Day 47: Jesus Wept

As soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died!”

When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked.

“Lord,” they told him, “come and see.” Jesus wept. JOHN 11:32–35, EMPHASIS MINE

I CAN’T REMEMBER LONG stretches of that week I spent in the hospital battling severe pneumonia and lung complications brought on by COVID. I lost entire days to a medicated fog and the white noise of beeping machines. But I can remember almost every detail of the day my pneumatologist finally pronounced me well enough to go home. I remember the wide grins on the faces of the wonderful nursing team who’d selflessly taken care of me when I didn’t have enough strength to even say, “Thank you.” Of course, part of their happiness may’ve been due to the huge cake I’d had delivered to them that morning! I also remember how one of the aides (who was given the task of schlepping all the thoughtful “Get Well” paraphernalia out of my room) got frustrated because some of the balloons kept sticking out of the elevator doors when he was trying to close them. But what I remember most is my dear friend Shane, who was standing in a grassy median across from the hospital exit doors (the nearest security would let visitors do this during that season when no one knew exactly what proximity protocols to implement for COVID).

Shane had driven to the hospital immediately after hearing I was being released and had been waiting there in the pouring rain since. The moment she saw me being wheeled outside toward my nephew’s waiting car, she began jumping up and down, waving her arms, and cheering with all the gusto one usually reserves for Superbowl champions or Grammy winners. I asked John Michael (my nephew) to drive up next to her when he gingerly pulled away from the hospital so I could see her up close and mouth “Thank you” through the window. And when he did, I realized that the rivulets running down sweet Shane’s face weren’t from the rain, they were tears.

Crying used to make me uncomfortable. There was so much anger and chaos and sadness in my early childhood before my parents divorced that I subconsciously began using my blanket as a mini cape and tried to be Little Miss Sunshine. The way I figured it, my poor mom and dad already had their hands full of so much hard stuff, they needed a daughter who was a self-sufficient smiler, not some needy crybaby. I was well into adulthood before I finally understood that my childish conviction that “sad = bad” was way off base. Because sincere tears are God’s gift to express emotion where words fail. They can carry big, bulky balloon bouquets of sheer joy or help wash the debris of spent sorrow from our weary souls.

When I was a kid, I missed the promise and potency of: Jesus wept. Like most of my other buddies in Sunday school, I snickered when a peer quoted it as their “memory verse” because we all knew it was the shortest verse in the Bible and, therefore, a way to cheat in church. But now that the portion of life I have left is significantly less than the portion I’ve already lived, I find the truth packed in those two words to be profoundly encouraging.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon explained it much better than I can in one of his centuries-old sermons:

I have often felt vexed with the man, whoever he was, who chopped up the New Testament into verses. He seems to have let the hatchet drop indiscriminately here and there; but I forgive him a great deal of blundering for his wisdom in letting these two words make a verse by themselves: “Jesus wept.” This is a diamond of the first water, and it cannot have another gem set with it, for it is unique. Shortest of verses in words, but where is there a longer one in sense? Add a word to the verse, and it would be out of place. No, let it stand in solitary sublimity and simplicity. You may even put a note of exclamation after it, and let it stand in capitals.42

When I found out that Dr. Spurgeon, who’s one of my all-time favorite heroes of the faith, battled with severe depression, my respect for him only grew. My heart softened when I read that despite how 25,000 people bought copies of his sermons every week during the height of his ministry and he got to preach to ten million people before his death in 1892, he still had moments when tears were his only language. As evidenced by how he described his experience after an especially dark season: there are dungeons beneath the castles of despair.43

Spurgeon’s comfort with crying is the main reason I trust his takeaways from John’s account of our Savior doing so:

First, I would remind you that “Jesus wept,” because he was truly man: secondly, “Jesus wept,” for he was not ashamed of his human weakness, but allowed himself to reveal the fact that he was, in this point also, made like unto his brethren. Thirdly, “Jesus wept,” and therein he is our instructor. Fourthly, he is our comforter; and lastly, he is our example.44

We are not loved by a stoic God, y’all. We are celebrated over and empathized with and grieved about and comforted by a compassionate Redeemer. Jesus is deeply moved by our stories and more tender toward us than you and I can possibly imagine or hope for.

• READ JOHN 3:16 (niv) out loud. Read it again, emphasizing the word so. How does emphasizing that word change the way your heart “hears” this promise?
• READ ISAIAH 53. Can you picture this Jesus sitting beside you with tears rolling down His face during your deepest season of grief?
• READ HEBREWS 12:1–2. Can you picture this Jesus teary with joy when you turn back toward Him after a season of wandering?