September 30, 2025 | Hebrews 4:14-5:10

julieanddan
Sep 29
3 min read

DAILY READING

REFLECTION

Sympathy or Empathy?

By Julie Ogg

Have you ever had a friend who was going through something you’d never experienced personally? You feel very sad over their situation and you love them deeply but you can’t quite connect with their pain. The Oxford Dictionary defines sympathy as feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. Sympathy is important in relationships but sometimes you just want to talk with someone who understands exactly what you are going through. This is one of the reasons support groups are formed around similar issues of loss or struggle. This is called empathy - the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy implies shared experience.

This passage in Hebrews, reminds us that Jesus can empathize with us in our humanness. He has been as we are and yet remained holy and sinless. The miraculous thing about Jesus’s humanity is that he remained divine while still experiencing life as a human.

"Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,

Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not

have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have

one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet he did not sin.”

Hebrews 4:14-15

Jesus can empathize with us. When we pray, he knows, in an experiential way, what we are going through. This is why the writer of Hebrews follows by saying,

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we

may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Hebrews 4:16

It is so hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that the great and awesome God of the universe would take on human form so that he could make a way for us to be restored to right relationship with him. Dallas Willard writes, “How hard it is for us to come to an adequate conception of the lowliness of God - of how his greatness is precisely what makes him able, available and ready to hear and speak personally with his creatures!” In our world, greatness is insulating and isolating. Those who are great are not accessible or interested in most of us. But this is greatness in a fallen world, scarred by sin. God loves us so much that he came to earth so that we could see and know that perfect love. He made himself accessible and vulnerable so that we might be saved. Not just in the future life but now, in our life with him.

A song by Graham Kendrick reminds us what our response should be to this life-changing sacrifice.

Oh what a mystery

Meekness and majesty

Bow down and worship

For this is your God!

PRAYER

Jesus, help us to come to you honestly with our joy and sadness, knowing that you understand our human experience. Thank you for loving, forgiving, and walking with us through life now and in eternity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JULIE OGG

I have lived throughout the Midwest, the last twelve years in Columbus with my husband, Dan, and dog, Lollipop. I love to cook, travel, read, garden, and spend time with our nieces and nephews. I am naturally drawn to the Old Testament, particularly the poetic and prophetic books. I am grateful to be a part of the community of believers at UALC.