The other day, I heard this sentence, "Jesus wept." The context was talking about the Israeli/Hamas War. I thought that Jesus would weep over a war going on in the country of His chosen people. I wondered what the scriptural reference was. Much to my surprise, the first google reference for "Jesus wept," was an expletive! It is used as an expletive!
Then I thought of all the times I've heard the Lord's name used in vain. I thought of the many times I've heard the use of sacred words used as expletives. There used to be a cartoon where the expletive "sacre blue" was used, often. This is a reference to the color the Blessed Mother always wore. In Louis Penny's Inspector Gamache novels, the expletive "tabernacle," is used. Why? How these innocuous words came to be expletives, is beyond me. It's silly. I imagine it's the same with "Jesus wept."
Jesus wept only a few times. One time was John 11: 35. Here, his friend, Lazarus died. Jesus took His time getting to the funeral and was too late. But the reason is, Jesus knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. So why was Jesus weeping at Lazarus' grave? I posit that everyone's sorrow affected Jesus. Their weeping, made Him weep. Being human, Jeus had compassion. I think this is a deep and poignant point--Jesus' compassion made Him weep. How can people chose to use this important, meaningful verse as an expletive? Lord, have mercy on us, we know not what we do.
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