John 11:38Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

So He comes to the tomb and again restrains His sorrow. But why does the Evangelist carefully and more than once note that He wept and that He restrained His sorrow?

It is so that you may know that He was truly clothed in our nature. Since this Evangelist clearly says greater things about Him than the others, here he relates His human actions in a far humbler manner.

Concerning His death he said nothing like what the others said, namely, that He was sorrowful and in agony. He said the opposite, that He even cast the soldiers down.

Therefore what he omitted there he supplied here, speaking of His weeping. Christ Himself, speaking of His death, says, “I have authority to lay down” My life (Jn 10:18). He says nothing lowly.

Why does the evangelist again note that Jesus wept and sorrowed out of compassion? So that we may know that He truly clothed Himself in our nature. John, compared with the other evangelists, proclaims the loftiest teaching about the Lord and theologizes something great. Therefore, from His bodily actions, he also narrates the more lowly things. Thus in the Lord's sorrow he finds much that is human, and by this proves the truth of His flesh, so that you may know that the Lord was God and also man. For as Luke proves, by the Lord's struggle, sorrow, and sweat, Lk 22:44, so John proves by His tears that He bore true flesh.

Here by “rebuke” we understand a kind of desire joined to an authoritative movement. We understand also that He checked even more strongly the grief and the tear that was ready to flow from grief.

As God, for the instruction of men, He restrains the movement of human nature and commands it to overcome sorrows. Or by a divine movement He determines that the dominion of death must finally be destroyed.

He manifests this through His own flesh and expressed the movement hidden within the body. This is what the word “rebuked” means: through the outward appearance of the body He disclosed the hidden movement.

Since, when Christ goes to the tomb of Lazarus, it is written that Jesus, being troubled in Himself, comes to the tomb, we understand His trouble as a kind of desire together with an authoritative movement.

What does it mean that Christ grieves within, if not to show you how you should grieve when so heavy a burden of impiety presses and weighs upon you?

You have looked at yourself. You have seen yourself guilty. You have presented the account to yourself. I did this, and God spared me.

I committed such a thing, and He remained with me. I heard the Gospel and despised it. I received baptism and returned to the former things.

What am I doing? Where am I going? How shall I escape? When you say such things, Christ is already grieving, because your faith is grieving.

In the voice of one who grieves, the hope of resurrection appears. If such faith is within, then Christ who grieves is also there.

Do not be, then, either a stone, or a highway, or thorns for my word. Let the field of Christ be cleansed, so that tares may not grow in it.

It has been cultivated by the plow of the Cross, and the thorns have been wholly uprooted from it. The blessed ones of God mystically prepared this field for cultivation.

The apostles cleansed it of thorns by their death and by stoning. The Son of God, by His sufferings, prepared the instrument for its cultivation, so that by the yoke of the Cross He might cleanse it of tares.

The hard stones that were in it He crushed by the nails that pierced His hands. Thus no part of it would remain without bearing the fruits of the Cross.

Allowing His human nature to manifest what was proper to it in this case, Jesus Christ wept, but only a little. By this He also instructed us to keep measure in mourning the dead. Then He again restrained the strong disturbance of spirit, so that it would not pass beyond the bounds of moderation.

The Spirit grieves so that the flesh may live. Life grieves so that death may turn to flight. God grieves so that man may rise. Forgiveness grieves so that the sentence may not be adverse. Christ grieves as He casts down death, for one who wins single combat over the enemy cannot fail to grieve. Now concerning what he said: "again grieving." He grieves again to give witness to a twofold resurrection. By the word of Christ, those dead according to the flesh rise to life from their graves, and those dead in their unbelief return to life in faith.

"It was a cave" means the darkened heart of the Jews. "And a stone lay upon it" means their coarse and cruel unbelief.

The Lord, suppressing within Himself the feeling of sorrow, silently approached the tomb of Lazarus, that is, the cave whose entrance had been closed with a stone. When He reached it, He ordered the stone to be removed.

The opening of caves in which the dead had been buried took place only in exceptional cases. Even then, it occurred soon after burial, not when the corpse was already decomposing.

A decomposing human corpse generally produces an oppressive impression not only on the relatives and friends of the dead man, but even on strangers.

Moreover, in the warm climate of Palestine, the decomposition of corpses begins very soon after death. For this reason the Jews buried their dead on the very day on which they died.

But Christ knew and heard their talk. Once more the whole scene, real grief, hired mourners, and insatiable hatred, all gathered around the terrible reality of death, so shook His spirit that, despite the impending resurrection of the dead man, He was once more swept by a storm of sorrowful feeling and wept. Lazarus's tomb, like most tombs of wealthy Jews, was a recess cut lengthwise into the rock and closed at the entrance by a slab or mass of stones.

"Again grieving inwardly." This expression of malicious suspicion against Him on the part of some Jews, which the Lord Himself could have heard, again troubled His soul. It is the same Greek word as in Jn 11:33. But this disturbance, as is clear, was lighter than before and was quickly overcome. "It was a cave": see the note on Mt 8:28. "And a stone lay upon it": see the note on Mt 27:60 and parallels.

Verses 31-38. “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He rebuked in spirit and troubled Himself.” Ενεβριμησατο τω πνευματι και εταραξεν εαυτόν. Ενεβριμ may mean either “He was indignant” or “He sorrowed.”

Those who accepted the first meaning thought that Jesus was displeased either by the unbelief of the Jews, as Theodore of Mopsuestia and Leontius say, or by the disturbance of His own soul, as Chrysostom, Apollinaris, and Euthymius say.

But this is not justified by the connection of the discourse. The ancient translations, Coptic and Arabic, read: “He was grieved in soul and troubled Himself.”

The Russian translation gives: “Jesus therefore, again grieving inwardly.” This is the same word as in verse 33. See the note: ἐμβριμώμενος, “fremens apud semet ipsum,” that is, “inwardly moved.” He goes to the tomb of Lazarus.

All eyes are fixed on the Master of life and death. “Behold,” Symeon the God-receiver said, “this Child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against” (Lk 2:34).

For the last time the Lord gave the Jews time to repent and believe. The Master of life and death offered them eternal life or death in the sign of the great miracle of Lazarus’ resurrection, according to their faith or unbelief.