July 14, 2021 — A Study on the Book of Hebrews

“Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16

“Though now ascended up on high, He bends on earth a brother’s eye; Partaker of the human name, He knows the frailty of our frame. Our fellow-suff’rer yet retains, A fellow-feeling of our pains; And still remembers in the skies, His tears, his agonies, and cries.

In ev’ry pang that tends the heart, The Man of sorrows had a part; He sympathizes with our grief, And to the suff’rer sends relief.” (Scottish Psalter)

Those are the words from a Scottish Psalter.

To sympathize is to have a common feeling — to be able to feel what another feels; to be affected by feelings similar to those of another. We sympathize with our friends who are in distress; we feel some pain when we see them pained, or when we are informed of their distresses, even at a distance — even if we are disconnected by space and time. This is what Jesus is able to do for you and me — to experience pain jointly with us. The exalted High Priest suffers together with the weaknesses of the those who are being tested and brings active help (again I refer you to 1 Corinthians 10:13). There is power in the human ability to sympathize — for it suggests the ability, the power to enter into another’s emotional experiences. When we have this ability to feel what others are feeling, then we can respond to their need with a “knowing”.

People who have true “sympathy” generally do not say, “I know how you feel.” Because since they know how you feel, they also know how unhelpful it is to hear someone say, “I know how you feel.” True sympathy is a fairly quiet, time-intensive, presence-intensive way of being. True sympathy is the ministry of “presence” — the ability to be with someone, and not necessarily to say anything — just to be with them — reminding them that no one needs to go through any suffering alone — and reminding them that Jesus comes to us in each person who chooses to be present with us at just the right times.

Pastor Dave