Tag: wept

April 11 – Holy Monday – He Knows Our Weaknesses


“When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.” Luke 19: 41-42 (NASB)

We are thinking this week about the events during the last week that Jesus spends before His death on the cross. We remember that the crowds sang praises to him as He approached and entered the City of Jerusalem. Even though people were eager to see Jesus come and were singing to Him, Jesus knew that the leaders of the city had rejected Him and were planning to kill Him. So when He looked at the city the next day it made him weep. The timing of this crying may seem incongruous with the triumphal entry, but it reveals that Jesus knew the true superficiality of the peoples’ hearts, and His mood was anything but giddy as He rode into the city. The same crowd would soon cry for his death (Luke 23:21). The very thought of Jesus weeping over a city like this reminds us that He is aware of our weaknesses and He is touched by our spiritual needs. That’s what encourages us to bring our needs to Him because we know He is praying for us in heaven even these days. Let us not neglect to bring our needs to God in Jesus’ name.

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August 29 – What We Weep For


“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. …Jesus wept.” – John 11:33 &35 (ESV)

This is from the story of Jesus when at the home of Lazarus, who had died 4-5 days before, Jesus brought him back to life. It includes the “shortest verse” in the Bible because of translations. He greets Martha and then Mary and others mourning the death of Lazarus with them. Jesus reacts strongly. “He was deeply moved…and greatly troubled.” This comes from a Greek word with the root-meaning to be ‘moved with anger.’ Why? Certainly not just because Mary, Martha, and their friends were weeping in sorrow over the death of this loved one. We also so weep and Jesus He himself was about to silently burst into tears (verse 35). Jesus may also have been angered because He was indignant at the pain and sorrow and death that sin brought into the world. The context, is of sympathy rather than of only indignation as some suggest. Jesus being deeply moved and greatly troubled. suggests inward disturbance. In a way, Jesus was filled with indignation at the cause and sympathy for his friends. Lazarus lived again in his same restored body. Our promise is for a new perfect body at our resurrection in Christ.

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