Merciful and Faithful

“¹⁷ Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. ¹⁸ Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested.” (Hebrews 2:17-18)

Within these verses in Hebrews lies a bounty of truth as it pertains to the wholeness of the Gospel.

Christ was made like us in every humanly way; “Brother and sister”.  In order to gain the whole experience of mankind and to know us completely, Jesus became fully human - male and female - and yet, he remained fully God as our “High Priest before God.”  This is an empathetic approach to understanding our struggles, worries, fears, and concerns.  It is a method of walking in our shoes, experiencing our lives, and, yet, being objective enough to understand what we need in order to provide help and direction.

In counseling circles, the difference between empathy and sympathy is illustrated by the analogy of finding a person stuck in the bottom of a well.  A sympathetic approach to the problem is to jump into the pit with the stranded person. You experience their entire problem first hand but are unable to provide any clear help as you have become immersed into the same dilemma.  An empathetic approach is to recognize the pain and struggle from outside the well and then provide clear advice as to how to resolve the issue by providing a rope or hand to assist in climbing out.

Jesus became human and retained his godliness to fully understand the situations we face in life and to provide us the help we need to live lives beyond the suffering and testing we encounter.

In his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus accepted the yolk of our sin; eliminating the gulf of separation created by it and creating a connection and access to God based on “Mercy and Faithfulness”.  God is merciful and faithful in his love for us and Christ is the bridge to that love.  This is the wonderful news of Salvation. 

The second half of the Gospel Message is the help Christ provides us every day. It is His help that lifts us from our fears, worries, suffering, and doubt.  It is His help that sanctifies or purifies us into becoming the disciples, teachers, and pastors God created us to be.  His life and death not only brought us the saving grace of total access to God, but it also brought his helping Spirit to be with us in our daily walk.  Without his help we would simply continue wallowing in our sin and struggling through the "suffering and testing” life brings.