Why did our Lord not descend from heaven as a grown-up? Why did He have to come through a virgin’s womb? Why did He have to be nursed, nurtured, and grow gradually? Why did He have to pass through thirty-three years of suffering on this earth? Why was He not crucified three days after He was born on the earth to accomplish His work of redemption?

Oh, the reason He was willing to submit to all kinds of limitation and suffer every affliction was that He wanted to sympathize with us. He learned the principles of human living. He was misunderstood and persecuted. He was stripped, mistreated, and forsaken by people.

Eventually, He was crucified on the cross. He endured all these sufferings in order to experience the bitter taste of human life and sympathize with man’s weaknesses. His thirty-three years of human living and His preaching during the three years were not only to accomplish His mission and work, but also for the sake of sympathizing with us. He had to do this before He could sympathize with our weaknesses.

If there is a broken or wounded heart here today, the Lord is right now feeling what you feel. He knows your afflictions. Not only does He have the grace to save you, but He has a heart that sympathizes with you and feels your feelings.

In order to sympathize with others, experience is not enough. The second thing one needs is love. Some people suffer illness for many years; they are sick every three days and rest every two days. They have tasted the bitterness of their illness, but they still cannot sympathize with the sick patients in the world. They can only sympathize with those they love. They have the experience, but they do not necessarily have love. Consequently, they cannot sympathize with everyone.

The Lord was able to sympathize with everyone while He was on the earth because He not only had the experience, but He also had the love. Once when the Lord came down from a mountain, a leper worshipped Him and said, “If You are willing, You can cleanse me.” Immediately, the Lord touched him with His hand and said, “I am willing; be cleansed!” (Matt. 8:1-3). There was a place in His heart for the leper. He could feel the suffering of the leper. Therefore, He touched him. The Lord did not merely have the experience; He also had a heart full of love.

Experience and love alone are not enough. The third thing you need is to not be occupied with your own affairs. This means that nothing occupies you beforehand. Many times a man’s heart is occupied with something already; therefore, his heart is closed. As a result, he cannot sympathize with others. He may say, “I cannot even bear my own burden. How can I sympathize with others?”

When the Lord was on the earth, He bore a particular characteristic: He put aside His own needs. What our Lord did not do is more marvelous and meaningful than what He did. When He was hungry, He did not turn the stones into bread. When He was taken by the enemy, He did not ask the Father to protect Him with twelve legions of angels. His heart was not occupied with His own affairs. He was never preoccupied with His own affairs so that He could not sympathize with others.

Many times when we have our own burdens and sufferings, we have no heart for the sufferings of others. But this was not the Lord’s way. If He had been only concerned with the suffering He was about to experience on the cross, He would have been occupied with His own suffering every day. He would not have been able to sympathize with others. If He had thought all the time about His suffering-how it was the greatest and hardest of all sufferings-He would not have been able to care for and help others.

But the Lord lived as if nothing was going to happen. When He met the sick, He healed them. When He met the poor, He preached the gospel to them. He acted as if nothing was going to happen. He was fully sympathetic towards others. Every time He sympathized with others, His heart was like a piece of clean paper on which any letter or drawing could be inscribed. Praise and thank the Lord that His heart was empty and wholly reserved for others.

He not only sympathized with the people of that time, He also sympathizes with us today. He is our High Priest, and today He sympathizes with us in heaven. What He experienced was a thousand times harder than what we experience. We can trust in Him and pray to Him. Whatever difficulty we have, He joins Himself to our feelings. He is gracious to us, and He helps us. He will bring us peace.

Hebrews 4:16 says, “Come forward with boldness to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help.”

Many times we feel that others do not consider our problems to be important and that no one can sympathize with us, comfort us, or help us. At these times, we surely feel how heavy our burden is and how much our suffering is. But there is One in heaven who sympathizes with us. We can come boldly to the throne of grace to beseech Him.

In heaven, there is One who sympathizes with us and has mercy on us; He feels our burden. He will make our burden light. At times, friends on earth may lighten our burden, but this Friend in heaven is always ready to bear our burden. He not only bears our burden in feeling, but in reality as well. He sympathizes with us, and He is gracious to us. It is as though we are the only ones He loves. He is only concerned about our affairs. He is such a Lord! Thank and praise God! We have such a Lord!

From The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, Set 1, Vol. 18, pp. 295-299.
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