Easter Series: The Tears

Have you noticed that babies cry a lot? If you have a new baby at home you’re probably rolling your eyes, or bobbing your head in zombie-fashion for lack of sleep. Jesus cried. He got hungry like other babies, needed his diaper changed, and needed comforting. He experienced pain and hunger. He was fully man and fully God. He came to testify to the truth (John 18:37) and was willing to become one of us so we would believe what He said is true.

If I was God, I would have hesitated to send my Son to a planet infected with sin, sickness, temptation, and heartache. But He did it so Jesus could conquer Satan’s power over us. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

Jesus also shed tears. The shortest verse of the Bible is, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). His dear friend Lazarus had died. Maybe He cried because death was not God’s plan for us; it came because of sin. Or He was grieved for His friend and family’s suffering, as well as His own. Even though Jesus was there to raise Lazarus from the dead, He experienced the pain of death first.

When Jesus arrived at Jerusalem not long after that, He was again overwhelmed with sorrow. This time in longing.  “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34).

God wants to gather, cover, and protect us like a mother hen with her brood, but since the first sin in the Garden of Eden, we’ve rebelled against His care.  Jesus was about to feel this rejection in an even more personal way.

Before He was arrested, He prayed for release from this assignment. I’m sure He shed tears.  “‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’ An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.  And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:42-44).

He accepted the plan laid out since the beginning of time. Jesus was arrested, stripped, beaten, mocked, and nailed to a cross. The moment His Father turned away from the sin heaped on Him there, Jesus cried in a depth of anguish we cannot begin to understand, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:27:46). A moment like no other in history when the Godhead split. 

After His final breath, Jesus was taken from the cross and wrapped in seventy pounds of spices then laid in a borrowed tomb. It was sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers. 

When Jesus rose from the dead three days later, the only tears shed by His followers were happy ones of shock and relief. He spent forty days appearing to them, explaining how this had been the plan from the beginning and the fulfillment of prophecy. Then He told them to tell the world about His offer of forgiveness!

The next time we see Jesus will either be the happiest of days or the worst--depending on what we have done with His offer. When He comes to take all who have believed in Him and walked in His ways to heaven “‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

That makes me so happy that I want to cry. But instead maybe I will say, “Halleluia! Come Lord Jesus.”

#didJesuscry #Eastertears #whydidJesusweep #nomoretears