John 11:28-35, Jesus Weeps

28 When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in private, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." 29 And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary rise quickly and go out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." 33 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. 34 And he said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see." 35 Jesus wept. 

It is significant that Martha calls Jesus “The Teacher.” Rabbis did not teach women, but Jesus taught women. Mary sat at his feet and listened to him, and now even Martha, whose reputation was to be busy serving from the kitchen, understood him as “The Teacher,” unlike any other teacher in Israel. They seem to have come to a conclusion similar to Nicodemus. Jesus as rabbi stands above all others. Yet Jesus plans on showing them that he is so much more than they understand. He calls for Mary to come and join them, so he can prove to these sisters that “I am the resurrection and the life.” 

Jesus hears from a weeping Mary the same words he heard from her composed sister, Martha: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” These sisters knew Jesus’ love for them and his healing power. They knew he would not want them to suffer the deep grief of loss they were feeling.  

The text says, “He was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.” The original Greek means he was agitated. However, one commentator writes the verb “indicates an outburst of anger.” With this interpretation in mind, we can see how Jesus approaches Lazarus’ grave mad as hell. God did not create human beings to die like this. Sin brought this death into the world, and Jesus has come to undo what man has created by following the leading of Satan. Jesus is not mad at Lazarus or any person standing outside his grace. His anger is directed at Satan. 

Theologian B.B. Warfield describes this scene well: “The spectacle of the distress of Mary and her companions enrages Jesus because it brought poignantly home to his consciousness the evil of death, its unnaturalness, its “violent tyranny” (Calvin). In Mary’s grief he sees and feels the misery of the whole (human) race and burns with rage against the oppressor of men. It is death that is the object of his wrath, and behind death him who has the power of death, and whom he had come into the world to destroy. Tears of sympathy may fill his eyes, but that is incidental—his soul is held by rage, and he advances to the tomb, in Calvin’s words, ‘as a champion who prepares for conflict.’” Jesus has come to take out Satan. 

You have a champion who fought for you in the arena of life and death and has won life for you by dying his own death. This is the heart and soul of Christianity: the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep, becoming the slaughtered Lamb. So give thanks to Jesus today for his salvation!