Jesus Wept Quotes

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A Jesus who never wept could never wipe away my tears.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
I know why Jesus wept, motherfucker.
James O'Barr (The Crow)
A verse came to mind, one that has comforted Kari before. It was the shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept. If he cried over Jerusalem, if he cried over the death of Lazarus, surely he was crying now over the death of her dreams, the death of her marriage.
Karen Kingsbury (Redemption (Redemption, #1))
Baptized in a river when I was a teenager. I go to church most Sundays. My favorite Bible verse is ‘Jesus wept.’” “Because it’s the shortest?” He almost smiled. “No. Because it says that Jesus knew what it meant to grieve. He’d just let his best friend in the world die of illness when he could have gotten there in time to save him. I’m thinking he was between a rock and hard place, and the hard place let his friend die. He grieved. Then, when he could, he went and raised his friend from the grave, and he knew that if he did that, he’d die himself.
Faith Hunter (Blood Trade (Jane Yellowrock, #6))
So many have wept for Jesus on His cross. As if no one else has ever suffered as He suffered. As if millions have not shuffled to worse deaths, and died unremembered.
Joe Hill (Horns)
She [the Virgin Mary] was normal. She had already had other children. The Bible tells us that Jesus had two brothers. Virginity, as it relates to Jesus, is based on a different thing: Mary initiated a new generation of grace. A new era began. She is the cosmic bride, Earth, which opens to the heavens and allows itself to be fertilized.
Paulo Coelho (By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)
Though the growing may be difficult, God will be glorified at the end of every righteous man’s story.
Bodie Thoene (When Jesus Wept (The Jerusalem Chronicles, #1))
I’d say, “Jesus wept cause he’s trapped in there with missus, like us.
Sue Monk Kidd (The Invention of Wings)
There are only 266 words in the Gettysburg Address. The shortest sentence in the New Testament may be the most moving: “Jesus wept.
Kenneth Roman (Writing That Works: How to Communicate Effectively in Business)
I was skateboarding on the levee and lost my edges,” she said. “You were skateboarding?” She turned and looked at him and shook her head in exasperation: “No, you dummy, I fell. On the ice. On the sidewalk. Like old people do.” Virgil: “Oh.” She shook her head again. “Jesus wept.
John Sandford (Deadline (Virgil Flowers #8))
Abruptly, Templeton cut short his thoughts. There was a brief pause, almost as if he was uncertain whether he should continue. 'Uh ... but ... no,' he said slowly, 'he's the most ...' He stopped, then started again. 'In my view,' he declared, 'he is the most important human being who ever existed.' That's when Templeton uttered the words I neer expected to hear from him. ' And if I may put it this way,' he said in a voice that began to crack, 'I ... miss ... him!' With that tears flooded his eyes. He turned his head and looked downward, raising his left hand to shield his face from me. His shoulders bobbed as he wept." -Former Minister and now Agnostic Charles Templeton speaking of Jesus
Lee Strobel
grief. We do and say strange things—sometimes bizarre things—when we are swallowed up in grief. No one should be hard on us when we say thoughtless and selfish things when we are in grief. Both Mary and Martha accused Jesus of being the cause of their brother’s death by not responding immediately to their request: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21, 32). Jesus did not rebuke either of them. Instead, He wept with them (see John 11:35). So with all of us. He knows our frame; He remembers we are dust.
R.T. Kendall (These Are the Days of Elijah: How God Uses Ordinary People to Do Extraordinary Things)
When a good man suffers … perhaps it makes his roots reach deeper for the water?
Bodie Thoene (When Jesus Wept (The Jerusalem Chronicles, #1))
Jesus was overcome by the experience and wept. Only one who has looked deeply into the eyes of little children can grasp why. Only one who has sensed how near little children are to the heavens, how close to the angels, how innocent and worthy of our respect, admiration, and awe can know why the Purest of the Pure wept as he associated with the purest among the Nephites.
Robert L. Millet (Talking with God: Divine Conversations that Transform Daily Life)
Jesus Christ was as perfect as a human bein’ can be, yet he got mad and fought and wept and had days of feelin’ like he couldn’t go on another step. Like when the lepers and the sick folks almost trampled him down, all of ’em beggin’ for miracles and doggin’ him till he was about miracled out. What I’m sayin’, Mr. Mackenson, is that even Jesus Christ needed help sometimes, and he wasn’t too proud to ask for it.
Robert McCammon (Boy's Life)
Of course they were children, he knew that, and that wasn't it. They gave off a terrible glow. They had the blank glow of angels. They lived smack in the middle of reality and never gave it a minute's thought. They'd never felt like actors. They'd never been sick with irony. The long tunnel of their thoughts had never swallowed them. They'd never had restless sleepless nights, the urgent wordless unexplainable wrestling matches with the shadowy bands of soul-thieves. God damn it, Sault thought. Everybody gets to be happy except me. Saul heard Anne's cries. The sun was sweating all over his forehead. He felt faint, and Jewish, as usual. He turned on the radio. It happened to be tuned to a religious station and some choir was singing "When Jesus Wept.
Charles Baxter
Six people went into the house of a sick man to pray for him. He was an Episcopalian vicar, and lay in his bed utterly helpless, without even strength to help himself. He had read a little tract about healing and had heard about people praying for the sick, and sent for these friends, who, he thought, could pray the prayer of faith. He was anointed according to James 5:14, but, because he had no immediate manifestation of healing, he wept bitterly. The six people walked out of the room, somewhat crestfallen to see the man lying there in an unchanged condition. When they were outside, one of the six said, “There is one thing we might have done. I wish you would all go back with me and try it.” They went back and all got together in a group. This brother said, “Let us whisper the name of Jesus.” At first when they whispered this worthy name nothing seemed to happen. But as they continued to whisper, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” the power began to fall. As they saw that God was beginning to work, their faith and joy increased; and they whispered the name louder and louder. As they did so the man arose from his bed and dressed himself. The secret was just thus, those six people had gotten their eyes off the sick man, and they were just taken up with the Lord Jesus Himself, and their faith grasped the power that there is in His name. O, if people would only appreciate the power that there is in this name, there is no telling what would happen.
Smith Wigglesworth (The Teachings of Smith Wigglesworth)
Why did Jesus weep? said Suttree. Eh? He pointed up at the sign. Why did Jesus weep? Dont know scriptures? Some. He wept over folks workin on Sundays. Suttree smiled.
Cormac McCarthy (Suttree)
No, sir. Jesus wept: and no wonder, by Christ!
James Joyce (Ulysses)
Jesus wept.
Anonymous (The Holy Bible: English Standard Version)
Jesus wept!
Stephen King (The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, #2))
Jesus wept: This Prophet, Priest, King Has a: Holy, Priesthood, Chosen! This Refugee, Homeless, Healer Has a Celebrity, TV, Mega - church? God business to show business. Where did it go wrong? Jesus weeps.
David Holdsworth
That day, so many wept. Young and old, friends and strangers, black and white, men and women wept. The angels wept. Jesus wept. Coach Gabe Lewis, though, with his eyes on the lilies, shed not a single tear.
Nathan Barber (Resurrecting Lazarus, Texas)
Jesus was the last prophet from this little band of Jews who were destined to deliver messages to all mankind. Against all odds, these men had the greatest impact on shaping our destiny. They took us from the Ice Age to the Space Age with little more than a rod, a staff, and true grit. They were beaten, enslaved, martyred, yet they remained steadfast for they were the chosen ones. Although reluctant messengers at times, the risks were often greater than the rewards.. They cursed. They wept. They suffered and sacrificed. But they didn't fail. And among them all, Jesus stands tall and proud. He has had the most profound influence upon all mankind.
