When Jesus Became Just Like Me

As Holy Week is upon us, I have been reflecting about the last few days and hours of Jesus, as most of us do at this time of year.  But I experienced Him in a different way this time.  Isn’t it an amazing moment when something you have heard over and over again suddenly takes on a new depth and meaning?  When your heart finally takes in the full meaning of something Jesus did for you?  This week I finally understood how it is that He could be fully God and fully in control through the last minute of His life, and yet still understand my struggles with helplessness and feeling out of control. 

How can Jesus possibly understand all we go through?

We all have those times.  We feel like life is against us.  We have things happen that we did not create and that we have no control over.  We get hurt – betrayed – rejected.  And we are often completely helpless to do anything about it.  We are not God.  We can’t change anyone’s hearts or bring down wrath or cause anyone to tremble and fear.  We don’t know the right words to say or the right actions to take because we don’t know the inner workings of ourselves, let alone anyone else.  We need help.  We have to lean on God.  But Jesus IS God.  He can do everything.  He knows everything.  How could He possibly understand what we go through, like the Bible claims?

I have struggled with that.

I have struggled with that.  I know that He “knows my heart” and that He “is with me in all things” and all of the other common things we say in times of trouble.  But I just couldn’t totally believe that someone who was so powerful and so perfect and so in control of the whole plan could ever understand what my powerlessness and confusion and vulnerability was like.  Not really.  I saw it more like me “experiencing”  the stories from the Titanic while sitting in a bathtub, hundreds of miles from the ocean.  I could possibly drown in the bathtub if I let myself.  So I could understand what they went through.  I could empathize.  I could care very deeply for what they experienced.  But if I was in a position where I could drown and had every ability to keep myself from drowning, and then chose to drown anyhow, how is that anything like the helplessness of the people on the Titanic who had no choice?  Does Jesus REALLY know what I go through?

He gave up the ability to be in control to experience exactly what I go through. 

My realization was that yes – He does.  Not because He was totally in control and chose to suffer and die anyhow.  But that He gave up the ability to be in control to experience EXACTLY what I go through.  That was why He cried out to His Father in Gethsemane to take the cup away if possible.  That is why He cried out, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” on the cross.  He wasn’t just playing some control game and giving lip service to being human.  He gave up everything that kept Him from being human to experience the full spectrum of pain and loss and suffering.  He did it so that He could take it on Himself and heal it.  He did it for me. He did it for you, too.

He emptied Himself out for my sake and for yours.

Do I ever feel betrayed?  Yes.  And so did Jesus.  Not only by Judas’s ultimate betrayal but by the denial of Peter and the absence of almost all His chosen 12 at the cross.  If you are like me, you can minimize His understanding of our pain by thinking about His divinity.  He already knew it was going to happen.  He knew their hearts already.  He already knew that He was going to conquer death.  He already knew that the disciples would turn it around and go on to be strong leaders and evangelizers.  So how could He feel the same type of betrayal that I do?  He did because He set aside His divinity.  He emptied Himself out for my sake and for yours. (Philippians 2:7)  He felt it.  He hurt over it.  He wondered why.  He set aside His control as God, and experienced as a human just what we experience. 

I know Jesus understands exactly what I am going through.

I see this most poignantly in Gethsemane, when He asks His closest disciples to pray with Him, knowing what He is about to face.   They respond by falling asleep.  Can you imagine the hurt on seeing that?  Jesus says, “Why are you sleeping?  Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”  (Luke 22:46)  Earlier in the section it says they slept because of sorrow, but still – He asked for their help.  He was facing unimaginable suffering.  And they fell asleep?  I would be asking “Why are you sleeping” too!  Did Jesus already know that this would happen?  Yes because He is God.  He could have supernaturally forced them to stay awake.  He could have chosen not to ask them to pray in the first place and avoided the hurt.  He could have punished them for their thoughtless behavior.  But He didn’t.  He emptied Himself out and was fully human in that moment.  He asked.  They failed Him.  He felt.  And He did it for love.  He did it so that when I ask and they fail and I feel, I KNOW Jesus understands exactly what I am going through.  He did it so that you can know too.

He knows.

Have you been abused and you felt like no one really understands what you have gone through?  He does.  He gave up His ability to control the Roman centurions and He was abused horribly.  Violated and injured and spit on.  He knows abuse.  Have you ever felt deep shame and you think no one can understand how exposed and vulnerable you feel?  He does.  He gave up His ability to control and hung on the ultimate symbol of shame – the cross – unclothed and being mocked by the crowd.  He knows shame.  Have you ever felt totally alone and like no one will ever really care and stand by you?  He watched Judas turn Him in to be killed.  He watched Peter deny even knowing Him three times.  He watched as 11 of His 12 disciples ran and hid instead of being with Him in His moment of ultimate suffering.  And He started His ministry by spending 40 days totally alone in the wilderness, only to be spiritually attacked with temptation by Satan.  By Himself.  He knows alone.  And remember how He cried out to God?  He knows fear and anxiety, too. 

He didn’t have to do it this way.

I already knew that about Jesus and I was grateful.  But what hit me differently this time is that He didn’t have to do it this way.  He could have gone so many different directions with this problem.  He is God – all things are possible.  He could have satisfied the justice we all deserve by destroying us.  He is holy and we are not.  The Bible tells us clearly that we deserved nothing better for the ways we disobey God every day.  Another option?  He could have just opened the doors to heaven and conquered death without even being human.  Or He could have just avoided all of the hurt and betrayal and abandonment, and gone straight up on the cross and died for our sins quickly.  I mean, that was supposed to be our punishment for our sins – eternal death.  He could have still died for it, but there were so many better ways that could have happened.  But He chose to not take the easy way out. 

He died for our sins and He died for every sin that everyone has ever committed against us. 

He chose to take ALL of it – the pain, the shame, the fear, the grief.  He chose to experience not just what I have felt but what you have felt and what everyone has felt.  He didn’t just heal it.  He FELT it and lived in it and took it with Him to the grave.  He died for our sins and He died for every sin that everyone has ever committed against us.  He chose to take away our mistakes and to take away all the stuff we carry because of what others’ grievous mistakes did to us.  And then He rose again – glorious, divine, all-powerful, and also forever bearing the scars for our pain so that we can rise again some day with no scars or tears or pain ever again.

He became forever scarred so you can be forever free. 

Whenever you are in a place where you feel alone and you think no one will ever understand, look to His nail-scarred hands.  He kept the scars.  The perfect Creator God chose to keep a sign of sin and imperfection because of His great love.  He is reminding you that He really does know your pain.  He really does care about you and what happened to you.  He really does know what it is like to be completely innocent and helpless in a situation where the brokenness of others causes you great harm.  He gets it.  Hebrews 4:15 tells us that: “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.”  He will bring you what you need to survive it and move past it.  He will walk with you to heal it.  And one day very soon, He will wipe the tears away Himself – in person – with the very same scarred hands that will remove every scar in you forever.  He became forever scarred so you can be forever free.  All you have to do is submit to Him. 

This Easter, fully trust this.

This Easter, fully trust this.  Fully trust that He loves you so much that He spent time being you – experiencing everything hard you go through.  Fully trust that He hurts with you and hopes with you and heals you.  Fully turn to Him and know that He knows.  And most importantly, if you have never prayed to give your heart and your life fully to Him as your Lord and Savior, do it today.  That moment is why He paid so dearly.  He will fully rejoice with you.  And so will I.

I hope today’s message touched your heart, increased your understanding, and encouraged you.  Praying the peace and comfort of Christ Jesus on your life.