Christ Also Suffered

Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” – 1 Peter 3:18

I’m a very empathetic person. That’s probably why the promises about the new heaven and new earth in Revelation 21 are so central to how I understand the gospel. I need to know that God cares about the hurts and needs of the world. For me, that’s also why it’s so important to know that Jesus suffered in his life. God is not withdrawn and ignorant of our struggles and pain—he lived among us and endured it all himself. Jesus doesn’t only sympathize with our weaknesses, like Hebrews 4:15 says, but he also empathizes with our suffering.

Recently I listened to the audiobook of Joni Eareckson Tada’s memoir, Joni. If you aren’t familiar with her story, Joni had a diving accident when she was 17-years-old that left her paralyzed from the shoulders down. The memoir chronicles the early years of her life after the accident: the emotional and medical rollercoaster, her struggles with faith, the fame brought on by her artwork. Joni has experienced tremendous suffering—pain, loneliness, disappointment, doubt, depression—and yet, she’s managed to find a calling and make an impact in the world in the midst of all that suffering.

As I listened to some of the descriptions of her experiences and struggles early in the book, I found myself thinking, This is so awful—what Jesus went through could never compare to this. He was on the cross for 6 hours, but she’s enduring this every waking moment, for years! How could God ever understand the suffering of someone like her?

But then, I came to this passage, which has helped me understand the cross in a new way. Reflecting on Psalm 41:3, “The Lord will sustain him upon his sickbed,” Joni writes,

I discovered that the Lord Jesus Christ could indeed empathize with my situation. On the cross for those agonizing, horrible hours, waiting for death, He was immobilized, helpless, paralyzed.

Jesus did know what it was like not to be able to move—not to be able to scratch your nose, shift your weight, wipe your eyes. He was paralyzed on the cross. He could not move His arms or legs. Christ knew exactly how I felt!

I still don’t think Jesus’s experience is anything like a lifetime of paralysis, but I had thought Christ could never understand someone like Joni’s experiences – yet, she didn’t see it that way at all. Jesus may not have endured the length of suffering that many do, but, on the cross, he did endure dimensions of helplessness and indignity that a quadriplegic would know all too well. I never would’ve recognized that myself. It took someone like Joni to show me.

This Friday, I hope you find a way to remember and commemorate Jesus’s suffering and dying “to bring you to God.” And I hope that all of us take time to more fully appreciate just what all Christ endured for us.

“This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

You can listen to this week's devotional here: