When Jesus therefore saw (Mary) weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled…John 11:33

The Greek word for groan can also mean to be very angry at or moved with indignation. “Troubled” can also mean restless, agitated, stirred.

But the Hebrew/Aramaic (from Peshitta) is amazing:

It was super-powering (mighty, powerful, strong, fierce) in His spirit and was shaking, trembling His soul.  Wow!

It? What was “it?”  Grief?

Whether there was an anger component to Jesus’ response or not (commentaries postured He was angry at death itself, the professional mourners, the hypocritical Jews with Mary–who in a short time would be plotting Lazarus’ second death, or the peoples’ sheer lack of faith), the Aramaic describes an intense inner reaction at the sight of the mourners.

The word “groan” usually, with us, denotes an expression of internal sorrow by a special sound. The word here (in John 11:33), however, does not mean that utterance was given to the internal emotion (out loud but only)…that it was deep and agitating… www.biblehub.com, Barnes

One Bible Study member spoke of experiencing extreme inner grief, though not expressing it overtly.  He could relate exactly to Jesus’ actions.

But we all wondered why Jesus would be so grieved in His spirit and soul, when He knew He would shortly be raising Lazarus up, i.e., the story had a very happy ending.

One of my favorite commentators, Alfred Edersheim, had a plausible theory: One whose insight into such questions is particularly deep, has reminded us that ‘the miracles of the Lord were not wrought by the simple word of power, but that in a mysterious way the element of sympathy entered into them.  He took away the sufferings and diseases of men in some sense by taking them upon Himself. (Wescott)’…(if) we combine (His) statement formerly made about the Resurrection, as not a gift or boon but the outcome of Himself—we may in some way…be able to gaze into the unfathomed depth of that Theanthropic fellow-suffering which was both vicarious and redemptive, and which, before He became the Resurrection to Lazarus, shook His whole inner Being….¹

As Isaiah 53 says:  Surely He has borne our grief and carried our sorrows….

I remember one occasion in 1995 when I was with my relatives in a tiny chapel—in the Saint Frances of Assisi Mausoleum in the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, NY.  We were mourning the recent departure of my father’s brother.  I further remember thinking, as I was crying, about how unbelievably complex everything had suddenly become—last week life had been perfectly simple. I had been at home and at peace in Fort Worth when the phone call came; suddenly I was racing to catch a flight to Mission Hills, California to visit my uncle who had suffered a stroke after brain surgery.  Shortly thereafter he had left earth to be with Jesus.  And now, after barely touching back down in TX, I had flown to the east coast to attend his funeral service as I began to deal with the reality of a great loss.  While I cried, I was wishing things could go back to the way they were a week ago.  I felt the Lord speak to my heart and ask me what I had been doing a week ago at this (very) time.  In one of the great ironies of my life, I realized that I had been drawing a picture for the children at the daycare where I volunteered.  It was a picture of Jesus and Mary at Lazarus’ Tomb—and I had been trying very hard to capture the grief-stricken expression on Jesus’ face as He wept.  And then I heard Him say words that have been an incomparable source of comfort to me ever since—

“When you weep, I weep.”

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¹Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1883), 323