The shortest verse as stated in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is recorded in John 11:35 which reads, “Jesus wept.” when Lazarus died and was laid in a tomb. While this may seem to be a natural reaction to the loss of companionship of a dear one, this account have deep undertones with the eventual glory being all God’s, that ought not to be missed. What I want to focus on today is simply the reaction of Jesus when someone dear to him died. Jesus wept.
According to the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the word ‘wept’ is the past or past particle of the word weep. Weep is a verb. Transitively it means to express deep sorrow for (usually by shedding tears) and intransitively it means to express passion (as grief by shedding tears).
Jesus expresses deep sorrow for all those who are dead spiritually and wishes that each one of us are saved. He expressed God’s passion for us by dying on the cross. Even Mel Gibson’s wonderful movie, The Passion of the Christ falls short of the true passion that Jesus had and continues to have for you and me today. Think about it, Jesus is a weeping God, a God who weeps when man choose to be separated from His companionship with them, a.k.a. when they choose to be spiritually dead. He passionately seeks after each one.
Mano Paul
I recently heard a message on the prodigal son from Clement Sasthriyar Vedanayagam who brought out a wonderful truth, stating that Biblical model as it pertains to weeping is – “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep” (Romans 12:15), but sadly the model of this world is “we tend to rejoice when someone is weeping (hurting) and weep (out of envy) when someone is rejoicing”. We should make a conscious effort to follow the Biblical model and not the world’s.