And Jesus Wept

"But in that we sorrow today, we can see Him with us, Emmanuel, who experienced death in the most horrific way, who wept as we weep."

WHAT WAS IT LIKE for Him to look death in the eye? Lazarus’, Jairus’ daughter, Himself. To see death and know you were there to defeat death, that you created all life, and yet death happened. Yes, He raised Lazarus and yes, Jairus’ daughter, but yes, they died. And Jesus wept. He came to give life, but He saw people die. He was alive on the earth from infancy because people died. Children died, destroyed by Herod, so that He wouldn’t live.

I have to take exception to the latest popular series of Jesus’ life. A disciple of Jesus was left with an infirmity because supposedly he shows fortitude in it. Wouldn’t have happened. “And Jesus healed them all” is Scripture (Matthew 8:16; Matthew 12:15). If that man had asked in faith, or partial faith as in the story of the father who cried out for his son, then he would have been healed. And if that young woman in the series had been killed because of His actions, then He would have raised her. Not said, “I’m sorry.” He raised the widow of Nain’s son just because He was passing by (Luke 7:12-13).

He is the God of compassion. The God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3). The Father is the God of everlasting mercy. The Spirit of God is exceedingly merciful. The last verse of the gospel of John says, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.” He did so much good that it can’t even all be written, and the greatest act of that was His death for our healing and complete salvation.

But being a man meant feeling emotions like a man and responding to them like a man. He saw death from our level and had to turn to the Spirit for comfort. When John the Baptiser died, His cousin, He went into the wilderness to mourn and found Himself surrounded by people eager to see Him. Suddenly, He has to preach the good news of God’s kingdom, when His insides are in turmoil. He also spoke of the destruction of the temple, which would come, telling how horrifying it would be, yet knew He could neither stop it nor save everyone from what would happen. Here is where the church divides into many pieces and the infighting begins. Some blame God, making Him almost vindictive. Others shake their heads, saying He could do something. We miss the full picture.

Our living God declared men righteous, saving them from eternal death, BEFORE Jesus brought redemption. Abraham chose to walk by faith and was declared righteous (Romans 4:3). He anointed men with the Spirit to speak His Words and to minister in His temple when there was no blood of Christ shed yet. Jesus’ death and Resurrection was to remove the sting of death. Death comes to all on this planet, but now, we can choose eternal life and have no fear of it. We can live full of God’s Resurrection power, filled with His presence and His abundant wisdom, and have hope for the future.

With God in us, nothing is impossible. He has declared the ending already, so that we need not question it. There will be the end of death and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. But in that we sorrow today, we can see Him with us, Emmanuel, who experienced death in the most horrific way, who wept as we weep over those who couldn’t see Him, wouldn’t see Him, and those who died at the hands of men. And lives so that we may live. We focus on the losses, on the deaths around us, and don’t see His life. Don’t see the deception of the enemy who continually tries to reconfigure who God is that there will be infighting.

“… so that the entire world might reject Satan’s lies about God, see the truth as revealed in Jesus and again trust God fully and follow his treatment plan—” (Romans 16:26, Remedy)

What we don’t understand, we should seek God about. What we know we’re confused about, we should seek God about. What doesn’t fit the picture of a loving God who would suffer and die as a man to give us God’s amazing eternal life, we need to seek God about, and not get lost in the arguments in our minds. Because Jesus saw His mother at the foot of His cross, saw the anguish on her face. He looked Peter in the eye when Peter denied Him outside the judgment hall. He held a child and warned those who would despise them, knowing some would treat children that way (Matthew 18:10).

And He left in our care, in the hands of those He had come to save, the salvation of the world. Not so we would sit on our hands and watch things decay, but so that we would rise up against it and fight death, which He has defeated. In the power of His name, with the power of His Spirit, we go forward to spread the good news that the God of heaven and earth knows how we feel because He lived like us and died like us and rose again, like we will, to prove what He said from the beginning. “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Image by Nat Aggiato from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com