Many Bible school students when asked to memorize a verse in the Bible choose this verse, John 11:35. They choose it because they recognize this quote as the shortest verse in the Bible. It would be too bad if all we knew about this verse is that Jesus wept!
Why did He weep?
Jesus did not weep for Lazarus. Lazarus was in God’s hands. His race was over and he had won. This is a cause for joy and not tears.
Jesus did not weep because He missed Lazarus. He knew that He would be with Lazarus in a few short days.
If all of that is true, then why did He weep? Jesus wept because those whom He loved were hurting and He cared for them. Jesus had compassion on others.
· When Jesus saw people hungry, his heart went out to them. (Matt 15:32).
· When Jesus saw the sick, he had compassion on them. (Matt 14:14).
· When Jesus saw the blind, he cared and healed them. (Matt 20:34).
· When he saw a leper, he felt pity and healed him. (Mark 1:41).
Jesus loved Lazarus. When the disciples made reference to Lazarus, they did not address him as Lazarus, but rather “the one whom you love.” (John 11:3) Jesus could have prevented his death, but Jesus did not come to stop the death of one man, but the death of all mankind.
“Where, O death, is your victory?…Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Corinthians 15:55-57
As we look back on that day we too ought to weep, because it reminds us that even as Lazarus got up from the grave so too will we. We are not made for here and we are not made for the grave.
Lonnie Davis
We live here and while here our purpose is to bring glory to God so that when He appears, “we also will appear with Him in glory” (Col 3:4). When in this life we have tribulation, remember all this will be behind us one day. Live your life for heaven. The Christian ought to spend everyday of his or her present life living with an eye on our future life. There is great benefit in doing this. Below I have suggested four benefits of living for the future.
1. If we live for the future, we will invest in eternity instead of merely spending their lives. When Christ returns, He will reward faithful service. “For the Son of Man will come… and then He will reward each according to his works” (Matthew 16:27). Even a hedonist can do the arithmetic. A short lifetime of benefit compared to an eternity. Someday everyone will understand that material things are just things and stuff and junk.
2. If we live for the future, we will be able to cope with any worldly enemies. God’s vindication is coming later. “When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). All earthly critics will disappear on that day. The mere sight of the glorified Christ and of Christians sharing in the glory of Christ will be enough.
3. If we live for the future, we will be able to grow in holiness now. The apostle John wrote, “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:2-3). Faithful Christians understand that moral choices should not be made based only on the present moment or in terms of instant gratification.
4. If we live for the future, we will not get overly disappointed in this life. Christians know better than to have unrealistic expectations. We live with the awareness that even when things are good, “this too shall pass.” It is not that we are cynical or bitter. We are not disillusioned by the failure of this world to be what we believe it should be, but are focused on the world to come. We are “Eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:7).
Lonnie Davis
Approaching eighty years, he had been frugal and had provided well for his financial needs. He came by my office to say hello. It was not the visit that surprised me, but how he got there. Sidney had a can route that he ran every day. He put wire baskets on his old fashioned bicycle and would ride up and down his self-appointed route and pick up cans on the side of the road. He was not doing it to keep the highways clean. He was earning money, as meager as it might be.
One day I went out in front of the church building just as he rode up. His bicycle was what I would call a piece of junk. It was at least twenty-years-old, had only one gear, and wobbled as he rode. Since I knew he could afford anything he wanted to buy, I asked him, “Sidney, why don’t you buy you a new bike, a ten-speed bike?” He thought for a minute and then answered, “Well, I can barely use the one-speed I have.”
Sidney grew up in a time when one-speed bikes were the norm. It had been that way for seventy plus years and he was not going to change something that worked. He was right. His bike did work. It worked, but there was something better. A few years later, Sidney died and he still had that one speed bicycle.
It has been many years since that event, but every so often I remind myself about Sidney’s one-speed bicycle. I think about it when I get stuck in how things used to be. I think about it when the church gets stuck in how things used to be. We love “how things used to be” because we know how things worked out when things were like they used to be. The future is unknown and in an effort to bring comfort to it, we cling to “how things used to be.”
You cannot go back in time. Well-adjusted, happy people are people who can look to the future and embrace whatever change it brings. As Christians we do not know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. That is enough for us.
Lonnie Davis