The Sympathy of Christ
He gospel story of Christ closes with the account of his ascension. He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. Was that the end of his interest in this world Does he think of us up there in his glory.’’ Does he know anything of us down here in our struggles, our toils, our cares, and our sorrows.? Is he interested in our lives in this world — in our joys and griefs, in our hopes and fears The answer to these questions is that in heaven he is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” He sympathizes with us in all the experiences of our lives. The word sympathy means suffering with. If two musical instruments, standing near each other, are tuned to the same key, and a performer plays on one ifintimg tle Wai
of them, the chords of the other respond, too, as if invisible fingers were playing the same music on the strings. When two friends are side by side, and one of them is passing through an experience of either joy or pain, the other shares the experience. So Christ in heaven sympathizes with his friends on the earth in their experiences, and is instantly touched with the feeling of their gladness and their grief.
We believe all this as a doctrine, but what meaning has it for us in our own lives.’’ What is Christ in heaven to us in a personal, practical way? If the truth of the sympathy of Christ becomes real in our experience, it will bring great strength and inspiration to us. We are helped in times of weakness or suffering by the consciousness that human friends are thinking of us and sharing our trouble. Immeasurably greater is the help which it gives us to know that Christ in heaven is touched by our pain and feels with us. If we were really conscious that Christ cares, feels with us, is actually interested in our [54] large and small affairs, it would change the meaning of all life for us.
“// / could only surely know
That all the things that tire me so
Were noticed by my Lord — The ‘pang that cuts me like a knife,
The lesser pains of daily strife —
What peace it would afford!
“I wonder if he really shares
In all these little human cares,
This mighty King of kings;
If he who guides through boundless space
Each blazing planet in its place
Can have the condescending grace
To mind these petty things.
‘’It seems to me, if sure of this, Blent with each ill would come such bliss
That I might covet pain.
And deem whatever brought to me
The loving thought of Deity
And sense of Christ’s sweet sympathy,
Not loss, but richest gain.
“Dear Lord, my heart shall no more doubt
That thou dost compass me about
With sympathy divine:
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The love for me once crucified
Is not the love to leave my side,
But waiteth ever to divide
Each smallest care of mine.’’
We have hints of the same truth in the Old Testament. For example, we read with reference to God’s people: “In all their afflictions he was afflicted.” But the New Testament teaching means far more than this, for Christ lived all the story of human life through to its close, for himself, and, therefore, knows it by experience. When we are weary, it comforts us to remember that many times he was weary, too. When we are treated unfairly, unkindly, or even with bitter wrong, it strengthens us to know that he understands, because he suffered in the same way. In our temptations it helps us to endure to remember that he was “tempted in all points like as we are.” In any path in which we have to walk we can always find his footprints — he went over the same way before us, and, therefore, understands and sympathizes with us. There are many experiences in which the [56]
sympathy of Christ, if it were reahzed, would give great comfort. There are people who are misunderstood. Indeed, there is no one whom others always fully understand. Even our truest friends ofttimes put wrong constructions upon what we do or what we say. Little things separate lives which ought to be kept close together. Very much sadness is caused by misunderstandings.
‘Not understood! How many hearts are aching For lack of sympathy! Ah, day by day, How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking, How many noble spirits pass away Not understood!
“0 God! that men would see a little clearer. Or judge less harshly when they cannot see. 0 God! that men might draw a little nearer To one another. They’d be nearer thee, And understood.”
But Christ understands us perfectly. He knows all the truth about us. He knows our faults, and is patient with them, and does not chide us, nor cast us off because of them, but [57] finDing tle Wai
helps us to overcome them. When we are blamed unjustly, he understands and sympathizes with us and strengthens us to go on in patience. When we have done wrong, he knows, but is pitiful toward our weakness, and merciful toward our sin, if only we are striving ever to grow better. In every mood of our experience he sympathizes with us. There are sorrows in every life, many of which are inexplicable. There are those whose quietest days are full of struggles of which their closest friends can know nothing. It is very hard for some people to be good, to resist temptation, to keep sweet under irritation and insult, to maintain purity of heart amid all the enticements of temptation. Nothing else gives such strength and help in hard experiences as knowing of the unfailing sympathy of Christ.
The superintendent of an inebriate asylum said that he always had hope of even the worst case of intemperance, if he knew that the man had some one at home who loved him and was praying for him; but that he had [58] little hope of the permanent reform of any one for whom there was no wrestling love at home. If there is such help in human love and interest and prayer, how much more must there be in the confidence that Christ is sympathizing and interceding?
The story is told of a distinguished woman, that when she was a girl she was so homely that even her mother said to her one day: “My poor child, you are so ugly that no one will ever love you.” The cruel words fell into the child’s heart, but instead of making her bitter they had just the opposite effect. She determined that if her face was homely she would make her life so beautiful that people would love her. She began to be kind to every body, to be loving, thoughtful, gentle, helpful. She never became handsome in features, but she did become the good angel of the community in which she lived. It was love in her heart that transformed her life and saved her from utter disheartenment. There are those whose lives have been hurt in some way, and who seem doomed to carry [59]
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their marring or wounding through all their days, but whom the love of Christ can yet restore to beauty and strength. There is no ruin which he cannot build up again into fair loveliness. There is no defeat which he cannot turn into victory. To know that he is touched, the Christ on his throne of glory, with the feeling of our infirmities puts into the heart a new secret of j oy which will transform the dreariest life into heavenly gladness.
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“/ feel the unutterable longing,
The hunger of the breast is mine; I reach and grasp for hands in darkness, My ear grows sharp for voice or sign.
“O friend, no proof beyond this yearning. This outstretch of our hands we need; God will not mock this hope he giveth, No love he prompts shall vainly plead.
“Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, And call our loved ones o’er and o’er; Some day their arms shall close about us, And the old voices speak once more.”