In the Suffering Christ, We Find Humanity
Reflecting during Holy Week
I adore the wound in Your right hand, I adore the wound in Your left hand… I adore the wound in Your right foot, I adore the wound in Your left foot…
Such words often come to me in prayer when contemplating Christ. For me, the thought of Jesus’ wounds is often a comforting, meaningful symbol that draws me closer to Him because it represents His great love for us and His similarity to us. Jesus’ extensive, bleeding wounds remind us that He was willing to endure such terrible pain to save us. Imagining that hurt is overwhelming and can bring tears to our eyes, making us feel love, sympathy, and sorrow all at once. Yet, the Passion reminds us of yet another aspect of Jesus — His humanity.
We humans suffer, we get physically and emotionally injured so often in our lives. As Christina Perri sings: “But I’m only human/And I bleed when I fall down”. Sometimes, the extent of our pain is so hard to bear and very difficult to understand.
That’s where the Man of Sorrows comes in.
Our Jesus is bleeding and is hurting in His body and heart just like us. Though He is God, He too feels this human pain and shares it with us. And in that way, we find our Messiah fully relatable and so similar to us.
During the homily on Palm Sunday, I heard a priest discuss how the bloodied, humiliated Messiah at first seemed to contradict the triumphant image of the King the Jews had believed would restore Jerusalem. He went on to emphasize how it is in His suffering that Jesus does truly bring life to us. And I couldn’t agree more. The key to God’s Kingdom is not power and dominance, it is love, humility, and self-giving. This is what Our Savior offers, and in so doing, He suffers in a very human way that resonates with each one of us. Consequently, we then become inspired to unite our own pain to His and to recognize Jesus in those suffering around us — whether it be a crying child, a suicidal teenager, or a dying elderly patient in a hospital.
What a great gift we have, that we can look up to a Savior who knows our afflictions so well.
