A Time To Weep

There are three verses in the Bible that say that Jesus wept. One of those is Hebrews 5:7, which says, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” That verse seems to suggest that Jesus cried more than once. The nouns “prayers,” “petitions,” and “tears” are plural. The prophet Isaiah had foretold that Messiah would be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3).

Two specific occasions where Jesus cried are recorded in John 11:35 and Luke 19:41. John 11:35 is famous for being the shortest verse in the Bible. Just two words: “Jesus wept.” It happened at the tomb of his friend Lazarus who had died four days earlier. That text does not tell us why Jesus wept, but it does tell us why the bystanders thought he wept. The next verse reads, “Then the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ They interpreted his tears as a sign of grief over the loss of his friend. But some were puzzled. It says, “But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’”

That’s a good point. He could have kept Lazarus from dying. In fact he could do a lot more than that. He could raise him from the dead, as indeed he did just a few minutes later. When Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, it was evidently not for the same reason that we weep at the funeral of a friend. We weep because we miss our friend, and know that this side of eternity we will not see him again. That was not the case with Jesus. He was going to see Lazarus alive and well in a few minutes. So why did he weep?

The text does not tell us why. But I believe that other texts give us a clue. The other time recorded for us where Jesus wept was on Palm Sunday when Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem with celebration and praise. Luke 19:37-40 say this:

When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

That seems like a moment for real rejoicing. Even inanimate rocks were ready to burst forth in joyful song. But not Jesus. The next verse says, “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it.” And unlike the account of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, this passage tells us why he wept. He wept because he knew the future, and he saw what great sin and suffering it contained. In verses 42 through 44 he speaks to Jerusalem as though it were a person and says,

“If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

So although the disciples rejoiced when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus himself wept. He wept because he saw what was coming. He saw his own rejection and crucifixion. He saw the persecution of his followers. And he saw the destruction of the city with all its accompanying barbarisms and cruelties.

Jesus’ tears in that moment call to my mind the tears of Elisha in 2 Kings 8. This was more than 800 years before Jesus was born. The prophet Elisha was meeting with a man named Hazael, emissary of Ben Hadad, king of Syria. At one point in their discussion Elisha stared at Hazael and began to weep. Hazael was embarrassed and said, “Why are you weeping?” Elisha said, “Because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites. You will set fire to their fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant women.”

Hazael said, “Who, me? Impossible.” But of course later he did that and more.

If Elisha knew in advance that this man would commit unspeakable atrocities, why didn’t he do something about it? Why didn’t he nip it in the bud? You would think it might occur to Elisha to slit Hazael’s throat on the spot – the way some people fantasize about what you might do if you could go back in time and kill Hitler before he had a chance to start WWII and slaughter 6 million Jews.

Maybe someone would respond, “Well, probably Elisha wasn’t like that. He must have been a gentle, delicate man of God who wouldn’t think of doing something so crude and violent.” Biblical evidence suggests otherwise. Neither Elisha nor his mentor Elijah had any qualms about killing bad people, or calling upon God to do the killing for them.

Elijah, after contending with and defeating the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 had all of them killed. There were 450 of them. Some years later when King Ahaziah sent a captain with 50 men to arrest Elijah, Elijah called down fire from heaven to kill all 51 of them. Then the same thing happened again. That story is in 2 Kings 1. In 2 Kings 2 a group of young ruffians harassed Elisha, saying “Get out of here, baldy!” Elisha cursed them in the name of the Lord, and a couple bears came down and mauled 42 of them. If you’re keeping track of the numbers here, the body count between Elijah and Elisha of dead and or mauled opponents now stands at 594. They were not squeamish about invoking the power of God’s lethal justice (or using violent means themselves) to thwart evildoers. So why not make Hazael victim number 595? He’s clearly the worst of the lot, and he will do the most damage. Elisha doesn’t even have to kill him personally. He could call down the fire of God or the claws of a bear to do it for him. Or maybe he could pray for a quick, natural, unsuspicious death. The Bible says that his predecessor Elijah was a man like us, and he prayed that it would not rain, and for three and a half years it did not rain. So, why not pray for, say, a heart attack to take out Hazael as he walks out the door? As far as that goes, Hazael doesn’t even have to die. Elisha could just afflict him with isolating leprosy as he did to his corrupt servant Gehazi in 2 Kings 5.

