Holy Week: Journey With JesusSample

A Man of Sorrows

HOLY MONDAY - As we enter Holy Week and look expectantly to Easter Sunday, let us not rush ahead to the empty tomb. Let us instead contemplate Christ's passion as we turn to the Stations of the Cross - 14 distinct moments in the final 24 hours of Jesus' life.

We begin in the Garden of Gethsemane, where we see Jesus' full humanity displayed as he prays to his Father, "Please take this cup of suffering away from me." Yet we see his full divinity as he continues, "Yet I want your will to be done, not mine."

Jesus is fully God, but he is also fully human. We can forget that sometimes. We can envision Jesus as a stoic figure, devoid of raw human emotion. Yet, Scripture reminds us that Jesus experienced joy, anger, and grief. In the garden, Jesus told his disciples, "My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death."

Yes, we have a God who suffered for us.

But, we also have a God who suffers with us.

He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down. (Isaiah 53:3-4, NLT)

I don't know what you're going through, but Jesus does.

He is well-acquainted with our suffering.

Sometimes he delivers us from our suffering.

Other times, he walks with us in our suffering.

But he is always present.

In this Holy Week, as you read and reflect on what Jesus endured in his final days, be encouraged to know that we have a God who suffers with us.