- John 11:33 (NKJV) Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.
Have you ever heard the expression, “Something was lost in the translation”? Well, unfortunately that can even be true of the Bible. Today’s verse is an example. The way the New King James scholars translated this verse is pretty tame compared to how the readers of the original manuscript would have understood it.
The New Living translation (NLT) captures the mood much better: When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled.
Here’s my point in mentioning this today; Jesus gives us the proper mood for death – “deep anger” and being “deeply troubled.”
Death is necessary and cannot be escaped, but death is not your friend. The reason you are not comfortable with the subject is that the original plan for you did not include death. You were not meant to die. Death is the sad result of sin coming into the world. This is why, when Jesus attended the funeral of a dear friend and saw the sorrow and grief that it brought the grieving family and friends, he became so incensed. This is also one of the reasons that Jesus went to the cross and died a sinner’s death: to conquer death, hell and the grave.
Dear friend, your abhorrence of death is natural and your desire to live is completely normal. What causes Jesus to scratch his head in wonder is why people will reject his wonderful gift of eternal life.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
The ONE THING 