GOOD FRIDAY: THE GOD WHO KNOWS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE 04-03-26
📖 Exodus 12:1 to 8, 11 to 14; Psalm 116; 1 Corinthians 11:23 to 26; John 13:1 to 15
“I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL”… DO YOU?
There is a moment many of us have experienced, and if we are honest, it can be quietly frustrating. You are going through something difficult. Maybe it is grief. Maybe it is a health concern. Maybe it is a strained relationship or a worry that keeps you up at night. And someone, with good intentions, looks at you and says, “I know exactly how you feel.”
And part of you wants to respond, gently but truthfully, “No… you don’t.”
Not because they are unkind. Not because they are trying to comfort you poorly. But because there are some experiences that cannot be fully understood from the outside. They have to be lived from within.
That is what makes Good Friday so extraordinary.
A GOD WHO ENTERS OUR PAIN
Because the God we encounter on this day is not distant from human suffering. He does not look at us from heaven and offer general sympathy. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us something astonishing: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.”
Jesus does not simply observe human pain.
He enters it.
He knows what it feels like.
BETRAYAL, DENIAL, AND MISUNDERSTANDING
He knows what it feels like to be betrayed. Not by an enemy, but by a friend. Judas does not come at Him from a distance. He comes close. He shares meals. He listens. And then he betrays Him with a kiss. Anyone who has ever been hurt by someone they trusted understands that kind of wound. Jesus knows it too.
He knows what it feels like to be denied. Peter, who once spoke with such confidence, who promised loyalty, who meant it in the moment, now stands at a distance and says, “I do not know Him.” Fear has a way of reshaping courage. Many of us have experienced that in ourselves or in others. Jesus knows what that feels like.
He knows what it feels like to be misunderstood and misjudged. Pilate stands before Him, sensing that something is not right, yet unwilling to stand firmly for the truth. The crowd shifts. Voices rise. Accusations are made. And truth becomes inconvenient. Anyone who has ever been judged unfairly or spoken about behind their back knows that quiet ache. Jesus knows it from the inside.
SUFFERING IN BODY AND SOUL
He knows physical suffering. The scourging, the crown of thorns, the weight of the cross. This is not symbolic pain. This is real, human agony. The kind that exhausts the body and tests the will. For those who live with illness, pain, or the slow wearing down of the body, Good Friday is not distant. It is deeply familiar.
And perhaps most painfully, He knows what it feels like to be alone.
As the cross draws near, many have already scattered. The circle has grown smaller. There is abandonment in the air. There is silence where there was once support. Anyone who has ever sat in a quiet room, feeling the weight of loneliness, knows that this is one of the deepest human wounds.
Jesus knows that feeling too.
THIS WAS CHOSEN LOVE
And yet, here is where Good Friday becomes more than a reflection on suffering. Because Jesus does not enter this experience reluctantly. He chooses it.
Isaiah tells us, “He was spurned and avoided… yet he bore our infirmities.” This is not accidental pain. This is love in action.
Which means something very important for us.
It means that there is nothing we carry that Christ cannot meet. Not just in theory, but in reality. There is no grief so heavy, no failure so discouraging, no fear so persistent, no loneliness so quiet that He cannot say, with complete honesty, “I have been there.”
And more than that, He remains there with us.
GOD IS CLOSEST IN OUR WEAKNESS
One of the subtle temptations in the spiritual life is to imagine that God is closest to us when we are strong, clear, and at peace. But Good Friday reveals something different.
God is often closest when we feel weakest, most confused, and most burdened.
Because that is where He chose to go.
We often try to move quickly past suffering. We distract ourselves. We minimize it. We tell ourselves it will pass. But Good Friday invites us not to rush. It invites us to stand at the cross, not to admire pain, but to recognize love.
Because what we see there is not just suffering.
It is solidarity.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
God does not save us from a distance. He saves us from within.
And perhaps that changes how we look at our own lives.
The moments we wish we could skip. The chapters we would rather rewrite. The burdens we carry quietly so as not to inconvenience others. All of these places, which can feel like interruptions to life, may actually be places where Christ is most present.
Not removing every difficulty immediately, but transforming it.Not explaining everything in a way that satisfies our questions, but entering it in a way that strengthens our hearts.
This does not make suffering easy.
But it makes it different.
Because we are no longer alone in it.
A GOD WHO KNOWS AND STAYS
In the end, perhaps the most powerful truth of Good Friday is this: when we look at the cross, we are not looking at a distant God trying to explain our suffering.
We are looking at a God who has chosen to share it.
A God who knows.A God who understands.A God who stays.
And that changes everything.
Because when we carry our burdens now, we do not carry them alone.When we face uncertainty, we do not face it alone.When we struggle, when we doubt, when we grow weary, we are not abandoned.
The cross stands as a quiet, unshakable reminder that God has entered our story completely.
And He has not left.
A PRAYER AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS
Lord Jesus,as I stand before Your cross today,I do not come with perfect words or easy answers.I come with my life as it is,with its joys and its struggles,its questions and its quiet burdens.
You know them already.
You know what it feels like to be hurt,to be misunderstood,to be tired,to be alone.You know the weight I carry,even the parts I struggle to name.
And so today, I bring it all to You.
Stay with me in the places that feel heavy.Sit with me in the moments that feel empty.Strengthen me when I feel weak.Give me courage when I feel uncertain.And help me to trust that You are closer than I think.
Lord, teach me to see Your love in the cross,not as distant or abstract,but as something deeply personal,offered for me.
