One of my favorite verses of the bible is also one of the shortest in the bible: John 11:35 "Jesus wept."
Before I expound on this, allow me to first say the following: the Word of God is living (Hebrews 4:12 "for the word of God is active and alive." NIV) and it is important to state that as I share revelation that I have received through my own relationship with our Father. One scripture, however long or short it may be, can generate infinite depth of understanding. It can be seen from different perspectives as disciples read it through their own motivational gift(s) from Him. This is the only way that we, as a body of Christ, can even begin to tap into the infinite wisdom and power of God and bring it into this world. It takes a whole body of people, each holding a special drop of God's essence, to come together into one complete mirror image of Jesus Christ who is our bride groom.
At the start of this new adventure to dive deeper into God's heart, God spoke this to me and I will never forget it: "The more that you think that you know, the less you understand." When we read through most literature over and over again we get to where we can quote it and sometimes memorize it (as with Shakespeare's plays etc.) bute there is only so much to learn from it. There is a point where there is nothing "new" about it to talk about. With the bible, it is completely opposite. The more we read it, the more we realize how much we do not understand so we seek more answers inside of it. That in turn leads to more revelation and more questions and more depth. It is truly living and as we walk in our callings from our Father, He begins to reveal more and more of His Word to us to strengthen our unique contribution to the body and to the world. This can even be brought through two words making up one of the shortest verses in the bible.
If we read John chapter 11, a very interesting story unfolds. Mary and Martha alert Jesus that his beloved friend and their brother Lazarus had fallen ill. Jesus assured them that the sickness is not unto death, waited two days and then started His journey to Judea to minister to his friend. By the time Jesus and His disciples began to leave, Jesus says: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." His disciples struggled with the message and ultimately Jesus plainly acknowledges for their sakes that Lazarus was indeed dead. In this chapter, it is clear that Jesus knew that Lazarus was dead physically however, he was not going to stay that way. Lazarus "sleepeth"-- because he is going to be risen from the dead by the power of God.
When Jesus arrives at Lazarus' tomb, all were in mourning and verse 35 says this: "When Jesus therefore saw her weeping [speaking of Mary], and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled..." I believe that Jesus was feeling a multitude of things at this point, grief for the unbelief happening being one. But what is profound to me is that regardless of what Jesus knew the outcome was going to be, He wept. Knowing that there was a resolution and a miracle moments away, He stopped and He experienced emotions and pain in the midst of His friends. When His spirit groaned, He allowed the natural response of the body God made for Him to process the pain the way that it was intended to be processed.
With such honorable intention, sometimes we forget to "be with" people who are in mourning, even over things that perhaps we see as small things. For example, if we become Christians, we know that the end of our life on earth is far from the end. In fact, we know that the next step that we take is into a glorious place where shadows are non-existent and all of our woes are completely wiped away. We may understand this so well that we, ourselves, do not feel a lot of sorrow for the loss of our loved ones because our faith is so strong and we know that we will see them so very soon in a better place. As a result, when someone comes to us grieving the loss of someone or something very important to them, we can be a little hasty to say things like "In your Spirit you are full of joy and they are in such a great place!" Just live out of your spirit, not your flesh!"
But Jesus, being perfect in walking in the spirit, demonstrated His perfect compassion in this moment rather than meeting them with a joyful word from the book of Psalms as hopeful attempt to minister to His friends. He really did not say much at all to them, He was simply with them in their sadness and then He did what He needed to do to address the situation.
Compassion means "to be with". There is a difference between pity and compassion. Pity is to feel sorrowful for someone at a distance with no intention to get close. Compassion is to lean in and "be with" that person in their pain. What Jesus did in this moment demonstrates the compassionate heart that our God has for us. He wept with the people and then He healed Lazarus by raising him up from the dead. Many times, with such great and honest intention, we can approach someone who is hurting with a little bit of a wall. We know that God is the answer to everything, so we begin to speak scripture over the wounded person in front of us and that makes so much sense! But in that moment, the wounded person is seeking a heart who will simply be with them in that moment. To be seen, to be understood and to be comforted by simply having someone care deeply.
This does not mean that scripture should be abandoned. In the expression of Paul: "God forbid!" Jesus walked out the word that He had from His Father and He finished ministering in John 11. Speaking God's Word over the wounded will heal, but it is important to make sure that our heart is in the "be with" position, not in the "I need to fix you" position. For it is compassion that primes the heart for receiving the seeds that you speak from God's Word.
God Bless You!
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