Jesus Empathizes with Your Traumatic Suffering

Our Sympathetic High Priest 

We know from Hebrews 2:9-11; 2:14-18; and 4:14-16, that Jesus is our sympathetic High Priest who empathizes with our weaknesses, infirmities, and sufferings.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Our Weaknesses and Infirmities 

What are these “weaknesses” and “infirmities”?

Benson, in his commentary, includes “our temptations, trials, and troubles, of whatever kind they may be ghostly or bodily. The Son of God, having been made flesh, experienced all the temptations and miseries incident to mankind, sin excepted; consequently he must always have a lively feeling of our infirmities; of our wants, weaknesses, miseries, dangers.”

Calvin includes among these weaknesses and infirmities the “external” or bodily “evils” of cold and heat; hunger and other wants of the body; and also contempt, poverty, and other things of this mind.” Calvin also includes internal sufferings such as “the feelings of the soul such as fear, sorrow, the dread of death, and similar things.”

• Jesus Empathizes with Our Temptations, Trials, and Troubles

• Jesus Empathizes with Our Wants, Weaknesses, and Wailings

• Jesus Empathizes with Our Suffering, Sorrows, and Sadness

• Jesus Empathizes with Our Physical, Emotional, Mental, Relational, and Spiritual Traumatic-Sufferings

Jesus Suffered Like We Suffer

We fail to realize the extent to which Jesus suffered like we suffer.

For more than a month, I’ve been reading and re-reading the Gospels, with a focus on:

• Jesus’s Suffering: The Chronic Suffering of Jesus: Your Sympathetic High Priest.

• Jesus’s Compassionate Care for and Healing of the Suffering:  Jesus: Soul Physician of Embodied-Souls.

I’ve collated 358 Gospel passages about Jesus’s suffering and His healing of those who suffer:

• The Gospels and Suffering: Jesus—The Man of Suffering and the Soul Physician of the Suffering. 

Grace to Help Us in Our Time of Need 

Today, let’s stop and ponder specific Gospel narratives about how Jesus suffered like we suffer.

Today, let’s allow these scriptural reflections to help us to understand how Jesus empathizes with our suffering.

Today, let’s approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Jesus Sympathizes with Your Suffering, Sorrow, Sadness; Temptations, Trials, Troubles; Wants, Weaknesses, Wailings—Physically, Emotionally, Mentally, Relationally, and Spiritually 

Here are just a few sample examples from among the 358 Gospel passages about Jesus’s suffering and His healing of those who suffer. 

Temptation and Trials 

1. Are you struggling against temptation to sin? Jesus understands—being tempted in every way like you are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:14-16).

2. Is the devil tempting you to sin? Jesus knows temptation (Luke 4:1-12).

3. Are you being constantly tempted to sin? Jesus sympathizes with you (Luke 4:13)?

Physical Suffering and Abuse

4. Are you enduring chronic suffering? Jesus, the man of suffering who experienced lifelong suffering, understands (Isaiah 53:3; also see The Chronic Suffering of Jesus).

5. Are you enduring chronic pain? Jesus is touched by the feelings of your infirmities (Luke 8:42-48; Luke 13:10-17).

6. Have you suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and spent all you have, yet instead of getting better you’ve grow worse? Jesus compassionately cares (Mark 5:25-34).

7. Are you struggling with disease, sickness, illness, severe pain, seizures, paralysis? Jesus compassionately cares (Matthew 4:23-24; Matthew 14:14).

8. Have you been physically exhausted and in need of strength? Jesus has (Luke 22:43).

9. Have you experienced physical abuse? Jesus was spat upon, slapped, struck, punched and beaten (Matthew 26:67-68; Mark 4:65).

10. Have you gone hungry? Jesus knows hunger and has compassion on the hungry (Matthew 4:2; Matthew 15:32).

11. Have you been homeless? Jesus had no place to lay His head (Matthew 8:20). 

Family Relational Suffering 

12. Are you suffering with intense family conflict? Jesus empathizes—He was accused by His own family of being out of His mind (Mark 3:21).

