Why are you crying?

John 11:35
Jesus wept.

I’ve heard a lot of explanations for why Jesus wept over the years. The most common two: He was sad because His friend, Lazarus, had died, and He was moved by the sadness of those around Him. While both of these are seemingly good explanations, I find them flawed for one purpose: Jesus’ intention all along was to raise Lazarus from the dead!

You see, in order for Jesus to be sad at the passing of His friend, there would have to be an assumption that Lazarus was GONE and not coming back. For Jesus to be crying at the realization of Lazarus’ demise would mean that He had no hope for a resurrection, and we know this isn’t true. Jesus, being God, knew exactly what His plan of action was. He knew He would be bringing Lazarus back to life and that He wasn’t going to “stay dead”, so certainly He wasn’t crying because He lost a friend!

When we look at the second most common explanation, that is, He was moved by the sadness of His friends, we find the same basic flaw. Certainly Jesus knew why they were sad, but again His plan was to raise Lazarus from the dead. I think that if Jesus was actually reacting to His friends’ emotions, He would have been laughing. The kind of laughter that comes when you know something awesome is about to happen that no one else is aware of! The kind of giddy uncontrollable jubilation that you feel when you plan a surprise that seems to not be a surprise but really is a surprise. You all know what I’m talking about. If Jesus was honestly reacting to His friends in this case He would have been smirking at the least, knowing full well that in a couple of moments a dead man was going to rise up out of the grave.

So why did Jesus cry, and not just cry, but actually weep? I believe Jesus wept because He was looking at His creation and thinking back to when He first made the earth. He thought about those six days when He made the vastness of space with millions of galaxies and stars. He thought about forming the world with the voice from His mouth. He thought about the careful consideration He placed in the balance of oxygen and carbon in the atmosphere. He thought about creating water and sky, plants and animals. He thought about taking the dust of the earth and making a human body. He thought about breathing His life into that very body and having a friend. He thought about the fact that all of this He made was because of love. He thought about the perfect fellowship that He had with mankind, how He could commune with them because they were holy to Him.

Then He thought about man’s fall. He thought about how we took control of His creation. He thought about how we ruined His perfect garden. He thought about how much He loved us, and how much we loved ourselves. He thought about the fact that death was never part of His plan, but that we made it part of our plan. He thought about the cross, about His death, about His sacrifice, about His suffering, about how it would be all for us. He thought about the fact that His own people would reject Him. He thought about our day and age, when most of society would deny His very existence. He thought about the innumerable number of souls that would die. He stood there before the tomb of Lazarus and thought, for a moment, about His infinite timeline, and He wept!

I think Jesus wept because He was sad. He wept not because He saw Lazarus in the tomb, but because He saw the end of the age and knew that many would die. He wanted us to choose to follow Him, to walk with Him eternally, without death in the picture, and we didn’t. That, I believe, is the truth as to why Jesus wept!