By Jannie Linney
Most everyone knows the story of Lazarus, how Martha his sister sent word to Jesus that he was very sick and needed assistance. When Jesus got there Lazarus had been dead four days. As soon as Martha saw Jesus she said “Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Jesus said “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know He will rise again in the resurrection. Jesus told Her “I Am the Resurrection” [Read John 11:21-31].
“Then when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” Therefore when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. He even wept. [John 11:32-34]. Martha and Mary and had been with Jesus enough to know He could have stopped death from coming on Lazarus.
They had seen Him do many miracles. Yet they couldn’t believe Him for raising the dead. He groaned at their unbelief. When they had Him over to eat and Martha had busied herself in the Kitchen instead of being with Him, He said Martha! Martha! How long am I to be with you. In other words, how long is it going to take you to learn who I am and why I’m here. Their doubt hurt the heart of Jesus. In verse thirty seven and thirty eight some said “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?” They were not thinking big enough. Then Jesus again groaning in Himself came to the tomb. We know He raised Lazarus, saddened that those people had seen Him do so much and still doubted. Let us have faith in Him for mighty things!
There was another time Jesus groaned. Jesus was fully God and fully man. He came to earth fully man to pay a horrible price for mankind. If He had come as God-man, He could not have paid the price for fleshly man. In the beginning, it was a flesh man that gave this earth over to the devil. So it had to be a flesh man that paid the price to buy it back. All those sayings like “yes, but that was Jesus, the son of God that was beaten and crucified, He could handle it.” That is an excuse. Jesus felt pain just like us; had emotions just like us. He bled just like us, or the price He paid would not have been enough.
In the Psalm of David it is written, “My God, My God Why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning? The Bible says God cannot look at sin. When Jesus was on the cross, He took on Himself all the sins that had ever been and all that would ever be. For that time, God had to turn from the sin Jesus was carrying. Jesus knew the absence of God for the first and only time.
I believe that experience was the hardest time of the crucifixion the lack of the presence of God. Jesus never complained about anything else. In all the beating of the cat of nine tails, the humiliation, the crucifixion, He Complained about nothing except the separation from The Father. I believe that will be the worst part for those who go to hell. Hell alone would be bad enough, but God is everywhere, so none of us really know what it would be like without His presence, not even the most evil person.. Jesus groaned at nothing else during His terrible journey in death, “Except the Absence of God.”