Suzanne Olsson (Jesus in Kashmir: The Lost Tomb)
Oh, how sweet the first kiss of Jesus was! It was a kiss of love. I knew that I was loved and I declared: “I love You and I give myself to You for ever!” Jesus made no demand on me; He asked for no sacrifices. For a long time Jesus and little Thérèse had gazed at each other and they understood each other. On that day it was no longer a matter of gazing: it was a union. There were no longer two of us. Thérèse had disappeared like a drop of water lost in the depth of the ocean. Only Jesus remained — as Master and King. For had not Thérèse begged Him to take away her freedom? Freedom frightened her, for she knew herself to be so weak and feeble that she wished to be united with the divine Power for ever. Her joy was too great, too deep to be contained. She wept. Her companions were amazed and afterwards they said: “Why on earth did she cry? Something must have been upsetting her. Perhaps it was because her mother wasn’t there, nor her Carmelite sister she loves so much.” They couldn’t understand that such a flood of divine joy cannot be borne without tears.
John Beevers (The Autobiography of Saint Therese: The Story of a Soul)
One," said the recording secretary. "Jesus wept," answered Leon promptly. There was not a sound in the church. You could almost hear the butterflies pass. Father looked down and laid his lower lip in folds with his fingers, like he did sometimes when it wouldn't behave to suit him. "Two," said the secretary after just a breath of pause. Leon looked over the congregation easily and then fastened his eyes on Abram Saunders, the father of Absalom, and said reprovingly: "Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids." Abram straightened up suddenly and blinked in astonishment, while father held fast to his lip. "Three," called the secretary hurriedly. Leon shifted his gaze to Betsy Alton, who hadn't spoken to her next door neighbour in five years. "Hatred stirreth up strife," he told her softly, "but love covereth all sins." Things were so quiet it seemed as if the air would snap. "Four." The mild blue eyes travelled back to the men's side and settled on Isaac Thomas, a man too lazy to plow and sow land his father had left him. They were not so mild, and the voice was touched with command: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." Still that silence. "Five," said the secretary hurriedly, as if he wished it were over. Back came the eyes to the women's side and past all question looked straight at Hannah Dover. "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion." "Six," said the secretary and looked appealingly at father, whose face was filled with dismay. Again Leon's eyes crossed the aisle and he looked directly at the man whom everybody in the community called "Stiff-necked Johnny." I think he was rather proud of it, he worked so hard to keep them doing it. "Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck," Leon commanded him. Toward the door some one tittered. "Seven," called the secretary hastily. Leon glanced around the room. "But how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity," he announced in delighted tones as if he had found it out by himself. "Eight," called the secretary with something like a breath of relief. Our angel boy never had looked so angelic, and he was beaming on the Princess. "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee," he told her. Laddie would thrash him for that. Instantly after, "Nine," he recited straight at Laddie: "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?" More than one giggled that time. "Ten!" came almost sharply. Leon looked scared for the first time. He actually seemed to shiver. Maybe he realized at last that it was a pretty serious thing he was doing. When he spoke he said these words in the most surprised voice you ever heard: "I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly." "Eleven." Perhaps these words are in the Bible. They are not there to read the way Leon repeated them, for he put a short pause after the first name, and he glanced toward our father: "Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday, and to-day, and forever!" Sure as you live my mother's shoulders shook. "Twelve." Suddenly Leon seemed to be forsaken. He surely shrank in size and appeared abused. "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," he announced, and looked as happy over the ending as he had seemed forlorn at the beginning. "Thirteen." "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?" inquired Leon of every one in the church. Then he soberly made a bow and walked to his seat.
Gene Stratton-Porter (Laddie: A True Blue Story (Library of Indiana Classics))
I have remembered Who wept for a parting between the living and the dead.
Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)
But instead of letting me see any ray of hope, God afflicted me with a most grievous martyrdom which lasted for three days. It brought sharply home to me the bitter grief felt by the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph as they searched for the Child Jesus. I was alone in a desert waste — or rather, my soul was like a fragile skiff tossing without a pilot in a stormy sea. I knew that Jesus was there, asleep in my craft, but the night was too black for me to see Him. All was darkness. Not even a flash of lightning pierced the clouds. There’s nothing reassuring about lightning, but, at least, if the storm had burst, I should have been able to glimpse Jesus. But it was night, the dark night of the soul. Like Jesus during His Agony in the Garden, I felt myself abandoned and there was no help for me on earth or in heaven. God had abandoned me. Nature herself seemed to share my misery. The sun never shone once during those three days and the rain fell in torrents. I have noticed that, at all the important moments of my life, nature has mirrored my soul. When I wept the sky wept with me, and when I was happy the sun shone without a cloud in the sky.
John Beevers (The Autobiography of Saint Therese: The Story of a Soul)
Jesus did not live a calm life. He cared too much. Yet he was not a tense person. He was not irritable, anxious, or driven. But he was not detached, cool, or aloof, either. He was no stoic or Buddhist. He plunged into the storms of human sufferings and sins. He felt keenly. At his friend Lazarus’s tomb, in the presence of death and human woe, he both bristled with anger and wept with sorrow.
David A. Powlison (Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness)
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.
Ellen Gould White (The Desire of Ages)
Jesus wept over those in need. He was moved with compassion for the crowds. He lived and loved to bring healing and comfort to the broken. He died for the sins of the world. So why are those of us who carry his Spirit not moved and compelled in the same way? Surely God didn’t design the gospel of Jesus to be confined to our minds and mouths in the church, yet disconnected from our emotions and actions in the world.
David Platt (Something Needs to Change: An Urgent Call to Make Your Life Count)
Already that morning missus had taken her cane stick to me once cross my backside for falling asleep during her devotions. Every day, all us slaves, everyone but Rosetta, who was old and demented, jammed in the dining room before breakfast to fight off sleep while missus taught us short Bible verses like “Jesus wept” and prayed out loud about God’s favorite subject, obedience. If you nodded off, you got whacked right in the middle of God said this and God said that.
Sue Monk Kidd (The Invention of Wings)
And if sorrow clouds your soul, don't fight it; allow the tears to flow. We are not meant to be invincible, we bruise easily, and the heart is soft; prone to bleed at the slightest touch. It is in those moments of sadness that we must be brave enough to allow Christ in, to let him be present in our pain; our sorrow is seen by Christ. One day He will wipe away every tear, He will hold us tight, but for now we must pray through the pain. Just know that Christ shares our pain, He understands the sorrow that is within you, for He was a man of many sorrows. He wept alone, He was tormented and forsaken. Believe me, a man who has been forsaken such as Christ will never forsake you. Jesus is the only person who knows all that you have been through, He is the only one who knows the deepest, darkest spots of your soul, and still---He remains. Jesus has the scars to prove that He is trustworthy, He has the only heart that bled for you; and He will never stop loving you.
