452
The Desire of Ages
were prepared to arrest Jesus when opportunity offered. The cries of
the mourners prevented her words from being heard.
[531]
[532]
[533]
On hearing the message, Mary rose hastily, and with an eager look
on her face left the room. Thinking that she had gone to the grave to
weep, the mourners followed her. When she reached the place where
Jesus was waiting, she knelt at His feet, and said with quivering lips,
“Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” The cries of
the mourners were painful to her; for she longed for a few quiet words
alone with Jesus. But she knew of the envy and jealousy cherished in
the hearts of some present against Christ, and she was restrained from
fully expressing her grief.
“When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping
which came with her, He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.” He
read the hearts of all assembled. He saw that with many, what passed
as a demonstration of grief was only pretense. He knew that some
in the company, now manifesting hypocritical sorrow, would erelong
be planning the death, not only of the mighty miracle worker, but of
the one to be raised from the dead. Christ could have stripped from
them their robe of pretended sorrow. But He restrained His righteous
indignation. The words He could in all truth have spoken, He did not
speak, because of the loved one kneeling at His feet in sorrow, who
truly believed in Him.
“Where have ye laid him?” He asked, “They said unto Him, Lord,
come and see.” Together they proceeded to the grave. It was a mournful
scene. Lazarus had been much beloved, and his sisters wept for him
with breaking hearts, while those who had been his friends mingled
their tears with those of the bereaved sisters. In view of this human
distress, and of the fact that the afflicted friends could mourn over the
dead while the Saviour of the world stood by,—“Jesus wept.” Though
He was the Son of God, yet He had taken human nature upon Him,
and He was moved by human sorrow. His tender, pitying heart is ever
awakened to sympathy by suffering. He weeps with those that weep,
and rejoices with those that rejoice.
But it was not only because of His human sympathy with Mary and
Martha that Jesus wept. In His tears there was a sorrow as high above
human sorrow as the heavens are higher than the earth. Christ did not
weep for Lazarus; for He was about to call him from the grave. He
wept because many of those now mourning for Lazarus would soon