Jesus With Us

I came back to the raising of Lazarus (John 11) today during my prayer time, wanting to sit with it for whatever reason. It never ceases to amaze me how I can read the same passage daily and each new reading opens my heart with a fresh truth, previously unseen.
 
Today I was taken with how much Jesus is with us.
He shows up in Bethany, knowing very well Lazarus has died and that his good friends are suffering. He encounters Mary (Lazarus' sister) who is distraught…and it moves Him. He is greatly disturbed.

“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”

Jesus knows very well the outcome of all of this suffering. It isn’t some bizarre surprise to Him that He is going to raise Lazarus back from the dead. He had even told His disciples earlier that the man's death would be “for the glory of God.”
He had no doubt that Lazarus would live.

Yet even knowing He can—and will—remedy this does not stop compassion from overtaking His Heart. He sees how this event has crushed Mary, He witnesses the agony of those with her…and it affects Him. He weeps, and so intensely that it eventually draws comment: “See how he loved him!”

I find immense comfort in this.
 
Christ is not blind or unfeeling.
Christ sees me, sees my pain…and it affects Him.
He is not unmoved, but is standing beside me in the midst of the death and grief and agony of my life and feels compassion. The world might be chaos around me, but Jesus is never without a tender eye upon me.

He might intend to raise the dead and move mountains, but does nothing without first standing with me and knowing my pain intimately.
He shares it to its depths.

He is with me.
And that is both astonishing and consoling.