Jesus weeps for Lazarus.

John 11.28-37.

One of the answers to the popular trivia question, “What’s the shortest verse in the bible?” is found in today’s passage. The shortest verse in the King James Version is the 9-letter “Jesus wept,” Jn 11.35 which I translate “Jesus weeps”—one letter longer—because aorist verbs aren’t always past tense.

Thing is, in the original texts, the 16-letter sentence ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς/edákrusen o Yisús, is not the shortest verse. That’d be the 9-letter עֵ֥בֶר פֶּ֖לֶג רְעֽוּ/Evér, Pelég, Rev in 1 Chronicles 1.25; three of Abraham’s ancestors. And in the New Testament it’d be the 12-letter καὶ ὁ δεύτερος/ke o dévteros, “and the second.” Lk 20.30 Thing is, the Textus Receptus added seven words to this verse, so it’s not all that short in that particular NT. But there’s still a verse in the NT shorter than edákrusen o Yisús, and it’s the 14-letter πάντοτε χαίρετε/pántote hérete, “rejoice always.” 1Th 5.16

Enough bible trivia. Everybody remembers Jesus wept, but now let’s get to why. Because it tends to dumbfound people. Why’s he crying? Why’s he mourning the death of Lazarus? Didn’t he go to Bethany specifically to “awaken” Lazarus from the dead? Jn 11.11 Why’s he grieving a death that he’s about to undo within the next 15 minutes?

I’ve got a ridiculously simple answer to that question, and it’d occur to you immediately if you share that trait. Unfortunately too many Christians don’t, don’t care to cultivate it, and even consider it an undesirable weakness. And it’s not; it’s a fruit of the Spirit. It’s empathy, the knowledge of what others are feeling—and feeling it too. The people were mourning—and kinda angry because they felt Jesus could’ve prevented Lazarus’s death. So Jesus was mourning—and, believe it or not, also kinda angry.

It’s all right there in the text:

John 11.28-37 KWL

28Martha, after saying this,

goes and secretly calls her sister Mary,

saying, “The Teacher is here and calls for you.¹”

29When she hears this,

this Mary quickly rises up

and is going to Jesus.ᴾ

30Jesus hadn’t yet come into the village,

but is still in the place where Martha met him.

31So the Judeans who are with Maryᴾ in the house,

comforting her,

seeing how Mary quickly rises up and goes out,

follow her,

thinking she goes out to the sepulcher

so she might weep there.

32So when Mary comes to where Jesus is,

on seeing him, she falls to his feet,

telling him, “Master, if you¹ were here,

my brother would never have died.”

33So when Jesus sees Maryᴾ weeping,

and those Judeans who came with her weeping,

he’s outraged in spirit

and stirred up within himself.

34Jesus says, “Where did you² put Lazarus?ᴾ”

They tell him, “Master, come and see.”

35Jesus weeps,

36so the Judeans are saying,

“Look how he loves Lazarus.ᴾ”

37And some say back to them, “Wasn’t this Jesus,

who opened the eyes of the blind man,

able to do something

so that this Lazarus might not die?”

As it says in verse 33, when Jesus sees Mary and the crowd, he ἐνεβριμήσατο/enevrimísato, “snorts with anger.” The KJV has “groaned”; the translators skipped why he groaned, but they knew from their Latin bibles it was because Jesus fremuit spiritu, “raged in spirit.”

Why was Jesus angry? Like I said, empathy: The crowd of Judeans wanted to know why Jesus could cure the blind, but couldn’t’ve cured Lazarus. Jn 11.37 So, some of them were frustrated with him. And Jesus felt that, in his spirit. Not in his guts, which is where the ancients believed emotion came from; he spiritually knew there was anger in the crowd. They wanted to know why he hadn’t done anything. They expected he’d better do something now.

As for why he wept: Mary was weeping. So he wept with her. Because Jesus isn’t a compassionless, unfeeling dick. He’s a human being with the very same emotions we have, but he’s in full control of them and doesn’t use them as an excuse to sin. He rejoices with us; he mourns with us. And because he’s our example, we should do likewise.

Who wrote the bible’s books?

