God sees our life in the context of creation: beginning, middle, and end, yet He takes time to feel sorrow for us and with us.
I've always wondered why Jesus wept. My confusion about this nugget of information is very telling. When I examine my confusion, I realize it's because I don't believe God to be particularly compassionate even though the Bible tells us that He is. Many scriptures describe God as compassionate, but the truth is, it's difficult for me to believe.
I don't believe God is unnecessarily cruel; He has shown His love to me and others countless times. I doubt His compassion because He's perfect and omniscient. If you already know how it all comes about, what is the sense of crying? My opinion on the matter is dead wrong, but I was inspired to write this piece because I am confident others share similar doubts about God's compassion.
God Keeps Track of Our Tears
The Bible tells us that when we cry, God cares by keeping track of our tears (Psalm 56:8). We know Jesus was moved to tears when his friend Lazarus died (John 11:35), but Jesus knew He would raise Lazarus from the dead, so why shed tears? It has legitimately puzzled me for many years now. The death of a loved one is excruciating, but for Jesus to cry has always been odd to me. Not only was He going to raise up Lazarus, but He was the conquerer of death itself.
The only logical explanation I can come to is that Jesus wept because He has compassion for us. He is a compassionate God, and His compassion is deeper than I'll probably ever be able to fathom. We know that if Jesus has compassion, so does God the Father because He and the Father are one (John 10:30.) Even though the Bible describes God as compassionate, it can be difficult to see between all the wrath and slaughtering in the Old Testament. This is the second reason it's difficult for me to believe He is compassionate. The evidence is there, but to see it, we need the right lens.
It's much easier to see God's compassion in Jesus when He walked on earth, and because of that, many Christians often separate the text of the Old Testament from the New, which gives us an incomplete picture.
Since it's more difficult to see God's compassion in the Old Testament, we'll start there.
God Is Compassionate
The word compassion shows up 41 times in the Bible. The first time we see the word is in Exodus 2:6 when Pharoah's daughter takes pity (chamal, in Hebrew) on Moses. She spared the baby; she took him in. She felt bad for Moses and was moved to action. That is what compassion is, feeling for others in their tragic situation and being moved to action. That action could be a prayer, a hug, an act of service, or, like Jesus, we are moved to tears.
In Exodus 34:6 God is described as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth. The Bible tells us that God is compassionate, but can we see it in these stories?
When I learned about the Hebrew word chamal, it made me remember God's regret in Genesis 6:6-7 (NASB) when He destroyed the earth with a flood. The scripture says, "The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.'”
I looked up the word "sorry" to see if it meant pity or compassion in Hebrew just like the word chamal. The Hebrew word used here is nacham, and it often means regret. The idea that God regretted making humans is extremely disturbing because it may lead people to believe that God makes mistakes, which is why we know that can't be the true meaning because if God makes mistakes, He wouldn't be the perfect God. As I suspected, the word can often mean pity or compassion, and that certainly changes things.
I believe that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose (like Romans 8:28 tells us), but in times of suffering, it can be difficult to believe in that compassion. There is a lot of destruction in the Old Testament, as I mentioned, but when we apply the lesson about destruction in Genesis and see the earth was flooded out of pity and compassion, it begins to change the lens from which we see compassion.
God is the Creator of all things. He is the one who defines everything. To see things correctly we must find what is true in His Word.
God's compassion or pity shown in Genesis is a great example of how it can appear confusing from the surface. But other examples of compassion make more sense to us. One of those examples is in Jeremiah 14:17-18. God says to Jeremiah:
"Now, Jeremiah, say this to them: 'Night and day my eyes overflow with tears. I cannot stop weeping, for my virgin daughter—my precious people—has been struck down and lies mortally wounded. If I go out into the fields, I see the bodies of people slaughtered by the enemy. If I walk the city streets, I see people who have died of starvation. The prophets and priests continue with their work, but they don’t know what they’re doing.'”
In this passage, God feels sorrow for the state of His people being mortally wounded and defiled, even though it was the consequences of their actions. This example feels extremely similar to Jesus weeping for Lazarus. God knew how things would work out for Israel, yet He took the time to feel sorrow. I find this comforting. Sometimes we must suffer because we are called to it like Christ. Sometimes it's because we've made the wrong choice. Either way, God has compassion for us, He feels our pain, just like the scripture suggests in Psalm 56:8 (NLT): "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."
Christ Cares for Us
God sees our life in the context of creation: beginning, middle, and end, yet He takes time to feel sorrow for us and with us. It's still a difficult concept for me to accept, just like His love for us is difficult for me to accept, but through faith, we believe it.
When you break faith down it seems insane, but it's by our faith that we have salvation in Christ! It's in our best interest to believe in God's love and compassion for us. As I've already admitted, I struggle with it through painful times, but God tells us to have faith and not doubt Him.
Jesus weeping is supposed to make us pause—and for good reason. The fact that He wept over his friend's temporary death is shocking because Jesus knew Lazarus would be back, but He wept anyway. I believe now more than ever that He wept to show us how much He cares for every one of us. He wanted us to see His compassion and trust in it so that we would lean on Him in all things.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/wernerimages
Vanessa Luu is a wife, mother, and faith-based writer. She speaks and writes to believers to encourage them to live authentically with God.
