CLAIRE STREBECK | GUEST
Christ identifies with all our weaknesses.
Christ understands our every sorrow.
Do you weep? Do you mourn? If there were one characteristic that marked Jesus’ earthly ministry, it would be compassion. Over and over, he was moved with deep pity for those weeping, especially those who were disadvantaged: the widow from Nain; Mary at the death of Lazarus; the sinner-woman who wailed as she washed Christ’s feet with her expensive perfume and her tears.
Yet, it was not only their circumstances that provoked Jesus’ emotion. Certainly, any of their conditions could have been sufficient to prompt anyone to sympathy. Still, with Jesus, each emotional response included more than mere circumstantial pity. Every time Christ was moved in his emotions, it was in response to the battle he waged with death.
Jesus’ Emotional Response to Our Fallen World
When Christ saw Mary and the other Jews weeping over Lazarus’ death, he felt more than sorrow. John 11:33 tells us that He was “deeply moved.” I was surprised to discover that the text signifies more than Jesus’ sadness and sympathy–John also communicates Jesus’ rage. The original Greek word used is embrimaomai, which literally translates to “being very angry or moved with indignation.” Was Christ angry at Mary or those with her? Was he angry over their grief? Absolutely not. In fact, we see that he was stirred in response to their mourning, with his own shedding of tears only two verses later. It was death itself that prompted our Lord to anger.
Recently, I read the very short but powerful work by B.B. Warfield, The Emotional Life of Our Lord. He helpfully explains that “the spectacle of the distress of Mary and her companions enraged Jesus because it brought poignantly home to his consciousness the evil of death, its unnaturalness, its ‘violent tyranny’ as Calvin phrases it. In Mary’s grief, he ‘contemplates […] the general misery of the whole human race’ and burns with rage against the oppressor of men.”[1] In other words, Lazarus’ death was, for Christ, a visceral picture of what death has done to the earth since Genesis 3. If you are like me and have lived long enough to have lost people that you love, then you know the unique pain that death brings, the ultimate nature of it, the weighty and bleak barrenness of it.
Jesus knew that he would revive Lazarus. But knowing that he would resurrect Lazarus did not dispel the depth of emotion that Christ felt for the condition to which mankind is enslaved. If avenging death was always Christ’s lifework, of course it would follow that his emotions would reflect his mission. Warfield tells us, “It is death that is the object of his wrath, and behind death him who has the power of death and whom he has come into the world to destroy.”[2] When Jesus experienced emotions, it was always with the Cross in mind.
A Life with the Cross in View
Christ knew that the only way for death to die was for God himself to be the victor over it. “Our Lord did not come into the world to be broken by the power of sin and death, but to break it. He came as a conqueror with the gladness of the imminent victory in his heart; for the joy set before him he was able to endure the cross, despising shame (Heb.12:2).”[3] His whole life was in view of the cross, for Christ came “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). Jesus’ death is the pinnacle of his ministry to bring sinners to himself, to which all his works and emotions looked. From birth to death, Christ’s entire life— including his emotional life— was bound up in rescuing his people from sin.
We know that Jesus understands our every trouble because he has felt firsthand the miseries of this life. Can you imagine the anguish a sinless God-man would have endured living among a sinful people? If we have ever been angered or raged against injustice, Jesus more. If we have ever been troubled or sorrowed over the effects of the Fall, Jesus more. As Warfield tells us, “He has not only saved us from the evils that oppress us; he has felt for and with us in our oppression, and under the impulse of these feelings has wrought out our redemption.”[4] Simply put, Christ knew the depth of the terror of death far worse than we ever could, not because he was sinful but because he is sinless. And since Christ experienced the gamut of emotions in his human soul, we can be confident that we have a Savior who can sympathize with our every plight.
[1] Warfield, Emotional Life of Our Lord, 66.
[2] Ibid., 66.
[3] Ibid., 76-77.
[4] Ibid., 67.
Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash
