Where Have You Laid Him

John 11:33-36


33 Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. 34 And He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”      

Do we believe as the mourners there did that Jesus grieved over the death of His friend? Or do we understand that Jesus not only knew where Lazarus was buried but also knew he would live again before he even began the journey to his town?



Jesus asks where they had laid him not because He did not know but because He was giving us the picture of true friendship, allowing for this time to remain fully man in their eyes. If he had just went straight to the tomb then the people would have been expecting a miracle from the Son of God and not instead seeing Christ’s love and compassion for one man.


"Jesus wept" we know Jesus did not weep over the death of a friend, and I say it is not over the lack of faith of those who mourn as I have heard some say. But I believe Jesus wept not for, but with the friends and family of mourners. I believe He shared in their time of grief to comfort and let them know it is ok to grieve and mourn.


We must learn this as well, to be joyful for others and with others in their time of joy and to mourn with others in their time of sorrow and for others. Jesus wept not for the loss of His friend but because the others were filled with sorrow and grief and He had compassion for them.


Jesus went there with the purpose of knowing what He would find and what He would do. And He allowed time to minister to the mourners and to the family he encountered there but He came for a purpose, to bring life to something that was dead. He asks the family, where have you laid him, and they reply by saying come and see.


His purpose had a place and it was not in the vale of tears but instead His purposes place is where dead things lie!


There are so many lessons in this one very short verse, we must follow Christ’s example and grieve for those who grieve, to mourn with the mourners, to allow ourselves to become less than who we are to comfort and minister, to esteem others greater than ourselves.... But we must also learn the lesson of purpose. You must travel with purpose and your purpose must have a place. Like Jesus, That place is where dead things lie. Jesus wants to resurrect the dead things in people's lives, dead marriages, dead families, dead hopes, and dead dreams. Go to these places, allow yourself to mourn with them, grieve because they grieve but then ask as Jesus did, Take me to the thing that is dead.....


35 Jesus wept. 36 Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!”

Part 5 of A Winning Hand

When I was 15 I sat next to my brother in a church pew at Sunnyslope Christian Center in Hollister, CA as the preacher asked if there was anyone in the audience who wanted to give their life to Christ. My brother who had just graduated from SF Teen Challenge and had been trying to get me in church since he got out leaned over to me and said “Come on Cy, God wants to forgive you of your sins and have a relationship with you.” My response to him was, “I don’t need God or forgiveness, I never hurt anyone and I have everything I need already.” Of course I doubted everything I just told him. I just wasn’t sure of anything except this, I knew everything would change and I didn’t want it to.

On that day God offered me the winning hand and I refused to place my bet. I knew that if I was to take God up on His promise that I would lose all that I had, even though I believed that what I had was not enough to give me the things I wanted in life. But I always had so little that I was unwilling to part with the little I did have. What I didn’t know was that soon the little I had would lead me down a path that would eventually leave me with nothing at all.

I found myself living and sleeping on a pile of discarded cushions behind a dumpster, eating what stores throw away, pushing around a shopping cart as I went about my days digging in the trash for recyclables and begging for drug money on street or in front of the local video store. I had not only lost everything material in life but I lost my family and most importantly my opportunity to raise my only son. It was the loss of him that kept me stuck in depression and misery for over 7 years.

What I didn’t know is that God is the Master of taking little things and filling them with His power to do big things.