Pain is many things, but let's start from here...

Luke 24:26 — “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?”

I asked The Father the meaning of pain, and in turn, He asked me, “My child, what do you think pain is?” I said to Him, “The Man of Sorrows.” He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3)

When understanding pain I tend to look at it from both an internal experience and an external response. As a person, I experience both mental and physical pain, but I also respond to the pain of others as a form of external experience. I say external because it is not a pain from within myself but an outwardly reaction. For instance, an internal experience of pain would be my own personal traumas, leading to negative emotions as a result of the hurt and pain it caused. An external experience of pain would be my reaction to a mother and a baby on the street begging for money. But in all my witnessed grievances, there is no better way to understand pain than in the man of sorrows himself, Jesus of Nazareth. The word “sorrow” comes from the Old English word “sorh” or “sorg”, meaning grief, pain, or distress. In fact, He was so sorrowful, that he was “esteemed stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” (Isaiah 53:4) Moreover, to be “of” something generally implies to be characterised by it, such as “a person of integrity”, “a woman of joy.” It connects two elements where one is defined by the other, and in this case, a sinless man is connected and related to pain.

His internal experience of pain was more deep coloured. Many think that what Christ suffered on the cross was solely physical: his body brutally lashed by whips, blood cascading around him like melted ice; the crown of thorns piercing his scalp, his feet and hand hammered with the brutal force of faulty carpentry. Yes, He suffered physically, but beyond the physical carried an immense gravity, a deep wound that cannot be fixed by a bandage: to be separated from your father, and not just any father, The Father.

Matthew 27:46 — “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

In all that is perfection about Him, this Bible verse bestows a perfect agony. “Jesus became, as it were, an enemy of God who was judged and forced to drink the cup of the Father’s fury.” (Guzik, 2024) It is unfathomable the gruesome anguish of bearing the punishment of everyone who was, is, and will be. To carry everything that distastes your father, that displeases him, that angers him, punctures him in a sense. It is the greatest wound of all–to bear the wrath of the one who loves you most in place of another.

Although the mystery of Golgotha precedes me, the internal encounters of pain Jesus experienced are not null and void because He is God, “Christ experienced a most oppressive sense of God’s wrath resting upon him on account of our sins. Christ felt the anger of God — of course, according to his human nature, not his divine, and on account of our sin, not his own.” (Turretin cited in Rhodes, Rhodes, 2021)

Whenever I’m in a moment of pain, or I’m feeling low, sad, or hurt, I always–without fail–look to the pain of Jesus, especially when He was at the Garden of Gethsemane. I think about it constantly, how He cried to His Father in a way Hebrews 5 describes as “vehement.” In Matthew 26:38 He says, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with me.” In verse 42, He says again, “…O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done,” In other words, “Father, this hurts too much, but if there is no other way, I will do your will.” The first time I meditated on this verse–on this entire chapter, I also cried vehemently. The greatest lover went through not just the pain of the cross but even the thought of this burden. For the first time, I understood what it meant for life to be beyond myself, “Someone did this for me?” I thought. What manner of pain is the purest form of love found in? This is the Lover and Pain. This is Jesus.

So, when I think of the Man of Sorrows, I examine my own pain, I don’t compare it to His of course, but I feel a sense of comfort, that there is a God who weeps and bleeds because of his love for you and I.

Cited in this piece: “Man of Sorrows, King of Glory: What The Humiliation and Exaltation of Jesus Means For Us” by Jonty Rhodes. “Enduring Word” by David Guzik.