Jesus wept (John 11:35)

c. 356–360 · Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity (De Trinitate) 10.63

Stand aside then, all godless unbelievers, for whom the divine mystery is too great, who do not know that Christ wept not for Himself but for us, to prove the reality of His assumed manhood by yielding to the emotion common to humanity: who do not perceive that Christ died not for Himself, but for our life, to renew human life by the death of the deathless God: who cannot reconcile the complaint of the deserted with the confidence of the Ruler: who would teach us that because He reigns as God and complains that He is dying, we have here a dead man and the reigning God.

c. 378 · Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus (De excessu fratris) 1.10

I confess, then, that I too wept, but the Lord also wept. He wept for one not related to Him, I for my brother. He wept for all in weeping for one, I will weep for thee in all, my brother. He wept for what affected us, not Himself; for the Godhead sheds no tears; but He wept in that nature in which He was sad; He wept in that in which He was crucified, in that in which He died, in that in which He was buried. He wept in that which the prophet this day brought to our minds: “Mother Sion shall say, A man, yea, a man was made in her, and the Most High Himself established her.” He wept in that nature in which He called Sion Mother, born in Judæa, conceived by the Virgin. But according to His Divine Nature He could not have a mother, for He is the Creator of His mother.

378 · Ambrose of Milan, Exposition of the Christian Faith (De fide) 2.7.54

Not Thy wounds, but mine, hurt Thee, Lord Jesus; not Thy death, but our weakness, even as the Prophet saith: “For He is afflicted for our sakes”—and we, Lord, esteemed Thee afflicted, when Thou grievedst not for Thyself, but for me. And what wonder if He grieved for all, Who wept for one? What wonder if, in the hour of death, He is heavy for all, Who wept when at the point to raise Lazarus from the dead? Then, indeed, He was moved by a loving sister’s tears, for they touched His human heart,—here by secret grief He brought it to pass that, even as His death made an end of death, and His stripes healed our scars, so also His sorrow took away our sorrow.

c. 406–421 · Augustine of Hippo, Tractates on the Gospel of John (In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus CXXIV) 49.18

Something there is, did we but know it, that He has suggested to us by groaning in the spirit, and troubling Himself. For who could trouble Him, save He Himself? Therefore, my brethren, first give heed here to the power that did so, and then look for the meaning. Thou art troubled against thy will; Christ was troubled because He willed. Jesus hungered, it is true, but because He willed; Jesus slept, it is true, but because He willed; He was sorrowful, it is true, but because He willed; He died, it is true, but because He willed: in His own power it lay to be thus and thus affected or not. For the Word assumed soul and flesh, fitting on Himself our whole human nature in the oneness of His person.

1710–1714 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on John 11.33-44

Having now to make a vigorous attack upon death and the grave, he thus stirred up himself to the encounter, put on the garments of vengeance, and his fury it upheld him; and that he might the more resolutely undertake the redress of our grievances, and the cure of our griefs, he was pleased to make himself sensible of the weight of them, and under the burden of them he now groaned in spirit. Or, Thirdly, It was an expression of his kind sympathy with his friends that were in sorrow. Here was the sounding of the bowels, the mercies which the afflicted church so earnestly solicits, Isa. lxiii. 15. Christ not only seemed concerned, but he groaned in the spirit; he was inwardly and sincerely affected with the case. David's pretended friends counterfeited sympathy, to disguise their enmity (Ps. xli. 6); but we must learn of Christ to have our love and sympathy without dissimulation. Christ's was a deep and hearty sigh.

1754 · John Wesley, Explanatory Notes on John 11.35

Jesus wept - Out of sympathy with those who were in tears all around him, as well as from a deep sense of the misery sin had brought upon human nature.

1856–1869 · J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John 11.30-37

[Therefore, when Jesus saw her, etc.] This is one of those verses which bring out very strongly the real humanity of our Lord and His power to sympathize with His people. As a real man, He was specially moved when He saw Mary and the Jews weeping. As God, He had no need to hear their plaintive language and to see their tears in order to learn that they were afflicted.