Recently I saw a meme which listed all the books of the bible, and who wrote ’em. And whoever wrote it got so many wrong. It’s a combination of unprovable traditions—Moses did not write “the five books of Moses,” no matter how often people claim he did—and oversimplifications, like “David” writing the psalms and not David plus other psalmists; or “Paul” wrote all his letters but skipping his cowriters.

Anyway here’s the actual list of who wrote what—as best we know, anyway. I’m listing the books in King James Version order; your bible might have ’em in a different order.

Talking snakes.

In the past, when I’ve spoken with nontheists about why they don’t believe in God, Christianity, the bible, or Jesus, often the reasons they gave was they weren’t raised Christian, and weren’t raised to take it seriously as a belief system.

Which is fair! It’s the very same reason I’m not Muslim. I was raised Christian, not Muslim, and was raised to favor Christianity. So if someone ever told me in my teens and early twenties, “Have you considered Islam?” I’d’ve honestly said no, I never have. And wasn’t interested in giving it a shot. If I were to give any religion a shot, it’d be my own. Eventually I did exactly that.

Nontheists do the very same thing. When they’re young, they don’t often think about why they don‘t believe in God; they simply don’t. Their parents don’t, and they mimic their unbelieving parents. They know this.

Now, if you encounter them when they’re older, when they’ve been studying atheism for a bit, and now they wanna debate Christians about the merits of religion, now they’re not gonna tell you, “I’m atheist because I was raised that way, and never considered religion a viable option.” No; now they’re definitely in the anti-religion camp, and that explanation—though true—sounds pathetic to them. Now they’re gonna say the reason they’re atheist is because [CURRENT POPULAR REASON]—whatever their favorite atheist authors are currently denouncing the hardest. Sometimes that’s ill-behaved Christians. Sometimes theodicy—“If God exists and is good, evil wouldn’t happen, but it does, so he doesn’t or isn’t.”

And sometimes they don’t believe because they find God, and popular Christian ideas about God, silly. The idea of a old bearded man in the sky, shaking his finger at us or hurling lightning bolts because we sin or don’t believe in him? Ridiculous.

In the second creation story, there’s a נָחַשׁ/nakháš, usually translated “serpent.” In Genesis 3 it has a conversation with the first woman. Seriously: A snake. Talking to a human. And the human talks back. And this isn’t fiction, like Harry Potter, where Harry talks to a snake too; this is a story Christians (and Jews, and Muslims) are meant to take seriously as an explanation for why God didn’t just make the world a paradise for us to live forever in: He totally did do that, but we sinned and ruined everything.

Skeptics simply can’t get past the talking snake. Heck, I’ve known Christians who struggle with it. I used to be one of them. I’m now of the opinion—same as many Christians, whether they admit it or not—this isn’t a literal snake. It’s the devil. Rv 12.9 Christians will pitch different theories about how this story took place—the devil transmogrified itself into a serpent, or somehow possessed an actual serpent—but I think in this context nakháš doesn’t even mean “serpent”; it’s means “devil.” But plenty of Christians have plenty of other theories.

Of course, skeptics find the idea of the devil silly too. Really?—a red man with horns, hooves, tail, and pitchfork, running amok, writing rock music, tempting Christians to not come to a full and complete stop at a stop sign? Ludicrous.

Now you can, and I have, wasted a whole bunch of time trying to explain the pop-culture depictions of God, the devil, the second creation story, and Christianity are filled to the brim with rubbish. These skeptics aren’t remotely interested in who God really is; they already don’t believe. In the very same way you don’t take Zeus seriously.

So shake the dust from your feet and move along.

The fall of humanity.

Genesis 3.1-8.

There’s a bit of wordplay in the first verse of Genesis 3. The last verse of chapter 2 describes Adam and Eve as עֲרוּמִּ֔ים/arummím, the plural of “naked.” The first verse of chapter 3 describes the נָחָשׁ/nakháš, KJV “serpent,” which in this passage I’m gonna translate “devil,” as עָר֔וּם/arom. Really similar word. Same letters, but one different vowel sound, which is what makes the difference. Otherwise you’d think the devil was the most naked being in the wild.

