This last week I was in a Bible Study and as it got to the end, we were all challenged with identifying a verse this week and memorizing it. Quick witted as I attempt to be, I select “Jesus wept”. The shortest and simplest of verses.  But the challenge was not to just memorize the verse, but meditate on it.

What is meditate on the Word of God?

A generic definition can be found as:

To meditate on the word of God, start by choosing a topic or specific verse to focus on. Next, find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably and clear your mind, then read your chosen verse or passage several times. Commit the verse to memory, take notes, and highlight important words to help you deconstruct the meaning. Try to restate the concept in your own words for a clearer understanding, then strive to apply what you’ve learned in your daily life!

Well, let’s see this is going to be pretty easy. Two words, a person and an action. In simple terms, Jesus cried. Well, now apply that in my daily life. (Hint: this does not men try to make Jesus cry everyday by my actions)

Context of the verse

The first assumption may people take is that Jesus wept is about when his friend Lazarus died and Jesus cried.  That He was sad that his friend died and he did not prevent the death. Time to meditate on that thought.

Actual Passages

There are three passages that refer to Jesus weeping. The first on actually describes Jesus character and is compassion for people. It is who he is, not a specific situation.

While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God. – Hebrews 5:7 NLT

There are two other instances in Scripture about Jesus demonstrating this behavior.

For the mourners, not the dead

John 11:1–45 concerns the death and resurrection of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha and a friend of our Lord. Jesus wept (John 11:35) when He gathered with the sisters and others mourning Lazarus’s death. Jesus did not weep over the death itself since He knew Lazarus would soon be raised and ultimately spend eternity with Him in heaven. Yet He could not help but weep when confronted with the wailing and sobbing of Mary, Martha, and the other mourners (John 11:33). The original language indicates that our Lord wept “silent tears” or tears of compassion for His friends (Romans 12:15).

So the first notion of Jesus weeping over Lazarus being dead and possible doubt and failure of not saving Lazarus or preventing his death are not accurate. Jesus was actually weeping and hurt by the ones that wailing and sobbing over Lazarus’ death. Jesus did not want his friends to be so emotionally hurt over the situation here on earth.

If Jesus had been present when Lazarus was dying, His compassion would have caused Him to heal His friend (John 11:14–15). But preventing a death might be considered by some to be a chance circumstance or just a “minor” miracle, and this was not a time for any doubt. So Lazarus spent four days in death’s grave before Jesus publicly called him back to life. The Father wanted these witnesses to know that Jesus was the Son of God, that Jesus was sent by God, and that Jesus and the Father had the same will in everything (John 11:4, 40–42). Only the one true God could have performed such an awesome and breathtaking miracle, and through this miracle the Father and the Son were glorified, and many believed (John 11:4, 45).

For lost souls

In Luke 19:41–44 the Lord is taking His last trip to Jerusalem shortly before He was crucified at the insistence of His own people, the people He came to save. Earlier, the Lord had said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it” (Luke 13:34). As our Lord approached Jerusalem and thought of all those lost souls, “He saw the city and wept over it” (Luke 19:41). Here, wept is the same word used to describe the weeping of Mary and the others in John 11:33, so we know that Jesus cried aloud in anguish over the future of the city. That future was less than 40 years distant; in AD 70 more than 1,000,000 residents of Jerusalem died in one of the most gruesome sieges in recorded history.

Into Action

Our Lord wept differently in these two instances because the eternal outcomes were entirely different. Martha, Mary, and Lazarus had eternal life because they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, but most in Jerusalem did not believe and therefore did not have life. The same is true today: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies’” (John 11:25).

Those are the areas that Jesus lamented over. In our culture today it is more common for a person to experience and interact with these groups of people and just take it for what it is worth and not have the compassion that Jesus had. In my meditation on ‘Jesus wept’ this week, I see where I could develop more character like Jesus by having compassion for those groups and do what it says in Hebrews and cry out to God for them, to have a desire for them.