1871 · David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on John 11.35

Jesus wept—This beautifully conveys the sublime brevity of the two original words; else "shed tears" might have better conveyed the difference between the word here used and that twice employed in Joh 11:33, and there properly rendered "weeping," denoting the loud wail for the dead, while that of Jesus consisted of silent tears. Is it for nothing that the Evangelist, some sixty years after it occurred, holds up to all ages with such touching brevity the sublime spectacle of the Son of God in tears? What a seal of His perfect oneness with us in the most redeeming feature of our stricken humanity! But was there nothing in those tears beyond sorrow for human suffering and death? Could these effects move Him without suggesting the cause? Who can doubt that in His ear every feature of the scene proclaimed that stern law of the Kingdom, "The wages of sin is death" (Ro 6:23), and that this element in His visible emotion underlay all the rest?

1871 · David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on John 11.33-38

When Jesus … saw her weeping, and the Jews … weeping … he groaned in the spirit—the tears of Mary and her friends acting sympathetically upon Jesus, and drawing forth His emotions. What a vivid and beautiful outcoming of His "real" humanity! The word here rendered "groaned" does not mean "sighed" or "grieved," but rather "powerfully checked his emotion"—made a visible effort to restrain those tears which were ready to gush from His eyes. and was troubled—rather, "troubled himself" (Margin); referring probably to this visible difficulty of repressing His emotions.

1883 · Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah 4.21

The expression, ‘groaned in spirit,’ cannot mean that Christ ‘was moved with indignation in the spirit,’ since this could not have been the consequence of witnessing the tears of Mary and what, we feel sure, was the genuine emotion of the Jews. Of the various interpretations, that commends itself most to us, which would render the expression: ‘He vehemently moved His Spirit and troubled Himself.’ One, whose insight into such questions is peculiarly deep, has reminded us that ‘the miracles of the Lord were not wrought by the simple word of power, but that in a mysterious way the element of sympathy entered into them. He took away the sufferings and diseases of men in some sense by taking them upon Himself.’ If, with this most just view of His Condescension to, and union with, humanity as its Healer, by taking upon Himself its diseases, we combine the statement formerly made about the Resurrection, as not a gift or boon but the outcome of Himself - we may, in some way, not understand, but be able to gaze into, the unfathomed depth of that Theanthropic fellow-suffering which was both vicarious and redemptive, and which, before He became the Resurrection to Lazarus, shook His whole inner Being, when, in the words of St. John, ‘He vehemently moved His Spirit and troubled Himself.’

1889 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 35 (1889) 2091

The instance in our text was the weeping of a Friend over the grave of a friend. A little further on, after a day of triumph, our Lord beheld the city and wept over it—that was the weeping of a Prophet concerning judgments which He foresaw. It is not recorded by any Evangelist, but Paul tells us, in the Epistle to Hebrews, that with strong crying and tears, He made appeal to Him that was able to save Him from death and was heard in that He feared. This third record sets forth the weeping of our Substitute, a sacrificial weeping, a pouring out of Himself as an oblation before God. Treasure up in your mind these three memories, the weeping of the Friend in sympathy with bereavement, the weeping of the Judge lamenting the sentence which He must deliver and the weeping of the Surety as He smarts for us, bearing griefs which were not His own, for sins in which He had no share. Thus thrice was it true that "Jesus wept." II. Now, let us change the line of our thought a little, while we say, "Jesus wept," that is, HE WAS NOT ASHAMED OF HIS HUMAN WEAKNESS. He could have repressed His tears—many men do so habitually. I do not doubt that there may be great sorrow, very great sorrow, where there is no open expression of it.

1889 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 35 (1889) 2091

The waters of His soul were clear as crystal, and therefore when troubled, they were not muddied. Yet they were all stirred. It could be seen that His holy Nature was in a ferment and an inarticulate expression of distress fell from Him. Between indignation at the powers of evil, grief for the family who had been bereaved by death, sorrow over those who stood by in unbelief and a distressing realization of the effects of sin, the Lord's heart was evidently in a great storm. Instead of the thunder of threat and the lightning of a curse, all that was perceptible of the inward tempest was a shower of tears. For "Jesus wept."

1889 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Third Series 9

The Jews said, ‘Behold how he loved him!’ but can any Christian believe it was from love to Lazarus that Jesus wept? It was from love to God, and to Martha and Mary. He had not lost Lazarus; but Martha and Mary were astray from their father in heaven.

