Why did Jesus weep in John 11? Sorrow or indignation?

John 11:35- Jesus wept.

Why?

Because He was weeping with those who were weeping?  Or was it for a different reason?

Feel-good Christianity in our time is often about bringing Jesus into our emotional state versus us being lifted up into His supernatural life.  We are very self-focused.  We focus too much on Jesus identifying with us, versus us identifying with Him and His Divinity. By doing this, too many have fashioned Jesus into a "little g" god of their own making, instead of the fullness of the God as revealed through the Bible.

I maintain that Jesus didn't weep after Lazarus' death because He was identifying with human sorrow, but that He wept because of their unbelief.

This will be a series of 3 messages.  This message is a focus on the moment Jesus weeps.

Here is what most commentators/commentaries say of Jesus weeping due to feeling empathy.
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One website says this…

While I agree that Jesus is compassionate and the Great Comforter, I do not see Jesus weeping to empathize with Mary, Martha, and the others.  I'll say more below.

​Biblestudytools.com says, "This picture of the Messiah weeping powerfully shows the dichotomy of being both fully-God and fully-man.  He had the full power to restore His friend to life and knew that He would be doing so imminently, yet He was moved by the sorrow of those He loved and cried alongside them.

Of being moved by sorrow of those He loved, I say to myself, "Jesus knows that within minutes He is going to raise Lazarus, yet He is going to devolve down to the limitations of unbelief of those around Him?"  He didn't do that in any other situation where there was sorrow around Him, and He loved those people too.

Desiringgod.org says, "...One reason for Jesus' weeping is simply the deep compassion that Jesus felt for those who were suffering..."

Meyer's NT commentary says, "...He weeps whilst on His way to the sepulchre, with those who were weeping... before accomplishing His work, Jesus gives full vent to the sorrow which He felt for His friend, and for the suffering inflicted on the sisters..."

Ellicott's Commentary says, "...They are on the way to the sepulchre, near to which they have now arrived.  He is conscious of the power which He is about to exercise, and that the first result will be the glory of God (John 11:4); but He is conscious also of the suffering hearts near Him, and the sympathy with human sorrow is no less part of His nature than the union with divine strength..."

Again, yes Jesus is compassionate to those suffering, but is He going to mirror, and therefore validate their grief when their grief is founded in unbelief?  I say, "No."  What do you say?

Cambridge Bible says, "...He sheds tears on His way to their brother's grave, not because He is ignorant or doubtful of what is coming, but because He cannot but sympathize with the intensity of His friends' grief..."

As you see, there is a focus in above commentaries of Jesus identifying with human grief.  I’m not going to say that Jesus does not identify with our grief.  He does!  But I do say that He is not weeping in that moment, for those reasons.

We have to consider the account of John has been building in previous chapters to say, “Believe.”

Uniquely, John uses the word "believe" in some form 95 different times!  No other book in the bible comes close! 

Before the account of Lazarus, John uses the word 55 times.  In the Lazarus account, he uses it 9x.

John is clear that Jesus stays on mission to call people to believe. The Spirit of God as spoken through John, is continually calling readers to believe!

John says clearly in the beginning that belief is how you become a child of God-
John 1:12- 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--

Have you ever poured yourself out completely into something, but then people didn’t get it?  You studied, you practiced, you built, you sweat, you lost sleep, you kept pressing, you kept towards the goal, but then people didn’t get it, or dismissed it, or shrugged their shoulders, or said, “I don’t get it.”  What do you feel?  Any indignation?

There is an intensity of emotions that can arise after you’ve done your all, you have poured yourself out, you have gone above and beyond to prove your case, but still yet, unbelief and doubt is all around you!  It is a gut punch!  For Jesus, at this point, it is a heavy weight.  This is His last miracle before His own death.  Yet still unbelief is all around Him!

Before He weeps, He is confronted with a guilt message from Mary who falls at His feet and says, “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  Then He’s watching her weep, and watching the Jews weeping, and He groans deeply and is troubled… (John 11:33 NKJV).

In the original Greek groan means…
ἐμβριμάομαι embrimáomai, em-brim-ah'-om-ahee; from G1722 and βριμάομαι brimáomai (to snort with anger); to have indignation on, i.e. (transitively) to blame, (intransitively) to sigh with chagrin, (specially) to sternly enjoin:—straitly charge, groan, murmur against.

And trouble means…
ταράσσω tarássō, tar-as'-so; of uncertain affinity; to stir or agitate (roil water):—trouble.

We are supposed to know that Jesus is agitated.  But as a good Savior does, as a Good Father does, He holds the intensity of His emotions within, and doesn’t explode all over them.  Instead, He stays focused on His next steps. 

