Rabbi Schneider - God is Holy AND Approachable
I wonder what percentage of you right now know the answer to this question. I'm sure that it's quite a lot. I don't know if it's 70%. I don't know what the percentage is. Shortest version of the Bible. What is the shortest verse in the Bible? Tyler, what's the shortest verse in the Bible? "Jesus wept", "Jesus wept".
How many of you knew the answer to that question? Shortest verse in the Bible. "Jesus wept". So what do we take away if we're just isolating one verse right now that has two words in it? "Jesus wept." What can we glean from that? Here's what we can glean, beloved: God has emotions.
Some of us think that God is so high and lofty, that He's not touched emotionally. But Jesus is touched by us and we can literally move God. The same one that walked upon the earth 2000 years ago, and wept when he was experiencing the grief of all the people around him, right when they were grieving because Lazarus had died and they were saying to Yeshua, "If you would have been here he wouldn't have died". And they were all weeping, and Jesus began to weep with them.
Why was he weeping? I believe he was weeping because he was experiencing the total lostness of humanity, the despair that they were, and the hopelessness of mankind without God, just weeping lost. They lost a loved one, as far as they knew, they'll never see him again. They didn't know, you know, they were just completely in darkness.
Jesus experienced that sadness and grief with them, and he too, began to wept. You know what that means? God has empathy, my dear, beloved brother or sister, for you. He's touched by your emotions. When you're hurting, He feels your hurt and it moves Him. And when you're happy, He gets joy out of you being happy when you're happy in Him.
So just know that God is holy, but He's also approachable. And in His love for you and I, He has taken on human flesh and blood in the person of Jesus, right? God becoming flesh, and He's able to identify with us, and experience with us, even what we experience as we walk through life. And He's with you, he's for you and know that whatever your experience, He feels that, he knows you. Every hair on your head is numbered. He loves you and He's caring for you.