It’s a fantasy of mine, and I cannot validate it in any biblical way, but I like think that one of the reasons Jesus wept was that He loved Lazarus, and didn’t want to bring him back to such a fallen world. Think about it, the man had to die twice! Lazarus is one of the few human beings to ever die twice. He had already gotten death out of the way, he would soon be with the Father in paradise after Jesus completed His work on earth; now he has to live and die again! If I was Lazarus, I’d be weeping too. I can just hear him saying, “I love my sisters, but I’m about to enter Heaven and be with my Creator, I don’t want to go back.”.
It might have been a hard thing for Jesus to bring someone back who was almost home forever. But, on the other hand… Why would Jesus raise any person to life at all? Does anyone deserve a second chance at life? And why did he revive those from death that He did, and His disciples did after Him? Was there something special about those people that they received another chance to decide eternity having already lived it?
His disciples… think about that. After Jesus died, arose, and ascended into Heaven, those who died would enter eternity in Heaven or Hell. When Jesus’s disciples raised the dead, those people were brought back from eternity and given a second chance to live. But why those people? I’ve begun to study history of every human brought back from the dead and what they did afterwards… It’s difficult to find information about these people, for they did no great deeds by worldly standards, but I’m certain they made a difference for Christ.
Out of all of the people who died, why these? If God raised these certain few to life for His glory, they must have had something miraculous to do for Him. He could’ve raised anyone. Why did He raise them? Who deserves a second chance at life? No one does. Who deserves a single chance at life? No one does, it is only by His grace we live, and His grace continually saves us: from ourselves and from death.
Why did He weep? Yes. Because all that matters is that He wept. If God wanted us to know why, the Bible would’ve said so. But, it didn’t, so we see Christ’s humanity in His ability to feel, and that is all the passage wanted us to clearly know. So, let Him raise you from the dead daily, and ask Him why He weeps. I like to think that He weeps not because we are dead, but that He has to raise us so often when we fall. He hates to see us disobey and fall into the snares of the devil. We die, and He weeps o’r our souls as He raises us to life daily to live for Him anew and again.
As always, thanks for reading.
—the anonymous novelist
