Throughout history, people have looked to Jesus’ life for inspiration, reverence, and a sense of divine mystery. His acts of compassion, his teachings, and, most famously, his miracles have become touchstones of faith for millions. Yet, when we look closer, could it be that Jesus was showing us more than supernatural wonders? Perhaps his miracles were not just displays of divine power but invitations for us to explore the depths of our own spiritual potential. By raising people from the dead, offering love and forgiveness, and ultimately sacrificing himself, Jesus may have been pointing us toward a truth hidden within each of us. This exploration invites us to see Jesus not only as a figure of divinity but as a compassionate guide, revealing the limitless love, wisdom, and capacity for transformation that connect us all.

The shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35), shows Him weeping for His friends Mary and Martha after the death of their brother, Lazarus. This moment reveals His empathy and capacity to share in others’ sorrow. Jesus also comforts His disciples and prays for them, especially in times of hardship. He expresses deep sorrow, knowing what His disciples will face and the struggles they’ll encounter after His departure. Jesus’ tears and prayers reflect a profound compassion for human suffering and a willingness to bear burdens alongside those He loves.

When Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus had died, He encountered Mary, Lazarus’ sister, who was grieving deeply. In John 11:33–35, it says:

“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ He asked. ‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied. Jesus wept.”

This verse shows Jesus’ compassion and His ability to share in the sorrow of those He loved, even as He knew He would soon raise Lazarus from the dead.

The fact that Jesus cried, even knowing He was about to perform a miracle, reveals something profound about His nature and empathy. Jesus wept because He was moved by the pain and sorrow of those around Him — Mary, Martha, and the grieving crowd. He saw their grief and felt their suffering deeply. This moment reflects His profound empathy and His shared humanity.

Ok, Jesus was compassionate with empathy and love for his disciples and those around Him. Apart from his own resurrection, he had other examples of raising people from the dead. I wanted to see what the circumstances were that they were brought back from the dead.

Jesus wasn’t merely showing power over death; He was also showing that He fully understood and shared in the human experience, including grief and loss. His tears demonstrate that even in the face of hope and faith, sorrow is real and deserving of acknowledgement. By weeping with those He loved, Jesus showed that it’s okay to feel and express grief, even when we believe in something greater beyond the pain. His compassion, even when He knew the outcome, was as much a part of the miracle as raising Lazarus itself.

Lazarus (John 11:1–44): This is the most detailed resurrection account. Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days, and there was a concern about decomposition. Jesus did not touch Lazarus; instead, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” indicating that he could reach Lazarus through sound or presence alone. Given the four-day timeframe, Lazarus’s condition seemed more advanced than Jairus’s daughter or the widow’s son. Jesus delayed his arrival intentionally, stating that this would serve to demonstrate “the glory of God.”

He knew what he was doing with raising people from the dead. It was intentional. Jesus delayed his arrival intentionally, stating that this would serve to demonstrate “the glory of God.”

But, there are others he raised from the dead:

Jairus’s Daughter (Mark 5:21–43, Matthew 9:18–26, Luke 8:40–56): In this case, Jairus, a synagogue leader, came to Jesus to ask for healing for his young daughter, who was gravely ill. While Jesus was on his way, news arrived that the girl had already died. Undeterred, Jesus continued to Jairus’s home. When he arrived, he found mourners crying, and he told them, “The child is not dead but asleep” (Mark 5:39). Jesus then entered the room, took the girl by the hand, and said, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” She immediately got up and walked around. In this scenario, the girl had not been dead long — perhaps only hours — so the emphasis is on Jesus’ insistence that she was “asleep,” which could hint at a state similar to a deep unconsciousness or suspended consciousness.

The Widow’s Son at Nain (Luke 7:11–17): As Jesus approached the town of Nain, he encountered a funeral procession for a widow’s only son. Moved by compassion, he went up to the bier and touched it, stopping the procession. He then said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The young man sat up and began to speak. In this case, it appears the young man had died recently, as his body was being carried out for burial. Here, Jesus’ touch seems significant — similarly to the Tibetan tukdam process, where touching can disturb an individual’s state. However, this event occurs more quickly than Lazarus’s resurrection, with no delay of days.

If you see what the Tibetan Buddhist knew of dying, Sunyata and Tukdam — it correlates well with how Jesus was bringing people back from the “dead”. One is not dead until one is really dead. The body can live in a state of Sunyata for about a week with no food and water and in a kind of meditative state of being before the dying process Tukdam kicks in.

You will notice Jesus knew He will be back in 3 days and 3 nights. Lazarus 4 days before he was woken up. The Widow’s Son at Nain less than a day. With Jairus’s Daughter, he said: “The child is not dead but asleep”. I mean, they are all in similar conditions to his resurrection within a week in a Sunyata state of being. It is only today, with the sciences, that we know how people die, so we are looking back at how Jesus raised people from the “dead”. We are not saying that Jesus was trying to fool anybody. Remember that we wrote his story. He in his own reality, in his own time, would have been very different of why he did what he did. Jesus could be just showing us that there is more to us than the living reality that we know of ourselves.

Tukdam: Between Worlds

Jesus was, by all accounts, fully engaged in living and teaching, with no indication that he intended to create a legacy of “magic” or exclusive miracles. Much of what we know about Jesus comes from the interpretations, experiences, and memories of his followers and early chroniclers. These stories were written decades after the events, shaped by language, culture, and the human tendency to elevate significant moments into powerful symbols or even miraculous events.