T.B. LaBerge
Before He called me forth from the grave, Jesus wept. His was not the loud, frantic keening of the women who mourned outside my tomb. His was a sigh and a groan and a single salty tear. It was, at first, almost imperceptible, even to those standing closest to Him. But His sigh shook the universe, and the place where I was quaked. I stood in the midst of those who watched and waited for all things to be set right. Jesus groaned, and the heads of angels and saints turned to look down upon the earth in wonder. His tear trickled down his cheek, and a spring burst forth at my feet. Pure, clear water spilled from its banks and flowed down a mountainside, leaving a myriad of new stars, like flowers, blooming and rising in its wake. I remember thinking, On a clear night, constellations above the earth reflect on the still surface of the sea. But here? Only one of Jesus’ tears contains a galaxy. My eternal companions and I listened. We heard His voice echo from Bethany across the universe! He commanded, “Roll away the stone!” We all waited in anticipation for the next word from His lips. Then Jesus spoke my name: “Lazarus!” Surely He could not mean me, I thought. But all the same, I whispered, “Here I am, Lord.” Centuries have come and gone since His holy sob ripped me loose from timeless conversation with the ageless ones. Ten thousand, thousand scholars and saints have asked, “Why? What made the King of Heaven bow His head and cover His eyes and spill holy tears onto the earth? Why? Why did Jesus weep?
Bodie Thoene (When Jesus Wept (The Jerusalem Chronicles #1))
Look at the girl I loved and who loved me and how she ended. She wore the cross of Jesus about her neck and was faithful to the church, which never did anything for her except take her money from the collection plate and call her a sinner to her face. She kept Jesus in her heart every day and prayed to Him every night, and you see the good it did her. Jesus on His cross. So many have wept for Jesus on His cross. As if no one else has ever suffered as He suffered. As if millions have not shuffled to worse deaths, and died unremembered.
Joe Hill (Horns)
He promised me Berlin," Mum says. "It will kill him if we do not arrive." "It'd take more than that to kill my Roy. Your lot didn't manage it, did they?" "But what would happen if the brakes fail, Nell?" Mum dabs at her damp forehead with the hem of her cardigan. "Oh, I do hope Roy can take me home." "He won't." "Oh, Nell, can you not let me dream?" "If hopes and dreams were big ice-creams, the world would be right sticky. Now come on, Bridge. Pull yourself together. Jesus wept, look at the state of you. You're as much use as a knitted knife.
Joanna Campbell (Tying Down the Lion)
Our heads met, our eyes crossed paths, the window to the courtyard lay open, I whispered in his ear and he started crying in my hair, wept like a child, I stroked him, touched by his crying, that he opened up, as he truly was, rent his shirt and exposed his heart like the paintings of Jesus hung over the beds in country houses.
Bohumil Hrabal (In-House Weddings (Writings From An Unbound Europe))
Before he called me forth from the grave, Jesus wept. His was not the loud, frantic keening of the women who mourned outside my tomb. His was a sigh and a groan and a single salty tear. It was, at first, almost imperceptible, even to those standing closest to him. But his sigh shook the universe, and the place where I was quaked. I stood in the midst of those who watched and waited for all things to be set right. Jesus groaned, and the heads of angels and saints turned to look down upon the earth in wonder. His tear trickled down his cheek, and a spring burst forth at my feet. Pure, clear water spilled from its banks and flowed down a mountainside, leaving a myriad of new stars, like flowers, blooming and rising in its wake.
Brock Thoene (When Jesus Wept (The Jerusalem Chronicles, #1))
On Religion: "I'm reluctant to believe that some statue of the Holy Mother wept real tears in a church in Cincinnati or Peoria or Teaneck last week after the Wednesday-night bingo games, witnesses only by two teenagers and the parish cleaning lady. And I'm not ready to believe that a shadow resembling Jesus, cast on someone's garage wall by a yellow bug light, is a sign of impending apocalypse. God works in mysterious ways, but not with bug lights and garage walls." Dean Koontz Cold Fire
Dean Koontz (Cold Fire)
Todd wrapped his arm around her. They stood together in silent awe, watching the sunset. All Christy could think of was how this was what she had always wanted, to be held in Todd's arms as well as in his heart. Just as the last golden drop of sun melted into the ocean, Christy closed her eyes and drew in a deep draught of the sea air. "Did you know," Todd said softly, "that the setting sun looks so huge from the island of Papua New Guinea that it almost looks like you're on another planet? I've seen pictures." Then, as had happened with her reflection in her cup of tea and in her disturbing dream, Christy heard those two piercing words, "Let go." She knew what she had to do. Turning to face Todd, she said, "Pictures aren't enough for you, Todd. You have to go." "I will. Someday. Lord willing," he said casually. "Don't you see, Todd? The Lord is willing. This is your 'someday.' Your opportunity to go on the mission field is now. You have to go." Their eyes locked in silent communion. "God has been telling me something, Todd. He's been telling me to let you go. I don't want to, but I need to obey Him." Todd paused. "Maybe I should tell them I can only go for the summer. That way I'll only be gone a few months. A few weeks, really. We'll be back together in the fall." Christy shook her head. "It can't be like that, Todd. You have to go for as long as God tells you to go. And as long as I've known you, God has been telling you to go. His mark is on your life, Todd. It's obvious. You need to obey Him." "Kilikina," Todd said, grasping Christy by the shoulders, "do you realize what you're saying? If I go, I may never come back." "I know." Christy's reply was barely a whisper. She reached for the bracelet on her right wrist and released the lock. Then taking Todd's hand, she placed the "Forever" bracelet in his palm and closed his fingers around it. "Todd," she whispered, forcing the words out, "the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and give you His peace. And may you always love Jesus more than anything else. Even more than me." Todd crumbled to the sand like a man who had been run through with a sword. Burying his face in his hands, he wept. Christy stood on wobbly legs. What have I done? Oh, Father God, why do I have to let him go? Slowly lowering her quivering body to the sand beside Todd, Christy cried until all she could taste was the salty tears on her lips. They drove the rest of the way home in silence. A thick mantle hung over them, entwining them even in their separation. To Christy it seemed like a bad dream. Someone else had let go of Todd. Not her! He wasn't really going to go. They pulled into Christy's driveway, and Todd turned off the motor. Without saying anything, he got out of Gus and came around to Christy's side to open the door for her. She stepped down and waited while he grabbed her luggage from the backseat. They walked to the front door. Todd stopped her under the trellis of wildly fragrant white jasmine. With tears in his eyes, he said in a hoarse voice, "I'm keeping this." He lifted his hand to reveal the "Forever" bracelet looped between his fingers. "If God ever brings us together again in this world, I'm putting this back on your wrist, and that time, my Kilikina, it will stay on forever." He stared at her through blurry eyes for a long minute, and then without a hug, a kiss, or even a good-bye, Todd turned to go. He walked away and never looked back.
