men, / a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. / Like one from
whom men hide their faces / he was despised, and we esteemed him
not” (Isa. 53:3).
It’s not hard to imagine Jesus praying a “mourning prayer” as he
wept with his close friends, Mary and Martha, over the death of their
brother, Lazarus. Even though he knew that he was about to perform
a resurrection miracle for the dead man, his heart was broken over
the sorrow of his friends and he grieved (see John 11).
But I can most clearly see my Lord’s sense of abandonment and
sorrow when he was on the cross. The people who had followed him
around with their questions and hung on his every word of teaching
were now part of an angry crowd. The friends he had known and
loved and shared his life with had denied him. But most painful of
all was the feeling that his Father in heaven, with whom he had been
one, had deserted him.
Can you hear his mournful cry to heaven from Matthew 27:46,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Can you relate in
some small way to his raw sense of pain?
How blessed we are to have a Savior who understands us. I treas-
ure these words from Hebrews 4:15–16: “For we do not have a high
priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.... Let us
then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may
receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
When our hearts are broken and mournful, we can go to him. He
has walked this way before.
Lord Jesus, we worship you as the almighty God and as the Man of
Sorrows who was acquainted with grief. Thank you for the mercy
you hold out to us in our pain. Amen.180 CLAIRECLONINGER