I’m not sure where this finds you today. I don’t know whether you are in the midst of one of the most exciting days of your life or if you are experiencing heart-wrenching pain like never before. Or simply somewhere in between.
But I don’t have to know where you are in this moment.
I am certain that everyone can agree that life is hard. We all experience cosmic disappointment, suffocating loss, anxious uncertainty, disillusioning self-loathing, paralyzing failure, and cutting betrayal. We have all had days where facing reality is the most frightening item on the to-do list.
There is a truth about our savior, Jesus Christ, that meets each and everyone one of us in despair with a hug and kiss of empathy. He has been there. He has felt it. He knows the worst of feelings that this sin-saturated world can cause.
I have heard my whole Christian life that Jesus understands everything we could ever go through in this world. He lived it, he understands it. He conquered it. Hebrews 4: 15-16 explains this wonderful truth:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
In times of temptation, depression, confusion, hurt, and pain, I have looked to this verse, this element of my Savior that sets him apart, to breathe. To feel warmth. To feel understood. To know I have an expert carrying me through.
Honestly, there are times that this verse forces me to know that Jesus understands even when it feels like the whole world doesn’t notice or care.
Yet this verse is more than just mere empathy. It’s more than just the assurance that Jesus gets our hurt. It’s the revelation that his empathy goes beyond understanding our human strife. Jesus understands bearing the whole weight of the sin of the world. The entirety of the wrath of God on our behalf.
He bore it ALL. We bore our share.
I think that our desire to feel understanding in our hurt overshadows our ability to think about what we don’t have to hurt over because of Jesus’ sacrifice.
There is pain—the pain of condemnation—that Christians will never have to experience because of our selfless, beyond empathetic Savior. To me, this realization is more comforting that just simply thinking about what he understands. It brings me joy to know that I will never have to understand something so terrible. I will never have to enter into the space of knowing that my God is as far away from me as I can possibly imagine. My proximity to my heavenly Father has been secured by his selfless Son and his understanding of immeasurable pain.
Christians, we can rest knowing that Jesus understands everything you have and will go through. But he also understands pain far beyond that. And he survived the pain without sin. This is the amazing Savior we walk hand and hand with. This is the Savior that lets you cry in his presence because he gets it. This is the Savior that speaks joy and hope into your down-trodden heart of a perfect eternity because he survived it all, and he is on your side.
“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!”
-Romans 5:9
I don’t have much more to say than this. Just know that in your worst of days, you have been rescued to better days to come. Jesus loves you more than you can know.
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