Robin Jones Gunn (Sweet Dreams (Christy Miller, #11))
What interested these gnostics far more than past events attributed to the “historical Jesus” was the possibility of encountering the risen Christ in the present.49 The Gospel of Mary illustrates the contrast between orthodox and gnostic viewpoints. The account recalls what Mark relates: Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene … She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.50 As the Gospel of Mary opens, the disciples are mourning Jesus’ death and terrified for their own lives. Then Mary Magdalene stands up to encourage them, recalling Christ’s continual presence with them: “Do not weep, and do not grieve, and do not doubt; for his grace will be with you completely, and will protect you.”51 Peter invites Mary to “tell us the words of the Savior which you remember.”52 But to Peter’s surprise, Mary does not tell anecdotes from the past; instead, she explains that she has just seen the Lord in a vision received through the mind, and she goes on to tell what he revealed to her. When Mary finishes, she fell silent, since it was to this point that the Savior had spoken with her. But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, “Say what you will about what she has said. I, at least, do not believe that the Savior has said this. For certainly these teachings are strange ideas!”53 Peter agrees with Andrew, ridiculing the idea that Mary actually saw the Lord in her vision. Then, the story continues, Mary wept and said to Peter, “My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I thought this up myself in my heart? Do you think I am lying about the Savior?” Levi answered and said to Peter, “Peter, you have always been hot-tempered … If the Savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her?”54 Finally Mary, vindicated, joins the other apostles as they go out to preach. Peter, apparently representing the orthodox position, looks to past events, suspicious of those who “see the Lord” in visions: Mary, representing the gnostic, claims to experience his continuing presence.55 These gnostics recognized that their theory, like the orthodox one, bore political implications. It suggests that whoever “sees the Lord” through inner vision can claim that his or her own authority equals, or surpasses, that of the Twelve—and of their successors. Consider the political implications of the Gospel of Mary: Peter and Andrew, here representing the leaders of the orthodox group, accuse Mary—the gnostic—of pretending to have seen the Lord in order to justify the strange ideas, fictions, and lies she invents and attributes to divine inspiration. Mary lacks the proper credentials for leadership, from the orthodox viewpoint: she is not one of the “twelve.” But as Mary stands up to Peter, so the gnostics who take her as their prototype challenge the authority of those priests and bishops who claim to be Peter’s successors.
The Gnostic Gospels (Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books)
GETHSEMANE The grass never sleeps. Or the roses. Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning. Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept. The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet, and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body, and heaven knows if it ever sleeps. Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move, maybe the lake far away, where once he walked as on a blue pavement, lay still and waited, wild awake. Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not keep that vigil, how they must have wept, so utterly human, knowing this too must be a part of the story.
Mary Oliver (Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver)
That's enough Susy, nuff, nuff.' 'No, no I just want to say this,' she gasped, on the brink of incoherence. 'His eyes, his face, it's not ugly, and I know if I go back that he'll come and get some more of me... Even when he has drained all I know and when he... God, God, he came at me, at my throat and even then, I couldn't stop him, didn't want to even when I felt his mouth...' She reached to her throat, where her hands fluttered. Her eyes, clear and cornflower blue when they had been so serene a few minutes ago, were stark and tormented. Suddenly she buckled toward him from her propped position, sobbing. He caught her and she wept into his chest. 'And the worst thing... the worst thing... is that I want to see him again... Harry, he wanted me to take that cross off, and I did, and I've felt him wanting me now, even now, with blessed Jesus over my bed.
Leslie H. Whitten Jr. (Progeny of the Adder)
JESUS: because the love was so great, the sin is all forgiven. LAZARUS: Kind Rabbi, you told me so, when I fell at your feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee... Did you know? my companions and I came there that day to mock you. We thought you would be sour and grim, hating all beauty and treating life as an enemy. But when I saw you, I was amazed. you were the only person there that was really alive. The rest of us were going about half-dead—making the gestures of life, pretending to be real people. The life was not with us but with you—intense and shining, like the strong sun when it rises and turns the flames of our candles to pale smoke. And I wept and was ashamed, seeing myself such a thing of trash and tawdry. But when you spoke to me, I felt the flame of the sun in my heart. I came alive for the first time. And I love life all the more since I have learnt its meaning.
Dorothy L. Sayers (The Man Born to Be King)
LUK8.40 And it came to pass, that, when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him: for they were all waiting for him. LUK8.41 And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus' feet, and besought him that he would come into his house: LUK8.42 For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him. LUK8.43 And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, LUK8.44 Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched. LUK8.45 And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? LUK8.46 And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. LUK8.47 And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. LUK8.48 And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace. LUK8.49 While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. LUK8.50 But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. LUK8.51 And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. LUK8.52 And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. LUK8.53 And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. LUK8.54 And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. LUK8.55 And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat. LUK8.56 And her parents were astonished: but he charged them that they should tell no man what was done.
Anonymous (Holy Bible: King James Version)
Thursday, November 19 Love Brings Peace As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “…For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides.” Luke 19:41-43 Today’s gospel tells of Jesus’ sorrow and tears over the failure of Jerusalem to accept him. Therefore, he says, the city will not have peace and will be destroyed by its enemies. This is far more than a history lesson, however. Indeed, it reminds us that on any level, from families to local organizations, from nations to the whole world, there will be no peace apart from hearts open to God’s love. Do we long for peace in the world? Then all must be willing to care as much about the needs and interests of others as they care about their own needs and interests. From God’s perspective, the reasons for war must look like the reasons given by little children for their conflicts. “He started it!” “It’s mine!” “No! It’s mine!” “She hit me!” “He hit me first!” And on and on… Lord Jesus, help all the world to be open to your Father’s love and peace. Mitch Finley 1 Maccabees 2:15-29 • Psalm 50:1-2,
Deborah Meister (Living Faith - Daily Catholic Devotions, Volume 31 Number 3 - 2015 October, November, December)
Call to mind how Jesus used to forgive men's sins, thus lifting from their hearts the crushing load that paralyzed all their efforts. Recall the tenderness with which he received those from whom the religious of his day turned aside—the repentant women who wept sore-hearted from very love, the publicans who knew they were despised because they were despicable. With him they sought and found shelter. He was their saviour from the storm of human judgment and the biting frost of public opinion, even when that opinion and that judgment were re-echoed by the justice of their own hearts. He received them, and the life within them rose up, and the light shone—the conscious light of light, despite even of shame and self-reproach. If God be for us who can be against us? In his name they rose from the hell of their own hearts' condemnation, and went forth to do the truth in strength and hope. They heard and believed and obeyed his words. And of all words that ever were spoken, were ever words gentler, tenderer, humbler, lovelier—if true, or more arrogant, man-degrading, God-defying—if false, than these, concerning which, as his, I now desire to speak to you: 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
George MacDonald (Thomas Wingfold, Curate)
As Emma's final days drew near, she reported a vision in which Joseph came to her. In the dream she put on her bonnet and shawl and went with him: "I did not think that it was anything unusual. I went with him into a [beautiful] mansion, and he showed me through the different apartments." One room was a nursery, and there she saw with joy an infant in the cradle. Emma continued, "I knew my babe, my Don Carlos that was taken from me." Emma sprang forward, caught the child up in her arms, held him to her exultant heart, and wept with joy. Recovered from the overwhelming emotion of once again holding her little one, she turned to Joseph and asked, "Joseph, where are the rest of my children?" He responded, "Emma, be patient and you shall have all of your children." As her vision closed, Emma saw standing by Joseph's side a personage of light, even the Lord Jesus Christ. That vision must have been a final seal of peace upon Emma's heart, writing upon it her precious sealing to Joseph on that beautiful spring day in 1843. A few days later, Emma trembled at the threshold of eternity, surrounded by her loved ones. Suddenly she raised herself up, stretched out her hand, and called, "Joseph! Joseph!" Then, sinking back into her son's arm, she clasped her hands on her chest and was gone. At last they were together once more--Joseph and Emma, hearts twined as one, never to be separated again.
Angela Eschler (Love Letters Of Joseph And Emma)
JESUS wept!!
