Our Sympathetic High Priest

For we do not have a high priest was unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15

We have a High Priest who is so great that there is none in the world like him. He is so far beyond us, and infinitely above us, that we are but dust and ashes. Yet, he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. It now appears for us in heaven — in our nature. Our Lord took our frail nature upon him and was exposed to want, poverty, hunger, cold, weariness, pain, death, grief, anguish, trouble, and fear. He knows all of our infirmities. None of them are so small that he does not take notice. We may feel our afflictions are more than we can number, but he counts them exactly. He does not only know them notionally, but experimentally. He has himself been exercised with them. He knows their weight and how they smart, for he has felt them. He knows by experience what it is to be in need, to have nothing upon which to ride, and nowhere to lay his head. He knows what it is to be in pain, and to be despised, abused, reproached and hated. He knows the sorrows of life and the pangs of death by his own experience. He knows what it is to be tempted to sin and troubled with horrid suggestions from Satan. He knows what it is to be deserted by his friends and to be forsaken of God. He became like us and all these things. And now, he is affected with our infirmities, and is touched with the feeling of them. He not only has suffered what others feel, but suffers with them in what they feel. Though Christ is no longer under these infirmities as he once was, he is touched in his soul by our sufferings. He desires to help and comfort us, and do what is best for us in such a condition, out of his wonderful love. He feels as we feel at the sufferings of a very dear friend. His compassion is as a parent for a beloved child.

From Voices From the Past, Puritan Devotional Readings Edited by Richard Rushing, Page 361