Jesus Wept (Again)

Special Edition · Issue #1 · Holy Week · March 31, 2026

Most people know John 11:35. Two words: “Jesus wept.” The easy verse, the one you memorized for the Sunday school special because it was short. But look at what’s sitting on either side of it. The tears in that verse aren’t alone in the room. They sit between two groans, and if you skip past those you miss most of what’s happening at that tomb.

The Verse Everyone Knows

Verse 33 first. Jesus shows up, sees the weeping, sees the tomb, and John says he was “deeply moved in his spirit.” The word behind that is embrimaomai, and it isn’t soft. Not a single tear rolling down a composed face. It’s a jolt. A shudder. Grief with anger folded inside it, the kind that moves your whole body before it moves your mouth.

Then verse 35. “Jesus wept.” Tears, in public, no speech attached.

Then verse 38, walking up to the tomb — embrimaomai again. Same word. Same wave hitting him a second time, like grief doesn’t get used up the first time through. Groan. Tears. Groan. The Son of God is not breezing through this scene. He’s taking the hit, all the way through, twice.

He Knew the Ending

Here’s the part that won’t let go of me. I’ll admit — I already preached on John 11 a few weeks back and posted a video a couple hours after. You’d think I’d said what needed saying. I haven’t. I keep circling back to one detail on a Tuesday afternoon at my desk.

He knew. He knew Lazarus was about to walk out. He knew the whole arc before anyone touched the stone. He’d set it up himself.

And he groaned anyway. He wept anyway. Knowing the ending did not cancel the ache.

You’ve probably heard the “God has a plan” line at a graveside or in a hospital hallway. The way it lands, whether anyone means it this way or not, is: if you understood the plan, it wouldn’t hurt this much. As if knowing the last page should numb you somewhere in the middle chapters.

Jesus blows that up. He stands at a grave fully aware of what he’s about to do, and he’s shaking like death is a personal insult. Because it is. Death was never supposed to be here — not at the end of a long life, not in a split-second on a highway, not in a NICU. Even a temporary death, one he’s about to undo in five minutes, still makes him groan. The enemy stays the enemy even with its days numbered. That tension just sits in the story. I don’t think we’re meant to tidy it up. We’re meant to live inside it a while.

The City and the Garden

John 11 isn’t the only time. Holy Week gives us this twice more.

Luke 19:41 — Jesus wept again. He comes over the hill, sees Jerusalem, and breaks down. Not grief over a casket. Grief over a whole city that had every chance, every prophet, every sign, and still chose not to see.

What does he do next? Walks into the temple and starts turning over tables.

We like to keep those apart — sad Jesus over here, angry Jesus over there. But they belong together. Same heart. Same grief. Tears in the street first, then the whip in the temple.

Hebrews 5:7 takes us into Gethsemane with Scripture’s own phrase: “prayers and appeals with loud cries and tears.” Not quiet. Not composed.

Look where he weeps every time — at a tomb, over a blind city, in a garden on the road to a cross. His tears keep redefining what the word “God” even means. I used to picture God as someone who never flinched. Calm. Powerful. Composed above it all, watching from a safe distance. The tears say something else. He is sovereign — and he is not detached. Not in John 11. Not on the road into Jerusalem. Not in the garden. Never once unmoved.

What the Tears Tell Us

The tears of Jesus aren’t mood lighting. Not atmosphere for good storytelling.

They are doctrine. They tell you exactly what kind of God you have. If you want to know God, you cannot skip past the weeping. The tears aren’t filler — they’re part of the gospel. Not weakness. Proof. Proof that what hits you actually hits him, and not the way a headline hits a stranger scrolling past on a Tuesday morning. More like the way it hits a father when his own kid gets hurt.

God does not stand back and observe from a safe height. He groans. He shudders. He weeps. And then — only then — he moves. He raises Lazarus. He clears the temple. He carries a cross and finishes what he started.

I want God to fix it. He does. But his order puts the tears first. Before the resurrection. Before the temple gets cleared out. Before anyone’s written the theology notes. There is a God who weeps, and that’s the part I keep trying to skip. I want Easter morning without sitting through Friday. Jesus won’t let me fast-forward around the groaning, because the groaning was never wasted time on the way to the miracle. It’s part of how he works. The groan comes before the miracle, over and over.

The Tomb

It’s Holy Week while I write this, and I keep circling back to that sound at the tomb. Embrimaomai. The groan right before “Lazarus, come out.”

There is a God who stood at his friend’s grave, who felt in his own body what death had done, who wept over it while fully aware of what he was about to do next. He knew — and he groaned anyway. He didn’t dodge the grief or manage it from a distance. He stood there and let it land.

What kind of God groans at a grave he’s about to open?

The kind you can trust when you’re standing at your own. Somewhere between verse 33 and verse 38. Not at the happy ending.

In the middle.

From Pulpit to Page is a reflection from Pastor Mike and Red River Baptist Church.

This special holy week edition is for anyone who has ever believed God is unmoved by what moves them.