Anonymous
The Difference Your Life Can Make He who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. James 5:20 One of the Christian's greatest deterrents from sin is the life of another Christian. Some Christians maintain that it is none of their business if another chooses to sin. They are convinced that they are being judgmental if they respond to someone in sin. The world persuades them not to get involved, but this inaction prevents them from being an effective intercessor. As Christians we are aware that sin brings death (Rom. 6:23). Sin kills relationships, dismantles marriages, stifles joy, and destroys peace. When we see someone wander from the truth into error, how should we respond? When Jesus saw sin, it broke His heart. He wept over entire cities as He saw them rejecting the truth (Matt. 23:37–39). He prayed fervently for His disciples to be strong when they were tempted (John 17). He warned those who were heading toward spiritual failure (Matt. 26:20–25, 34). Jesus was even willing to die to save people from their sins because He knew the devastation that sin causes. Jesus never stood idle as those around Him were led astray by their sin. He always took an active role in turning them back to God. “Minding your own business” will save you some discomfort, but it will not help a brother or sister who needs to return to the Lord. If you are truly aware of the grave consequences for those who continue in sin, you will be moved to weep even as Jesus wept. Pray fervently for your friend. That will safeguard your motives and prepare you to minister to him. Be alert, in the event that God asks you to confront your friend. If you do so, be loving and gentle lest you, too, be tempted (Gal. 6:1).
Henry T. Blackaby (Experiencing God Day By Day)
He takes no pleasure in human tears. He came and wept that He might stop forever the fountain of human tears. He came and bereaved His mother that He might heal all bereavement. He came and lost everything that He might heal the wounds that we have from losing things. And He wants us to take pleasure in Him. Let us put away our doubts and trust Him.
A.W. Tozer
November 16: Saint Gertrude   Gertrude was born of a noble family at Eisleben, in Saxony.  At five years of age, she offered her virginity and herself to Jesus Christ, in the Benedictine nunnery at Rodersdorf.  From that time forth she was utterly estranged from earthly things, ever striving for things higher, and began to lead a kind of heavenly life.  To learning in human letters she added knowledge of the things of God.  In the thought thereof she earnestly desired, and soon reached, the perfection of a Christian soul.  Of Christ, and of the things in his life, she spake oftentimes with movings of spirit.  The glory of God was the one end of all her thoughts, and to that her every longing and her every act were given.  Though God had crowned her with so many and so noble gifts both of nature and of grace, her belief regarding herself was so humble that she was used to number as among the greatest of the wonders of his goodness that he had always in his mercy borne with one who was so utterly unworthy. In the thirtieth year of her age she was elected Abbess of Rodersdorf, where she had professed herself in the religious life, and afterwards of Helfta.  This office she bore for forty years in love, wisdom, and zeal for strict observance, so that the house seemed like an ideal ensample of a sisterhood of perfect nuns.  To each one she was a mother and a teacher, and yet would be as the least of all, being in sooth in all lowliness among them as she that served.  That she might be more utterly God's only, she tormented her body with sleeplessness, hunger, and other afflictions, but withal ever true to herself, stood forth a pattern of innocency, gentleness, and long-suffering.  The salvation of her neighbours was her constant earnest endeavour, and her godly toil bore abundant fruit.  The love of God oftentimes threw her into trances, and she was given the grace of the deepest contemplation, even to union of spirit with God. Christ himself, to shew what such a bride was to him, revealed that he had in the heart of Gertrude a pleasant dwelling-place.  The Virgin Mother of God she ever sought with deep reverence as a mother and warden whom she had received from Jesus himself, and from her she had many benefits.  Toward the most Divine Sacrament of the Eucharist, and the sufferings of the Lord, her soul was moved with love and gratitude, so that she sometimes wept abundantly.  She helped with daily gifts and prayers the souls of the just condemned to the purifying fire.  She wrote much for the fostering of godliness.  She was glorified also by revelations from God, and by the gift of prophecy.  Her last illness was rather the wasting of a home-sickness to be with God than a decay of the flesh, and she left this life in the year of our Lord 1292.  God made her bright with miracles both during her life and after her death.
Hermenegild (November Saints from the Roman Breviary)
Naivety can be a terrible thing. Jesus wept.
Paula Guran (Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations)
February 18 Jesus Wept When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.… Jesus wept. —John 11:33, 35 Jesus knew what He was going to do. He had already announced to the disciples that Lazarus would be raised from the dead. He was on His way to the tomb to fulfill His plan. It was one of the final pieces of the picture that would show conclusively that Jesus was the Messiah, the Promised One. The suffering and death that is part of the human condition, the injustice and inequity that some must bear, the inadequacy of even our best love to be enough in this world—these realities overwhelm us all at times. In the midst of his work, on his way to bringing triumph out of tragedy, our God feels the pain of our suffering. Nothing pierces a parent’s heart as deeply as the broken-hearted sobs of their precious child. Even when we know their tears will dry and life will go on, even when we have it in our power to relieve their sadness, we feel their pain because we love them so. At the place where our hearts are joined with theirs is the spot of our greatest tenderness and vulnerability. Jesus did not weep out of frustration or disappointment at others’ lack of faith in Him. He did not weep for the inadequacy of the human condition. He wept because, to be with us in our pain and confusion, to cry with us in our overwhelming sorrow, to experience our deepest grief as if it were His own—that is a part of Him.
The writers of Encouraging.com (God Moments: A Year in the Word)
let’s not try to be less human than the Son of God. Stoicism and its fake smiles in the face of life’s pain and disappointment are not more godly or faithful than tears. After all, Jesus wept.
Glenn Pemberton (Hurting with God: Learning to Lament with the Psalms)
How is it that Judas, who betrayed Jesus once and was filled with remorse, became the villain, while Peter, who denied Jesus three times and wept bitterly, became the rock on which the church was built? When it comes down to it, what is the difference between Peter and Judas? Well, maybe nothing. And maybe there’s not a whole lot of difference between us and them too.
Nadia Bolz-Weber (Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People)
Temple started to become excited. ‘I want to get this out before you get to the airport,’ she said, with a sort of urgency. She had been brought up an Episcopalian, she told me, but had rather early ‘given up orthodox belief’ – belief in any personal deity or intention – in favour of a more ‘scientific’ notion of God. ‘I believe there is some ultimate ordering force for good in the universe – not a personal thing, not Buddha or Jesus, maybe something like order out of disorder. I like to hope that even if there’s no personal afterlife, some energy impression is left in the universe. . . . Most people can pass on genes – I can pass on thoughts or what I write. ‘This is what I get very upset at. . . .’ Temple, who was driving, suddenly faltered and wept. ‘I’ve read that libraries are where immortality lies. . . . I don’t want my thoughts to die with me. . . . I want to have done something. . . . I’m not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution – know that my life has meaning. Right now, I’m talking about things at the very core of my existence.
Oliver Sacks (An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales)
Peter, that hopeless, helpless wreck of man. Peter, who chided Jesus, who refused to let Him wash his feet, who denied Him in His most vulnerable hour. Who was so broken by his own faithlessness that he went away and wept. This same Peter invites us to take hope in a God who has “called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature.”7 In other words, your transformation is a sure thing. Your being made like Him will happen because He promises it. And so you can trust Him. You can take hope. And because you have hope, you can continue on. You can persevere. You can keep going because
Hannah Anderson (Made For More: An Invitation to Live in God's Image)
I ask my young, white, male colleague to imagine that instead of saying that older people (gray hair and experience) are overrated, Halligan said that gay people are overrated, or women, or African-Americans, or Jews. Imagine Halligan saying, “We’re trying to build a culture specifically to attract and retain white people, because when it comes to technology, white people do a much better job than black people.” “But he didn’t say that!” my colleague responds. “He didn’t say anything about gays, or women, or black people!” As the Bible says: Jesus wept.
