Your Tears Have Good Company

Jesus wept. — John 11:35

The Bible’s shortest sentence erupts with abruptness. It jars the flow of text. It makes me want to stop, to check what I just read, to re-read and reprocess.

Jesus wept.

But more than literary abruptness, it carries with it a confronting image that we should not simply read over with disinterested haste. 

Jesus wept.

The son of God, the darling of heaven, the eternal word, the shaper of worlds, the sustainer of life, the author of faith, the coming judge, the lamb of God—wept.

Take comfort—your tears have good company.

Why did Jesus weep? Just moments later he would speak with authority over breath, and life would jump at his command. He would embrace his friend again, see smiles erupt on now grieving faces, and hear songs of rejoicing overcome the dirge of lament now filling his ears. He knew all this would happen. So why would Jesus weep?

Because he knows your pain. He understands your sorrow. He shares in your loss. He is familiar with separation. The Son of God not only incarnates in our flesh, but mingles his tears with ours as he represents us as our Great High Priest, offering the tears of the saints before the Throne. Our tears become his.

We are living in an age of lament, an age of tears. Dear Christian, do not wipe them away, let them fall; we have much to weep for. But know this, your tears have good company. These are not wasted tears, each one is precious and accounted for. Weep freely in the time of weeping, after all, Jesus wept.