For years, men have debated this verse and exactly why “Jesus wept.” Perhaps you have a theory of your own. Some say it was because His friend Lazarus had died. Others will tell you that it was because His friend, a righteous man, had gone on to glory and Christ wept because He was now going to bring him back from that glorious reward. Still others would say that He wept simply because He was caught up in the emotion of the moment and wept as everyone else was.
All of these, I believe, miss the clearest and simplest point of the concise and pithy statement, “Jesus wept.” Jesus wept because “Jesus cared.” He cared about His friend. He cared about his soul. He cared about Mary and Martha. He cared about the lesson He was teaching them.
This is abundantly illustrated for us time and again in His ministry. When He healed the leper—He cared. When He spoke to the woman at the well, a societal pariah, offering guidance and rebuke cloaked in the words that were soft as a dear friend’s—He cared. When He withstood the stiff-necked Pharisees and called them hypocrites—He cared.
As His followers, we must display the same type of care and empathy. We must be sympathetic and have the ability to put ourselves in another’s shoes, rather than simply try to impose our will, experience and personally create expectations and traditions on them. If we can do that, if we embraced every person where they are and help them see their way clear of trials, circumstances and difficulties, then we may have the mind of Christ, which always saw others before self and treated each person as if he or she were the only person in the world at that moment. If we can listen and not talk, if we can understand and not condemn, if we can see a man in pain and care enough to reach out to them, we will weep as Jesus wept.
In this day, care enough to consider others before self, serve and make a difference in your life and theirs.