Dan Lyons (Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble)
began to wail. I was definitely human, and it was too late for anyone to take my life. I believe I was saved by God for a purpose. My survival was due to the skill of a Jewish doctor in a Communist hospital staffed by Muslims. My father was summoned as Mama recovered from the surgery and anesthetic. He was the first to hold me in his arms as Mama recovered. When Mama awakened, her first words were, “Ibraheem! How is my baby? Where is my baby?” I was laid in her arms. She wept when she saw that I was alive. “My miracle child,” she murmured.
Samaa Habib (Face to Face with Jesus: A Former Muslim's Extraordinary Journey to Heaven and Encounter with the God of Love)
Why can you and I be as rich as kings? Because he became spiritually and utterly poor. Why can you and I be comforted? Only because he mourned; because he wept inconsolably and died in the dark. Why are you and I inheriting the earth? Because he became meek; because he was like a lamb before his shearers. Because he was stripped of everything—they even cast lots for his garment. Why can you and I be filled and satisfied? Because on the cross he said, “I thirst.” Why are you and I obtaining mercy? Because he got none: not from Pilate, not from the crowd, not even from his Father. Why will you and I be able to someday see God? Because he was pure. Do you know what the word “pure” means? It means to be single-minded, absolutely undivided, laser focused. So why is it that someday we will see God? Because Jesus Christ set his face like a flint to go up to Jerusalem and die for us (Luke 9:51).11 You and I can see God because, on the cross, Jesus could not. When you see Jesus Christ being poor in spirit for you, that helps you become poor in spirit before God and say, “I need your grace.” And once you get it and you are filled, then you are merciful, you become a peacemaker, you find God in prayer and wait someday for the beatific vision, to see God as he is (1 John 3:1–3). The beatitudes, like nearly everything else in Scripture, point us to Jesus far more than we think. PART TWO Reaching the People
Timothy J. Keller (Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism)
Jesus took care of himself. He ate healthy food. He rested when he was weary. He sought time alone when he needed to recharge. He laughed with his friends. He wept when he was sad. He walked long distances and climbed hills and moved. From barren wilderness to unpredictable waters, he spent the majority of his time outside in nature. He loved wholeheartedly. He served others. He cooked. He studied and learned and grew in wisdom. Jesus cared for himself physically, mentally and spiritually. To be aligned with him, we must do no less.
Toni Sorenson (Aligned With Christ)
Jesus and Women As we look at Jesus and how He interacted with women, we see Him dignifying, validating, and championing them—all in contrast to a misogynist culture. In addition, women played a prominent role in Jesus’ earthly ministry. As John Bunyan put it, “They were women that wept when he was going to the cross, and women that followed him from the cross, and that sat by his sepulcher when he was buried. They were women that was [sic] first with him at his resurrection morn, and women that brought tidings first to his disciples that he was risen from the dead.”2 In an ancient world, where many disregarded the testimony of women, Jesus’ high regard for them bordered on the scandalous. The fact that all these accounts are included in the Canon of Scripture actually verify the resurrection accounts of Christ. Remember, God saw fit that the first eyes to behold the risen Jesus were those of a woman—all during an era where a woman’s testimony had no credibility in a court of law. Women, therefore, were the first evangelists. The only way a man can discover how to treat a woman is by looking at how Jesus interacted with them. Your Lord was the defender of women. He stepped in to save a broken, scandalized woman from the murderous plot of a group of self-righteous men. He lifted the weight of her shame, writing a new destiny for her in the dirt. He saw value in an “unclean” Samaritan woman who was disregarded, despised, and viewed as damaged goods. He honored a prostitute in the house of a Pharisee. He healed a pariah woman whose flow of blood excommunicated her. He exalted a woman who anointed Him for burial by commissioning her story to be rehearsed wherever the gospel message was heard. He never talked down to a woman, but made them heroes in His parables. And that for which Jesus came to die was a woman . . . His woman, the very bride of Christ. Put simply, your Lord is in the business of loving, honoring, and defending women.3 And God chose the womb of a woman to enter this world.
Frank Viola (The Day I Met Jesus: The Revealing Diaries of Five Women from the Gospels)
If we are going to touch the people of our communities, we too must know their sorrows, feel for them in their temptations, stand with them in their heartbreaks. Jesus Christ entered into the arena of our troubles, and He wept with them that wept and rejoiced with them that rejoiced.
Billy Graham (Billy Graham in Quotes)
If Yeshua wept, who am I not to?
Wayne Gerard Trotman
The saints are sinners still. Our best tears need to be wept over, the strongest faith is mixed with unbelief, our most flaming love is cold compared with what Jesus deserves, and our intensest zeal still lacks the full fervor which the bleeding wounds and pierced heart of the crucified might claim at our hands. Our best things need a sin offering, or they would condemn us.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
It was hell, it was heaven, he was happy, he was scared to death, and he felt as if Satan were right there in this god-for-damned room and he was being butt-fucked by that NVR interrogator again in Muang Sing. Jesus wept, why had they done shit like that to him?
Whitley Strieber (The Last Vampire (Hunger, #2))
We ask why. We’ll grieve, and our hearts will hurt, but God will stand with us as we cry. If you let Him, the Lord will wrap His arms around you. “When Jesus’ friends, Mary and Martha, lost their brother, even though He knew Lazarus would rise, both here on earth and again in heaven, the Bible tells us that Jesus wept. “He wept for the hurt and pain His friends were going through. And He weeps with us now as we mourn.
Janet W. Ferguson (Southern Hearts Series: Books 1 - 4)
Jesus felt weak & tired, He got frustrated, He wept aloud, He grieved, He sweat blood from great stress & anxiety, He felt physical pain. This is who you’re praying to. The One who knows.
Liberty Underwood (Little Heart, Rest Here)
This process is short-circuited when people are told, “Jesus has forgiven all your sins; now stop mourning them!” This is like telling a man whose wife has just died, “Jesus has taken your wife to heaven; now stop mourning her death!” Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35)—even knowing he was about to bring him back to life. If that’s the case, the need to grieve is so deep in human nature that trying to prevent it is foolish and can even be harmful.
Jimmy Akin (The Drama of Salvation: How God Rescues You from Your Sins and Brings You to Eternal Life)
Jesus Wept
The Bible Duh
is this the roleplay where you sit around a table pretending to be an elf, or the roleplay where you go to the woods and actually dress up like an elf?” Terry balked at the oversimplification. “Actually, it’s a lot more nuanced than that.” Nat swivelled in her chair to find him wearing cotton stockings, a suede harlequin patch tunic and a pair of pointy rubber ear tips poking from his mess of curly brown hair. “Jesus wept,” she responded, understandably. “What’s the matter? Is it my bow?” He unhooked a plastic shortbow from his shoulder and drew back the string. “It might not look like much but let me tell you, I’ve cut down armies with this bad boy.” “Is that right?” “Yeah, I call him Widowmaker.” “And how did your wife die exactly? From shame?” “That’s not why it’s called—” Terry started, then sagged his shoulders. “You’re mean.” Nat
D.K. Bussell (Trolled)
This cannot be,” I murmured. I wept and shuddered, convulsing in joy yet still not daring to believe. In his Father’s eyes, my Father’s eyes, I heard the song of light singing over me; I still cannot begin to describe what I was experiencing, except that it was a seeing that was also hearing. In the song flowed Abba’s unsearchable care, all around me, in me, cradling me gently as a womb—all of me, every fearful, shame-riddled, guilt-ridden, war-torn fragment. All was known and accepted, embraced within and without—even, impossibly, delighted in. I felt a comfort and love more tender and beautiful than I ever dreamed could be possible. Moving quietly, St. John, ever in tune with the Holy Spirit, left the room. He was giving me space to know, or as he would say, time for my imagination to expand until it was worthy of its theme. I rolled onto my back with my eyes closed, marveling, when I felt Jesus’s presence. I could feel him—Jesus—in me. I groaned as I realized that it had been a thousand years since I felt—or allowed myself to feel. Then
C. Baxter Kruger (Patmos: Three Days, Two Men, One Extraordinary Conversation)
Paul’s Farewell The leaders of the church in Ephesus came to Miletus. “You know how I live my life,” Paul began. “I humbly serve the Lord with tears. I suffer the plots against my life. If there’s any way to help, I do it. I brought God’s message to your city and your houses. I told everyone about turning to God and faith in Jesus. “And now the Spirit is leading me to Jerusalem. Prison and hardship are waiting for me there. But I don’t prize my life for my own sake. I just want to finish my work. This is the important thing: to declare the good news of God’s grace. “Now, I know that none of you will ever see my face again. I wasn’t afraid to tell you God’s whole purpose. So the rest is up to you. I hand you over to God and the message of his grace. “Remember that I never asked for money. Instead I worked with these two hands for myself and my friends. Remember the Lord’s words: “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.’” They knelt together in prayer. The men from Ephesus wept. They’d never see Paul again.
