Jesus wept

Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb  (out of order John 11:35, 33, 38). Lazarus, whom Jesus loved, had died. He knew he was going to die,  and delayed going to him, not getting there until four days after his death (verses 3, 6, 14, 17).  Jesus also knew that He was going to raise him from the dead “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God” (verse 4).  It was also the occasion of one of the “I AM” sayings (see May 16 post), He says “I am the resurrection and the life” (verse 25). The majority of various translations of “groaned” (repeated to get our attention) have words like deeply moved, greatly troubled, greatly distressed. Holmans is more true to the Greek, and has “He was angry in His spirit.”  According to the lexicon the meanings include,  snorted with anger, was moved with indignation, was furious, was angry in His spirit.

All this, just in case you felt that Jesus, being God, did not have the full range of human emotions. Hebrews tells us “We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with  the feeling of our infirmities” (4:15 KJV). Part of what I am hearing,  is that anger is a normal human reaction to death.  Of course what we do with our anger is important. Scripture tells us “Be angry, and do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Both verbs are in the imperative, i.e. they are commands, but of course the two commands need to be held together.  Many Christians seem to think that all anger is wrong,  and accordingly they try suppress it (good luck with that). I am not saying we should give free reign to our anger.  The last part of Ephesians 4:25 says “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.”  Likewise the above Hebrews reference ads “but He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

Two things, it may not seem logical that Jesus would be angry and weep  when He knew perfectly well that He was going to raise Lazarus. But emotions are not logical are they? I keep saying this, we cannot control our emotions, but we can control our thoughts (2 Corinthians 10:5). The will, not our emotions,  is what is  intended to be the train that drives our actions. And when it is,  like the caboose on the train, the emotions will eventually follow.  Secondly we can use our emotions, in particular our anger,  in a positive way. Anger may give us the courage to do what needs to be done, the courage to do things we might not normally do. We can also like Jesus did, allow them empower faith to rise,  and to take up the authority we have been given (Luke 10:19) and war against the enemy, in this case death itself.

Father, it is interesting to me that You brought this to my attention this morning the day after we had been looking at “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.”  This is one more thing we need to hold together in tension. Thank You for emotions Lord, we cannot be fully alive without them. But help us Lord to direct them to Your Kingdom purposes, and we will give You the Glory in Jesus Name Amen