Man of Sorrows

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.  (Isaiah 53:3)

 

Man of Sorrows

 

Ireneus, one of the most insightful thinkers of the early church, wrote, “He became what we are that He might make us what He is Himself.” By becoming what we are, Christ increased His potential for experiencing sorrow.

 

It’s a mystery why God decided to endure the wickedness of the world. He could have avoided it. But God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, and the Son became flesh in the fullest sense. He gained the ability to be intimate with His people.

 

Why does He grieve? Grief comes with the humiliation of being rejected by His own people. Over and over again, the children of Israel rebelled against God in favor of idols. The humiliation of Christ begins with His rejection: He came into His own creation, and His own people rejected Him. This produced divine grief in the soul of the God-Man. God longed for intimacy but found disappointment.

 

The Man of Sorrows was willing to be made poor and weak so that we could be made rich. Never underestimate the price Jesus paid so that we could have joy. The writer of Hebrews says, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.” (Heb. 5:8). Jesus could sympathize with us because the range of His experience was identical to ours. He felt physical and emotional pain. He knew poverty and experienced a full range of humiliations—betrayal, verbal abuse, rejection, and death.

          

God knows our sorrow and pain from the inside, but unlike us, He is not paralyzed by sorrow. He moves to comfort the afflicted and deliver the distressed soul from the crushing pressure of life’s trials. God in Christ feels our pain.         —Frank Robinson