Daniel Partner (365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories)
And the little fellow smiled and said: “Well, father, I shall be with Jesus tonight, shan’t I?” “Yes, you will spend the night with the Lord,” and the father broke down and wept. The little fellow saw the tears, and said: “Don’t weep for me. I will go to Jesus and tell Him that ever since I can remember you have prayed for me.” I have three children, and if God should take them from me, I would rather have them take such a message home to Him than to have the wealth of the whole world. Oh! would to God I could say something to stir you, fathers and mothers, to get your children into the ark.
Dwight L. Moody (The Overcoming Life and Other Sermons)
The penny finally dropped for me. I could see that Jesus bowed before our hatred to enter into our darkness—and he did—but instead of his Father forsaking him at that moment, his Father was in him and in the Holy Spirit. That is what John had been trying to help me see. On the cross Jesus brought his union with his Father in the Holy Spirit into His union with me, with us, with the world in our sin. The divine embrace. Heaven’s gate! In that moment all my questions stopped, and I wept at the genius and the stunning humility and the love of Jesus for me, for us all. I in them—I, with my Father and the Holy Spirit—in them and they in me. Then
C. Baxter Kruger (Patmos: Three Days, Two Men, One Extraordinary Conversation)
I know why Jesus wept Motherfucker
James O'Barr
Jesus experientially feels our pain. Betrayal? That spike has already been pounded through His wrist. Loneliness? That lash has whipped His back more than once. Loss of a loved one? He has wept at cemeteries. Sickness? “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. … He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities … and by His stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:4–5). Rejected? The Father turned His head away.
Dick Brogden (Live Dead Joy: 365 Days of Living and Dying with Jesus)
She asked what I had learned in Sunday school and I always said, “Jesus wept.” I didn’t want to go into my feelings about a God who put a father to a test to see if he’d kill his own son like a lamb to roast, and then sent his only child to be nailed onto a cross and fed vinegar
Frances Mayes (Under Magnolia: A Southern Memoir)
We expect God to be, as we might say, ‘in charge’: taking control, sorting things out, getting things done. But the God we see in Jesus is the God who wept at the tomb of his friend. The God we see in Jesus is the God-the-Spirit who groans without words. The God we see in Jesus is the one who, to demonstrate what his kind of ‘being in charge’ would look like, did the job of a slave and washed his disciples’ feet.
N.T. Wright (God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath)
Talked to my mom today, who is now feeling much better, post-covid, even though it was the “sickest she’d ever been.” She was telling me how nice it was to be in Texas: it’s so different, everyone goes out to restaurants and no one wears masks. She wanted me to visit sometime soon, and I was all, “Well, once it’s safe,” and then she told me she was worried about my/my husband’s mental health from being such shut-ins and that.... I shouldn’t “live in fear” about covid. I told her I don’t live in fear, I live in science, like I have been doing all this time, trying my hardest not to kill anyone else. It was hard not to throw my phone across my backyard at that point, really. Jesus wept. Can’t wait to go back to work tomorrow and take care of people who apparently did or did not fear covid an appropriate amount, thus ending their lives precipitously.
Cassandra Alexander (Year of the Nurse: A Covid-19 Pandemic Memoir)
Why did the sight of the wailing of Mary and her companions enrage Jesus? Certainly not because of the extreme violence of its expression; and even more certainly not because it argued unbelief — unwillingness to submit to God’s providential ordering or distrust of Jesus’ power to save. He himself wept, if with less violence yet in true sympathy. with the grief of which he was witness. The intensity of his exasperation, moreover, would be disproportionate to such a cause; and the importance attached to it in the account bids us seek its ground in something less incidental to the main drift of the narrative. It is mentioned twice, and is obviously emphasized as an indispensable element in the development of the story, on which, in its due
Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (The Emotional Life of our Lord)
us. And why must vines be pruned, my friend?” I considered his question. Surely there was a trap set for me. “First, the dead canes must be cut off in this season when the vine is sleeping. This season … you see the workers there … the pruning is severe. Down to the trunk of the vine. Dead canes will not bear fruit and so must be cut off first. In another month or so, depending on the weather, there will be bud break. The vine will produce new, healthy shoots. New growth will bear fruit.” Jesus asked, as though he did not know, “Is the job of the vinedresser finished when he cuts away these dead branches?” “Well … no. Through the growing season, we train the branches. Set them in the best position to expose fruit to the sun. Thin the leaves that block the sun from the berries; break off clusters that will never ripen evenly. They only steal the life of the vine from the good clusters. The vinedresser cuts away excess foliage to concentrate the life of the vine into the best berries that will make the finest quality wine. The vine can’t nourish the new growth properly … the quality of the grapes is not as good
Bodie Thoene (When Jesus Wept (The Jerusalem Chronicles, #1))
I was to inherit them, the legacy unfurling before me this way: you worked from before sunrise to the dead of night. You were never unkind in your dealings, but then you were not generous. Your family was your life, though you rarely saw them. You kept close handsome sums of cash in small denominations. You were steadily cornering the market in self-pride. You drove a Chevy and then a Caddy and then a Benz. You never missed a mortgage payment or a day of church. You prayed furiously until you wept. You considered the only unseen forces to be those of capitalism and the love of Jesus Christ.
Chang-rae Lee (Native Speaker)
Place Message Here" I knew that somewhere Jesus wept. --Larry Brown, Dirty Work That was when our love began for me, though late, the way a flock of darkness settles over your shoulders. I remember the muted reflections that smudged the water prowling among the lingering rocks, a snail crawling out of its shell, the drizzle of light, the blackened windows. It was when that the sun peeled away the dark from the air, the surface of the water, then the soul. It was only then that I could read the shadows that followed our words. It seemed that the whole planet was taking aim at our future. I thought, then, that I could see your own soul in the constant waves tearing unconcerned at the impenetrable dunes. I wanted, then, to believe the moon is a flower, fragrant, its stem tossed across the water. It was then that I entered some other world, the way your life wakes suddenly in the middle of the night to find your own worn-out dreams lying in sheets around you, an empty bottle on the table, and yet some voice stumbling down the hallway of the wind trying the locked doors of the heart, calling out your name. It was then on that shore after I heard the news of my friend's heart tearing open like a wet paper bag. I was standing where Marconi sent his messages which seemed to fill the air, still, like swallows. There is always another life in the corner of our eyes, one that begins because our poor words have never said what we meant at the time. Today, here, ladybugs fill my porch screen trying to reach the early sun that radiates through the fine mesh. They halt there like messages never received, empty husks of some abandoned future we can never know. Why is it we love so fully what has washed up on the beaches of our hearts, those lost messages, lost friends, the daylight stars we never get to see? Bad luck never takes a vacation, my friend once wrote. It lies there among the broken shells and stones we collect, a story he would say begins with you, with me, a story that is forever lost among the backwaters of our lives, our endless fear of ourselves, and our endless need for hope, a story, perhaps an answer, a word suddenly on wing, the simple sound of a torn heart, or the unmistakable scent of the morning's fading moon. Richard Jackson, The Cortland Review. Spring 2005.
