Empathy or Suffering

This morning, I want to talk about the shortest verse in the Bible.

“Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

It’s very easy to memorize and seems insignificant. But in these two words hangs an important theological ideal that is essential to understanding the God we serve.

Jesus wept.

I always tell my wife she has the spiritual gift of empathy. She finds herself connected with people on an emotional level. When someone that Annie knows begins to cry it always seems to bring a tear to Annie’s eyes. When they share of their hardships and pain, Annie listens with an attentive ear and she feels hurt on their behalf.

I used to make fun of the fact that she cried during movies but now I envy her.

I wish I could connect with others that way. I wish that my empathy for other’s situation would overwhelm me to such a point that I cry for them. But instead, most times, I don’t. It’s not that I don’t care, I do! My heart breaks for them, but I don’t truly feel what they feel. But I wish I could.

Why? Because empathy is powerful emotion. You might even say that it is one of the most powerful emotions. If you can connect with someone emotionally, that’s a game changer.

Empathy is walking a mile in someone elses shoes, but not just sharing their point of view, but sharing their emotions and feelings. Imagine what the world would be like if we could all empathize with our loved ones and our greatest enemies. How would you treat them differently? If you felt what they felt and saw the world from their eyes, what would that be like. How would it change the way we react to the poor and needy? How would it change the way we react to the immigrant and the refugee? If we could really empathize with them. This isn’t about knowledge or logic or politics, it’s simply about feeling what someone else feels on a deep and emotional level. It’s coming to a point where you can look at someone else and say I know how you feel and truly mean it.

And empathy is powerful, but there’s something even greater than that. It’s suffering along with someone else. This isn’t just standing beside them empathizing and crying with them. This is picking up the walking stick and walking for miles and miles along with the refugee, sharing in their suffering. This is sitting in the sheet metal huts in slums of Kenya, feeling the hungers pangs wrack your stomach day in an day out, sharing their suffering. This is being a single mo, laying in dingy apartment, trying to sleep, but you cant because youre stressed out about the bills that are piling up and the rent being do, sharing her suffering.

Many times we can empathize with others, but very very rarely can we take it to the next level and suffer with them.

Why am I talking about this?

When Scripture tells us that Jesus wept, it sometimes watered down.

I think that this verse gets muddled down when we interpret Christ’s tears as simply being empathy. That He was crying for Lazarus and their family simply because he empathized with their pain. That he felt what it was like to lose someone He cared about.

But it’s more than that.

Think about it. Christ is crying here even though He knows that in a few short moments Lazarus’s body is going to breathe again. He is still brought to tears even though He will call Lazarus’s name and he will come wobbling out.

Christ didn’t just empathize with Mary and her family and be thankful that God doesn’t just empathize with you amidst your pain.

Rather, Christ suffered with Mary and God suffers with us.

When Christ weeps for Lazarus, it’s as if God on earth is crying out to God in Heaven on behalf of the suffering of the world. Finally, God has come to earth and lives into the suffering and brokenness of humanity and its the brokenness of humanity that effects and pains God just as it effects and pains us.

Even when Christ is crying out His lament on the cross, it is God crying out to God. It is God’s suffering being spoken and wailed to Godself.

It seems like I’m being nitpicky but this theological assertion matters. God doesn’t just feel sorry for you, he doesn’t just empathize for you when your going through a tough time, but He suffers with you. When you feel the pain of a broken heart, God feels broken too. When you feel loss, God feels loss. When you are hurt, He is hurt too.

When we cry out to God in lament, it’s as if the Spirit in us is crying out to the Spirit of God. God cries out to God on behalf of humanity.

Our God is not distant and far off, looking on the suffering of humanity and empathizing with us.

Instead, because of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection and the power of the Spirit, God suffers with us, cries with us, and laments with us.

I think Jürgen Moltmann puts it best:

“God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him.”

You see, empathy is a powerful and useful emotion, that can bring understanding and connectedness, but Christ doesn’t just empathize with our suffering, instead he joins in suffering with us. And it is only there, in that position, that that same God and that same Spirit can offer peace and encouragement and help in our time of need.