1889 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Third Series 9

How was he to comfort them? They would not be comforted! What a world was it that would go on thus—that would not free itself from the clutch of death, even after death was dead, but would weep and weep for thousands of years to come, clasped to the bosom of dead Death! Was existence, the glorious out-gift of his father, to be the most terrible of miseries, because some must go home before others? It was all so sad!—and all because they would not know his father! Then came the reaction from his indignation, and the labouring heart of the Lord found relief in tears.

1891 · Marcus Dods, The Expositor's Bible: The Gospel of St. John, vol. 1 Chapter XXIII. Jesus the Resurrection and Life

First, we read that when Jesus saw Mary weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in spirit and was troubled, and then wept. But why did He show such emotion? The Jews who saw Him weep supposed that His tears were prompted, as their own were, by sorrow for their loss and sympathy with the sisters. To see a woman like Mary casting herself at His feet, breaking into a passion of tears, and crying with intense regret, if not with a tinge of reproach, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died,” was enough to bring tears to the eyes of harder natures than our Lord’s. But the care with which John describes the disturbance of His spirit, the emphasis he lays upon His groaning, the notice he takes of the account the Jews give of His tears,—all seem to indicate that something more than ordinary grief or sympathy was the fountain of these tears, the cause of the distress which could vent itself only in audible groans. He was in sympathy with the mourners and felt for them, but there was that in the whole scene with which He had no sympathy; there was none of that feeling He required His disciples to show at His own death, no rejoicing that one more had gone to the Father. There was a forgetfulness of the most essential facts of death, an unbelief which seemed entirely to separate this crowd of wailing people from the light and life of God’s presence. “It was the darkness between God and His creatures that gave room for, and was filled with, their weeping and wailing over their dead.” It was the deeper anguish into which mourners are plunged by looking upon death as extinction, and by supposing that death separates from God and from life, instead of giving closer access to God and more abundant life,—it was this which caused Jesus to groan. He could not bear this evidence that even the best of God’s children do not believe in God as greater than death, and in death as ruled by God.

1905–1910 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: John (chapters 1 to 14) 11.30-45

We note that Mary has no such hope as Martha had expressed. Her more passive, meditative disposition had bowed itself, and let the grief overwhelm her. So in her we see a specimen of the excess of sorrow which indulges in the monotonous repetition of what would have happened if something else that did not happen had happened, and which is too deeply dark to let a gleam of hope shine in. Words will do little to comfort such grief. Silent sharing of its weeping and helpful deeds will do most. So a great wave of emotion swept across the usually calm soul of Jesus, which John bids us trace to its cause by ‘therefore’ (ver. 33). The sight of Mary’s real, and the mourners’ half-real, tears, and the sound of their loud ‘keening,’ shook His spirit, and He yielded to, and even encouraged, the rush of feeling (‘troubled Himself’) .

1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: John 11.35

Piety binds stronger the ties of friendship, makes more tender the emotions of love, and seals and sanctifies the affections of friends. 2. It is right, it is natural, it is indispensable for the Christian to sympathize with others in their afflictions. Rom 12:15; "rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." 3. Sorrow at the death of friends is not improper. It is right to weep. It is the expression of nature and religion does not forbid or condemn it. All that religion does in the case is to temper and chasten our grief; to teach us to mourn with submission to God; to weep without complaining, and to seek to banish tears, not by hardening the heart or forgetting the friend, but by bringing the soul, made tender by grief, to receive the sweet influences of religion, and to find calmness and peace in the God of all consolation.

1856–1869 · J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John 11.30-37

The reasons assigned by commentators why our Lord wept here, before He raised Lazarus, are various and curious. (a) Some think that He wept to see the ravages made by death and sin. (b) Some, as Hilary, think that He wept to think of the unbelief of the Jews. (c) Some think that He wept to see how weak and feeble was the faith of Mary and Martha. (d) Some, as Jerome and Ferus, think that He wept at the thought of the sorrow Lazarus would go through by returning to a sinful world. (e) Some think that He wept out of sympathy with the affliction of His friends at Bethany, in order to give an eternal proof to His church that He can feel with us and for us. I believe this last opinion is the true one. We learn the great practical lesson from this verse that there is nothing unworthy of a Christian in tears. There is nothing unmanly, dishonorable, unwise, or feeble in being full of sympathy with the afflicted, and ready to weep with them that weep.