Richard Jackson
The Prophet said to the jinni: “This is the stride of a jinni, as well as the tone of his voice!” The jinni replied: “My name is Hamah ibn Laqqis ibn Iblis.” The Prophet said: “Only two generations separate you from him [Iblis].” He replied: “True.” The Prophet asked: “How long have you lived?” The jinni replied: “Almost all of time. I was a small boy when Abel was killed. I believed in Noah and repented at his hands after I stubbornly refused to submit to his call, until he wept and wept. I am indeed a repentant—God keep me from being among the ignorant! I met the prophet Hud and believed in his call. I met Abraham, and I was with him when he was thrown in the fire. I was with Joseph, too, when his brothers hurled him into the well—I preceded him to its bottom. I met the prophet Shu‘ayb, and Moses and Jesus the son of Mary, who told me: ‘If you meet Muhammad, tell him Jesus salutes thee!’ Now I’ve delivered his message to you, and I believe in you.” The Prophet said: “What is your desire, O Hamah?” He said: “Moses taught me the Torah, Jesus the Gospels, can you teach me the Qur’an?” So the Prophet taught him the Qur’an.
Amira El-Zein (Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East))
The sun rose and set every day. the moon, too. The tides went out and came in. The seasons turned in order. Some of the trees lost their leaves in the autumn and grew them back in the spring. People ate breakfast and supper when they had food and smoked and drank their tea. They had babies and raised them. They worked and slept. They sang and laughed and yelled and wept and fought and coupled. But from the first time she'd heard it, Esther Honey understood that if the man Jesus had died and been buried then really and truly rose, it was the only time such a thing had ever happened and that meant everything else in the world took its real meaning from that young man lying dead in his grave and awakening back to lie and rolling the stone away from his tomb and saying goodbye to his friends and helpers not in spirit but actually in that body that had died and come back to life. -This Other Eden
Paul Harding
What’s the conference about?’ ‘Women wanting to be bishops.’ ‘Jesus wept.’ ‘Yes, very probably.
Elly Griffiths (The Woman in Blue (Ruth Galloway, #8))
Dear Jesus, I have finally found the courage to admit I've craved food more than You. I have wept over giving up food while hardly giving a thought to You giving Your life for my freedom. I've been bound up by feelings of helplessness. I've been angry that I have to deal with this weight issue and have been mad at You for allowing this to be on of my lots in life. I've made excuses. I've pointed fingers. I've relied on food for things it could never give me. I've lied to myself about the realities of why I gain weight. I've settled and excused and justified my issues. I've been enthralled by buttered bread while yawning through Your daily bread. For all that, I am so sorry. These are not just little issues. These for me are suns -- missing the mark of your best for my life. With my whole heart, mind, and soul, I repent. I turn from the dieting mindset I turn from what I must give up and weep no more. I remove my toe keeping open the door to my old habits, my old mindset, my old go--to scripts. I choose freedom. I choose victory. I choose courage. And above all else, I choose You. Amen.
Lysa TerKeurst (I'll Start Again Monday: Break the Cycle of Unhealthy Eating Habits with Lasting Spiritual Satisfaction)
When Jesus heard His friend Lazarus died, John 11:35 tells us, “Jesus wept.” Being human obligates us to the grief journey in times of loss.
Donna M Berger (Living through Loss: A Memoir of Recovering Joy after Cumulative Grief)
They’re also called “ignis fatuus”, that’s Latin for foolish fire. Then there are the glowing owls too.’ Glowing owls. Jesus wept. ‘Thank you, Cathbad. You should go on Mastermind. Specialist subject: General Weirdness.
Elly Griffiths (The Lantern Men)
One of my favourite verse in the Christian Bible is the shortest one of all: "Jesus wept." He showed His humanity. He shed messy, unmanly tears. He didn't do it in private. He did it in front of His friends and followers. In front of a crowd. We need to stop hiding our tears and actually share them. It takes a strong person to cry. It takes a stronger person to let others see those tears. We need to be tough enough to be tender, no matter who is watching.
Regina Brett (God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life's Little Detours)
[God] occupies all the difficult spaces humanity has endured. While I can't fully reconcile the problem of evil and why so many people have been sexually violated over the centuries, I do know this: Jesus has wept alongside me, and he weeps for his church to rise up valiantly and love the least, the last, and the lost. This is our WE TOO moment, to purposefully suffer alongside the sexually broken.
Mary E. DeMuth (We Too: How the Church Can Respond Redemptively to the Sexual Abuse Crisis)
Brothers and sisters in Christ frequently point to the lament psalms for those grieving. It’s often said they always end in hope. But not all do. Some end in unanswered pleas (Ps. 44, 74, 80, 88). In the whirlwind, God displayed power to Job, not answers (Job 38–41). When Lazarus died, Jesus didn’t offer Mary a sermon or remind her that he wasn’t in pain anymore. Jesus wept (John 11:32–35). Similarly, the pieces in this volume don’t always neatly resolve. They don’t always end in hopeful exhortations. Many end in silence. Silence is the sound of God listening.
Riley Bounds (Solum Journal Volume IV)
Kim rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. You know who you are, and you wear it well. I really don’t know why you listen to me.” “Nor do I, you corkscrew-tongued bastard. Jesus wept. You could open wine bottles with that.
K.J. Charles (Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures #1))
Brothers and sisters in Christ frequently point to the lament psalms for those grieving. It’s often said they always end in hope. But not all do. Some end in unanswered pleas (Ps. 44, 74, 80, 88). In the whirlwind, God displayed power to Job, not answers (Job 38–41). When Lazarus died, Jesus didn’t offer Mary a sermon or remind her that he wasn’t in pain anymore. Jesus wept (John 11:32–35). Similarly, the pieces in this volume don’t always neatly resolve. They don’t always end in hopeful exhortations. Many end in silence. Silence is the sound of God listening.
Riley Bounds (Solum Journal Volume IV)
The same Christ who wept at the tomb of Lazarus weeps with us in our lonely despair. The same one who reached out and touched lepers puts his arm around us today when we feel misunderstood and sidelined. The Jesus who reached out and cleansed messy sinners reaches into our souls and answers our half-hearted plea for mercy with the mighty invincible cleansing of one who cannot bear to do otherwise.
Dane C. Ortlund (Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers)
In his disobedience, your brother is alive. You, in your resentful subservience, are dead. Do you think God wants mindless worshippers who can only follow instructions?
Chester Brown (Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus: Prostitution and Religious Obedience in the Bible)
Judas. It's none of your business how other people spend their money.
Chester Brown (Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus: Prostitution and Religious Obedience in the Bible)
Yes, I know. You don't understand—I love you because of what you did, not despite it.
Chester Brown (Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus: Prostitution and Religious Obedience in the Bible)