By Mako A. Nagasawa, August 5, 2026
This post is part of the Obsculta Preaching Series, sponsored by the Obsculta Preaching Initiative at Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary.
Coming from a Japanese Buddhist background, I understood what the statue in my grandmother’s home conveyed. His eyes were closed, his arms were folded, and he had a slight smile on his face. The statue represented contentment, based on detachment: I don’t see it; I’m not affected.
I compared Jesus weeping by the tomb of Lazarus (John 11) to that statue of the Buddha. Jesus, I thought, is different. He represents a God who enters our world to show us that he is affected by the things that affect us. And I said, “If there is a God, I hope He’s like this.” I committed my life to Jesus about a year later.
Almost 40 years afterwards, I continue to deepen in my appreciation for Jesus’ emotional vulnerability and engagement with us in John 11. His were not just sad tears, but angry tears.
How does Jesus relate to our emotions of human life marred by death and sin-sickness? How do we relate to his emotions?
Here’s the key part of the story: “Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw him, and fell at his feet, saying to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept” (John 11: 32-35).
Mary said the same thing her sister Martha did: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11: 21, 32). But Mary inflected it differently. Whereas Martha was pragmatically confident Jesus would raise Lazarus from the tomb, Mary was emotional. Of course, she was weeping for her brother, Lazarus. But she seemed to also ask Jesus whether he cared. Martha’s appeal prompted Jesus to clarify that he was the resurrection and the life. Mary’s appeal prompted Jesus to weep.
The two sisters’ appeals drew forth very different responses from Jesus. Mary had asked an implicit question. I think it is: Why did you wait? How much do you really care? That’s the question Jesus answers. And not with words.
Can you imagine a tone deaf, or even narcissistic, response from Jesus? “I’m going to raise your brother from the dead, Mary. What do you not understand about that?” Or, what if Jesus had been emotionally defensive? What if he had said, “Yes, Mary, I do care. How could you not believe that I care?” What if Jesus gave an “I am” statement to Mary like he did to Martha: “Mary, do you believe that I am the care?”
We need to pay close attention to the emotional texture of this interaction. What we believe about Jesus’ inner life might be shaped by the maturity of our own. Does Jesus make every moment about himself? I do not think he does. Or, what if Jesus had turned Mary’s tears into a corrective lesson about her “unbelief”? Do we as preachers and ministers do that?
How, then, was Jesus emotionally affected? The word translated into English as “deeply moved” is the Greek term enebrimēsato (ἐνεβριμήσατο). This word was used to describe warhorses whipped up into excitement and aggression before a battle. Here are how a few other translations translate it:
“a deep anger welled up within him” (NLT)
“he was terribly upset” (CEV)
“he became enraged in the Spirit and stirred himself up” (JUB)
“he was moved with indignation” (TLB)
“he became perturbed” (NAB)
“he was deeply moved in spirit to the point of anger at the sorrow caused by death” (AMP)
Jesus expressed this emotion again as onlookers both appreciate and criticize him. “So the Jews were saying, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?’ So Jesus, again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. (John 11: 36-38). The NLT says, “Jesus was still angry.”
Jesus answered Mary with his own anger and tears. Notably, he stepped into the role of the professional Jewish mourners. Usually, the grieving family asked or hired people to mourn so their own cries could be audibly covered or joined. But Jesus was certainly not being paid, though he was a close family friend. He genuinely shared Mary’s emotions. In fact, he gathered up Mary’s anger and sorrow with his and lifted it to God the Father. He covered her emotions – not in a way that smothered or eclipsed her. He not only permitted her to wail; he called forth her wailing.
What do Jesus’ angry tears mean for what we know of God? Even the anger of God? Why was Jesus angry and sorrowful? Was Jesus angry at Lazarus for dying? Surely not. Was he angry at Mary and others for doubting him? I don’t think Mary was doubting his power. She was wrestling with his timing, and whether he cared as much as she did. If so, then did Jesus seem to feel defensive? No. He was angry at death itself. And behind death lies a more sinister enemy: the sin-sickness. How so? God had to stop us from eating from the tree of life while in a sin-sick state, lest we make human evil immortal. God exiled us – out of love – from the garden, until He could at least send Jesus and offer us the purified, healed humanity of Jesus. But even if God imposed exile and death on us out of love and not retributive justice, then how did God feel about all we endure? Does He roll His eyes and shrug His shoulders?
Jesus’ interaction with Mary helps answer that. For Jesus is the Son who reveals the Father (John 1:17–18). He took up our human nature to show us the Father’s love with a human face, tears, snot, and sobs. This is what God Himself feels towards death, especially the sin-sickness that made mortality necessary, and our specific, personal losses. Jesus reveals the anger of God as directed not at our personhood per se, but at the sin-sickness within us. And he reveals that the sorrow of God is with us in our exile, mortality, and suffering.
Moreover, by responding to Mary’s emotions and ours, Jesus reveals an emotionally responsive God of love. He reveals – in his love for Lazarus and Mary – the deeper connection of love he has with them and all of us.
In fact, where do Mary’s anger and tears come from? Herself and her connection to Lazarus, her brother? In a sense, of course. But in a sense, they also come through her. Her anger and tears ultimately come from God. Jesus enlightens every person who comes into the world (John 1:9), including with the sense that human suffering and death are the results of some great mistake and theft. By weeping angry tears for Lazarus’ death and Mary’s loss, Jesus joins Mary’s cries to his own, that she might rejoin God’s angry sobs. His participation in our nature enables our participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). For God does not want us to be objects of divine anger and sorrow, but partners in them.
Many times, we trap anger and sorrow within ourselves. We think these emotions originate in us, and we may think that they should even stay within us, since they are somewhat hard to share. Sometimes we get messages from family, culture, or church that disapprove of them. But Jesus wants to coach us in them. He wants to refine them, develop them, and lead them forth so we might join him more fully.
Mako Nagasawa is the Executive Director of The Anástasis Center for Christian Education and Ministry, where he and his team teach and train about Christian restorative justice and Jesus’ healing atonement. He has lived in Christian intentional community with his wife and kids for 26 years. He serves on the leadership team of Neighborhood Church of Dorchester. He earned an MTS from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary in 2019.
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