He Understands Our Weaknesses

HE UNDERSTANDS OUR WEAKNESSES

Begin by taking a few breaths and paying attention to the air moving in and out of your lungs and mouth. Notice where you feel tension or discomfort in your body. To the extent you are able, try to relax, let the chair you are sitting in fully support your body, and release the tension as you breathe deeply.

a prayer to open

Here I am, Lord, in my tired, aging, hurting, wondrous body.

Open my heart to you now. You are my High Priest who knows.

This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Having followed Jesus’ life and identified some of his bodily experiences, we can’t help but more fully grasp what the author of Hebrews says in this passage. It is not the case that Jesus understands because he knows all things or can imagine how we feel. He knows from personal experience: He has known vulnerability, pain, suffering, temptation, exhaustion, hunger, grief. He knows the weakness it is to be in a body as a human being.

• Consider the weaknesses of your body. What does it mean to you as you pray and persevere that Jesus knows your weaknesses?
• Reflect on the reality that one who mediates and stands before God on your behalf knows the weaknesses of being human from firsthand, actual experience. What does this truth reveal to you about God’s love? What does it reveal about Jesus’ ability to identify with you?
• How might coming to terms with the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of your body help you understand and serve those you tend to view as weak or less capable?

Jesus Christ—

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace;

the one through whom and for whom all things were made; and

the one in whom I live and move and have my being—

you became flesh and made your dwelling among us.

And nothing—neither death nor life, angels nor demons, the present nor the future; not any powers, height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation—can separate me from the love of our God, which is in you, Jesus Christ my Lord.