Sunday Thoughts: The Man of Sorrows

I’d like to apologize for my lack of a Sunday Thoughts column last week. I was on vacation the week before, and I ran out of time to pre-write something. I also couldn’t get into a writing groove when I came back from the beach, so I never got anything written.

There are plenty of names and descriptors for Jesus throughout scripture, but one that has always fascinated me is “Man of Sorrows.” The term finds its origin in the famous Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah 53:

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:3-5 (ESV)

In our Christian subculture of sunny platitudes and “everything will be okay,” the idea of Jesus as the Man of Sorrows may be foreign, but it’s an important one for us to consider when we think about the Son of God.

Jesus’ act of taking on our sorrows is a crucial component of His humanity:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV)

Jesus’ suffering as fully man yet fully God was intense and carried on throughout His life, as James Smith and Robert Lee point out in their exhaustive commentary, “Handfuls on Purpose: For Christian Workers and Bible Students.”

“The contradiction that He suffered at the hands of sinners against Himself was also unique,” they write, adding later, “The common sympathy bestowed on ordinary, suffering mortals was denied Him.”

Smith and Lee tie Jesus’s sorrow and sympathy for His created beings back to Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, writing, “So intense was His love and sympathy for us as sinful men that He could not refrain from bearing our griefs and our sorrows. It was in this wholly, devoted One that Jehovah was pleased to lay ‘the iniquity of us all’ (v. 6). It was for us that He poured out His holy, sorrowful soul unto death (v. 12).”

Remembering Jesus as the Man of Sorrows also helps us to remember that He identifies with us, which gives us confidence to bring our cares to Him:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:14-16 (ESV)

A recent email from Betterman (sorry, there’s no link to it) discussed Botticelli’s painting “The Man of Sorrows,” which is the featured image for this article. After describing the painting in fascinating detail, the devotion’s author writes (with emphasis in the original):

Do you have sorrows that need to be healed? Does your wife have this kind of hurt or despair? Sometimes it may seem like no one in this world is looking out for you. It may seem like no one sees what you are going through or can comprehend your grief. But take heart today. King Jesus knows you. We don’t have a high priest who is “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses…” (Heb. 4:15). He is a man of sorrows. He is your healer. He is the Great Physician.

No matter if your sorrow is temporary or long-term, there’s a definite comfort in knowing that Jesus identifies with it. Take comfort in that and rest in Him today.