Martha’s interchange with Jesus ended with her
confessing, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You
are the Christ, the Son of
God, even He who comes into the world.” It was a confession no less definitive than what Peter
had made in Matthew 16:16 which reads “You are the
Christ, the Son of the living God.” After that
Martha left to tell Mary, saying, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” Without hesitation she arose quickly and left to meet
Him. And when the Jews who came to console Mary saw her leaving, they followed
her. Not knowing that Jesus had called for her, they thought that she was going
to the tomb where Lazarus was laid, to express her grief and cry. At this time,
Jesus was still outside the village where He had met Martha. The first thing Mary
did when she saw Jesus was to fall on her feet, and said the same thing Martha
had said when she met Jesus earlier. “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Here we are told that practically everyone was crying.
Mary was weeping and so were the Jews that followed her. When Jesus saw that, He
was deeply moved, not only with sorrow but also with anger. He must have felt
so because of the terrible effect and mark that sin had left on humanity. Here Jesus
had entered into the spirit of the gravity of death. He was agitated and
troubled by the effect of sin that had caused death and sorrow. So He asked for
the place where Lazarus was laid. And they invited Him to come and see. What Jesus
saw was not only the life of Lazarus, His good friend, being stolen but also a
body that laid there lifeless and still. And He also saw the terrible
consequence of sin and what it had done to humanity. So Jesus wept.
This moment was captured in John 11:35, the shortest
verse in the Bible. It is not there so that those of us with short memory can
at least memorize a verse of Scriptures. It is there to show us the human side
of Jesus. It is there to tell us that He could be moved by our weaknesses, for
He was made like we are at all points, except that He had no sin. Only on three
occasions did Jesus weep. Here at Lazarus death. The second record of His weeping
was over Jerusalem recorded in Luke 19:41 and the third in Gethsemane implied
by Hebrew 5:7. Each time He wept, it was because of the terrible effect of the
consequences of sin. Jesus shed tears to express the fullness of the grief in His
heart. His tears were not tears of sympathy for the death of a friend. His
tears expressed the sorrow and desolation that sin had brought into the world
for which death is the result.
Some observing Jews thought that Jesus’ weeping was merely
an outward show of love for a good friend. So they said, “See how He loved him!” Besides
them, there were also those Jews who expressed
disbelief. They sarcastically asked, “Could
not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?” Suck kind of remarks only come
from people who could only see the hole but not the dough. They are the type of
people who would nit-pick, murmur, grumble and complain endlessly. They don’t amount
much in the Kingdom. They are not the kind we should emulate if we desire spiritual
growth.
Have there been feelings that God is a tag too passive dealing with our trials? Be assured that His delays
are intended to maximize our development. It will help us to look to Him for strength
and resource for our growth and development. When we encounter life most trying
moment, like Mary and Martha, we can bare our hearts before Him honestly. We
need not fear His rejection or reprisal. We can be certain of His warm embrace.
Without a doubt!
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