The last few years have witnessed a series of Super Bowl ads about Jesus under the slogan “He Gets Us.” The ads themselves have left much to be desired. But the slogan at least is true. The Bible assures us that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). In fact, it was for precisely this reason that “he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest” (Hebrews 2:17). “He gets us” because he became one of us.
“But did he really?” some might ask. We live in a society that emphasizes each person’s or group’s specific identity and lived experience. Yet Jesus was an unmarried Jewish male who left earth in his early thirties. This means, among other things, that he was never elderly, never had kids, and never experienced life as a woman. You can see how all this might seem to put distance between him and some of us. “How can he sympathize with me when he never shared my experience?” a pregnant mother might wonder.
And yet if Jesus’s complete sinlessness doesn’t make him too distant to sympathize with us (and it doesn’t), then neither do these lesser differences. While recognizing sexual and cultural distinctions, Scripture also views humanity as a unified whole with temptations that are “common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13). That shared humanity is what enabled him to “[suffer] when tempted” (Hebrews 2:18), and it’s what enables him to sympathize with all of us as our heavenly high priest.
To that end, I’d like to use some Scripture-infused imagination to see how Jesus can sympathize with all his brothers and sisters, despite how different our lives might seem from his.
Sympathizing with Pregnant Mothers
Does Jesus understand the temptations that come with experiences unique to women? As the incarnate Christ, he was male, not female (Luke 2:7, 21). He never had XX chromosomes, never had a menstrual cycle, never birthed or breastfed a baby, and never went through menopause. But that’s no more a flaw in him than it is for any other male. In his case, his lack of sin gives him the most tender of hearts, and his experience of suffering gives him a place from which to sympathize. So, if Jesus were talking to a pregnant mother, perhaps he would say something like this:
Daughter, I won’t pretend to have ever been exactly where you are. But I also don’t want you to think I’m a stranger to your pain. Are you wondering if I know what it’s like to be drawing ever-closer to an excruciating experience — with nothing lawful I could do to stop it, even though part of me wished I could (Matthew 26:38–39, 53–54)? Do I know what it’s like to be terrified of what’s coming and to have to remind myself of the joy on the other side of the pain?
Yes, daughter, I know. And I can tell you that there’s nothing like the relief of coming out on the other side and being able to say, “Behold, I and the children God has given me” (Hebrews 2:13; cf. John 16:21; Isaiah 53:11). Don’t let the looming trial cause you to regret your decision to bear children. Instead, learn from me. I cried out in my distress, and I found relief (Luke 22:43). God didn’t spare me from the pain, but he did bring me through it. So, call out to my Father and your Father (John 20:17). Go to him. When you do, you will find me sitting on a throne of grace, eager to supply you with mercy in your time of need (Hebrews 4:16).
Sympathizing with Tired Family Men
Jesus was a man, but he wasn’t a husband or a dad. He never came home to rambunctious children after a long day at work, sat up with a sick toddler, or felt the burden of financially supporting a wife. Still, he’s no stranger to these pressures and the temptations that come with them. In addition to the unique burden of giving his life as a ransom for many, he was a man who wore many hats (son, brother, friend, rabbi, celebrity, and more). And if he were talking to a father with small children, maybe he would say something like this:
I never had kids of my own. But if you’re asking me if I know what it’s like to serve people who don’t always say thank you (Luke 17:11–19), to feel power go out of me long before my work is done (Mark 5:30), to be responsible for people who are constantly engaged in petty quarrels with one another (Mark 9:33–34), to frustratedly wonder whether they’ll ever learn the lessons I’m teaching them (Mark 9:18–19), to be swamped by needy people with endless requests (Mark 2:2; 3:9), such that I couldn’t even find time to eat (Mark 3:20–21) — then yes, son, I know that feeling. But I also know that God will meet you in those moments.
So, when you’re tempted to let tiredness make you short-tempered, remember my strength is made perfect in weakness, and God is teaching you obedience through what you suffer (2 Corinthians 12:9; Hebrews 5:8). When you’re inclined to let people’s ingratitude drive you to self-pity, remember a joy has been set before you by a Father who sees your good deeds (Hebrews 12:2; Matthew 6:4). You’re in a race that I have already run, and I am always here for you (Hebrews 12:2; 13:5; cf. Matthew 28:20).
Those are just a couple of meager efforts to see how Jesus understands the temptations we face in our experiences. I would invite you to try it yourself.
Sympathy in Every Respect
Surely, we sense that requiring someone to share our exact circumstances before they can sympathize with us is an impossibly high bar, one that would invalidate almost all human sympathy, not just Jesus’s. Such a mindset often leads to a self-pitying dead end that says, “No one understands my pain — not Jesus, not anyone!” It’s a satanic strategy meant to isolate us from aid and comfort.
It’s not a shortcoming that Jesus couldn’t be male and female, Jew and Navajo, young and elderly, healthy and disabled, all in one life. Nor is it necessary for him to experience multiple incarnations so as to identify with different people’s experiences. We must be careful that cultural forces don’t subtly pervert our felt-needs here. Any worldview that would logically lead us to accuse Jesus of “mansplaining” or tell him to “check his Jewish privilege” (John 4:22; Romans 3:1–2; 9:4–5) is on a crash course with Christianity.
If we needed a better high priest than Jesus, God would have given one to us. But we didn’t. We have a high priest “who in every respect has been tempted as we are” (Hebrews 4:15). That doesn’t mean he experienced every situation we’ve ever been in. But it does mean there’s nothing we can tell him that would make him say, “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” He understands. And truth be told, if we could stand in his shoes for five minutes and experience what it’s like to have emotions totally unclouded by sin, we’d realize that he understands us far better than we understand ourselves. Like Digory when he sees Aslan’s “great shining tears,” we’d discover that he feels our concerns more deeply than we do.
His embodiment may have limited his experiences, but it didn’t limit his sympathies — indeed, it expanded them. The real distance is between God and man. Having crossed that distance, the differences between him and other humans are minor by comparison. As God, Jesus already understood us as only an infinite Creator could (Psalm 103:14; Psalm 139; Hebrews 1:2, 10–12). But as man, he now understands us from the inside, as only a fellow sufferer can. He knows our frame in more ways than one, and he “gets” our temptations in ways that we can’t, because he’s the only one who never yielded to them.
So, don’t let meaningful but secondary features of your humanity cause you to question his sympathy. As one who is both divine and human, sinless and finite — he gets you.
Desiring God