Good Friday confronts us with a Saviour who suffers.
The cross is the climax of that suffering, but we should never think of Jesus as being immune to the tests and trials of human life. We can bear our cross because he was faithful in bearing his; his sufferings are part of his offering to God. He deals gently with those who are struggling because he is aware of his own weakness. He has been through the same trials and temptations as we have, and yet, unlike us, he has not fallen short. As this should give us the ultimate confidence to trust him as we approach God with our particular needs.
Yet we misunderstand our great high priest if we assume his obedience was effortless. Even as the Son of God, he needed the discipline of prayer. He was not spared the dilemmas and ambiguities that test us every day. His human life, like ours, was a pilgrimage towards God’s perception. It is because he has persevered to the end that he manifests the enteral priesthood attributed in Hebrews 5.6 to Melchizedek.
The fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nazianzus insisted on the reality of Christ’s humanity with the statement, “That which he has not assumed he has not healed”. Our salvation depends not only on Christ’s divine Sonship, but on the authenticity of his human struggle.
“Christ on the cross is not a mere theological precondition for the achievement of salvation. He is God’s enduring Word to the world saying, ‘See how much I love you. See how much you must love one another.’”~Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus