Jesus wept...

Under my quotes section of this page, I have a quote by Victor Hugo: “Jesus wept. Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.” It’s there because I thought it was beautiful. I didn’t think overly much about what it meant until I started writing this post. And then I realized that maybe I didn’t necessarily understand the context and I was a bit thrown off when I read an article about Voltaire that said, “He has generally been regarded… as a believer in a rational, non-Christian god.” (www.positiveatheism.org/hist/voltairen.htm ) There seems to be a question as to whether Voltaire was an atheist but the article also quoted an Alfred W. Bern as saying, “If [Voltaire] did not succeed in destroying Christianity, he did more towards turning it into a religion of humanity than any other man has ever done or can ever hope to do.”

Now I am not the smartest person, but I’m actually not sure that Christianity being “a religion of humanity” is all that bad; but, again, it probably depends on context. However I am not going to really go into that here. This intro was really to give a background as to why I’m not blogging about the original quote. Instead I decided to focus in on the first part of the quote: “Jesus wept.”

I want to start by giving the following disclaimer: a. I am not a Bible scholar, a theologian, or a minister; I’m just me, trying to make it all make sense, and b. I’m basing a lot of this on a Wikipedia article I found after I did a Google search on the term “Jesus wept” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_wept )

“Jesus wept” is apparently the shortest verse in the Bible. It IS John 11:35. That exact phrase is not found in all versions of the Bible. My God’s Word, New International Version has the verse as that, but my New American Bible, Catholic Edition has it as “Jesus began to weep.” The differences come down to (really) phraseology; the meaning, of course, is the same.

As I mentioned before, context CAN be very important. I’m not sure that’s true in this post, but if you don’t know and want to know the context, do a Wiki search on “Jesus wept”. Better yet, just go read the Gospel of John, chapter 11.

When I look at the phrase “Jesus wept”, I feel emotions attached to it. It, first, makes me a little sad. I’m an emotional person, so I cry over a lot of things, but it breaks my heart when others cry, out of sadness or helplessness (of course, tears can be happy too). But it also helps me feel a little closer to Jesus… more connected so to speak, because, hey, Jesus cried too. We DO have something in common…

The Wiki article goes on to list several interpretations of the quote. The first one it lists is probably the one I like the best. It shows Jesus as an actual human being with the emotions that go with that. Don’t we all struggle from time to time with a disconnect between ourselves and Jesus? Well, at least I do. I think of God/ Jesus as one and, very often, as intangible. I get caught in the trap of thinking of Jesus in terms of Him only being a spiritual being and then I question what I could possible have in common with Him. But, the fact is that Jesus was a fully human man. Of course He was MORE than that, but I think it’s important to remember that He WAS also human.

The article lists some other interpretations that I want to touch on. The thing is (and see my disclaimer) I’m not completely sure that the different interpretations are mutually exclusive. I’m sure there are many people, probably significantly smarter than me, who would disagree… people who would choose an interpretation, make it their own, swear by it, and then say it excludes all the others. All I’m saying is maybe we should open our minds and give other possibilities a chance. People are certainly capable of feeling many emotions, at one time, over a specific event. Why then should we assume that Jesus, in His human form, should be any different?

The article puts forward a second interpretation that Jesus weeping because Lazarus was dead is “unreasonable” due to the fact that He already knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. This interpretation suggests that based on that premise, Jesus was actually weeping for all those present, even those who knew and followed Him, because they didn’t TRULY understand the concept that He was “the resurrection and the life” as he had told them (John 11:26). I can see that perspective too. Jesus knows He must and will raise Lazarus from the dead. He knows He must because He knows people don’t really comprehend who or what He REALLY is. How frustrating and sad that must have been for Him. I know I’ve been frustrated, to the point of tears. Haven’t we all? When someone doesn’t understand us, especially when it’s really important; when someone doesn’t really see/ understand who we are. Now, take that to the next level and try to imagine the frustration and sadness Jesus must have felt, facing all those people, in front of Lazarus’ tomb.

The final interpretation says that “the sadness shown by Jesus may not be for the death of Lazarus, but rather his resurrection.” Jesus knew that by raising Lazarus from the dead, he would be “taken from the promise of paradise and returned to an imperfect world.” I can certainly, on some level, see why that would make Jesus cry. Think about it… how would we handle it, being all knowing, knowing that Lazarus was this “” close to paradise but that we HAD to bring him back to a world which doesn’t and can’t compare to paradise. Could any of us even do it? I’m not sure I could. Jesus’ course was set… He HAD to bring Lazarus back. While I tended to think Jesus did a good think by bringing Lazarus back from the dead, I have to admit I had never really considered what He was taking away from Lazarus. For me, this interpretation was an eye opener; it made me consider this story from a whole new perspective. Should we try to put ourselves in Jesus’ place? I don’t know… something about that seems wrong. On one hand we can’t, not really, ever understand or imagine what it must have been like. On the other hand, how can we not TRY to imagine it, if for no other reason than to better ourselves and try to be closer to God?

I’m sure there are many other interpretations of this verse. I chose these three because they spoke to me. Each of these descriptions highlights Jesus in a different way:

Interpretation 1 shows Jesus as human
Interpretation 2 shows Jesus as human and divine
Interpretation 3 shows Jesus as divine

I feel that all three of these bleed over into each other, because the fact is Jesus wasn’t JUST human or JUST divine. Jesus WAS a human man, flesh and blood, who WAS the Son of God, born to save us all. Consider that, as I do, and then ask yourself, as I have, if these interpretations have to be mutually exclusive of each other.

As a human, Jesus wept for a departed friend; as a human who was the Son of God, he wept out of frustration and sadness because His own people didn’t truly understand Him and so, He had to show them; as the Son of God, he wept because He knew that raising Lazarus from the dead would take him away from paradise. Does one have to be truer than the others? See, I don’t think so. I think all of them can be true simply because Jesus was who He was.

The Wikipedia article references a quote from Pope Leo I. Pope Leo I talks about the verse in terms of showing the two sides of Jesus, human and divine: “In humanity Jesus wept for Lazarus; in His divinity He raised him from the dead.” Now see, that really is beautiful!!

All of the interpretations I mentioned here spoke to me. I still may feel that the first means the most to me because, well, it helps me feel a little closer to Jesus. But I am not about to assume the He didn’t actually feel all of these and maybe (probably) even more… emotions we haven’t thought of and probably can’t conceive of.

As the Son of God Jesus carried an unimaginable load on His shoulders, so who can blame Him, if, as a human man, “Jesus wept”…