1856–1869 · J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John 11.30-37

Sympathy is not sinful but Christ-like. Theophylact observes that Christ “teaches us by His own example the due measure of joy and grief. The absence altogether of sympathy and sorrow is brutal; the excess of them is womanly.”

1868 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 14 (1868) 837

Jesus wept, and therefore we may weep. Sorrow is licensed by the Redeemer's example. Our Lord was no stoic, and He would not have His people restrain natural emotions. We are bound to sorrow when we are afflicted and chastened of the Lord. But though Jesus wept, He did not murmur. Though He sorrowed, yet He did not repine. There is a boundary beyond which our mourning must not pass.

1889 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 35 (1889) 2091

"Jesus wept," but He did not sin. There was not even a particle of evil in any one of the Redeemer's tears. Salt there may have been but not fault. Beloved, we can weep without sin. I do not suppose we have ever done so, but it is possible. It is not a sin to weep for those whom God has taken away from us, nor for those who are suffering. I will tell you why there was no sin in Christ's weeping—it was because He wept in His Father's presence. When He spoke in His sorrow, the first word was, "Father"—He said, "Father, I thank You." If you can weep in such a way that all the while you feel God to be your Father and can thank Him and know that you are in His Presence, your weeping is not blameworthy but healthful.

1889 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 35 (1889) 2091

Here was opportunity for scorn at His manifest weakness and even for blasphemy at the evident token of it. But our Lord did not act upon policy. He allowed His true feelings to be seen. He did not, like the stoic, claim respect for His manhood by holding Himself within Himself and refusing to let men see that He was of like feelings with them. No, "Jesus wept." Tears may not be thought manly but they are natural to man and Jesus will not be unnatural. The enemies may say what they please, and even blaspheme both Him and His God. But He will not act a part in the hope of silencing them. He acts the truth, only, and weeps as His kind heart suggests. He thinks more of Mary and of Martha and the comfort His sympathy may yield them, than of the sneering language of unbelievers, which may forge an excuse for itself out of the loving weakness of His humanity. "Jesus wept," and thereby He revealed His love to Lazarus, so that others saw it and cried, "Behold how He loved him!" This is one proof that our Lord does not hesitate to declare His love to His people.

1741 · Jonathan Edwards, The Sorrows of the Bereaved Spread before Jesus 1

John xi. 33. And when he came to the grave, it is observed, and a special note seems to be set upon it, that he wept, verse 35. He was one that wept with those that wept: and indeed it was mere pity that brought him into the world, and induced him not only to shed tears but to shed his blood: he poured out his blood as water on the earth, out of compassion to the poor, miserable children of men. And when do we ever read of any one person coming to him when on earth, with a heavy heart, or under any kind of sorrow or distress for pity or help, but what met with a kind and compassionate reception? And he has the same compassion now he is ascended into glory: there is still the same encouragement for bereaved ones to go and spread their sorrows before him.

1746 · Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections 1

We often read of the affection of pity or compassion in Christ, Matt. 15:32, and 18:34. Luke 7:13, and of his "being moved with compassion," Matt. 9:36, and 14:14, and Mark 6:34. And how tender did his heart appear to be, on occasion of Mary's and Martha's mourning for their brother, and coming to him with their complaints and tears! Their tears soon drew tears from his eyes he was affected with their grief, and wept with them; though he knew their sorrow should so soon be turned into joy, by their brother's being raised from the dead; see John 11.

1856–1869 · J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John 11.30-37

We learn, for another thing, what a depth of tender sympathy there is in Christ's heart towards His people. We read that when our Lord saw Mary weeping, and the Jews also weeping with her, "He groaned in the spirit and was troubled." We read even more than this. He gave outward expression to His feelings--He "wept." He knew perfectly well that the sorrow of the family of Bethany would soon be turned into joy, and that Lazarus in a few minutes would be restored to his sisters. But though he knew all this, he "wept."

1856–1869 · J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John 11.30-37

We may draw great comfort from the thought that the Savior in whom we are bid to trust is one who can weep, and is as able to feel as He is able to save. We may learn the reality of our Lord’s humanity very strongly from this little verse. He was one who could hunger, thirst, sleep, eat, drink, speak, walk, groan, be wearied, wonder, feel indignant, rejoice—like any of ourselves, and yet without sin; and above all, He could weep. I read that there is “joy in the presence of the angels of God” (Luke 15), but I never read of angels weeping. Tears are peculiar to flesh and blood.

