Jesus Had Friends

I don't have a perennial favorite verse or passage of scripture. I don't have what some people call a "life verse." But I am always deeply moved by the story of Lazarus (John chapter 11).

Yes, I'm astonished by the miracle itself, of course, and touched by the hope for my own eventual resurrection that is so beautifully foreshadowed by the passage. But more than that, I am struck by Jesus' tenderness upon encountering Martha and Mary on his return to Bethany.

Perhaps the fact that Martha and Mary are mourning their brother, as I once did my own, is what grabs my attention. Regardless, it is his reaction that makes me cry every time.

Mary falls at Jesus' feet, weeping. He sees this and is "deeply moved in spirit and troubled." Verse 35 -- the shortest verse in the Bible -- just says "Jesus wept."

This man who is God, wept. This deity incarnate, in whose ownership and employ is the very omniscience and omnipotence of the Trinity, wept. He knew that "absent from the body" equals "present with the Lord," and that Lazarus, Mary and Martha were all believers. He knew why he was walking the earth, what his role as Savior of the world meant, that death -- which he was soon to defeat -- was not an end to the lives of his followers. He knew he had the power to raise Lazarus, or anyone else he chose. Still, he wept. Why?

Was it out of compassion for Mary and Martha's suffering? Was it his own grief over losing a friend? Was it an emotional reaction to "the last straw" in a series of difficult and exhausting days? Was it sadness over the fact that Lazarus would only die again someday, would possess a miracle this time but eventually go on to experience another "end" to his life? Or was he weeping because he was grieved over the fact that death itself, brought about by sin, shouldn't even exist?

Jesus had friends. The Son of Man may have had "no place to lay his head," but he had friends who loved and cared for him, just as I have friends. And I often try to imagine that moment of tenderness when Mary collapses at his feet in the depths of her sorrow, and Jesus asks her, "Where have you laid him?" I wonder if he put his hand on top of her head. I wonder what his voice sounded like, if it wavered or broke.

It is tempting to think of God as being somehow beyond grief. It is easy to read that our high priest understands what we go through in our trials and tribulations -- but do we believe that, really, so many centuries removed from his physical presence on Earth? We see Jesus as wise and humble and powerful in the pages of scripture, and it becomes so familiar a portrayal that we are -- or at least, I am -- shocked to see him in a state of human vulnerability.

He is grieving with his friends. He is weeping with them, sharing in their despair even though he knows he is also bringing them hope. He is not just fully God. He is also fully man.