He Feels My Pain

In the midst of trials there’s something very comforting about sharing your experience with someone who has also endured deep sorrow. They understand the heartache you’re enduring, and they can comfort you as only someone who has suffered can. We find solace in knowing that someone else has passed through the fires.

It’s this simple truth that makes Jesus Christ the perfect savior. Listen to the words of Philip Ryken, speaking of the fact that Jesus was forsaken on the cross:

The forsaking of the Son of God on the cross is a fearful thing, but it is good news for sinners who repent. It is good news because it means that when you meet Jesus Christ at the cross you are meeting someone who has experienced the full measure of the tragedy of human existence. Out of his own experience of physical suffering and spiritual rejection Jesus not only sympathizes with your pain, he empathizes it.

Isaiah 53 describes Jesus as being, “…a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Ponder the depths of those words. King Jesus, the most joyful person in the universe, became a man of sorrows and grief. He experienced the full range of human pain. He felt the grief of losing a loved one, being deserted by friends, and being betrayed by one he loved. He was buried under the excruciating agony of being beaten to a pulp, pinned to a cross, and then hoisted into the air to die a slow, suffocating death. Worst of all, Christ absorbed and endured the hatred of God for sin. He was crushed by the one who loved him most.

Christ endured more agony than you and I could endure in ten lifetimes. His grief? Immeasurable. His pain? Unimaginable.

But here’s the glory of it all: Jesus is the perfect person to help you in the midst of suffering. He knows more than anyone what it’s like to suffer, and he knows better than anyone how to comfort you in your afflictions. Because he suffered, he knows exactly what you need to endure your sufferings. He knows how much grace you need, and exactly when you need it. No one else may know exactly what you’re enduring, but Jesus does, and you can lean your full weight on him.

+photo by millzero