Emotional Jesus

John 11:33
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
John 11:35
Jesus wept.
John 11:36
Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"
John 11:38
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
John 11:43
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"

Jesus was not a cold, methodical, stoic leader absent of emotion. He was not a man so focused on the ultimate will and plan of the Father that He missed the significance and weight of each step along the way. He was not so divine that His humanity could not be seen... or perhaps even held back. He was moved and troubled. He groaned. He wept. He loved. He cried out.
So what was all that emotion about?
I like to believe it was a combination of three things in the past, present and future.
Jesus wept because he understood the consequences of sin and the pain it brought. The situation He faced in Bethany was not as it was supposed to be.
Presently, Jesus wept at the loss of His friends. While He knew that Lazarus would soon return to life, He identified with the separation that sin and death brought. At that very moment He was separated from His Father (a temporary death) for their sake. Similarly, perhaps He wept because He knew how incomparable the paradise is that He was about to pull Lazarus back from. Perhaps He wept because He fully identified with Lazarus' return trip away from the Father.
Finally, I believe as Jesus stood at the tomb staring down the cave and the stone, He saw His future. There at the grave of Lazarus His destiny became more humanly real than any time before. This was not only the Father's will for their sake, that they may believe, but also for His sake that He may be prepared to take the same journey. As He was trusted to raise Lazarus from the dead, He would have to trust His Father to raise Him from the dead.
No matter the source of Jesus' emotion, it is undeniable that Jesus truly identified with us. I love the words of Hebrews 4:14-16, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

Thank You Jesus for identifying fully with our humanity... that we may one day identify fully with Your deity. Amen.