The Angry Tears of the King Text: John 11:28-37
Introduction: Sentimentalism vs. Sovereignty
We live in an age that has domesticated the Lion of Judah and turned Him into a housecat. Our modern conception of Jesus is often that of a gentle, therapeutic friend, a celestial grief counselor whose primary role is to affirm our feelings. And when we come to a passage like this one, where we find the shortest verse in the Bible, "Jesus wept," our sentimentalism kicks into high gear. We picture a soft, sorrowful Jesus, overwhelmed by sadness, weeping out of simple sympathy. And while there is sympathy here, to leave it at that is to miss the thunder and the lightning that are flashing in this text. It is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of our King and the nature of the battle He came to fight.
This scene at the tomb of Lazarus is not primarily a quiet moment of shared sorrow. It is a battlefield. It is a declaration of war. Jesus has deliberately delayed His coming. He has allowed His friend to die. He has allowed this family He loves to be plunged into the depths of grief, all for a purpose that transcends their immediate comfort. He has come to Bethany not simply to console, but to conquer. He has come to confront His great and final enemy, the last enemy to be destroyed, which is death (1 Cor. 15:26).
The world misunderstands the tears of Jesus because it misunderstands the wrath of God. It thinks of anger as a petty human tantrum, and so it cannot comprehend a righteous, holy, world-shaping rage. But that is precisely what we are about to witness. The tears of Jesus are not the tears of a helpless victim. They are the tears of an enraged king who sees a vile enemy, death, squatting on His property and tormenting His people. These are the tears that precede a fight. This is the calm before the storm. If we are to understand this passage, we must set aside our greeting card Jesuses and prepare to meet the one who is terrible in His compassion and furious in His love.
The Text
And when she had said this, she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." And when she heard it, she got up quickly and was coming to Him. Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met Him. Then the Jews, who were with her in the house and consoling her, when they saw that Mary rose up quickly and went out, they followed her, thinking that she was going to the tomb to cry there. Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus therefore saw her crying, and the Jews who came with her also crying, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus wept. So the Jews were saying, "See how He loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?"
(John 11:28-37 LSB)
The Second Sister's Sorrow (vv. 28-32)
We pick up the scene after Jesus's profound conversation with Martha, where He declared Himself to be the resurrection and the life.
"And when she had said this, she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, 'The Teacher is here and is calling for you.' And when she heard it, she got up quickly and was coming to Him... Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, 'Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.'" (John 11:28-29, 32 LSB)
Martha, having been fortified by her interaction with Jesus, now goes to fetch her sister. The call is personal and urgent: "The Teacher is here and is calling for you." This is how the gospel always comes to us, not as a general announcement to a crowd, but as a personal summons from the Master. Mary's response is immediate. She "got up quickly." There is no hesitation. When the Lord calls, the only proper response is immediate obedience.
When Mary reaches Jesus, her posture and her words are deeply instructive. She "fell at His feet." This is an act of worship, of submission. Even in her profound grief, her first instinct is to acknowledge His lordship. And her words are almost identical to Martha's: "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." This is not, as some might think, a rebuke. It is a profound statement of faith. It is a confession of His power over sickness and death. It is the cry of a heart that believes in His absolute power but cannot yet comprehend His mysterious purpose. It is the language of faith grappling with a hard providence. She is not questioning His ability; she is lamenting His absence. And in this, she speaks for every believer who has ever looked at a tragedy and thought, "Lord, if only."
The Indignation of the Incarnate God (v. 33)
Now we come to the heart of the passage, the reaction of Jesus to this scene of human misery.
"When Jesus therefore saw her crying, and the Jews who came with her also crying, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled." (John 11:33 LSB)
Here we must be very careful. The English phrase "deeply moved" is a tragically weak translation. The Greek word is enebrimesato. This is a powerful, almost violent word. It is used elsewhere to describe the snorting of a warhorse. It means to be moved with indignation, to be outraged, to be furious. A better, if more jarring, translation would be that Jesus "raged in His spirit."
