JOHN SHIRK – In the Year of Trust, today’s Focus on God examines His sympathy to those who are weeping.

To be sympathetic is to express sorrow with someone in the midst of their grief and loss.

Jesus expressed sorrow at the gravesite of his friend Lazarus. He came and was moved by the grief of Lazarus’s sisters-Mary and Martha.

When they greeted Jesus, they said basically the same thing. Lord, if you have been here, my brother would not have died. John 11:33 says that when Jesus saw Mary weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. Verse 35 says, “Jesus wept.”

If Jesus was moved by their raw emotion, we can believe that Jesus is also moved in spirit when we experience a season of sorrow. Jesus is not removed from our suffering. Rather, He stepped right into it when He went to the cross.

The sympathy of Jesus for our tears is a reason to trust in God for today and forever.

John Shirk

john@wjtl.com