The awful sufferings of the Lord Jesus in Gethsemane are not brought before us by the Holy Spirit in John's Gospel, even though the garden is mentioned in the first verse of chapter 18; nevertheless there are sufferings of which we read in this Gospel that, in their depths, are beyond our comprehension. How intense were the sufferings of Jesus when those to whom He brought the rich grace of God sought to kill Him, when He was rejected and insulted by the leaders of the nation, and unrighteously condemned to death by Pontius Pilate. Yet even these sufferings are not to be compared with the infinite sufferings sustained when His soul was made an offering for sin. Among the many sufferings, there were those which we shall contemplate as presented in John's Gospel.
It is surpassing wonderful that the Son of God incarnate should be found entering into the sufferings of mankind with a heart that felt as men felt, yet with feelings that were perfectly holy and unimpaired with the sin that dulls the sensitivity of all true natural feeling. Also the Son of God as a divine Person had a capacity for knowing what sin was in man as no other man could, and a capacity for grief that man could not have. These things enable us to understand that it is impossible for us to know the depths of the sorrows of the Son of God when He was troubled in spirit, and groaned in the presence of sin in this world. Perfect holiness in the nature of the Son of God repelled sin, yet His deep compassion enabled Him to enter sympathetically into what sin had brought upon men.
The reason for the groan of the Son of God in John 11:33 was that He saw Mary "weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her." Their sorrow and tears were because of the loss of Lazarus the brother of Mary and Martha, and while Jesus entered into their grief and sorrow, His groaning in the spirit and His being troubled were on account of the awful ravages that death had brought into the world, and this because of sin. God's Son knew as Mary and those who wept with her could not know the dreadful results for man of sin and death, and the deep, deep dishonour that sin had brought upon the holy Name of God before the universe He had created.
Only God the Father could properly enter into the feelings of the Son as He groaned and was troubled, but the Jews were able to observe the tears that told of the deep sympathy of Jesus for those He loved in their time of trouble and sorrow. Death had invaded the home of those He loved, and He was not indifferent to the wounded spirits and broken hearts, even though He knew that He was about to deliver the loved one from the clutch of death, to manifest His own power as Son of God for the glory of His God and Father, and for the joy of His own.
How much would have been lost for the loved ones of Jesus down the centuries if Lazarus had not died. His sickness was indeed "for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby" (John 11:4), and how greatly have the saints of God rejoiced in this display of the glory of God's Son, and been comforted by the tears shed by Jesus as He wept with Mary. Although the Son of God is now in heaven, His heart is still touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and His sympathy and compassion are still as real and as great as when He wept by the grave of Lazarus. When His own pass through bereavement they rely on the divine comfort of Him who knows the deepest depths of the feelings of the human heart, whose love and wisdom order all for their greatest good.
There were some who, on seeing the tears of Jesus, said "Behold how He loved him" (John 11:36), and this was surely true as the sisters knew (John 11:3), and as John knew (John 11:5). The tears, while expressing the love of Jesus for Lazarus, also showed that He was not insensible to the cruel wounds of death in the hearts of the sisters of Bethany. There were however some who said, "Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?" (John 11:37). These words produced the second groan from the heart of Jesus.
Jesus could indeed have caused that Lazarus should not have died as His raising him from death showed. His waiting to manifest His glory not only brought to light His compassion and sympathy, but exposed the ignorance and unbelief of the human heart. Martha and Mary were both perplexed at the delay of Jesus to come to them when Lazarus was sick, for they knew that death could not come where He was, but it was not simple perplexity that brought from some the words that really called in question His love for His own, it was the ignorance of unbelief, the refusal to accept that Jesus was the Christ the Son of God, and this brought from Jesus the groan that spoke of His suffering.
In the loved circle of Bethany, "Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table" with Jesus, while Mary anointed His feet, the house being filled with the odour of the ointment (John 12:1-3). On entering Jerusalem, Jesus was hailed with the words, "Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the Name of the Lord" (John 12:13), in anticipation of the day of His glory. Greeks also came, saying to Philip, "Sir, we would see Jesus" (John 12:21), foreshadowing the time when the Gentiles will seek the Lord.
We might have thought that these things would have caused the Lord to rejoice, but instead they brought before His vision what He would have to undergo before there could be fulness of joy for His own, blessing for Israel and blessing for the Gentiles. These things could not be "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die." Only by the work of the cross could His own share His life and place before the Father, and others be blessed, and this involved infinite sufferings for Jesus, for the way into the glory for Him, and for His own, was by suffering and death.
Death was real to the Son of God. He would have to fathom the deepest depths of shame and suffering, meet and overcome the enemy of God and men, then sustain the awful judgment of a righteous and holy God while forsaken of Him. With all this before Him Jesus said, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say?" (John 12:27). It is not now the sorrows of His own that are before Him, nor yet the awful ravages of sin and death, but rather what He must pass through before God could be glorified in the removal of the sin that dishonoured God and brought all the misery into the world, and before He could bring His own into all the rich, divine blessing that God had for them in His eternal purposes of grace and love.
What depths of suffering, sufferings of anticipation of the cross, are expressed in the words, "What shall I say?" If there is a moment of hesitation in His soul as the darkness looms before Him when He would be forsaken of God, it is but for a moment, for at once the Son of God answers His own question with the words, "Father, glorify Thy Name" (John 12:28). He would not consider for Himself, no matter what the cross would mean to Him, for the glory of the Father's Name was more to Him than all He would be subjected to in the hours of His being forsaken.
Jesus knew all that lay before Him, all the grief His soul would know when dishonoured by the leaders of Israel, and ill-treated by Pilate and Herod, not to speak of being forsaken by His disciples. These things would trouble Jesus, but His betrayal by Judas deeply affected the Lord as we learn from the words, "When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me" (John 13:21). It was sorrowful enough that the Son of God should suffer betrayal, but how much the sorrow was intensified when one who had been so near to Him was the instrument used by Satan for this foul act of treachery.
With all that lay before Him, and with the special trial that the betrayal brought to His soul, how wonderful it was that the Son of God could rise above it all to stoop to wash the feet of His disciples, and to unfold to them so much of what lay beyond the cross for Himself and for them, but which depended on the great work He was about to do. How brightly the moral glory of the Son of God shines amidst all the trouble and the groanings that distressed His heart and spirit!
Wm. C. Reid.