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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Cline, Jonathan Hernandez, and Gary Schick.

Gary Schick
So, we have a new question today. Each week we have a new question. This one came from, all of our questions, it came from Russ. He kind of funnels them to us. But this was a question that he received in response to an article. Well here, I'll just read what he wrote and the question. So he said, "Hello guys. The individual in this question is referring to one of Amanda's blogs. I thought you might have some thoughts to share." Thanks, Russ. And so here's the question, "an article of yours explained that Jesus cried because of the," and this is in quote, so this is quoted from the article. "Jesus cried because of the pain and suffering death was causing, even though death was not the end. In that moment, Jesus wept; God does not like to see his people struggle." So that's what the blog said. Now, the individual writing in, asks this question, "Why would Jesus cry when Jesus knew death is nothing to be sorrowful or sad about? I see it as my father or mother going to the grocery store, then I cry. Why would I cry when I know my father later comes home from his outing, or my mother when she goes to the grocery store? I cry and cry? When I know she's coming home later. Hopefully you understand where I got confused." All right, Jonathan?

Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah. So I would guess the scripture reference would've been John 11:35, when it says, "Jesus," it's kind of my guess of where this all comes out of. And so, if we look around that scripture, you know, the whole context of that scripture, why did Jesus weep? Well, he was crying, or shedding tears because his good friend Lazarus has passed away. Right? And so they run to him and they say, "Well, why weren't you here? If you were here, he would still be alive." And they have some, I don't know, some Jews with them that were also crying. And so Jesus felt the emotion of the entire group, you know, think about that. Like, when we go to a funeral, or we hear the news of someone passing and we see the grief of people. I don't know about you guys, but I kind of start to tear up, you know? It's emotional even if I didn't know the person. But feeling the grief that these people are expressing, Jesus was fully God, right? And He was also fully human. So He would have these same emotions that we express, you know? If we can cry, Jesus also being fully human, would've also felt those emotions and know, "Hey, I see these people dealing with heavy grief and they're mourning the loss of someone." Jesus would feel that. And so I love that we have, you know, that Jesus can feel those same things that we do, you know? And know that when we go and we say, "Hey God, like, these are what I'm experiencing today." It's not like He goes, "Oh, well I don't understand that." You know, "I don't know what you guys are going through, I don't know those things." No, He relates to us. And so, just trying to lay some of that down. Like, he felt the same things that we feel, so He knows when we're suffering. Well, He's feeling that too. So God, you know, Jesus was feeling that deep sympathy of loss, sorrow, grief. So He felt all those things and He's seen, you know, "Hey, my good friend Lazarus is dead now." Being fully God, He knew ultimately that Lazarus was gonna be raced from the dead here in just a short time. He knew that, you know, Lazarus goes to spend eternity with Him later on. And so He wasn't weeping, or he wasn't crying because He felt, "Oh, I can't raise Lazarus from the dead." Or, "oh, Lazarus is dead forever, and I won't ever see him again." I think He was more weeping because he felt the grief and the pain of what everybody around Him was experiencing. And He was---I can't think of the---He was relating to them in that form. And so, that's kind of what I think, where I was feeling within this question when the question was like, "when the mom goes to the store, you know, the child weeps or doesn't weep because they know mom's coming back? Well, Jesus wasn't crying because He didn't know where Lazarus was going. You know, He was crying because he felt the grief and the pain and the sorrow that was around Him within everybody else. And then my wife brought up an interesting thing, too, last night when we were kind of discussing this. You know, she was like, "you know, Jesus ultimately knew that the result of sin is death." And so, He knew that, you know, He's gonna be seeing people ultimately die in their sins. And so maybe He was, you know, already seeing the future in an aspect of that, you know? There's all these people around here that are grieving for the death of Lazarus, even though internally, they're already dying because of their sin. So I thought that was kind of an interesting thing. And so we kind of went off on a thing last night going through that. So that's kind of where I guess I'm at in this.

