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The Emotional Life of Jesus | Sorrow

March 16, 2025
John 11:32-44

³²Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. ³⁴And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵Jesus wept. ³⁶So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”

³⁸Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. ³⁹Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” ⁴⁴The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

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Purpose

To discover and experience Jesus Christ in our midst

To cultivate mutually encouraging relationships

To participate in God’s mission to the world 

Opening Prayer

Almighty God, we confess that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities that may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Responsive Prayer — Isaiah 53

He was despised and rejected by men,

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

And as one from whom men hide their faces

He was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs

And carried our sorrows;

Yet we esteemed him stricken,

Smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;

He was crushed for our iniquities;

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

And with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

We have turned—every one—to his own way;

And the Lord has laid on him

The iniquity of us all.

Summary and Connection

In his essay “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” B. B. Warfield wrote, “It belongs to the truth of our Lord’s humanity that he was subject to all sinless human emotions.” In today’s passage, we see Jesus weeping and expressing deep emotions of sadness. Being the only perfect human, Jesus demonstrates that lament itself isn’t sin. His emotional response indicates that he is indignant toward sin and its devastating effects (unbelief, sickness, and death), and that he sympathizes with our weakness. We’re in a sermon series called The Emotional Life of Jesus, and today we’ll look at Jesus’ emotion of sorrow.

Discussion Questions

1. Looking at the Bible

Observation: Read the passage privately. What does the text say? What is the theme of this passage? Do you notice any keywords?

• What are the different ways John describes the emotions of Jesus?
  

2. Looking at Jesus

At Central we believe that all of Scripture points to Jesus. In other words, Jesus is the theological center of the Bible. Every passage not only points to Jesus, but the grand narrative of the Bible also finds its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus.

• Verse 35 is well known for being the shortest verse of the Bible. Looking at the context, what are some reasons you can think of for why Jesus wept?

3. Looking at Our Hearts

• How does Jesus’ weeping shape our understanding of grief and sadness? 

4. Looking at Our World

• In this passage, we see that Jesus’ perceived inaction set the stage for this miraculous sign: the revelation of God’s glory through Jesus’ power over death. But often when our world experiences deep sorrow, we ask ourselves, “Why do bad things happen?” How can we, as Christians living in New York City, respond to our sorrow as people who have hope?

Sending

• View Study Guide Notes

  Question 1: In chapter 11 of his Gospel, John mentions numerous emotions of Jesus. Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (verse 5). He was glad he wasn’t there when Lazarus was sick (verse 15). In today’s passage, John records that Jesus cried (verse 35) and twice mentions that he was “deeply moved” (verses 33 and 38). This word in Greek is embrimaomai, which can refer to the snorting of horses; in the context of human emotion, it means anger, outrage, or indignation (Matthew 9:30; Mark 1:43; 14:5). Don Carson, in his commentary, writes, “It is lexically inexcusable to reduce this emotional upset to the effects of empathy, grief, pain, or the like.” As for what caused Jesus to be angry, we will explore that shortly.

  The verb for Jesus weeping, dakruo, is unique, only occurring once — here — in the whole New Testament. Its root is the word for teardrop, dakruon, and it literally means “to shed a tear.” The word portrays a quiet crying, compared to the more common loud weeping of klaio, used for Mary and the other Jews in verse 33. (This word is also used for Jesus weeping over Jerusalem in Luke 19:41.) In this chapter alone, we have the full portrayal of Jesus’ various emotions: gladness, love, sorrow, and anger.

