Lessons From Lazarus

II

But the second lesson from Lazarus is this: the display of disconsolation is not the despair of disconsolation. The shortest verse in the Bible says that Jesus wept. That may not only be the shortest verse in the Bible, but it may be one of the greatest. Jesus wept. Jesus displays sorrow. Some say that Jesus wept because in keeping with a couple of verses earlier he seems to be disturbed, perhaps over the people’s lack of trust and dependence on him in time of trouble. But I disagree with that interpretation.

I believe Jesus shed real tears. Jesus experienced real sorrow. This says to me that Jesus knows and understands what I am going through. Jesus weeps when I weep. He does not stand detached from the human experience and separated from our dimensions of feelings. He understands and cares. How more could he express the fact that he cares than by weeping with us?

Some years ago one of the leading elders of the church I was serving in Western Pa. questioned me when I said that there was something God didn’t understand. He felt that God always knew and understood everything. But I believe that until Jesus Christ came to this earth as a man, God did not understand the human experience. He may have understood something about it, but he could not experience it for himself. Jesus came that he might experience everything about the human existence. He went through a school of suffering that he might really appreciate the full dimension of human experience.

Jesus knows all about our troubles. He has been where we are. He has experienced what we experience. He not only came to save us from our sins, he went through it all. He suffered as we suffer. He was bruised as we are bruised. He was hurt as we are hurt. He was weary as we are weary. He was forsaken as we are forsaken. He was ridiculed as we are ridiculed. He wept as we weep. Jesus wept.

There is something therapeutic about weeping with others. Have you ever walked almost literally in the feet of others that you could weep with them? When I did my pastoral training we were taught to be objective as we related to people in their distressful situations. We were not to get too emotionally involved. We must maintain some objectivity. We were not to drag our own emotional baggage into their situation. That may be true to a certain extent. But sometimes I believe you must get as close to people as you can so that you can almost feel what they are feeling. Sometimes you may weep with them.

I remember when I was doing some chaplaincy work at Fox Chase Cancer Center visiting cancer patients, I would get so emotionally involved with them that I would weep with them. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. For my part I am glad this verse is in the Bible. Jesus wept. It means when I am weeping Jesus is also weeping. He understands my situation so completely that he experiences the same things I experience. Jesus can put himself in our situation. God can put himself in our shoes. God really does understand and God weeps with us. We can’t put ourselves in another person’s situation. We may even weep with them but we can’t really experience what they are experiencing. Only God really understands what we are going through.