When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved (embrimoamoai) in spirit and troubled (tarasso), and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus wept. So the Jews were saying, "See how He loved (phileo) him."-- John 11:33-36More thoughts on Jesus' niceness.
The above passage is often used to illustrate how Jesus empathizes with us. In fact, the verse actually helps explain Jesus' anger with us.
Read the whole story in context in
John 11. (I'm linking to the New American Standard Strong's Concordance version to make it easier for you to look up the Greek meanings of the English words.) It's the story of the raising of Lazarus. You'll remember that Martha and Mary came out to meet Jesus when he arrived too late to save their brother. Both tell Jesus that if he had arrived on time, he could have saved Lazarus, implying that they felt he let them down. After all, their letter summoning him referred to Lazarus as "he whom you love." (vs. 11:3) The Greek word for love they used was phileo.
Phileo means to be fond of or to like. The sisters believed apparently that Jesus liked Lazarus, meaning that Lazarus was someone that Jesus enjoyed spending time with. However, vs. 4 corrects their impression by saying that Jesus loved -- as in
agape -- Lazarus, meaning he loved him by choice, or you could say, in spite of Lazarus' personal qualities. So when Jesus didn't come a-running, it's only natural for the sisters to wonder what was going on. Jesus didn't jump when they called. And, in tears, they let him know how they felt.
This "deeply moved" Jesus, so much so that he was "troubled." Unfortunately, these English words don't do justice to the Greek words that were used.
Embrimaomai, which is translated "deeply moved," is a word whose root means to "snort with anger," like a horse ready to charge.
Tarasso is the Greek word that's translated "troubled." It means to agitate, to disquiet, to stir up, to distress, to perplex. Jesus was not being empathetic. He was upset and angry.
Finally, Jesus wept. Why did Jesus weep? Because Lazarus was dead? Probably not since he knew he could raise Lazarus from the dead or he could choose to not raise him from the dead and then Lazarus would be in paradise. What's there to cry about? Maybe because everyone else was sad. Do other people's emotions control our Savior's. God does
keep track of our tears, but I doubt that is the case here.
I don't have time or space to go into it here, but a search of the words
sorrow,
weep,
tears, and
sad shows that the only time God weeps or is sorrowful is when his children don't believe him or obey him. It stands to reason, then, that if Jesus is true to his divine nature, his weeping would be more related to the unbelief of Mary, Martha and the Jews than it is to sentimentality or empathy. That's the case when Jesus wept over Jerusalem in
Luke 19. This is a good place to point out that the Bible is clear that Jesus does indeed
sympathize with us in our weakness, being that he was man, like us. But I don't think this verse supports that fact.
Finally, the Jews who were there do what we do. They saw Jesus weeping and, assuming he's like us, they concluded that he was weeping because he liked Lazarus so much. When one understands why Jesus really wept, his grace stands out even more because he loved Mary, Martha, Lazarus and the people there more than they could imagine. And he delivered in a way they could never have imagined. They wanted a mere healing. He wants to raise the dead. They underestimated him.
Some more quotes from "
Jesus Wild and Mean: The Unexpected Love of an Untameable God" by Mark Galli:
- The typical church in history -- the typical church today -- has little to commend itself in the way of glory, power and success. Yet it is this institution -- not our dream institution -- with which Christ chooses to be identified. He has put his very name on it, calling it his body.
- Relevance and power and success are, finally, a mystery, not so much something that can be manipulated by church growth science but as something to pray fo in humility and faith.
- True love is robust. It includes compassion and confrontation, empathy and truth-telling, kindness and sternness. When we enter such relationships, we must enter them not with sentimentality but with full-orbed love. This takes not only compassion but courage. Yet it is that very combination that so often gets us in trouble.
- "It is the essence of the sin of the Garden to re-imagine God into the mythical tolerant God." -- Dean Waldt
- "It is positively meritorious for princes to exercise vindication of justice with zeal against evil people." -- Thomas Aquinas
- We are functional atheists most of the time. We jump out of bed, gulp down the coffee, and sprint into the day, immersing ourselves in all its petty and large concerns. We barely give God a thought and pretty much live our days as if he is away on a trip. In fact, on most days we prefer this type of life because God is not around to interrupt our busy schedules.
- "If you look at the relationship in terms of mutual relationship, you will see that God could complain about us a great deal more than we about him. We complain that he does not make himself present to us for the few minutes we reserve for him, but what about those 23 and a half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer, 'I'm busy, I am sorry' or when we do not answer at all because we do not even hear the knock at the door of our heart, of our minds, of our conscience, of our life." -- Anthony Bloom, "Beginning to Pray"
- Too often we do not want the true God as much as we want the god of our imaginations, the god who wants nothing more than to make us happy. ... But this idol is built on a false base, as if our desires are the measure of what is best for us, as if our "needs" are really our deepest needs, as if the only and best way to resolve a crisis is to do it in the way we think it should be resolved -- as if we were all-wise, all-knowing and all-loving.
- To have the heart of God means to feel the brokenness of God as he looks at his creation.
- Living (the life of Christ) means knowing an uncommon grief
