“Jesus Wept.”
Commentary on John 11:35
“Jesus wept.”
—John 11:35
It’s the shortest verse in the entire Bible—just two words. Yet these two words reveal a deep Truth about who Jesus is, and what that means for those who follow Him.
As someone who was raised a strict Roman Catholic, I didn’t grow up engaging with the Bible or the New Testament in the same way that Protestant denominations do. Recently, I read an essay on Substack where a Christian author recounted a story of one of their former Catholic professors in theology. I wish I’d bookmarked and saved it—if anyone reading this recognizes the narrative, please send it to me so I can link to it. Essentially, the anecdote was that the Catholic theology professor was approached about writing a book called “How Catholics Read the Bible,” and he refused the offer because he told the publisher, simply, “They don’t.”
The story of me coming back to Christianity through Christ is a long one that begins with my Dad’s terminal illness and death in 2019. The painful realizations & lessons on this 5 1/2 year journey could fill a book, as could the incredible power of the redemptive, forgiving Love I’ve found in Jesus. I never used to understand when Christians would say things like, “cultivate a personal relationship with Jesus,” as if you could talk to Him and have a 2-way dialogue. The way I grew up in the Catholic Church, you are taught that just picking up the Bible and reading it without any guidance from a priest, could result in incorrect interpretations. It was best to leave the interpretation to priests, who have dedicated their lives to studying God’s word and the early Church Fathers.
To be fair, I do see the logic in this. It’s not necessarily meant to “gatekeep” or stop you from pursing religious knowledge, the purpose is to protect you from “cherry-picking” or ending up imposing your own biases and interpretations that could be drastically out of line with accepted doctrine. It’s easy when you’re an atheist or agnostic to dismiss the notion of “accepted doctrine,” but this is not purely intellectual for Catholics.
To the contrary, these are sincerely held religious beliefs that matter a great deal in how we worship and live our lives. You need only look at some of today’s “Megachurches,” where pastors accumulate obscene wealth while preaching a distorted, self-serving version of the Gospel, to understand why the Catholic Church emphasizes tradition, authority, and doctrinal guardrails. When Scripture is interpreted without accountability or reverence, it can veer into something not just theologically unsound, but spiritually dangerous—a worship of prosperity and power in place of God.
In recent years, though, that hesitance to engage with Scripture directly has fallen away for me. In my grief, reflection, and never-ending search for inner peace, I’ve come to realize that reading the Bible prayerfully and personally is not only possible, but essential to growing in faith. I still deeply value the Catholic lens through which I was taught to approach Scripture, especially the reverence, humility, and. connection to centuries of Church teaching. But I’ve also come to appreciate the way many Protestants, like my Aunt Chris and Uncle Brian, dive into the Word with intimacy and immediacy. It’s no longer either-or for me. These days, I try to read Scripture every day. Even when I don’t physically pick up a Bible, I fall asleep listening to the Gospels on Audible.
When I do sit down to read one of my many Bible translations, I always have a journal to write my thoughts down. I also check any verse or passage I read against both my Ignatius Catholic Study Bible and my ESV Study Bible, to see if there are any substantive differences in interpretation, and if so, what those differences tell us. I’ve found that reflecting on Scripture in this way has drawn me closer to Jesus than I’ve ever been. When I read Jesus’s words today in 2025, I can hear Him speaking to me as clearly as he spoke to His people over 2,000 years ago.
“Jesus wept.”
This isn’t a saying or parable spoken by Jesus. It’s a narrative detail, quietly placed in the story, yet profoundly revealing of who He is. It offers a glimpse into the mystery of His divine humanity: a God who mourns, who feels, who shares in our pain.
I’m part of a Bible study group with my Uncle Brian, Aunt Chris, and their seven children. Every couple of months, Uncle Brian gives us a passage to “Memorize & Meditate” on—what he calls M&M. We’re supposed to memorize the verse or passage and send a video of ourselves reciting it aloud. After a stretch where very few of us were keeping up, my Uncle selected John 11:35: “Jesus wept.” He told us it was the shortest verse in Scripture, so we had no excuse not to participate this time.
At first, it felt like a clever way to get everyone back on board. But as I sat with those two words, I found myself drawn into deeper reflection.
Jesus…wept.
God, in flesh, cried. And not out of despair, hopelessness or weakness—but out of love.
What strikes me most about this verse is how clearly it reveals Jesus’s human nature, existing alongside his divinity. It reminds me of his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he prayed alone at midnight, deeply distressed by the suffering and death he knew were imminent. He wrestled with fear, the certainty of His impending doom, and with The Enemy’s whisper that there was a way he could avoid the pain. His struggle took place in both the spiritual and physical realms. It was emotional, not rational. Jesus sweated blood and gasped in anguish as he fought off Satan’s attempts to flood him with doubt. His victory was won by moving through His fear in complete submission to God’s will, not by being immune to fear.
The human experience of pain, fear, and most importantly, Love, is central to who Jesus is: Son of Man. As such, it’s also been the source of extensive theological reflection and debate for centuries.
One of the defining issues that contributed to the schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches is rooted in how the nature of Christ’s divinity and humanity is understood and expressed—particularly in the Filioque clause (Latin for “and the Son”), which addresses the procession of the Holy Spirit. The original version of the Nicene Creed, agreed upon at the early ecumenical councils, stated that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from the Father.” The Western Church (now the Roman Catholic Church) later added “and the Son” (Filioque) without the consent of the Eastern bishops, and without an ecumenical council.