It’s very possible that Jesus demonstrated deeply compassionate acts — like reviving Lazarus or his own return after the crucifixion — with a natural understanding of life and death, as well as consciousness. In his time, such acts would have been seen as miraculous or even magical by those who witnessed them, particularly in a world without the scientific knowledge we have today. If he did explain these events as natural phenomena or processes, that understanding may not have translated into the written Gospels, which instead emphasize his divine nature and the miraculous.

This perspective suggests that, rather than intending to create a myth around himself, Jesus was simply embodying his teachings and sharing his knowledge, often in ways that those around him might not have fully grasped. The narratives that arose afterwards reflect humanity’s need to convey the awe, mystery, and reverence felt for someone they saw as embodying a profound truth. In that way, Jesus’ life became both history and myth — a mixture of factual events and the human impulse to capture the transcendent. This blend doesn’t diminish his impact; it simply acknowledges that he lived fully as himself while we interpreted it through our own lenses.

If Jesus, through his journeys and learning in those so-called “missing years,” encountered and integrated profound insights from other spiritual traditions, it’s possible he saw his role not as a figure of unreachable divinity but as a teacher illuminating the potential within every human being. He may have wanted to show people that they, too, could tap into this wisdom, love, and inner strength — that these abilities and depths of understanding were not solely his but available to anyone willing to journey inward.

In this light, Jesus’ life could be seen as a kind of demonstration, guiding us toward our own inner capacity for compassion, healing, and even mastery over the mind and body. His emphasis on forgiveness, love, and faith could have been his way of pointing to the inner transformation needed to access our highest potential. He may have wanted people to recognize that they, too, are capable of transcending fear, suffering, and even death in a symbolic sense — by living in alignment with a higher consciousness.

In teaching through example rather than doctrine, Jesus could have invited each person to explore and realize these possibilities within themselves. Far from diminishing his uniqueness, this perspective highlights a deeply compassionate mission: empowering others to realize their own spiritual potential and live with the same sense of love and presence that he embodied. It suggests that the true legacy of Jesus might be found in awakening this potential within humanity — a message that transcends cultural and religious boundaries, emphasizing a shared capacity for growth, understanding, and unity.

When Jesus raised people from the dead, it’s possible he wasn’t simply trying to prove his power or perform a miracle for the sake of wonder. Instead, he may have been showing us something far more profound — something about the potential that lies within each of us. Consider for a moment that Jesus, in his wisdom, might have wanted to reveal the depth of our human connection to the divine, a connection that goes beyond what we typically understand as life and death. By bringing people back from the brink, he could have guided us to recognize that we’re more than just flesh and bone, that our essence has a depth and resilience that transcends the physical.

In the story of Lazarus, we see Jesus delay his arrival, knowing full well the grief that his friends were experiencing and the deep sadness of losing a loved one. This delay might seem perplexing at first — why would he wait? But what if he wanted to show them, and us, something remarkable? By waiting until Lazarus had been in the tomb for days, Jesus created a moment that demonstrated how life could be restored, not as a singular divine act that only he could perform but as an expression of a deeper reality that connects all of us to God.

Jesus may have had insights into states of consciousness, perhaps even learned through his years of journeying and seeking wisdom. In other spiritual traditions, there are examples of people entering states so profound that they can linger near death, sustained by something beyond the physical. Jesus could have recognized that Lazarus was in a place where he was not fully gone, a space where life still lingered, waiting to be brought back with love and intention. And with just his voice, he called out to Lazarus, bringing him back not simply to demonstrate a miraculous power but to gently unveil the mystery of life itself. He might have been saying, “See, there is more to this life, more within each of you than you realize.”

Through these acts, Jesus could have been extending a hand to us, not only as a teacher but as someone showing us our own potential. It’s as if he wanted to say, “This life, this spark, this connection to God — it’s within you, too.” His purpose may not have been to perform wonders that made him seem distant and unreachable but to encourage us to explore and realize the divine potential that flows through every person.

So when we look at these stories, perhaps we can see them as an invitation. An invitation not just to admire Jesus as a miracle-worker but to see ourselves in his message. To realize that life is vast and mysterious and that our connection to the divine is profound, stretching far beyond what we usually comprehend. Jesus could have been showing us that love, compassion, and faith have the power to transcend even the boundaries of life and death. And in doing so, he was gently leading us toward our own awakening so that we, too, could understand and live in harmony with this sacred truth.

And when he said He died for our sins. When Jesus said he would die for our sins, he was sharing a deeply compassionate message about love, forgiveness, and transformation. Rather than simply meaning that his death was a transaction to “pay off” human wrongdoing, many interpret his words as an invitation to understand that his life and sacrifice were about revealing the boundless love of God and the path to spiritual renewal.

Through his death, Jesus was, in essence, showing us that we are already loved and forgiven, and he was willing to bear the full weight of human suffering to make that truth visible. His message emphasized that no one is outside the reach of divine love and that even in our struggles, mistakes, or “sins,” there is always the possibility of forgiveness and healing. By giving himself so completely, he illuminated the path for us to confront our own darkness, let go of guilt, and live in a way that reflects love, compassion, and connection with God and one another.

Jesus’ willingness to die for this message tells us that he believed in our capacity to transform — that he saw the potential within each person to rise above selfishness, fear, and pain. His sacrifice was both a powerful symbol and a real act of love, meant to show that we are not bound by our past or our flaws but are always invited to walk toward light, love, and wholeness. His message speaks to the depth of human potential, urging us to awaken to our best selves and to live in harmony with the divine spirit within us all.

Finding our full potential: