He Feels When We Feel

“In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” (Isa 63:9 AV)

 

This is speaking of Israel and the Father.  We often limit the empathy of God to the incarnation of Christ.  We rightly teach one of the reasons for the incarnation was that Jesus might empathize better with the human experience having existed in the limited form of a man.  When the writer of Hebrews speaks of a High Priest that was touched with our infirmities, this is exactly what he is referring to.  What we want to consider this morning is the affliction God feels that is different than what Jesus felt.  Our LORD and Savior felt what it was like to be hungry, thirsty, in pain, and not being able to be in more than one place at a time.  He limited the exercise of His divinity that He might empathize with us by experience our human existence.  The Father, on the other hand, is afflicted in the same way as a parent is for their child.  The passage above is referring to Israel’s beginning, the traveling in the wilderness, and God’s hand in carrying them to the land of Canaan.  They had gotten themselves in the predicament of slavery to Egypt because they disobeyed the LORD.  Yet, in their self-inflicted bondage, God the Father was also afflicted.  He felt for them.  And, to the same degree as their suffering.

It is a hard thing to watch one’s children go through hard times.  Regardless of how those times came to be, it isn’t pleasant seeing your children suffer.  Even if it was self-inflicted, as a parent, we still hurt when they hurt.  One of my sons was diagnosed as a type one diabetic.  This was after we had noticed several symptoms and almost forced him to go to the doctor.  I was at the church working and my wife called to tell me I had to come immediately to the clinic.  She sounded very concerned.  When I arrived, I was whisked into a room where my wife was waiting.  Still in the diagnosis stage and not getting a firm result, our nurse settled our nerves and told us what she suspected and what their actions would be.  She had worked for an Endocrinologist and was very familiar with the symptoms of diabetes.   She told us that if his blood sugar came back as high as she suspected, they would transport him to the hospital (which was right next door) by ambulance so that he would get right in.  Sure enough, his blood sugar was very high, and off we went.  Quickly admitted with all the necessary IV’s in place, the doctor told him he would have to be admitted to the ICU.  He was in ICU for three days with a slow insulin drip to bring us sugars back down.  Then to a regular room for a few more days to keep his sugars in balance.  It wasn’t easy going through all that.  We had more appointments with other doctors and dieticians.  In an instant, his life drastically changed.  What loving parent wouldn’t feel anxiety, empathy, fear, or deep compassion for a child who is suffering so?  I didn’t have to have diabetes to understand all that he was and would be suffering.

Sometimes we think of the LORD as merely and authoritarian.  We think of Him as a distant ruler of the universe whose greatest concern is conformity to His law.  He certainly does care about compliance with His law.  But our heavenly Father is a compassionate Father who feels when we hurt.  The context above is the hurt we inflict upon ourselves by living in sin.  It speaks of loss after loss because of our wrapped humanity.  Like a Father who would pity a child taken be drug addiction, He can be displeased or angry for only so long.  Eventually, compassion takes its place and He is compelled to do something about it.  This is why He sent His Son that we might be saved from our sin.  But this is also why He gives us the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that we might live free from sin.  It hurts Him that we fail Him.  Yes, it affects His glory.  More than that, He sees us suffer because we do not trust Him by living according to His word.  When we are afflicted, He is afflicted.  When we hurt, He hurts.  When we suffer, He suffers.  We worship a God who cares!