Elisha has so many options here. And all he does is weep? Really? That’s his solution, that’s the best he can do? What’s the matter with him? Did he lose his faith in the power of God? Did he lose heart and forget how to act with the decisive boldness that typically characterized him?

I believe the answer is straightforward. Somehow – I don’t know how – God made clear to Elisha that the terrible future involving Hazael was going to occur. Period. No matter what. It would all unfold under the authority and sovereign will of God, and Elisha was to take no steps to prevent it. Just as Jesus was to take no steps to avoid the cross. Instead he marched toward it. You may remember that Peter tried to prevent him a couple times. The first time Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan” (Matthew 16:23). The second time, Jesus explained that if he wanted to he could call upon his Father to put at his disposal 12 legions of angels (Matthew 26:53). But that would be contrary to the will of God, and it would leave God’s Scriptures unfulfilled. So all the means of self-protection typically at Jesus’ disposal were not to be employed. Likewise with Elisha - all the weapons normally at Elisha’s disposal, whether physical or spiritual, were to be held in check as the worst imaginable things played out, including the violent death of children and pregnant women. What then can you do but weep? What other recourse do you have?

Over 40 years ago I heard a pastor tell the story of a time when he served at a phone bank of volunteers who received calls on behalf of a Billy Graham crusade. Back in the day you could watch Billy Graham preach on TV and there would be a phone number at the bottom of the screen that you could call for questions or spiritual counsel. The volunteers had some training and did their best responding to people who called in. They also had a little sign with the word “Help” on it, and if they got a call where they felt out of their depth they could hold up the sign and the pastor would come over and take the call. This pastor said that in the course of the evening a volunteer held up the dreaded “Help” sign, so he went over.

The caller was a woman who had experienced, or was experiencing, severe distress. The pastor did not reveal the nature of it. Whatever it was, it was really bad. The caller wept as she spoke, and before long he began to weep too. I don’t know what the resolution was, if there was a resolution.

But afterward the person who originally took the call went up to the pastor and said, “What do you say to somebody in those circumstances?” And the pastor said, “Sometimes you just cry with them.”

I don’t know if that is necessarily wise counsel for counselors. But I do know that sometimes weeping is the right and appropriate thing to do. Sometimes it’s all you can do. It is altogether fitting and proper to weep when you cannot or must not prevent a terrible thing from happening.

I think that is why Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. I think his tears dropped into the same well (metaphorically speaking) where Elisha shed his tears over Hazael, and where Jesus would shed more tears over the city of Jerusalem. Jesus knew - of course he knew - that he was about to resurrect Lazarus and restore him to his sisters Mary and Martha. And there would be rejoicing and awe and wonder, and the faith of his followers would be strengthened, and new people would come to faith in Christ. But I think Jesus also knew what would happen right after that. And it was appalling. There would be blood-curdling evil.

In the next chapter, John 12, we read these words in verses 9-11:

Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and believing in him.

The chief priests, the religious leaders of the day, made immediate plans to kill Lazarus. Just assassinate him in cold blood. They were already planning to kill Jesus in the most gruesome way possible, and we know they succeeded at that. But their hatred of Jesus, while evil, was understandable in one sense. Jesus had called them sons of the devil in front of everybody. He had cursed them out repeatedly and pronounced many woes against them. He told parables where they were the villains who would be judged and cast out by God. He told his disciples and the crowds not to be like them, and he outlined their sins in painstaking detail. Of course, while everything he said about them was true, you could understand why they might not be warmly inclined toward him and would be happy to get rid of him.

