Grief Relatable

What sorrows do you carry? The ones that leave you breathless, with gut-wrenching, unanswerable questions? I went through a personal loss earlier this year that left me with a shattered world and many questions.

The Lord continued to gently lead me through this passage,

“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...” (Isaiah 53:3-4a)

Before getting to the cross (Isaiah 53:5), what is Jesus called?

“Man of sorrows.”  That is what describes our Savior not just on the cross but as His life experience.

He is a relatable Savior before the passage ever mentions His death on the cross. Jesus came in a human body that could get sick. He needed naps. He felt loneliness, sadness, being misunderstood, loss, rejection, betrayal. Jesus lived out daily, earthly life for over three decades.

Jesus intimately feels our personal pains— loss of a loved one, broken relationships, darkness of depression, crippling anxiety, loneliness, chronic health conditions, infertility, etc… Jesus came to feel and to bear our burdens specifically. He not only died but grew up in a fleshly body in a fallen world for us. He came not just to bear our sins but our very grief. He knows exactly how your specific ache feels. Your Savior bore that on the cross. Jesus died to bear the burden of our brokenness as He “carried our sorrows,” and this is where He longs to walk intimately with us.

I wonder if Jesus was possibly the saddest man around, as He was “acquainted with grief.” He felt things to a degree that we cannot. If we feel brokenness, imagine how much more Jesus felt this as God in flesh. He felt both how life was supposed to be and how it was not that way. He agonized in that tension for us.

If you have ever found yourself like me, shaking a fist at the sky with why God would allow something so horrific to happen, over time of sitting with our “man of sorrows” can we view our suffering through the lens of another question, that of the wonder of why Jesus would lower Himself to become like us?

In my tears and screaming I also learn through my heartache of His own heartache. His heart broke over the grief He lived and currently breaks over what His children face. In my anguish I taste a fraction of His. Because of my suffering I experience His very heart. In our wounds we get to experience His wounds.

Our greatest points of pain can transform into our greatest points of intimacy with Jesus. With each grief we can experience Jesus’ relating to us and our relating to our “man of sorrows.” Our suffering can open a horizon found through relatable grief that opens a closeness to Jesus if we let it.

Weary from 2020? Advent is for you!

Was there ever quite a year like this one? I don't know what 2020 has held for you, but I imagine that it has left you with unknowns, voids, unanswered questions, and unmet longings. If you wonder what could this season of Christmas possibly give you this year in light of all of that, I invite you to take a brief moment to pause to ask what this advent season (the season of celebrating Christ's birth) could give to us.

I'm really struck this year more than ever about the true meaning of advent. Advent has its roots in this idea of longing and waiting. We are awaiting the celebration of the coming of our Savior, but we are also waiting now for His second coming when all things will be made new. Was there ever a year where we have all collectively felt such an ache and such a longing over brokenness that almost cannot be expressed?

For those of us who are weary and worn down, advent is for us! Isaiah 53:3 describes Jesus as, "..despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief…" How amazing that He came to literally taste and experience this world of brokenness at its fullest—He Himself came in a human body capable of getting sick, capable of feeling tired. He came as a man capable of feeling emotions, of feeling sad. He tasted and experienced what daily life looks and feels like in a fallen world in a fallen body.

Jesus also intimately feels our personal pains- whether your personal pain is that of loss of a family member, dark cycles of depression, loneliness of singleness, a chronic health condition, relational conflict, etc... Jesus came to feel and to bear your burdens specifically, because the baby boy in a manger would not only grow up in a fallen body in a fallen world for you but would ultimately die for you.

Advent and the manger ultimately point to the cross. Isaiah 53:4 tells us that on the cross, "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows..." He came not just to bear our sins but our very grief. He knows exactly what your specific ache feels like. Jesus longs to walk with you and me in that space. This Christmas season, you do not have to pretend you are ok. This is a season with an invitation to bring our honest aches, unknowns, unanswered questions, and unmet longings to Jesus in the manger who became Jesus on the cross. May we long for Him with an expectation that He fill our voids with Himself.