Does Jesus Really Feel My Pain?
“In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence. Although He was a son, He learned obedience through what He suffered.” -Hebrews 5:7-8 (ESV)
Last week, we talked about what the word supplication means. The next day, I showed up to church and my pastor read from Hebrews 5 and y’all, I don’t know how I missed this preparing last week’s article, but reading about Jesus’s prayers of supplication was like God speaking to my heart that the lesson wasn’t over yet. He still had more to teach me - to teach us - about this.
So, let’s take apart this verse, because why would the son of God need supplication?
This passage in Hebrews likely refers to Jesus praying in Gethsemane:
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to His disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther He fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” -Matthew 26:36-39 (ESV)
We’ve talked about how supplication is praying for something humbly, from a heartfelt petition arising out of a deep personal need. In his gospel, Matthew describes Jesus at Gethsemane as distressed, troubled, grieving, sorrowful. The word lupeó used in Matthew 36:37 means to experience deep, emotional pain (sadness), severe sorrow and grief that is very intense and often used to describe the pain of childbirth. Some translations describe this as feeling very heavy and on the verge of despair.
Luke describes Jesus’s state in that moment as agónia, meaning great fear, terror, anxiety and agony. This word is often used to describe the feeling of the athlete before a contest. And note this definition: “a brand of struggle that emphasizes felt pressure, i.e., experienced in an intensely personal way.” Those are the exact same words used to describe supplication!
In Jesus’s words, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Mark 14:34). It’s like one more pang and the physical frame would have given away. That’s the heart Jesus prayed from when He offered up His prayers and supplications to His father.
His prayer was not that death would be averted, but that there might be granted deliverance out of death. But if God was going to do that anyway, why pray? Why did Jesus need to pray to the point of tears, to beg God for something He knew was going to happen? Because it’s not like Jesus doubted God would do what He said He’d do. No, it is precisely because Jesus knew how this was supposed to go.
Jesus knew hell wouldn’t want this to happen; knew the spiritual battle against what was coming; that He would need to take on death.
Y’all have you ever felt this kind of agony? I can’t equate it to Jesus and what He suffered, but I know I’ve felt that kind of distress when I fell on my knees in tears, so broken and sorrowful that it felt like my actual heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. It is a physical pain that makes you think you cannot go on anymore and that one one else understands so you have to walk this path alone.
As humans, we try to avoid pain. We do everything we can to fill our soul’s aches and needs by self-medicating. Some turn to drugs and alcohol to cope; others fill our schedules with work 20 hours a day until we drop into bed exhausted; and yet others fill their minds with social media, television, friends, parties, travel, and any kind of noise or distraction just so we wouldn’t have to feel the depth of our pain and need. Because hurting sucks. Having a need only God can - but won’t - fill is really hard. It is the deep, personal, felt needs that maybe no one even knows about but we carry with us every day, year after year.
Alexander MacLaren once wrote, “There is no sin in the tear, there is no sin in the strong crying. It is meet that when His hand is laid heavy upon my heart, my heart should feel the pressure; it is meet that I should take into my consciousness and into my feeling the pain; and then it is meet that if I cannot do anything more - and I don’t think we can - I should at least try through my tears to say, ‘Not my will, but Thine’; and if I cannot do anything more, at least, ‘I was dumb, I opened not my mouth because Thou didst it.’”
“...For He has torn us, that He may heal us; He has struck us down, and He will bind us up.” -Hosea 6:1
Prayers of supplication are born out of pain; out of suffering; out of a need so deep that you can’t seem to go on anymore. The exact situation that we try to avoid and escape from.
But what if that is exactly where we find God? What if we need to sit in our pain - to face our need - in order to get what God promised to do?
Jesus prayed to Him that was able to save Him from death, and He was heard. Was He? How was He heard? Did Jesus get what He wanted? Did He avoid pain and death?
He was heard in this: an angel appeared from heaven strengthening Him. He was heard in this because His prayer did not end with His desire: “Let this cup pass,” but His prayer was, “Thy will be done,” and God’s will was done.
Once again, allow me to quote MacLaren who puts it so well: “And the true answer that we get is, not the lifting away of the burden, but the breathing into our hearts strength to bear it, so that it ceases to be a burden. Let us make our prayers not petulant wishes to get our own way, but lowly efforts to enter into God’s way and make His will ours, so shall come to us peace and strength, and a power adequate to Our need. The cup will be sweetened, and our lips made willing to drink it. Christ was heard, and Christ was crucified.”
Jesus’s prayers were answered because of His reverence and godly fear. Jesus knew who He was praying to and He knew that His death was the beginning of His glory because it is what would bring God the glory.
His flesh didn’t want it. Like all of us, He also didn’t want the pain, the suffering, the sorrow. So He prayed, not to avoid the pain, but to get strength to get through the pain so that what was waiting on the other side of the pain would be fulfilled. So that God would be glorified in Him, in His suffering, in the pain.
So, when they say Jesus knew how you feel (Heb. 4:15), don’t be so quick to scoff that He couldn’t possibly understand what it feels like to nurse a broken heart because Jesus was never in a romantic relationship or whatever other excuse you attribute for why your pain is different. Because Jesus faced death - a death He didn’t deserve, for sins He did not commit - and the thought of taking that on brought Him to a place of distress, sorrow, agony and a pain none of us can imagine.
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” -Romans 8:26
Take your pain to Him. Show Him your wounds - the places of your heart that maybe haven’t seen the light of day in a very long time. Face your past - the things you did or the things that happened to you that hurt you deeply and maybe left scars you think you’ll never heal from. Say aloud the felt need that sometimes makes your heart hurt to the point of physical pain. Don’t run away. Stop the noise and turn off the distractions. Just be still for a moment and feel the pain.
Your prayers of supplication are your offering to God; to the One who is able to do what you ask, able to carry you through this with His strength; the One who can do what He promised. Because you’ll only find healing and relief on your knees.
Prayer is the only place where that deep ache in you will finally be satisfied and your soul will at last find peace.
Jesus knows what you’re going through, because He has felt it too. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain (Is. 53:3). Surely, He took our pain and bore our suffering (Is. 53:4).
Just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds in Christ (2 Cor. 1:5). The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Ps. 34:18). He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds (Ps. 147:3).
And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast (1 Peter 5:10). Because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character, hope (Rom. 5:3-4). Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (Rom. 8:18). For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all (2 Cor. 4:17).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Yelena is the founder and editor in chief Tirzah. Yelena works as an attorney in tax and in her spare time, she is working on her first book for unmarried twenty-something women in extended waiting seasons and running Tirzah. She has a passion for pointing young women to Christ, and enjoys reading, writing, traveling, and spending time with her family.