1863 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 9 (1863) 487

"Jesus wept," because His friend Lazarus slept in the tomb. In that great loss He was schooled to sympathize with the widow in her needs, with the orphan in his fatherless estate and with the friend whose acquaintance has been thrust into darkness. Nothing can come from God to the sons of men the like of which did not also happen unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Herein let us wrap ourselves about with the warm mantle of consolation, since Christ was tempted in this point like as we are.

1864 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 10 (1864) 563

How glad we should be to think that Christ himself once suffered bereavements as we have done. Tacitus tells us that an amber ring was thought to be of no value among the Romans till the emperor took to wearing one, and then straightway an amber ring was held in high esteem. Bereavements might be looked upon as very sad things; but when we recollect that Jesus wept over his friend Lazarus, henceforth they are choice jewels, and special favors from God. Christ wore this ring: then I must not blush to wear it.

1864 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 10 (1864) 585

Jesus wept—wept with them that wept. Ah! you shall have Jesus sitting by the bedside, and weeping with you when you are sick. You may be well, and strong, and have but little fellowship with Christ, but He shall make all your bed in your sickness. Though you might walk along the green sward without the Saviour, when you come into the midst of the fire, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, you shall not be without Him then. I witness that there is no fellowship with Christ so near and sweet, as that which comes to us when we are in deep trials. Then the Master unbosoms Himself, and takes His child, not upon His knee, but to His very heart, and bids him lay his head upon His beating bosom.

1889 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 35 (1889) 2091

Alas, my Brethren, every friendship opens a fresh door for grief. For friends are no more immortal than ourselves. "Jesus wept" at the grave of His friend just as you and I have done and must do again. Behold your Lord, like David, weeping for His Jonathan, and see how human He is in His friendships. "Jesus wept," for He was truly human in His sympathies. He did not merely walk about among us and look like a man but at a thousand points He came into contact with us. Jesus was always in touch with sorrow. Happy are they that are in touch with Him! Our Lord saw Mary and Martha weeping and the Jews that were with her weeping and He caught the contagion of their grief—"Jesus wept." His sympathies were with sorrowing ones and for this reason, among others, He was Himself, "a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief."

1889 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 35 (1889) 2091

Mourner, you are one of "The Worshipful Company of Weepers," of whom Jesus is the Worthy Master. He is at the head of the Clan of Mourners—you may well wear the plaid with the black and red crosses upon it, for your Chieftain wore the same. See now the real sympathy of Christ with His people, for herein is comfort. His sympathy lies not alone in words, not even wholly in deeds—it is more tender than these can be. Only His heart could express His tender sympathy and then it was by tears—tears which were brought up like gold from the heart, minted in the eyes and then put in circulation as current coin of the merchant, each one bearing the King's image and superscription.

1910 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 56 (1910) 3228

John 11:36. IT was at the grave of Lazarus that Jesus wept and His grief was so manifest to the onlookers that they said, "Behold how He loved him!" Most of us here, I trust, are not mere onlookers, but we have a share in the special love of Jesus. We see evidences of that love, not in His tears, but in the precious blood that He so freely shed for us—and so we ought to see further into His heart than they did—and to know more of Him than they could in the brief interval in which they had become acquainted with Him. When we think of His love to us, we may well cry, "Behold how He has loved us!" These Jews expressed their wonder at the love that Jesus had for His friend, Lazarus. They did not keep that wonder to themselves, but they said, "Behold how He loved him!"

1913 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 59 (1913) 3370

A little girl said to her mother, "Mother, poor Widow Brown has asked me to come in every day and see her. She says that I comfort her so! Mother, I don't know anything that I do to comfort her. I would wipe all her tears away if I could, but when she sits and cries, I go and put my cheek against hers and I cry, too. And she kisses me and says that I comfort her." Just so. One poor human being can cheer another by fellow feeling, but how much more can Jesus do it! Oh, to feel your Master's tears drop on your cheek! When you are weeping, then you read that "Jesus wept."—

1930–1933 · A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament: John 11.35

In a sense it was a reaction from the severe strain in verse 33, but chiefly it was the sheer human sympathy of his heart with Martha and Mary touched with the feeling of our common weakness (Heb 4:15 ). Often all that we can do is to shed tears in grief too deep for words. Jesus understood and understands.