While secular academics might dismiss these as mere semantic disputes, for those who believe, they hold deep spiritual and doctrinal significance that go far beyond wording. The Catholic Church, by affirming that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, expresses the equality of the Father and the Son within the Trinity. It emphasizes their shared divine nature and unity of will & love. The Eastern Orthodox Church rejected this addition, partly because it altered a creed that had been established by an ecumenical council, but also because it implied a kind of symmetry that, in their view, subjugated the Spirit and distorted the Father’s unique and primary role as the sole source within the Trinity. For the Orthodox, the Father alone is the origin point—both of the Son (by begetting) and of the Spirit (by procession)—and altering that hierarchy challenges their beliefs about the distinct roles within the Trinity.
Many Protestant denominations inherited the Filioque through their theological lineage from the Catholic Church, continuing to affirm it as part of their understanding of the Trinity. In many cases, the historical context of the clause isn’t a central focus, and the deeper theological debates surrounding it remain less emphasized in regular teaching. More recent movements within Protestantism, such as Evangelicals and Nondenominational or “Seeker-Friendly” churches, sometimes adopt a simplified or less formally defined view of the Trinity—highlighting the divinity of Christ in powerful and meaningful ways, though often without delving as deeply into the relational dynamics between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox teachings do.
In my view, these questions about how the Father, Son, and Spirit relate to one another have everything to do with how we understand Jesus. Does he stand as co-equal with the Father in power and glory, or in a subordinate role due to his humanity? How we answer this inevitably shapes how we pray, how we worship, and how we understand the Love that moved Jesus to weep in John 11:35.
In John 11, for anyone unfamiliar, Jesus weeps as he stands among the mourners gathered at the tomb of Lazarus. Though he knows he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead, he is moved by the grief of those around him—especially Mary and Martha, Lazarus’s sisters, who are devastated by their brother’s death. Jesus doesn’t rush past their grief. Instead, he enters into it. With them, He weeps tears of compassion, empathy, and love. He allows himself to feel the weight of their pain, even knowing the miracle that is moments away. This narrative reveals both the tenderness of Jesus’s humanity and the breadth of His divine love.
As I’ve searched for a local church to call home, I’ve wrestled with these questions. It’s tempting to want a perfect fit, where every church doctrine aligns exactly with my personal convictions and interpretations of Scripture. But if I wait for that, I’ll never belong anywhere. It’s equally tempting to tell yourself that you don’t need to attend church at all, given that you can pray and worship wherever you want, because He knows your heart.
What I’ve come to see is that what matters most isn’t finding a church that agrees with me on every point; it’s finding a community where I can worship with others, receive the Eucharist, and live out the Command to love my neighbor. We’re not meant to walk this journey alone. Jesus made that crystal clear. When asked about the greatest Commandment, he gave us a simple yet radical directive: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.
Mark 12:28–31 (NRSV):
One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?”
Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Being able to love God and love our neighbors necessarily requires learning to love ourselves. Not in pride, but with the compassion and patience God shows us. It means not judging others by the letter of the law, while failing to live out the spirit of it in our own lives (otherwise known as “being a hypocrite”). We’re all sinners who need only sincerely ask for God’s forgiveness to receive it. How can we expect forgiveness and mercy from God, without being merciful and forgiving towards our brothers and sisters here on Earth?
Even as Jesus was being nailed to the cross, He cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34) Hours later, in an expression of His raw humanity, He yelled, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34) before finally surrendering Himself: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46) In these moments, just as when He wept, Jesus shows us that divine Love is never detached from human suffering; it enters into it, embraces it, and redeems it.
My Ignatius Catholic Study Bible offers a beautiful insight on John 11:35:
“Tears, not of despair, but of love and sympathy for Lazarus and his family. This small narrative detail points to an awesome theological mystery: Jesus, who became man in every respect except sin, experienced the full range of human emotions.”
This note further directs the reader to CCC1 478:
CCC 478: Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony, and his Passion and gave himself up for each one of us:
“The Son of God… loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, “is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that… love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings” without exception.
— Pius XII, Haurietis aquas, 1956
This love is intimate, immediate, and directed toward each of us individually, throughout all time. Jesus wept because He loved. He didn’t weep out of powerlessness, but because He stood in the tension between divine authority and human grief. He knew he would raise Lazarus—but still, He paused to mourn with those who mourned.
In Jesus, we see both divinity and humanity fully present: a Savior who holds the power to raise the dead, yet still pauses to mourn. When He wept, He didn’t diminish His divinity. He revealed its fullness through perfect compassion.
It calls to mind the famous poem, Footprints in the Sand. In the townhouse I grew up in, my Mom had a big, ceramic scroll painted with the poem, prominently centered as the main focal point of our living room display cabinet. It tells the story of the human realization that at our lowest points, God has not abandoned us. When Jesus was crucified, He was not forsaken.
When we weep, God weeps with us, just as Jesus wept with Mary and Martha outside the tomb of Lazarus. And when we rejoice, He rejoices with us too! And what incredibly Good News it is that the God who shares in our suffering, is also the God who delights in our redemption.
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Catechism of the Catholic Church