The other day I was thinking about the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.”
In context, as I’m sure many of you know, Lazarus has died. Lazarus was a friend of Jesus’ and the brother of Mary and Martha. But what stands out in the story is not that Jesus wept, but that he knew Lazarus was sick and didn’t do anything about it for two or three days. And after Jesus weeps, he ends up resurrecting Lazarus from the dead anyways. So, the natural question to ask is, “Why did Jesus weep?”
In the story, the people see Jesus weeping and they say, “See how He loved him.” Clearly they thought Jesus was crying because He had lost a loved one. But I wonder, could He have been weeping for something larger, especially considering that He knew He would resurrect Lazarus? Could Jesus have been weeping because He saw the sorrow that death caused amongst the crowd? Could He have been weeping because He knew we weren’t created to die? Or could He have been weeping because He knew that what was happening with Lazarus would soon be happening to Him?
What do you think? Why was Jesus weeping?
Omer Redden 