Ben Cline
Yeah. That's great. I think that, you know, looking at this particular question, it's probably talking specifically about that instance in John chapter 11. And, you know, I was reading something and their perspective was, you know, "Jesus wasn't crying over the death of Lazarus because he knew, right? He knew that Lazarus was gonna be raised again. He knew that ultimately, Lazarus would be spending eternity with Him forever. And so, He wasn't necessarily crying or weeping because of Lazarus's death, but because of those who are around Him. Because He feels compassion for us. And, you know, I was also reading that the word that is used there when it's talking about Jesus crying, it indicates that these were tears of compassion for his friends. And so, you know, He's looking out, like you were saying Jonathan, and seeing Mary and Martha and all the Jews who are there, who are weeping over Lazarus, and you get choked up, right? You understand and you feel compassion for the people that are around you. There's another instance where the Bible and in the gospels, it talks about Jesus weeping. And that was in Luke chapter 19, where He's looking at the city of Jerusalem and understanding what their future is gonna be. And it says that as He was approaching the city, He wept over the city. And again, this is a weeping of compassion. And, you know, him feeling and understanding what the city is gonna be going through, but His weeping is more complex than just when we weep a lot of times. Because Jesus was looking at the city and He was understanding about the city that they had heard the message about him and they had rejected Him. And so, He knew what was coming for them, eternally speaking. But, you know, I was reading about this one as well, and they were also talking about how He knew within the matter of, you know, like 40 years that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed. And He was looking on the city and understanding that that was coming as well. He was weeping over the direction that the people had chosen to take; over that direction of rejecting Him as the savior. You know, so when we talk about Jesus weeping, He's weeping with compassion for His people. He's weeping with compassion and sympathy and empathy, over the things that we are feeling. I read a quote, it says, "Jesus' tears give us a glimpse of how the Father feels over the grief of His children. You know, Jesus being fully God and being fully man, He felt the things that we feel as human beings. And, you know, you ask the question, "Have you ever wept over something?" And I think that all of us could say, "Yes, we have wept over something." And, you know, maybe that's a yearly occurrence or a weekly occurrence, I don't know. But, you know, this is the same type of thing that Jesus felt, because he's fully human. But the feelings that He had were with the perspective of God, which is what makes it so complex, right? And so we can understand that, you know, when Jesus was weeping, it's cause He's feeling the same kinds of feelings that we feel, but knowing all the things that God knows. And so that's kind of where I land on that one.

Gary Schick
Excellent. And I was just kinda digging into the Greek while you were talking, you were mentioning it and, you know, Jesus wept and you know, that's essentially what the word means. I think it's always important to look at everything in context. It's the shortest verse in the Bible, just in case you wanted a little trivia there. What's the shortest verse of the Bible? It is John 11:35, "Jesus wept." And the reason I know that is, I had a roommate in college and, you know, talk about how you can misuse scripture. In a way it was kind of cool when we would sit down---I went to a Christian college. We'd sit down to have a meal, and so somebody would often pray. And so his way of praying for a meal was he would quote a scripture, which I thought, you know, that could be kind of cool. So we sat down for, I don't know, breakfast, lunch, or something. And my roommate goes, "Jesus wept. Amen." What? And I mean, consistently this was his meal type prayer. "Jesus wept. Let's dig it, guys." I think that's kind of missing the point. And I think it's kind of easy to miss the point here. One thing I think is helpful, is not just to read the words and say, "Hey, Jesus knew better. He knew we were gonna rise. He knew Lazarus was gonna rise. What's going on here?" Well, let's look at it in context. Start back at verse 32, "Now when Mary," and this is Mary who sat at Jesus' feet listening so intently, so there's a close relationship here. A close relationship of respect, of faith, of all kinds of good friendship going on. "When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet saying to him, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.' When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to him, 'Lord, come and see." Now we read these two words. "Jesus wept. So the Jews said, See how He loved him!' But some of them said, 'Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying.' Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, 'Take away the stone." Well, we could go on from there, but it's interesting to me that both the one who wrote our question and the contemporaries around Jesus who observed his weeping, this raises questions in a sense of confusion for them. Like their question is, "Well, couldn't He who had opened the eyes of the blind, done something about this? You know, isn't this an unnecessary tragedy?" And our listener is kind of asking the question, "Well, aren't these unnecessary tears, if Jesus really does know?" And I think they're both going around. The very thing that I think you both have just really addressed so well, no need to say more, and that is that Jesus, "Yes, He's fully God." Yes, He's got this death thing under control but He, over and over again in scripture, we read something about Jesus that we human beings often don't have for each other. He has compassion. When He was about to feed the 5,000 and everybody's getting hungry and they've been with him for a long time, and the disciples are very uncompassionately sending them away so they can get something to eat. "Or where are we gonna get enough money to feed these people?" What does it say? It says, Jesus was moved with compassion. And actually, if you're reading the Old King James version, it talks about bowels of mercy or something. It's kind of a odd, but literally the Greek word (says Greek word) talks about a feeling down in the gut. Yes, He's God, but that doesn't make Him less in touch with our so-called feeble feelings as poor mortals. Actually, because He's God, because He made us, because He loves us; truly loves us, fully loves us. He actually enters deeper into emotion than we do. And just because there was a resurrection about to be, doesn't mean that Jesus was unable to enter into the real, felt, visceral, deep sorrow and loss that was absolutely real to everybody around Him. And it's His loss too. This is why He came. He came to overcome death, but He also recognizes---and I think you guys are pointing in this direction a little bit. He knows what overcoming death is gonna cost Him. He knows what He's about to go through. And the cross is all---all kinds of feeling is coming out of Jesus. All kinds of emotion coming out of Jesus, yet without sin. Which is the amazing thing, because you and I would've salted in our emotions with a few more things to say, wouldn't we? You know, we would've cursed the crowd in no uncertain terms. Not Jesus, not Jesus. He fully, more fully than we ever can recognize, the depth, the permanence, the gulf of death. And yet He does go on and bridge it. And we see, not only that He wept, but before He wept and after He wept, we see Him deeply moved by emotion. This is what sin has brought, it has brought this horrific gulf, this horrific separation. That ultimately would not even be just the separation, as if that wasn't bad enough between people who love each other, but a complete disconnect with the God who made us. Until He bridged the gap, so that we could enter into life, so that we could have a permanent resurrection down the road. And let's not forget that too. Lazarus' resurrection was merely, although miraculously, a restoration into this life, but a life continuing of decay and sorrow and feebleness down the road. We know that Lazarus, I mean, we don't know how long he lived. We're thinking he probably got to live to a good old age, but he died again. Only the resurrection of Jesus brings us to a new kind of resurrection. What Hebrews 11 calls a stronger resurrection. And indeed it is when truly, tears get wiped away, because death at that point will no longer have hold on us. But, you know, praise God! You know, the god of the ancient Greeks, Stoics perhaps has the god of no feeling, because there's no point in feelings. But the God of the Bible is a God---I mean, from the pages of the Old Testament on, He has His plan. He's working it out, but He feels when His people go astray. He feels what a cheated-on husband feels. We read about that in Hosea. He feels it, you know? I'll just say one more little thing. So years ago, I learned to play the harmonica, and I learned from a guy who, and this is something I grieve about, he doesn't know the Lord. But I got to actually experience some one on one lessons with him. And as he was teaching me to feel kind of a bluesy version of Amazing Grace, he said, "Feel it, Gary. Feel it." And if you know anything about the harmonica, it's an emotional instrument. It's all about music, it's all about emotion. And so, yeah, you can just play the notes very monotone or you can play it mm-hmm. And the kind of music, the kind of harmonica sound that gets ahold of people is when you're feeling it. And so I've taken that, not only into music, but recently I was actually at a family funeral. My aunt's lived to a good old age, she's been gone for several months. It could have been a completely emotionless time for me and everybody. But as I reflected on her life, as I reflected on the people in front of me, as I reflected on the need of some in the crowd for a salvation that they have not grasped yet, there was nothing fake about some tears that came to my eyes. You know, and that's just something that I've learned is, you can go through life kind of distancing yourself and disconnected from, or you can do what Jesus did when He came among us. You can feel it, you can connect, you can be there more than physically, but emotionally present. And that is where our God wonderfully meets us. Jonathan, you know what I was just thinking about too, just like the sorrow was real. The joy of the victory is real too. And it's, can you imagine the emotion when we all get to heaven? Wow! Victory day! And the resurrection is permanent. Those tears are washed away.