Why’m I translating nakháš as “devil” instead of “serpent”? Because this is not a literal serpent. This is Satan, as the apostle John later identifies it:

Revelation 12.9 KWL

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

The ancients used the word’s verb-form, נָחַשׁ/nakháš—pronounced the same way—to mean “murmur an incantation,” or “practice divination,” or “foretell.” In general it had to do with superstition, and someone which dabbled in superstition would also be a nakháš, used as a noun. Whether the ancients were calling such people serpents, or whether these were originally two different words which later got mixed up, we don’t know. Either way, Genesis 3 isn’t about a literal serpent. Sure looks like it is, considering the LORD’s later curse upon that nakháš that “upon thy belly thou shalt go.” Ge 3.14 But we mustn’t take that curse literally either. I’ll explain when I get there.

Some will object to my using Revelation to interpret a Genesis passage. They figure since John wrote 15 centuries later, what does he know about the historical context of this story? Heck, did the author of Genesis even know the historical context of something which happened millennia before he wrote the book?

But I figure John wrote down what Jesus showed him, and Jesus knows exactly what this story means. So I’m still going with “devil.” If you’d rather read a translation which sticks to “serpent,” feel free.

Genesis 3.1-8 KWL

1The devil was intelligent—

more than every wild living creature

which the god YHWH made.

It said to the woman, “Did God really say,

‘Don’t you² eat from any of the garden’s trees’?”

2The woman told the devil,

“We eat of the garden’s trees’ fruit.

3Of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden,

God said, ‘Don’t eat from it;

don’t touch it, lest you² die.’ ”

4The devil told the woman, “You² don’t die-die.

5For God knows on the day you² eat from it,

your² eyes will open,

and you² become like gods,

knowing good and bad.”

6The woman saw the tree was good for food,

that it was desirable to the eyes,

and that it was desirable for wisdom.

She took from its fruit and ate.

She also gave it to her man with her,

and he ate.

7The eyes of the two of them were opened—

and they knew they were naked.

They sewed together fig leaves,

and made themselves loincloths.

8They heard the sound of the god YHWH

going through the garden

in the wind that day.

The human and his woman hid themselves

from the face of the god YHWH

in the middle of the garden’s trees.

As if anyone can hide from God. But Adam and Eve were young and dumb, and knew they’d massively messed things up.

Jesus’s Lazarus prayer.

John 11.41-42.

I’m going through the Lazarus story, and just before Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, he prays. It’s an odd little prayer, and from it we can learn a bit about both Jesus and prayer. Goes like so.

John 11.41-42 KWL

41So they take away the rock

{which is at the place the dead lay},

and Jesus lifts up his eyes to the sky and says,

“Father, I give you¹ thanks that you¹ hear me.

42I knew you¹ always hear me,

but I say this because of the crowd around,

so they might believe you¹ send me.”

It’s odd because y’notice Jesus doesn’t make a prayer request. Usually when a Christian’s about to try to cure someone, or even raise the dead, they ask the Holy Spirit, “Can I do this? Can you make me able to do this? Would you cure this person? Is this your will that they be cured? Please do this.” There’s a whole lot of requesting going on. Some begging. Sometimes even some deal-making.

And Jesus does none of that. It’s only, “Thank you, Father, for hearing me. Yeah, I know you already hear me; I’m just saying this for their sake.” Gotta be honest! But in this prayer, he doesn’t ask the Father for anything. It’s solely acknowledgement the Father is here with Jesus—and the Father sent Jesus.

And then Jesus raised Lazarus.

Why doesn’t Jesus beg the Father to empower him to pull off this miracle? Because he doesn’t need to. We already know from other scriptures Jesus prayed a lot. He was all prayed up. When he tells his students elsewhere, right after he threw an evil spirit out of a boy, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting,” Mk 9.29 you notice Jesus couldn’t just start fasting right then; he had to already have a lifestyle of fasting. Same with the prayer: Jesus could start praying his head off right at that moment, but what good is that when you don’t already have a conversational relationship with your Father? And Jesus undoubtedly had that already.

