(this post will make more sense if you read Extreme Balance first)
The easiest verse in the bible to remember but one of the hardest to understand is ‘Jesus wept’
Lazarus, a friend of Jesus’, is dead and has been in the tomb for four days
Jesus has arrived to raise him from the dead – there is no doubt in Jesus’ mind that this will happen, we know this because …
He told His disciples that this sickness would ‘not end in death’
And again, ‘Lazarus is (dead)…I am going there to wake him up’
He told Martha (Lazarus’ sister) that her brother ‘will rise again’ and that He, Jesus, was ‘the resurrection and the life’
He said in prayer, to his heavenly Father, at the tomb, ‘I thank you that you have heard Me – You always hear Me’
There was no doubt in Jesus’ mind that Lazarus would rise
The greatest miracle ever seen by man was about to take place
Everyone who was distraught including Mary and Martha, His closest friends, would soon be full of Joy
Jesus had extreme faith
I think He should have been full of excitement
Instead, it twice says that Jesus was ‘deeply moved’ when he saw the grief of His friends, and then it says…
‘Jesus wept’
Why?
Perhaps it’s because, at that moment Lazarus was dead, and He felt his friend’s grief – which was real and overwhelming
Jesus lived fully in the present
This is a beautiful picture of extreme faith and extreme works, which are the practical outworking of God’ love, balanced perfectly
It’s not uncommon for Christians to find it difficult, while having faith for a future miracle, to know how to live and relate to the present
Do you pretend that it has already happened by faith and deny the present suffering or
Do you embrace the present suffering and not truly believe for a miracle?
Jesus demonstrated that we are to do both fully and completely
Don’t diminish one to accommodate the other
Throw out both arms wide and live abundantly