One thing that seems universal to sufferers is the need for community. How many of us have craved, hoped, even prayed for someone to come alongside and sit with us in our suffering? It’s easy to feel abandoned when the world moves on before we’re ready. We place unrealistic expectations on loved ones, only to be disappointed.
It takes a special person to enter into someone else’s pain, but how long can we then ask them to stay there? Even if we could find someone to set up camp in the valley with us, they would be utterly miserable. We, as the wounded, have no choice in the matter, but they don’t have to be there. It’s heavy. It’s messy. It hurts. It’s costly. It feels endless.
Like I said…unrealistic expectations.
But we desperately need someone with staying power, don’t we? It’s a legitimate need. And there is only One who can meet that need. Only One who would willingly set Himself aside to invest in extended grief that is not His own. Only One who has the capacity to love that sacrificially.
Isaiah 53:10 says that it pleased God to crush His son for us.
Read that again.
Jesus, God the Son, left Glory to enter into our suffering. He left His Father’s presence, where He knew nothing of sin, pain, suffering and death, and stepped into our sin-sick world. He stepped out of eternity and into an embryo. Out of majesty and into mortality. Out of perfection and into pain. Out of His rightful place and into our rightful place.
The Creator chose to become the created. The Sovereign chose to become a sufferer. The Lord of all chose to become the sacrificial lamb for all.
What love is this? What grace! That the One who spoke us into existence became one of us, to suffer with us and to be punished for us.
And it pleased Him.
Astounding. Perhaps even more astounding is the fact that He stayed.
He stayed with the one who would deny Him. He stayed with the one who would doubt Him. He stayed with the one who would betray Him. He stooped down into the mess, and He stayed.
He could’ve left at any time. He could’ve stepped out. Tapped out. Bailed out. At one point, the reality of the suffering He would endure for us was so intense that He had blood oozing out of His pores. He begged the Father for another way. Only there was no other way.
So He stayed.
And then, after He was rejected by that very same creation, He willingly suffered the ultimate rejection, when His Father turned His face away. And it pleased Him to do so. Because He loves us. Because there was no other way. Because by His wounds, we are healed.
We get ourselves into trouble when we put our expectation in people, rather than the only One who can meet and exceed our expectations. Philippians 4:29 says, “My God will supply all your need, according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Don’t miss the last three words. He supplies all we need—in Christ Jesus! Not in our spouse or our children or our parents or our friends.
In Christ alone.
How blessed are we to know such love? Friend, there is One who sticks closer than a brother. One who runs toward us when the rest of the world runs away. One who steps into our suffering and takes it for us. One who has staying power. His name is Jesus, and He is sufficient for every need.
He’s the One Who stays
April 15, 2022