So when it came time to cure Lazarus of death, Jesus didn’t need to stand before the sepulcher, lift his hands to heaven, pray for three hours, and maybe Lazarus might come forth. Jesus spent his entire life patterning every action after the Father’s will. Today was no different. And Jesus spent his entire life praying, almost constantly, often intensely, to his Father. He’d been all prayed up since childhood.

If we’re all prayed up, and we step into a situation where someone needs to be cured of illness, we don’t need to drop to our knees and beg God for hours to grant our request. We’ve already been talking to him. We already know what he wants us to do. We already know whether he’ll empower us to cure this illness or not—and if not, we don’t give the poor person false hope that God’ll cure them immediately. We just remind ’em to keep praying, like the widow in Jesus’s Persistent Widow Story.

But if so, we don’t need to pray any more than Jesus did in this situation: “Hey, Father? Thank you so much for hearing me. You always do.” Then, “In Jesus’s name, I order this illness to go away.” And it will.

Jesus is resurrection and life.

John 11.17-27.

Lazarus’s sisters Martha and Mary come up elsewhere in the gospels. It’s in a story where Mary sits at Jesus’s feet during a lesson, which was not appropriate for women in their sexist culture, and Martha tells Jesus to shoo her away and make Mary help her. But Jesus tells Martha to leave her be; that’s exactly where Mary belongs. Lk 10.38-42 As a result Christians have preached many a sermon where Martha’s the bad example, and Mary’s the good.

Although they don’t always realize why Mary’s the good. Often these sermons only talk about Mary worshiping at Jesus’s feet—as if Mary was only fangirling over Jesus while he was at the serious business of training apostles. That’s not how rabbinic lessons worked. The rabbi makes a statement; the students challenge the statement based on their bible knowledge; the rabbi defends his statement based on his bible knowledge. Those at the rabbi’s feet actively participated in this. Meaning Mary was challenging Jesus, quoting bible, and showing an intellectual capacity that impressed Jesus so much he wanted her there. Valued her there.

Generally the lessons go: Martha frets about so many things which are ultimately irrelevant, but Mary sits at Jesus’s feet. Let’s all be like Mary. Martha bad, Mary good. But no, Martha wasn’t bad—she just didn’t realize she likewise had the right to sit at the Lord’s feet, same as Mary, and learn from Jesus, instead of doing busywork like her culture expected her to.

Anyway, by the time Lazarus died, Martha apparently had learned from Jesus, ’cause she makes some of the more profound faith statements in the bible. Her faith didn’t go heave-ho after her brother died, like we see in so many people; it was strong as ever. When she met with Jesus, she didn’t scream at him about not being there to save Lazarus, as some of the lousier Jesus movies depict her. She still trusts him. She knows the Father listens to him; she still believes he can do something. She still calls him Christ, God’s son.

John 11.17-27 KWL

17So, on arriving, Jesus finds Lazarus

is already four days in the sepulcher.

18Bethany is near Jerusalem;

like 15 stadia. [2⅓ km]

19Many of the Judeans came to Martha and Mary

so they might comfort them about their brother.

20So Martha, once she hears Jesus arrives, meets him.

Mary is sitting in the house.

21So Martha says to Jesus, “Master, if you¹ were here,

my brother never would have died.

22[But] I now know whatever you¹ ask God,

God will give you.¹”

23Jesus tells her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24Martha tells him, “I know he’ll rise—

in the resurrection, on the last day.”

25Jesus tells her, “I’m the resurrection.

I’m life.

One who trusts in me, if they¹ die, will live.

26And everyone who lives and trusts in me

ought never, ever die in the age to come.

Do you¹ believe this?”

27Martha tells him, “Yes, Master.

I’ve believed you’re¹ the Christ,

God’s son coming into the world.”

Other Christians despair at their great losses, yet Martha still totally trusts Jesus. That’s huge. Let’s all be like Martha.

The text of 1 John.

My translation of 1 John.

No, not so I can have my own spin on it, or an “authoritative text” to work from; that’s not how translation works. I translate so I can study the original text in greater depth. If you translate so you can frame it to suit yourself, stop it.

Feel free to read it in other translations. Compare them to one another so you can see the translators’ consensus—and that gives you a better idea of what John meant, than simply reading one “best” translation. Then follow John as he follows Jesus; not us translators.