@Duran
The objection misunderstands both the purpose of Christ’s tears at Lazarus’s
tomb and the meaning of “sleep” as applied to death in biblical language. It
assumes that if Christ truly believed Lazarus was merely “unconscious,” there
would be no cause for emotion. But this is a reductive, almost mechanical
understanding of both the Incarnation and of grief itself. Jesus, fully divine
yet fully human, experiences sorrow not because He is confused or misinformed,
but because He is compassionate. He is moved not by theological uncertainty,
but by love — a perfect love that does not negate knowledge but exists in
harmony with it. The passage says He was “troubled” and that He “groaned within
Himself” not because He questioned the reality of resurrection, but because He
entered fully into the suffering of those around Him. Christ wept because those
He loved were weeping. To suggest that He cried only because of their ignorance
about what was about to happen is to reduce His empathy to mere performance or
condescension. But the text makes clear: He loved Lazarus. He loved Mary. He
loved Martha. And love mourns, even when it hopes.
As for the term “fallen asleep,” it is a phenomenological description of the body and a metaphor — one common in both
Scripture and Second Temple Jewish literature — used to describe death from the
perspective of the living. It does not imply unconsciousness in a modern or
materialist sense, and certainly not annihilation. Paul, for instance, uses
“sleep” to describe death in 1 Thessalonians 4, but goes on to affirm that the
dead in Christ will rise — not from non-existence, but from death, which is
temporary precisely because of the resurrection. Moreover, Paul also says in
Philippians 1:23 that he “desires to depart and be with Christ,” which is “far
better.” How can that be squared with the idea of soul sleep or unconscious
oblivion? It cannot. Nor can 2 Corinthians 5:8, where Paul says he would
“prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” This implies
immediate fellowship — not suspended animation.
The attempt to read John 11 through an annihilationist lens also ignores
Christ’s own words in John 11:26: “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall
never die.” This is not a promise of mere future resurrection but a present
participation in life — eternal life — that begins even now and continues,
uninterrupted, through physical death. The Catholic Church teaches that while
the body dies, the soul lives on. The saints are not inert, unconscious corpses
waiting for reassembly. They are alive in Christ, as He Himself said: “He is
not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive” (Luke
20:38). That is why Moses and Elijah appear and speak with Christ at the
Transfiguration. That is why the souls under the altar in Revelation cry out
with longing for justice. And that is why Jesus can say to the good thief,
“Today you will be with me in Paradise” — because Paradise was then the abode
of the righteous dead, awaiting redemption, and Christ’s descent into Sheol
(not the grave, but the realm of the dead) was the prelude to His harrowing of
it, His liberation of the captives.
The claim that “sleep” = “unconsciousness” as an ontological state is not
only exegetically shallow but collapses in the face of the full biblical witness.
“Sleep” as a metaphor allows for the continuation of personal identity, memory,
and even intercession — as the parable of Lazarus and the rich man shows, where
both characters speak, see, and remember. If that is only a parable, then it
must still communicate something true about reality — and it does: that the
soul does not cease.
So, yes, Jesus wept. Not out of ignorance. Not because He thought Lazarus
was gone forever. But because love mourns, and God incarnate chose not only to
redeem us from death, but to feel its sting alongside us. That is the scandal
and the beauty of the Cross — not that Christ avoided death, but that He
embraced its full weight. And yet even in weeping, He declared: “I am the
resurrection and the life.”
You may claim to know what Jesus felt. But we have His words. And they say
otherwise.
