Why did Jesus weep?

The shortest verse in the Bible is found in John, chapter 11, verse 35. It simply states “Jesus wept.” For background, Lazarus had died. When Jesus arrived four days later, the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, and the other mourners were wailing and sobbing. Although Jesus knew He would raise Lazarus from the dead, the fact that He shed tears has tremendous theological meaning. First, let’s investigate the humanity and deity of Jesus.

Confronting the early church were four competing Christologies. They first taught that Jesus did not have a physical body and only appeared to suffer and die on the cross. The second regarded Jesus as fully human, but rejected His divinity. The third view suggested that Jesus had a human body and a human soul, but His mind was governed by the eternal Logos of God. Fourthly, Jesus had two natures—human and divine—meaning Jesus was both God and man. The deity of Christ was settled by the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. The Nicene Creed declared that Jesus was of the same substance (homoousias) as God. This ruling led to the belief that Jesus was co-equal and co-existent with God. 

The ability of Jesus to weep, to cry is a human trait. This means that Jesus lived on the plane of our existence; He ate, He drank, He felt pain, He tired, He bled, He laughed, He cried, etc., yet He was also divine.  Being human meant Jesus was able to die on the cross for our sins. More significantly, Jesus was “God in the flesh.” This means that one drop of His divine blood could atone for the sins of the entire human race. Had Jesus been a phantasm or spiritual phantom, He could not have paid the price for our sins. Let us rejoice in the fact that “God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (II Corinthians 5:21). 

“Jesus wept” (John 11: 35) is the shortest verse in the Bible. What caused Jesus to weep? We may never know as Bible scholars have debated this issue for centuries. When Jesus received the news–from Mary and Martha–that Lazarus had died, He was in another town. Yet, He delays arriving at Bethany (village outside Jerusalem) for two additional days. By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been dead for four days. First century Jews believed the soul hoovered over the body for three days, hoping to reenter, but at the end of three days, the body begins to decompose and the soul leaves. Four days was sufficient time for Lazarus to step into Paradise and experience fellowship with God. Did Jesus shed human tears because He was about to snatch Lazarus away from the glories of Heaven? Or, was Jesus weeping because of His great love for Lazarus? Yet, there may be a much deeper reason that escapes human understanding. The weeping of Jesus may have been attributed to His human attributes, because He was fully God and fully human (John 1: 1-3).

There is one verse that deserves our attention. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who lives and believes in Me shall never die,” (John 11: 25-26).If He had been fully human, his death would do nothing for us. Instead, the death of a fully human Jesus would soon be forgotten, and we would still need someone to reconcile us with God. Let’s not forget John 14: 6 in which Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me.”