Jesus Wept

Introduction: A World in Mourning

I have traveled the world and seen the weight and pain of death.

I have stood by the Ganges River in Varanasi, where funeral pyres burn day and night, the air thick with smoke and ash. I have seen body parts drifting in the current, fragments of human lives released to the holy waters. People there believe the flames set the soul free.

I have climbed Himalayan peaks where prayer wheels spin endlessly, and colored ribbons flap in the wind, carrying petitions for life and protection into the sky.

I have entered shrines where whole societies venerate the tombs of their saints. I have stood at Rumi’s shrine in Konya, where pilgrims lean close to the marble and the whirling dervishes spin, arms raised, robes flowing, searching for life in the dizzying circle of prayer.

I have stood in Red Square before the lifeless body of Lenin, preserved in glass as though ideology itself could grant immortality. And I have watched thousands of lanterns rise into the night sky in Asia, glowing prayers floating upward like souls seeking a home.

Everywhere I’ve traveled, I have seen the same thing: humanity wrestling with the same enemy. Death. And everywhere, people search for some answer, some ritual, some symbol, some hope.

But nothing rattled me so much as the passing of my innocent seven-year-old nephew, Dallas.

---

When the Knock Comes Home

It wasn’t sickness. It wasn’t old age. It was an ordinary day, a trip to the grocery store with his babysitter. The truck door wasn’t latched. As it backed down the gravel driveway, Dallas fell out. The wheel caught him, and in one unthinkable moment, his short life was gone.

No prayer wheels spun that day. No lanterns rose. Just shock. Just silence. Just grief.

I’ve stood at the pyres, I’ve walked the shrines, I’ve seen the lanterns. But none of those moments compared to kneeling in the dust of my own family’s loss. When death knocked on our door, it didn’t feel philosophical or religious. It felt cruel, violent, and final.

And maybe you’ve been there too. Maybe you’ve stood by a hospital bed, or at the graveside of a parent, a spouse, a friend. Maybe you’ve wept alone in the night when the silence was louder than any words.

That’s when you discover that death is not just a cultural question. It’s not just a theological puzzle. It’s personal.

---

The God Who Weeps

When Dallas died, our family didn’t need theories. We didn’t need charts or explanations. We needed someone who would sit in the dust with us and cry.

And that is exactly what I find in Jesus.

In John 11, when He came to Bethany, Lazarus had been dead four days. The mourners were wailing. Mary and Martha were brokenhearted. They both said the same thing to Jesus: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” You can almost hear the edge of disappointment in their voices. Why didn’t You come sooner? Why didn’t You stop this?

Jesus could have answered with theology. He could have said, “Don’t worry, Lazarus is in a better place.” He could have reminded them about the resurrection at the last day. And He did speak truth to Martha. But then—then comes the moment that stops me in my tracks. John 11:35: “Jesus wept.”

Two words. The shortest verse in all the Bible. But those tears of Christ are the deepest theology I know.

Why tears? If death were only another form of life—if cousin Suzy were already in heaven singing in the choir—then why cry? Why mourn? Why did Jesus Himself break down in tears outside Lazarus’s grave?

He wept because death is not a friend. It’s not a sweet transition. The Bible calls death the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). He wept because He knew this was never the Creator’s plan. We were made for life, not loss.

So grief is real. Love makes it real. Tears fall because absence hurts. And Jesus validates that pain—He cries with us.

But His tears don’t end in despair. They lead to His action. He doesn’t say, “Don’t worry, Lazarus is better off.” He says, “Lazarus, come forth!” Because the hope is not that death is an escape—the hope is that death is defeated.

And Lazarus did. The dead man heard. The dead man obeyed. He shuffled out of the darkness wrapped in graveclothes, and the crowd gasped in awe. Only Jesus could do that. Only Jesus could speak to death and be heard.

And that is why I cling to Him. Because one day, the same voice that called Lazarus out will call Dallas out. The same voice that shattered the silence in Bethany will shatter every cemetery on this earth.