13. Is your own family dishonoring you? Jesus sympathizes with you (Mark 6:1-6).

14. Does your own family doubt you? Jesus empathizes with you (John 7:4-5).

Relational Suffering 

15. Are you being whispered about? Jesus knows your pain (John 7:12-13).

16. Have you been laughed at? Jesus has (Matthew 9:23-24; Mark 5:40).

17. Have you been grumbled about? Jesus can relate (John 6:41-43, 61).

18. Are you being lied about? Jesus knows your pain (Matthew 26:59-61).

19. Have you been mocked? Jesus has (Matthew 9:23-34; Matthew 26:67-68; Mark 5:40; Mark 14:65).

20. Have people been angry with you? Jesus sympathizes with you (John 7:23).

21. Have you been hated? Jesus empathizes with you (John 15:18-19, 23-25).

22. Have you been betrayed? Betrayed with a kiss? Jesus has (Matthew 26:46; Luke 22:47-48).

23. Have you been persecuted? Jesus understands (Matthew 5:16).

24. Have you been deserted? Jesus knows your pain (Matthew 26:56).

25. Have you been disowned? Jesus has (Matthew 26:33-34).

26. Have you been rebuked by a friend? Jesus has (Mark 8:32).

27. Have you been rebuked by those who say they believe in you? Jesus knows your pain (Matthew 16:22).

28. Have you been let down and failed by a friend in a moment of great need? Jesus empathizes with your relational suffering (Matthew 26:40-41, 43, 45).

29. Have you been doubted by those who say they believe in you? Jesus can relate (Matthew 14:31).

30. Have people been looking for ways to find fault in you—testing you and seeking trap you? Jesus understands (Matthew 19:3; Matthew 22:15-18).

31. Has your character been questioned? Jesus knows this pain (Luke 7:39).

32. Have you been fiercely opposed? Jesus has (Luke 11:53).

33. Have you been ridiculed? Jesus sympathizes with you (Mark 2:16).

34. Has your ministry to others been rejected? Jesus understands you (Luke 7:29).

35. Have you been shamed with false labels and name-calling? Jesus sympathizes with you (Matthew 11:18-19).

36. Have you been falsely accused of sin? Jesus empathizes with you (Matthew 12:9-10).

Emotional Suffering 

37. Do you deal with anger? Jesus understand—He was angry (without sin) (Mark 3:5).

38. Are you deeply distressed? Jesus understands you (Mark 3:5).

39. Has your soul ever been sorrowful and troubled? Jesus knows your soul sorrow (Matthew 26:36-37).

40. Have you ever felt overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death? Jesus knows your pain (Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:34).

41. Have you ever been deeply distressed and troubled? Jesus has (Mark 14:32-33).

42. Has your soul ever been troubled? Jesus understands (John 12:27-28).

43. Have you ever been troubled in spirit? Jesus has (John 13:21).

44. Have you ever experienced compassion fatigue and needed to withdraw for renewal? Jesus understands (Mark 1:35; Mark 6:31-32; and also see 48 Gospel Passages).

45. Have you been emotionally exhausted and in need of strength? Jesus has (Luke 22:43).

Grief and Loss 

46. Are you grieving the loss of a loved one? Jesus understands—He grieved the murder of His cousin and had to withdraw to spend time alone in a solitary place of mourning (Mark 14:12-13).

47. Are you grieving the loss of a beloved friend? Jesus wept (John 11:35).

Spiritual Need 

48. Have you needed to withdraw from people, get alone with God, and be refreshed? Jesus understands (Mark 1:35).

49. Have you lamented to God because you felt forsaken? Jesus empathizes with you (Matthew 27:45-46).

Life at Risk

50. Have you been an alien in exile, running for your life? Jesus knows (Matthew 2:14-15).

51. Has anyone attempted to abort your life? Jesus knows this pain (Matthew 2:13).

52. Has anyone attempted to kill you? Jesus repeatedly knows this pain (Luke 19:47-48; plus scores of additional Gospel passages).

53. Do you have a diagnosis of a terminal illness and know that your days are numbered? Jesus understands—He lived His entire life knowing of His pending death (in at least three dozen passages, Jesus predicted His pending death by crucifixion).

Join the Conversation 

The author of Hebrews provides the biblical application to the biblical truth that Jesus is our sympathetic/empathetic High Priest. 

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). 

 

1. In your temptations and trials, what does it look like for you to approach the throne of grace with confidence to fine grace to help in your time of need?

2. In your physical suffering and abuse, how does it minister to your soul to turn to the empathetic High Priest who endured physical suffering and lived a life of compassion for those who suffer?

3. In your chronic pain, how does it minister to your soul when you see and turn to Jesus who experienced chronic suffering?

4. In your family relational suffering, and in other relational suffering, what does it mean for you to know Jesus who personally experienced chronic, intense relational suffering?

5. In your emotional suffering, grief, and loss, what does it look like for you to turn to the Man of Sorrows?

6. In your spiritual need, how does it encourage you to lament to your heavenly Father, knowing Jesus cried out to His Father?