God Hurts When You Hurt

The second biblical certainty from which we can draw great strength is the knowledge that God is suffering with us. He is our loving heavenly Father. He hurts when we hurt. The psalmist said, “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14).

The truth that God hurts when we hurt found full expression when it was revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. He is Immanuel, which means “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14). He, the second person of the eternal Trinity, became a member of our humanity. He suffered everything we can suffer. He was misunderstood and misrepresented. He was falsely accused. He was betrayed by a close companion and forsaken by His closest friends. He was scourged. He was forced to carry a heavy wooden beam on His lacerated back. He was nailed to a cross. And even as He hung on it, He endured the taunts of mockers.

Why did He do all this? Couldn’t He have paid the price for our sins without going through all of this humiliation and abuse? It seems He underwent all this added pain and humiliation for two reasons: to reveal God’s heart (2 Corinthians 4:6), and to become our sympathetic High Priest (Hebrews 4:15-16). God had always hurt when His people hurt. But He did so in a real, tangible manner through the Incarnation—through the event that began in Bethlehem.