A Prayer about Our Sympathetic Priest

Father,

It’s two days after Christmas.

As we worship you today, may we grasp afresh the life-changing reality that

Jesus, in his sinless humanity,

is sympathetic to our weakness.

How can this be?

In my favorite book of the year, Gentle and Lowly, Dane Ortlund

explains it so much better than I can:
“It is in our ‘weaknesses’ that Jesus sympathizes with us.”

[Sympathize means “to suffer with.”]

“Sympathize here is not cool and detached pity…

In our pain, Jesus is pained; in our suffering,

he feels the suffering as his own even though it isn’t…

His is a love that cannot be held back when he sees his people in pain.”

(Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, page 46).

Oh, Lord, thank you for sending a suffering and sympathetic Savior.

May we grab hold of this truth and let it change our hearts.

May we rest in Christ’s sympathy for us,

even as we battle sin, even as we suffer in a fallen world.

In Jesus’ sympathetic name. Amen.

Affiliate link to Gentle and Lowly.