“Where have you laid Him?” John 11:34.

And they say to Him, “Come and see.” Also in John 11:34.

Then He weeps. John 11:35.

“Come and see?”  Where has Jesus heard that before?

He Himself said those words!  And the Apostle John has set up his whole gospel account based upon those words of Jesus, "Come and see."   You can see that by how He ends chapter 21 saying, "And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.  Amen."

“Come and see” are some of the very first words that John records of Jesus!  

In John Chapter 1, John the Baptist is testifying about Jesus that He was the promised One to come.  He points at Jesus for the 2nd day in a row, and says, “Look the Lamb of God!” 

Two of his disciples, one being Andrew, turn from following John the Baptist and start following Jesus.  Jesus senses them following, and turns around and asks, “What do you want?”
They say, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”

Jesus says to them. “Come and see.”

Come and see what?
Come and see with your spiritual eyes!
Come and see me tell Nathanael I can see through space and time, seeing him under the fig tree, calling out his character before he even opens his mouth!
Come and see Me fulfill Messianic prophecies!
Come and see Me turn water into wine.  Filling not just a couple glasses, but over 1800 glasses!
Come and see Me publicly declare myself as the Son of God!
Come and see Me tell the Samaritan woman all she ever did!
Come and see the revival I spark in her whole town because they will believe that I am the Christ, the Savior of the world!
Come and see Me heal the nobleman’s son just by releasing a word, "Go, your son will live." 
Come and see Me heal the man crippled with an infirmity for 38 years!
Come and see Me feed 5K men, plus women and children with 5 loaves and 2 fish, with leftovers to spare!
Come and see Me walk on water!
Come and see Me travel through time, being on the boat with you one minute, and landing us on shore the very next!
Come and see Me tell hypocritical religious leaders that I am God, declaring to them, “Before Abraham was, I Am.”
Come and see Me open the eyes of the man born blind!

Before John writes the account of the the raising of Lazarus, he details all of those expressions of Jesus.  Yet still, Mary and Martha didn't believe.  Even with the additional accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke where Jesus...
Raised the widow’s son from his funeral casket!
Raised the little girl who died!
Instantly healed lepers right in front of their eyes!
Healed the deaf and the mute!
Calmed the storm!
And so much more!!!

The raising of Lazarus was His last public miracle, so his followers had a lot to reflect on related to what He might do after Lazarus died.  Yet, those around Him in John 11 didn't believe!

But instead of anticipating, they wept.  Mary was weeping at his feet.  A crowd of Jews were spurring on the grief of Mary and Martha by joining them in weeping and wailing.

Who do you have around you?  Are they feeding your unbelief or speaking words of resurrection life to lift your eyes to the RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE?!

Do you start to sense why Jesus' tears would have been from a stern indignation?

Would He be reacting within to their "come and see?"  Would He have been thinking... "Now, after all you have seen of Me, you want to say to me, 'Come and see?'"

"Come and see what?  'Jesus, come and see his grave?'  'Jesus, come and see how you were not powerful enough to prevent him from dying?'"
 
John reveals that’s exactly what many were thinking.  “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?” - John 11:37.  They say this backhanded statement as Jesus weeps!

He groans with deep indignation again. Then He sees a tomb much like that He himself would be in by the end of the week! 

John 11:38- 38 Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.

It's like getting the breath knocked out of you from a punch in the gut.  He is processing a lot in this moment.  He knows what lies ahead for Him in a tomb just like Lazarus'...

Extreme torture is coming in days. 
Humiliation. 
Abandonment. 
Mental and emotional strain to a point of sweating blood. 
His body ripped open to a point that He is barely recognizable as a human being. 
Spit on.
Beard pulled out.
Beaten over the head with a crown of thorns piercing His skull.
Willingly offering Himself as a sacrifice for all who would turn from unbelief and believe. 

In reflection... do you agree with the commentators above and think He was weeping to empathize with Mary and Martha?

OR... 

Do you think His weeping was from the core of His being, deeply integrated into His mission that was yet incomplete?  How hopeful may Jesus have been that in a final test, they would believe that He would truly raise Lazarus from the dead?  But then they didn't believe.  If you can see that, how does that give you a different understanding of Jesus' tears and indignation and deep groaning and troubled spirit?

❓ Is there any area of your life where you are saying, "Jesus, if you just would have been here, 'such-and such' would not have happened..."

❓ Is there any unbelief blocking your ability to go deeper into the life and power of Jesus?  

John 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
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This is post 1 of 3 for the raising of Lazarus.  This was just the beginning of making the case for unbelief causing Jesus to weep in anger.   Next I’ll focus on Martha.  And we’ll see if we can get a better sense of her.  And see if we can see her unbelieving ways in us.