Jesus Wept

One of the most amazing things about reading Scripture is that I am always learning more about who God is. It sometimes takes work to see past the flannelgraph picture of Jesus we have from Sunday School, to see who He really is. This past week I read the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead as Mary and Martha looked on. I was prompted to read the story and think a bit about what took place as I was reading Angie Smith's book "I Will Carry You", and her insights struck me. Two little words stuck out in the passage..."Jesus wept". I had seen this verse so many times before, and I even remember joking about it when I was a kid since it was the shortest verse in the English Bible, and therefor the easiest to memorize when we would memorize Scripture. This time though, I saw something more. I read the passage and all I could think about was why He was weeping. In all the times I had read this verse, I had never thought about why He was weeping. At first glance it may seem that He is weeping because Lazarus has died, but when looking at it again, I don't think that is the whole reason. Jesus knew what was about to happen. Lazurus was dead, but Jesus knew that He would not be dead for long, He knew He was going to raise Him from the dead. Yet, He wept? He began weeping as He saw Mary weeping, and I realized why He wept. He did not weep because Lazarus was dead...He wept because His child was hurting. He wept because everything was going to be ok, but Mary and Martha did not know that. He weeps because He loves us, and He feels our pain. He weeps because He knows that someday everything will be ok, but in our humanness we so often forget that. Heaven has never seemed more real than it has in the past few days. Revelation 21:4 has been on my mind "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." In church on Sunday we sang the song "Glorious Day" in church, I have always loved the old hymn "One Day", and this version was such a great reminder. Jeremy and I sung it with tears rolling down our cheeks, because the promise is so much more beautiful today than ever before. Today we weep, but it won't be forever.

Living, He loved me Dying, He saved me Buried, He carried my sins far away Rising, He justified freely forever One day He's coming Oh glorious day, oh glorious day