Jesus wept.
– John 11:35
The shortest verse in the Bible, yet how significant it is that we have this picture of Jesus when he hears the news about Lazarus’ death, and he encounters Mary, who’s weeping. And Jesus knows he’s about to raise him from the dead. Lazarus is coming back, and yet he weeps with Mary. What a powerful picture.
John 11:35 is a reminder that Jesus understands our sorrow.
This is God in the flesh with one of his children, weeping alongside them, and I just want to encourage you with this word today, or specifically these two words in John 11:35.
I obviously do not know all that you are walking through. I’m guessing some of you are walking through a season of weeping, or a day where you are weeping, where there’s hurt or pain or loss or grief like we see here in John 11. And for others of you, there’s different emotions that you’re experiencing in this fallen world. Hear the good news about the God over this fallen world. He is not distant from you. The Lord is with you in your weeping. He is with you in your pain, in your sorrow. This is the beauty of Jesus’s humanity.
He is like us. He knows the emotions we know. Are you hurting? He was hurt. Are you grieving? He grieved. Are you lonely? He was lonely. You just think about all the hard things we walk through in this world that Jesus is familiar with, except for sin, and that’s the beauty, because he’s conquered sin, the root of all suffering, the root of death and grief and loss, and he’s risen from the dead so that all who trust in him will know that your tears, just like Mary’s tears here, will not be the end of the story.
John 11:35 is a reminder that we can bring our sorrow to the Lord.
So God, I pray for those who are hurting. You are listening to this right now in any number of ways, that right now through your Word, your Spirit would comfort their hearts that they would know you see them, and not just see them, but you are familiar with their sorrows, with their hurts, with their even questions and pain and longing and grief and burdens. Jesus, we praise you for being our sympathetic high priest at the Father’s right hand, and so we pray for your help.
God, we pray for comfort. We pray for strength. God, we pray for supernatural peace. We pray for your help to navigate these emotions in this fallen world, and we praise you that this fallen world is not the end of the story. We praise you, Jesus, that just like you say here in verse 25, you are the resurrection and the life, that whoever believes in you, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in you shall never die.
Yes, Jesus, we praise you for conquering sin, suffering, and death, so help us. Help us to grieve with hope. Help us to be strong in the Spirit you have put in us. We pray for supernatural peace, we pray for comfort from the Comforter, your Holy Spirit, and God, we pray you’d help us in all of this to keep an eternal perspective, to know this is not the end of the story, to spread the gospel so that others might not experience everlasting suffering due to sin, so that others might experience eternal life through you. God, we pray for this.
Prayer for the Kumzari People
Help us to spread the good news of eternal life and freedom from sin and suffering and death to people around us today, to the Kumzari people of Oman. God, for the small people group of Muslims where there’s no known followers of Jesus among the Kumzari. God, please change that. Bring them to the knowledge of Jesus so they might experience the One who’s the Resurrection and the Life. God, we praise you that this world is not all there is, so we pray that you help us to live today like this world is not all there is, and with the strength, comfort, joy, peace, and hope that come from you alone who are with us in our pain. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
