In John 11, the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, the empathetic love of Jesus is on display.
Christ exhibits this compassion after the death of Lazarus and the resulting grief of his sisters, Mary and Martha.
“When Jesus saw her (Mary) weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (v. 33)
“Jesus wept. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him’ (v. 35-36)
“Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb” (v. 38)
Jesus arrives at the scene, sees how sad they are, and He too is overcome with sadness and weeps with them. He was both “deeply moved” and “greatly troubled.”
The phrase “deeply moved” can include a person’s anger. The New Living Translation renders it, “a deep anger welled up inside him.”
Why was Jesus angry? The Amplified Bible offers this paraphrase: “He was deeply moved in spirit to the point of anger at the sorrow caused by death.”
Mark Johnston, in his book Let’s Study John, provides this explanation:
“The word is much stronger in the original and is closer to being ‘outraged in spirit’ or ‘indignant and angry.’ It is Jesus’ instinctive reaction to the presence of death in the world that he made.
“As a race, and even as Christians, we have become too accustomed to death and too ready to regard it as ‘normal.’ We see it as simply the final step in the sequence of life. For Jesus, nothing could be further from the truth. For him, death was an ugly intruder in his beautiful world. It was a curse: the very antithesis of the life that is cradled in creation. He displays all the disgust of the Creator whose good creation has been marred and scarred by the presence of an evil intrusion.
“In a thrilling way, his strength of feeling reflects his determination to overcome death once and for all.”
Even though Jesus knew that He would soon raise Lazarus from the dead and all this sorrow would be turned to joy, His love for Martha and Mary compelled Him to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
He was indeed “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He was intimately aware of the pain of his dear friends, and He shared their sadness as His own.
This is the Jesus who “loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (v. 15). And this is the Jesus who loves you and me. I take much comfort in that.
How about you?
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- The Love of Jesus on Display - February 15, 2026
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