Jesus Wept

“When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and He was deeply troubled…. Then Jesus wept” (John 11:33, 35).

Most people think that Jesus was weeping because he had sympathy for Mary and Martha. I, however, agree with the theologians who believe that there was a lot more to Jesus’ display of emotion. I believe Jesus was deeply upset by sin and death. Watching man go through the pain of death and loss because of sin must have troubled Him. It’s not that I believe Jesus was a man without emotion, but it doesn’t make sense for His feelings to have been that simple. He knew that He had the power to raise Lazarus. So, why would He have shown that emotion, at that time, if there wasn’t more to it? Jesus wasn’t just upset, He was angry.

I get that.

I felt that.

Yesterday I couldn’t get “Jesus wept” out of my mind when I walked through the ruins of the most abhorrent event of history. On the outside I was collected, but on the inside I was boiling with anger. Yet, I couldn’t fully absorb the stories that I was hearing, because I had the responsibility of guiding 16 teenagers. If I had fully processed what had gone on where I was standing, years prior, I would probably started tossing tables or fallen over with grief.

I was at a concentration camp on a mountainside in France.

The Nazi’s took one of the most beautiful places in the world and destroyed it! They corrupted that beautiful site with the history of the most evil display of hate ever known to man. I have no comprehension of what it must have been like to be tortured in such a beautiful place. What a contrast!

I have had this strange mix of emotions once before though… When I visited Dachau.

Dachau was the first concentration camp in Germany.

Again, Dachau was in a beautiful location and we had beautiful weather the day that we visited. It’s so unreal to think that something so horrific existed in these two beautiful places.

However, reality began to set in more quickly after seeing the gas chambers and ovens at Dachau and the experimentation ward at Struthof. These pieces and places were more frightful and eerie than any horror movie I have ever seen advertised. To think that anybody could be inhumane enough to torture other humans, and find pleasure in it, is beyond my comprehension.

I can’t even imagine doing those kind of brutal experiments on an animal.

Not even an animal that I hate!