SCRIPTURE:

Habakkuk 3:17-18 (NIV)
1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)
7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

2 Corinthians 1:5
5 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

DEVO:

If I am completely honest, there are times I don’t feel like my pain matters to Jesus. With countless individuals all over the world enduring suffering and hardship, surely He is up to His waist in triage with cases much more difficult, much more intense, and much more urgent than mine. And yet my soul longs to know someone sees me and cares about what I’m going through. 

This is the situation we see befall our friends Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus succumbs to an untimely death. As we talked about yesterday, had Jesus been there, had he been available, surely none of this would have happened. After all, this is the man who has given sight to the blind, mended the lame, calmed the storm, and healed the terminally sick. If anyone had the power to prevent this, it was Jesus! And yet, He wasn’t there. And what makes matters worse is the flippancy with which He has seemed to handle the situation up to this point.

I have to admit, until reading verse 35 I was a bit put off by Jesus. My head swirled with the same questions spewing from Martha’s mouth. If this Lazarus really meant that much to you, why were you not there?

I suppose it’s in our suffering we can drift into the deepest form of loneliness. While everyone else seems to go about their own life, posting their highlights on Instagram, enjoying the sweet sensations of life, I’m left feeling alone, forgotten and wallowing in my pain. Perhaps if I only knew that Jesus—the one who is supposed to always care—took notice of me or had time for me it would provide some sense of comfort. 

Even if I were to remove my own suffering from the equation and look at suffering from a macro-level, it doesn’t seem to change my questions. Sure it helps my perspective in that I can recognize that no matter what I’m going through, there is at least one person who is suffering deeper than me in this world. Somehow that seems to keep me from floundering in self-pity too much, but it also causes more fervency as I question Jesus’ concern for the plight of mankind!

And then I read verse 35. The shortest verse in scripture but it is packed with arguably the most profound truth of all of scripture: Jesus wept. 

It would be easy to gloss over and minimize the profundity of this verse and miss its depth of meaning. Unlike what many around Jesus presumed in that moment, He was not merely weeping because of Lazarus’ death—although he was intensely grieved over the loss of His friend. Though He knew in a few short minutes He was going to raise him back to life, it didn’t remove the sting He felt of losing a loved one. 

But I think beyond the personal grief of a close friend, Jesus felt a deeper mourning—one that transcends any grief any of us have ever experienced. Verse 34 gives us a clue into what He was likely feeling. It says, “When Jesus saw [Martha] weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” I don’t think Jesus was necessarily mourning the loss of Lazarus here as much as he was mourning the brokenness that had shattered the perfect, harmonious world He had created. 

I believe He looked at Martha, Mary, and the other hurting friends and family and His spirit ached to the core. In that moment, He not only knew cognitively the toll sin had taken on humanity, but He felt it in his soul. This is not the way it was supposed to be. This is not what I intended for my creation. This is not what I wanted for my children. My heart is deeply burdened beyond relief because my children are hurting. This scene was to Jesus a foretaste of the suffering he would soon endure. And that suffering would become the answer to the one question that plagues mankind—does God even care about my suffering?

In fact, the place where Mary and Martha resided was a town called Bethany on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Jesus and His disciples would routinely stop here to visit and stay with the three siblings before continuing on into the city. This would have been the last place Jesus stopped before entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday in triumph, only to be handed over, arrested, flogged, beaten and crucified a few days later. I imagine Jesus’ response here in John 11 was a cacophony of emotions. I have to believe He not only felt sorrow for the way the world had turned out, but also for what He knew must happen in order to make it right again. 

It’s here in Bethany Jesus demonstrates the ultimate display of empathy. Empathy is the ability to join someone else in their suffering. Rather than standing aloof, or merely working a miracle from a detached emotion or location, Jesus demonstrates his own capacity to care and suffer with us. This scene shows us more than any other in scripture that he cares for us. Not only does He hurt for us but He hurts with us. God joins the suffering of humanity by wrapping Himself in human flesh and subjecting Himself to the same plight of us all—the plight of pain. There is no greater ministry than the person who says, “Hey, I won’t just be here with you as you go through this, I’ll go through this with you.”

This pathway of pain to which Jesus chose to subject Himself led to the very event that gives us hope in the midst of pain—resurrection. By His power, He not only offers healing, He offers a raising back to life, a complete restoration of what was previously dried up and dead in our lives.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND JOURNALING:

1. How much of a difference does it make in your life when someone cares enough about what you’re going through to be there for you? To what degree do you feel like Jesus has been there for you in your current trial?

2. Other than John 11:35, what other ways do you know that Jesus cares about your pain (other scripture, personal stories, etc.)?

3. How does this passage show us that we can be a representation of Jesus to others when they’re walking through trial or tragedy?

PRAYER:

Lord, help me to realize that you truly care about my pain. My trial doesn’t annoy you or frustrate you or cause you to waver from your loving character. Thank you for entering into my pain with me and taking my burdens on yourself. Even in the times I don’t feel you, help me to know that you are present and attuned to me no matter what.