  Question 2: Before we delve into the two different reasons for why Jesus wept, it’s important to establish one reason that is clearly not why he cried: for Lazarus. The Jews in verse 36 mistakenly thought Jesus was crying out of sadness for his dead friend; however, this wouldn’t make sense when Jesus fully knew about Lazarus’ death and intended not only for him to die but for the miracle to take place (verses 4, 6, 11-15). Some commentators think Jesus is angry at the consequences of sin: sickness and death. B. B. Warfield writes, “The tears which wet his cheeks when, looking upon the uncontrolled grief of Mary and her companions, he advanced, with heart swelling with indignation at the outrage of death, to the conquest of the destroyer, were distinctly tears of sympathy.” Other commentators suggest Jesus is indignant toward unbelief and faithlessness. Seeing Mary and Martha weep uncontrollably like the Jews, Jesus was upset that they were “grieving like the rest who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Don Carson, in his commentary, explains that these two interpretations “are not irreconcilable.” He writes:

  If sin, illness and death, all devastating features of this fallen world, excite his wrath, it is hard to see how unbelief is excluded…It is unreasonable to think that Jesus’ tears were shed for Lazarus, since he knew he was about to raise him from the dead (v. 11). Rather, the same sin and death, the same unbelief, that prompted his outrage, also generated his grief. Those who follow Jesus as his disciples today do well to learn the same tension–that grief and compassion without outrage reduce to mere sentiment, while outrage without grief hardens into self-righteous arrogance and irascibility.

  Question 3: In the animated film “Inside Out” (2015), the protagonist, Joy — who embodies the emotion of happiness — comes to understand that sadness plays a vital role in human development and emotional well-being. The Bible repeatedly affirms grief, and in today’s passage, God the Son expresses sorrow. Over a third of the Psalms are prayers of lament, and numerous Old Testament authors show mourning and distress in their prophecies (e.g., Lamentations). Mark Vroegop, in his book “Deep Mercy,” describes lament as “a prayer in pain that leads to trust.” We’re not instructed to shut out the emotion of sorrow; rather, Peter writes to “cast all our anxieties on God, because he cares for us” (1 Peter 5:7). Martin Luther wrote on the Psalms of lament:

  What is the greatest thing in the Psalter but this earnest speaking amid the storm winds of every kind?...Where do you find deeper, more sorrowful, more pitiful words of sadness than in the psalms of lamentation? There again you look into the hearts of the saints, as into death, yes, as into hell itself… And that they speak these words to God and with God, this I repeat, is the best thing of all.

  The Scriptures also teach us to grieve together: “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15) and “share each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2). Paul explains that, because we are all one body in Christ, if one member suffers, we all suffer together, and if one member is honored, we all rejoice together (1 Corinthians 12:26). In Jesus’ weeping, we’re once again reminded that we have a High Priest who understands our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15) and who has compassion on us, knowing our limitations (Psalm 103:14). God helps us in our weakness, interceding for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26).

  Question 4: John points out that Jesus intentionally waited to come until after Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days (verse 17). As noted above, John highlights Jesus’ love for Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (verse 5). The crowd, too, acknowledges Jesus’ great love for Lazarus (verse 26) and therefore is confused about his inaction. Throughout the passage, we see Mary and the Jews weeping, questioning why Jesus would open the blind beggar’s eyes (John 9:1-12) but not keep Lazarus from dying (verse 37). It is easy for believers and non-believers alike to interpret God’s delayed intervention as apathy. Why would God allow our suffering to continue?

  Jesus responds to Martha (and the crowds by extension) by saying, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” (verse 40). After Lazarus is brought back to life, John continues the story, saying that “[m]any of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him,” (verse 45). John later writes that Jesus’ signs were recorded so that his audience “may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). Jesus uses temporary suffering to increase our faith and his glory.

  John sets up Lazarus’ resurrection as a foreshadowing of Jesus’ own resurrection (20:1-18). Paul will later ground the Corinthians’ hope of their own new life in Christ’s resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:16-19) and encourage the Thessalonians not to “grieve as others do who have no hope,” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Christ’s resurrection from the dead allows us to trust that all things are under his reign, and that in the end, death will not have the final word. As such, when we find ourselves overcome with sorrow at the bad things going on in our city and our world, we, like Jesus, can lament these reminders of the fallenness of our current world, but we grieve as those with hope in the inevitable ultimate defeat of sin, sickness, and death that is the bedrock of our faith.