I Believe He Suffered (The Creed, Part 7)

[This devotion is part of our series on The Apostles’ Creed, you can find all the videos in there series on our Apostles’ Creed Page. The devotions will be added as they are posted.]

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I believe he suffered. Today as we look at this phrase in the Apostle’s Creed. It is such a profound mystery that Jesus suffered.

If you think back a few years, back in 2020, do you remember when the world had shut down? And there were quite a few celebrities during that time that had posted videos on social media telling people that they empathized with them, that we’re all in this together. We’re all going to suffer through this together. And you might recall that those celebrities received quite a backlash. Here they were posting in their giant playboy mansions, saying that they could empathize with everyday, ordinary people in their hardship. And people immediately saw that their lives were nowhere near compared to my life, my suffering, down here.

Well, as you think about that, have you ever paused to wonder how many different religions, how many different faiths in this world can honestly say that their god knows human suffering? Can relate to human suffering? So oftentimes when you look at other religions, god is just this entity up in a mansion in heaven that has no connection with worldly pain or suffering. So you and I need to recognize what a beautiful thing this is, that your God, your Savior, knows suffering.

We call this Jesus’ humiliation. It’s the period in his life where he laid aside his divine glory and power so that he could suffer in a lowly way. That began with him taking on human flesh in the womb of his mother, a true human body with a soul, a heart that could be broken, a body with pain receptors. And Jesus experienced the emotional pain, turmoil, and anguish. He experienced sorrow with the loss of his friends and family members. Jesus had a body that could feel the bruises from a fall, cuts and scrapes on his knee, and later could feel the very real pain as he was struck again and again with a rod beat with fists, crowned with thorns, and flogged.

Why did Jesus do this? Why did he take on a body? Why did he take on a true human body and soul so he could experience suffering? Well, it wasn’t just so that he could know what we feel. It goes much deeper than that. He needed a real human body and soul to pay for our real human bodies and souls. His body needed to suffer in order to make the payment for our bodies. Because Jesus did all that for you, you and I have the wonderful comfort of not only knowing that God understands your pain and your suffering, but one day, through Jesus, he’ll be there to wipe every tear from your eyes. He’ll be there to welcome you to an eternal home where there is no more pain, no more suffering. All this we confess with the phrase, I believe he suffered. Amen.