What is the source of this holy rage? It is not irritation with the mourners. It is a white-hot fury directed at the enemy who has caused all this suffering. Jesus looks at Mary's tears, hears the professional wailing of the mourners, and sees in it all the foul work of His adversary. Death is the great tyrant, the wages of sin, the horrific marring of His Father's good creation. He sees the whole, ugly panorama of sin's consequences: the grief, the separation, the corruption, the stench of the tomb. And He hates it. He is not placidly resigned to it. He is incandescent with rage against it.
This is the emotion of a king who finds a rebellion in his favorite province. This is the anger of a creator who sees his masterpiece vandalized. This is not the passive sorrow of a bystander; it is the active, burning indignation of a warrior preparing for battle. He was "troubled," the text says. The word means agitated, stirred up. The presence of death, His enemy, has stirred the spirit of the Son of God to its depths. He is preparing to act.
The Tears of the Warrior King (vv. 34-35)
It is in the context of this divine rage that we must understand His tears.
"and said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to Him, 'Lord, come and see.' Jesus wept." (John 11:34-35 LSB)
His question, "Where have you laid him?" is the question of a commander asking to be taken to the front lines. It is a demand to be brought face to face with the enemy. And then, standing before the grave, the shortest verse in Scripture: "Jesus wept."
Do not sever these tears from the rage that preceded them. His weeping is not a contradiction of His anger but a companion to it. He is fully God, and His righteous wrath burns against the abomination of death. He is also fully man, and His heart breaks with the hearts of His friends. He enters fully into the sorrow of the human condition that He has come to redeem. He weeps for Lazarus. He weeps with Mary and Martha. He weeps for a world broken by sin.
These are not the tears of despair or helplessness. These are the tears of profound love and profound hatred, existing together in the perfect man. He loves His people so much that their pain becomes His pain. And He hates the sin and death that cause their pain with a perfect hatred. His tears are the expression of His compassion, and that compassion is the fuel for the coming conflict. He is weeping, yes, but He is weeping on His way to war.
The Blindness of the Crowd (vv. 36-37)
The reaction of the onlookers demonstrates how easily the actions of God can be misinterpreted by a world that does not understand Him.
"So the Jews were saying, 'See how He loved him!' But some of them said, 'Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?'" (John 11:36-37 LSB)
The crowd offers two different, but equally inadequate, interpretations. The first group sees only the sentiment. "See how He loved him!" They are correct, of course, but their observation is shallow. They see the human emotion, the love of a friend, but they completely miss the divine indignation, the wrath of a king. They reduce the scene to a touching Hallmark moment and miss the cosmic significance of what is about to happen.
The second group is cynical. They see an apparent contradiction. "If He is so powerful, why did He let this happen?" They bring up His previous miracle, the healing of the blind man, not as a testimony to His power, but as a grounds for accusation. This is the voice of faithless pragmatism. It is the voice of every skeptic who points to suffering in the world and uses it as an argument against the goodness or power of God. They cannot comprehend a sovereignty that works through suffering, a power that is displayed not just in preventing death, but in overturning it. Both groups, the sentimentalists and the cynics, are blind. They see the tears, but they cannot see the warrior. They see the problem, but they cannot see the glorious, world-altering solution that is standing right in front of them.
Conclusion: The Enemy is Defeated
What does this mean for us? It means everything. When we stand before the grave of a loved one, or when we face the death that is at work in our own bodies and in our culture, we are not alone. Our King has stood there before us. And He was not passive. He was not resigned. He was angry.
His rage against death is our great comfort. He hates what has broken our world, and He has done something about it. The battle that began with a roar of indignation at the tomb of Lazarus culminated in a cry of victory from the cross. At the cross, Jesus absorbed the full power of death, the wages of our sin, into Himself. And three days later, He tore the gates of Hades off their hinges and walked out, having disarmed the great enemy. The resurrection of Lazarus was a skirmish; the resurrection of Jesus was the decisive, war-winning victory.
Therefore, we can weep. Our tears are legitimate. Grief is real, because death is a real and ugly enemy. But we do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13). We weep, but we weep with the knowledge that our King has wept before us. We weep with the knowledge that He was angry on our behalf. And we weep with the sure and certain hope that because He got up from the grave, we will too. His angry tears have purchased our eternal joy.