By the Tomb of Lazarus, a devotional thought

In John 11:35 we see Jesus’ response to the death of Lazarus, one of his closest friends. It is pictured for us vividly in what is famously called “the shortest verse in the Bible”: Jesus wept. (Though technically this is only true in the English Bible. In the original languages, the shortest verse is Job 3:2, “And Job said.”)

What struck me, though, is that Jesus is not weeping tears of grief here. Or, if he is (he may be) he is also quite agitated. In verse 33 and again in verse 38 it says that Jesus “groaned in his spirit.” The original word there is embrimaomai, which comes from the root word brimaomai and suggests a sigh or groan of indignation or anger. Jesus is not only weeping, he is groaning with, of all things, frustration. Which sort of leaves us scratching our heads. I understand the tears, Jesus, but what is there to be angry about?

The text suggests the cause, but it doesn’t help: when he saw Mary weeping and the mourners weeping with her, it says, that’s when he embrimaomai-ed.

I am not sure why the sight of their grief over Lazarus would elicit this response in our Lord ... unless... maybe he’s not indignant at them for weeping, rather he is angry at death itself for bringing them to such a moment as this. Maybe it’s this glimpse of the harm that death causes, in the sight of these his friends mourning their lost brother, that touches him so deeply. Maybe he is "groaning" over the indignity, the tragedy, the ugliness of death itself.

If so, it would underscore something that the New Testament consistently claims everywhere else: that death is not the way things should be, that it is an enemy of what is good and right in God’s creation, and that God intends in the end to defeat it in Christ.