Jesus Wept

In John 11:1-53 … the power of the resurrection and life in the person of Jesus is presented to our faith. Man, (in this case the person of Lazarus) is looked upon as dead. This family in Bethany was blessed; it received the Lord as if He was their own. But Lazarus falls sick. All the Lord's human affections would naturally be concerned for him. Martha and Mary feel this; and they send Him word that their brother whom He loved was sick. But Jesus stays where He is and doesn't come.

He might have sent His word, as He did in the case of the centurion, and as He did with the nobleman's sick son earlier in this Gospel. But He did not. He had manifested His power and His goodness in healing man before; but this was not His object here.

It was a question of bestowing life and raising up again that which was dead before God. This was even the state Israel was in; it was also the state of man. This is the reason Jesus came … to seek and to save that which was lost; Israel and man.

Therefore He allows the condition of man under sin to go on and manifest itself in all the intensity of its effects on earth, and permits the enemy to exercise his power to the end. Nothing remained but the judgment of God; and death, in and of itself, convicted man of sin while conducting him to judgment.

The sick may be healed … but there is no remedy for death. All is over for man, as man here below. Nothing remains but the judgment of God. It is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment.

The Lord therefore does not heal in this instance. He allows the evil to go on to the end … to death. That was the true place of man; a death sentence because of sin. Lazarus had fallen asleep in death, but Jesus goes to awaken him.

In fact, whatever might be His love for the nation of Israel, like Lazarus He must allow it to die … (indeed it was dead), and wait for the time appointed by God to raise it up again. If He must die Himself to accomplish it, He commits Himself to His Father.

But let us follow out the depths of this doctrine. Death has come in; it must take effect. Man is really in death before God; but God in grace comes in.

Two things are presented here …

1.) He might have healed. The faith and hope of neither Martha nor Mary went any farther than Jesus might have. Only Martha acknowledges that, as the Messiah, Jesus could obtain from God, whatsoever He asked. But He had not prevented the death of Lazarus as He had done so many times before, even for those He did not know.

2.) Martha knew that her brother would rise again at the last day; but true as it was, this truth availed nothing. To rise again and appear before God was not an answer to this death (Lazarus) that came because of the original sin.

These two things were true. Christ had often delivered man from his sufferings in flesh, and there shall be a resurrection at the last day. But these two things were of no value in the presence of death.

Christ was there however; and He is … the resurrection and the life. Man being dead, resurrection must come first. Observe … resurrection delivers man from all that death implies, and leaves it behind … sin and death, all that belongs to the life that man has lost.

Christ brought to human life, grace and sinlessness; for when alive in this life He took sin upon Himself. Sin belongs, so to speak, to this life … in which Christ knew no sin, but was made sin for us. This man Jesus … would take man's punishment; all the power of the enemy, all its effect on mortal man, all the judgment of God; He would take it all, and would come up from death in the same resurrection power which is now imparted to us.

Like Jesus, Lazarus, even if he were dead, shall rise again; Christ will overcome death here; He is the resurrection and the life. He has brought the power of divine life into the midst of death; for in life … death is no more. Death was the end of natural life to sinful man. Resurrection is the end of death.

Martha, while loving Him and believing in Him, does not understand this; and she calls Mary, feeling that her sister would better understand the Lord. Mary, waiting for the Lord to call her to Him, had left the initiative with Him. Now believing that the Lord thru Martha had called her, goes to Him directly. Martha and Mary had seen miracles and healings that had stopped the power of death before. But here life had passed away. What could help now? If He had been there, His love and power they could have counted on.

Mary falls down at His feet weeping. On the point of resurrection power she understood no more than Martha; but her heart is melted under the sense of death in the presence of Him who had life. It is an expression of need and sorrow rather than a complaint that she utters. Jesus enters into it in sympathy. He was troubled in spirit.

He sighs before God, He weeps with man; Jesus wept. But His tears turn into a groan, which was … the weight of death … felt in sympathy and now presented to God; and in this groan of love for those who were suffering … was the fully realized truth of death … expressed unto God.

Jesus carried the weight of this death before God in His spirit in the misery of a man, the yoke from which man could not deliver himself, and He is heard. The need brings His power into action. It was not His part now to explain patiently to Martha who He was. He feels and acts upon the need to which Mary had given expression, her heart being opened by the grace that was in Him.

Man may sympathize with the grieving; it is the expression of his powerlessness. Jesus enters into the affliction of mortal man, puts Himself under the burden of death that weighs upon man; but He takes its cause away. His presence brings in the power that is able to take it away.

Corruption itself is no hindrance to God. Christ came to bring the words of eternal life to dead men. Mary fed upon those words. Martha served; she busied her heart with many things. Martha believed; she loved Jesus, she received Him into her house and the Lord loved her. Mary listened to Him; this was what He came for. The good part, the words which she had received from Him should not be taken from her.

When the Lord arrives, Martha goes of her own accord to meet Him. She withdraws when Jesus speaks to her of the present power of life. We are ill at ease when, although believers, we feel unable to apprehend the meaning of the Lord's words. Martha felt that this was rather Mary's part than hers. Martha goes away and calls her sister, saying, that the Master (He who taught … observe the name that she gives Him) was come, and called for her. Mary instantly arises and comes to Him. She understood no more than Martha. Her heart pours out its need at the feet of Jesus, where she had heard His words and learned of His love and grace.

Jesus asks the way to the grave … Lazarus is then raised.

Caiaphas, the chief of the Jews, as high priest, proposes the death of Jesus, because He had restored Lazarus to life. And from that day they conspire against Him.

What a blessed family was this at Bethany, in which the heart of Jesus had found that His love was accepted and given back in return.


John Darby … (Edited for clarity.)