Being Human: Bummer Or Blessing

One of my favorite passages of scripture is one that packs the work of Christ into a powerful missile of truth. It goes like this:

• Christ also suffered when he died for our sins once all. He died for all the sins of all mankind for all time. He never sinned but he died for sinners that he might bring us safely home to God. I Peter 3:18

The last bummer related to our being human is that we are weak… being human means we struggle with the trials and testings of life. The Psalmist reflected on our weakness by suggesting that weakness is what befits us because, after all, we are just “dust” people. Psalm 103:14 The blessing is, Christ supports us in our weakness.

5. He supports us in our weakness 2:18

Since he himself has gone through suffering and temptation, he is able to help us when we are suffering and tempted. Hebrews 2:18

The writer makes a very specific claim in the text. He says that Jesus Christ has been “put to the proof” through suffering, afflictions, and temptations to see if his character would stand the test. And because his character has been tested through personal experience, “he is now qualified to sympathize with us.” (Albert Barnes, Barnes Notes on the New Testament, Hebrews 2:18, P. 75-76)

Empathy is a good thing. Unless you have had the experience of another person, the best you can do is empathize with them. If you have not lost a spouse or a child, at best you can try to put yourself in their place, you can be aware of their sadness and be sensitive and caring. But, you cannot sympathize because you have never experienced what the other has experienced or felt what the other has felt. You cannot hold a grieving widow in your arms and say, “I know just how you feel, my gold fish just died too.”

William Barclay wrote, “A person without a trace of nerves has no conception of the tortures of nervousness. The person who is physically fit has no conception of the weariness of the person who is easily tired or the pain of the person who is never free of pain. A person who learns easily cannot understand why someone who is slow finds things so difficult. A person who has never sorrowed cannot understand the pain at the heart of the person into whose life grief has come. A person who has never loved cannot understand either the sudden glory or the aching loneliness of the lover’s heart. However, Jesus has met our sorrows and faced out temptations.” (William Barclay, The Letter to the Hebrews, P. 27-28)

When I was twenty-two years old, I began leading a bible study for inmates at Stillwater State Prison in Stillwater, Minnesota. One night a week I drove up to Stillwater and went through a series of security gates and was ushered into a large glassed-in room, within a larger room. I worked hard to prepare good bible studies and lead stimulating discussions. The men were very warm and always welcomed me graciously… but I was out of my element. How could I know what it is like to be a forty-six year old man sentenced to life for murder. How could I possibly know what it is like to be a twenty-six year old man whose wife has not answered his letters or visited him for months… who has no idea where his children are or who is watching over them? How could I possibly sympathize with men who could sit together as brothers in Christ in a glass room but the minute they left the room, had to blend back into a segregated prison population for the sake of survival? I could empathize but I could not sympathize.