation of being human is exposed. Jesus loves deeply…
and so he begins to weep.
Perhaps Jesus weeps because he has, in some way, caused the pain. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” He could have come in time, but he delayed in coming to Bethany, he had chosen to wait. He had a good reason. There are bigger things going on here than the death and resurrection of one man: Jesus has the whole world to save! But in choosing to wait for the right moment in the ‘big’ picture, he has inflicted pain on those he loves in this little, present moment…
and so, as he looks upon these loved ones, their pain must be doubly hard for him to bear. What a thought is this! That in Jesus Christ we see God, and it is God who weeps at the pain we have to bear. When God delays, or does not remove our pain, God weeps. Not because God can do nothing, but because God wants to do everything. God weeps, not because God is weak and cannot help, but because God is strong enough to resist the joy of one moment in order to do what will bring joy most fully, most gloriously for all people in all times. It is a hard truth to swallow, but in this scene in Bethany, Jesus inflicts some of the pain, and he does so because He loves not just Mary and Martha and Lazarus, but the whole entire world…
and so Jesus begins to weep.
Perhaps Jesus weeps for those who do not love him, for those who sneer at him, saying “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Or perhaps he weeps for those who will go away from this crowd and whisper to the Pharisees. Jesus loves even those who choose not to love him…
and so he begins to weep.
Perhaps Jesus’ tears are tears of anger.
The Scripture says “he was greatly disturbed” or “he shuddered with deepest emotion.” Every time this word is used in Scripture, it carries a sense of anger. Jesus looks upon the suffering of those he loves and gets angry. Not at them, but at the forces and powers working to destroy their life. Jesus looks upon the disease which kills Lazarus, upon the death which robs Mary and Martha of their brother, and gets angry at their suffering. Just as Jesus looks upon the brutality of terrorists, or the ruthless greed of drug lords, or the dark cruelty of domestic violence, or the insidious disdain of racism, or the fatal grasp of destructive habits, and gets angry. Jesus cannot look upon the powers that destroy life and not be moved…
and so he begins to weep.
Perhaps Jesus weeps because he knows the time has come. He sees his loved ones in bondage and he knows what it will take to set them free. He knows how fierce are his opponents, how fierce is the battle he must wage to wrest the world from their control. He knows that you do not defy the powers of hell without a cost – not if you are going to conquer them. He knows the time has come to step up to the tomb, the fortress of the enemy’s power and cry out, yell, scream into the abyss of hell, “LAZARUS COME OUT!” The time has come to set off the explosion that will consume him. “So from that day on they planned to put him to death.” (11:53)
Perhaps the scene before him hits too close to home – this sound of Mary weeping beside a tomb, the sound of the words “Come and see where we have laid him,” his own words “Take the stone away,” the grave cloth wrapping Lazarus’ limbs and face. Perhaps it all echoes too clearly of another time, another stone, another tomb that Mary will bring others to see, and his will be the body they lay there, his will be the tomb they look upon.
But if he is to unbind the ones he loves, if he is to unbind Mary and Martha and Lazarus from sorrow and fear and desolation, if he is to unbind the whole world and set it free from the powers that destroy the life he has in store, then he himself must be bound. This is a resurrection story, but it is draped in a funeral pall. The time is at hand…
so Jesus begins to weep.
And in the days and years to come, when things grow dark and troubled and his loved ones weep, with fear or anger or sorrow beyond bearing, they will remember how he defied the powers of hell for them – and won. They will remember how be brought a dead man to life, even though the tomb he emptied would be his own. They will remember how his heart overflowed with such a love for them that his eyes brimmed with tears.
And they will be able to dry their own.
KAREN PIDCOCK-LESTER is pastor of the First Church in Pottstown, Pa.
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