But Lazarus? What did Lazarus ever do to them? What was his crime? The only thing he did wrong was get raised from the dead. But that fact was leading people to believe in Christ. So, according to the cold consensus of chief priests, Lazarus had to die. Again. The sooner the better. And this time violently, at the hands of evil men.

I believe Lazarus was dead again very soon after this. Which means his sisters had to grieve him all over again and make yet another trip back to the tomb. There would be sorrow upon sorrow, as we sometimes see in our own lives. Or if we do not experience it ourselves, we have only to watch the news and see what happens in places like the Ukraine where the wicked go on committing atrocities, one after another, and in their monstrosities they seem to thwart every good thing.

Elisha wept, Jesus wept, and we, if we are righteous, will sometimes weep. That too is part of the perfect will of God. The righteous weep while Hazael and Caiaphas and Vladimir Putin do not.

I am not trying to depress you. But I am seeking to forewarn you and equip you. Because in recent years I have heard more and more sermons designed to get people cheering, applauding, shouting “Amen!”, even stomping their feet in religious excitement which is something I heard some years ago at a stadium rally. And the messages tend to run along the lines of how God will make a way where there is no way, and you can become that one-in-a-million who unleashes the power of God in your life and receives all the blessings that God has in store for you if you will only let him.

I have two problems with the kind of teaching that regularly provokes “Amens!” and enthusiastic shrieks and standing ovations, and that never seems to vary from the upbeat, energetic performance that seeks to convince us that we can overcome any obstacle in the power of God. For one thing, I don’t think anybody can simultaneously applaud and repent of sin. Those two don’t go together. No one who says, “What a great sermon! He really knocked it out of the park!” is in a frame of mind to be convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin and righteousness and judgment, and to turn in humble faith to God Almighty. People do not repent when they cheer. They repent when they weep.

Secondly, within the context of gospel preaching there must be an acknowledgement, somewhere, somehow, that there will be occasions to weep. There will be, even for the holiest of the holy – and perhaps especially for them - problems that admit no solution in this life. There will be future horrors that no prayer can turn aside, that no physical effort can mitigate, that no amount of righteousness can conquer. Hazael will commit atrocities. Lazarus will die again. Jesus will go to the cross. Jerusalem will be laid low.

There will be tears. For all righteous souls in this unrighteous world there will be tears. But for those who belong to Jesus Christ and remain faithful to Him who wept while others rejoiced, they can rest in the sweet assurance that their tears are not eternal. Those tears will be wiped away and never renewed. In Revelation 21:3-4 John describes heaven with these words: “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 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.’”

As Jesus said in Luke 6:21, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”

Let us pray.

Father in heaven, there may be some who hear or read these words and who wonder if this life will ever afford them freedom from tears or an occasion to laugh. Give to them a special measure of grace whereby they might trust you through the tears, and obey your good will, and look forward to that day in your presence when all weeping shall cease. Amen.

(Below is the full text of 2 Kings 8:7-15 alluded to in the sermon)

Elisha went to Damascus, and Ben-Hadad king of Aram was ill. When the king was told, “The man of God has come all the way up here,” he said to Hazael, “Take a gift with you and go to meet the man of God. Consult the LORD through him; ask him, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’” Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him as a gift forty camel-loads of all the finest wares of Damascus. He went in and stood before him, and said, “Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram has sent me to ask, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’” Elisha answered, “Go and say to him, ‘You will certainly recover.’ Nevertheless, the LORD has revealed to me that he will in fact die.” He stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael was embarrassed. Then the man of God began to weep. “Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites,” he answered. “You will set fire to their fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant women.” Hazael said, “How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?” “The LORD has shown me that you will become king of Aram,” answered Elisha. Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master. When Ben-Hadad asked, “What did Elisha say to you?” Hazael replied, “He told me that you would certainly recover.” But the next day he took a thick cloth, soaked it in water and spread it over the king’s face, so that he died. Then Hazael succeeded him as king.