When I am tempted to believe that I am alone,remind me of this day.When I grow weary,remind me that You did not walk away.When I struggle to understand,help me to trust Your presence.
And slowly, gently,transform my heart through Your love.
Jesus, I trust in You.Stay with me.Walk with me.And lead me, one step at a time,from this cross…to the hope of the Resurrection.
Amen.
And part of you wants to respond, gently but truthfully, “No… you don’t.”
Not because they are unkind. Not because they are trying to comfort you poorly. But because there are some experiences that cannot be fully understood from the outside. They have to be lived from within.
That is what makes Good Friday so extraordinary.
A GOD WHO ENTERS OUR PAIN
Because the God we encounter on this day is not distant from human suffering. He does not look at us from heaven and offer general sympathy. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us something astonishing: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.”
Jesus does not simply observe human pain.
He enters it.
He knows what it feels like.
BETRAYAL, DENIAL, AND MISUNDERSTANDING
He knows what it feels like to be betrayed. Not by an enemy, but by a friend. Judas does not come at Him from a distance. He comes close. He shares meals. He listens. And then he betrays Him with a kiss. Anyone who has ever been hurt by someone they trusted understands that kind of wound. Jesus knows it too.
He knows what it feels like to be denied. Peter, who once spoke with such confidence, who promised loyalty, who meant it in the moment, now stands at a distance and says, “I do not know Him.” Fear has a way of reshaping courage. Many of us have experienced that in ourselves or in others. Jesus knows what that feels like.
He knows what it feels like to be misunderstood and misjudged. Pilate stands before Him, sensing that something is not right, yet unwilling to stand firmly for the truth. The crowd shifts. Voices rise. Accusations are made. And truth becomes inconvenient. Anyone who has ever been judged unfairly or spoken about behind their back knows that quiet ache. Jesus knows it from the inside.
SUFFERING IN BODY AND SOUL
He knows physical suffering. The scourging, the crown of thorns, the weight of the cross. This is not symbolic pain. This is real, human agony. The kind that exhausts the body and tests the will. For those who live with illness, pain, or the slow wearing down of the body, Good Friday is not distant. It is deeply familiar.
And perhaps most painfully, He knows what it feels like to be alone.
As the cross draws near, many have already scattered. The circle has grown smaller. There is abandonment in the air. There is silence where there was once support. Anyone who has ever sat in a quiet room, feeling the weight of loneliness, knows that this is one of the deepest human wounds.
Jesus knows that feeling too.
THIS WAS CHOSEN LOVE
And yet, here is where Good Friday becomes more than a reflection on suffering. Because Jesus does not enter this experience reluctantly. He chooses it.
Isaiah tells us, “He was spurned and avoided… yet he bore our infirmities.” This is not accidental pain. This is love in action.
Which means something very important for us.
It means that there is nothing we carry that Christ cannot meet. Not just in theory, but in reality. There is no grief so heavy, no failure so discouraging, no fear so persistent, no loneliness so quiet that He cannot say, with complete honesty, “I have been there.”
And more than that, He remains there with us.
GOD IS CLOSEST IN OUR WEAKNESS
One of the subtle temptations in the spiritual life is to imagine that God is closest to us when we are strong, clear, and at peace. But Good Friday reveals something different.
God is often closest when we feel weakest, most confused, and most burdened.
Because that is where He chose to go.
We often try to move quickly past suffering. We distract ourselves. We minimize it. We tell ourselves it will pass. But Good Friday invites us not to rush. It invites us to stand at the cross, not to admire pain, but to recognize love.
Because what we see there is not just suffering.
It is solidarity.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
God does not save us from a distance. He saves us from within.
And perhaps that changes how we look at our own lives.
The moments we wish we could skip. The chapters we would rather rewrite. The burdens we carry quietly so as not to inconvenience others. All of these places, which can feel like interruptions to life, may actually be places where Christ is most present.
Not removing every difficulty immediately, but transforming it.Not explaining everything in a way that satisfies our questions, but entering it in a way that strengthens our hearts.
This does not make suffering easy.
But it makes it different.
Because we are no longer alone in it.
A GOD WHO KNOWS AND STAYS
In the end, perhaps the most powerful truth of Good Friday is this: when we look at the cross, we are not looking at a distant God trying to explain our suffering.
We are looking at a God who has chosen to share it.
A God who knows.A God who understands.A God who stays.
And that changes everything.
Because when we carry our burdens now, we do not carry them alone.When we face uncertainty, we do not face it alone.When we struggle, when we doubt, when we grow weary, we are not abandoned.
The cross stands as a quiet, unshakable reminder that God has entered our story completely.
And He has not left.
A PRAYER AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS
Lord Jesus,as I stand before Your cross today,I do not come with perfect words or easy answers.I come with my life as it is,with its joys and its struggles,its questions and its quiet burdens.
You know them already.
You know what it feels like to be hurt,to be misunderstood,to be tired,to be alone.You know the weight I carry,even the parts I struggle to name.
And so today, I bring it all to You.
Stay with me in the places that feel heavy.Sit with me in the moments that feel empty.Strengthen me when I feel weak.Give me courage when I feel uncertain.And help me to trust that You are closer than I think.
Lord, teach me to see Your love in the cross,not as distant or abstract,but as something deeply personal,offered for me.
When I am tempted to believe that I am alone,remind me of this day.When I grow weary,remind me that You did not walk away.When I struggle to understand,help me to trust Your presence.
And slowly, gently,transform my heart through Your love.
Jesus, I trust in You.Stay with me.Walk with me.And lead me, one step at a time,from this cross…to the hope of the Resurrection.
Amen.