One of the things I love so much about Jesus is His humanity. Jesus is God the Bible does not leave room for any other option (see here) but He is also human. One of my favorite theological terms is the hypostatic union of Christ. It a really fancy term but it just means that Jesus is fully God and fully man and these two natures do not diminish each other. Really cool right? Sometimes I am so in awe of Jesus as God that I forget about some of the important human features of Jesus.

When we ask the question WWJD (what would Jesus do) we sometimes think about how He would trust God and have hope or something else. These are true statements but there is also so much more that Jesus would do and in fact so much more that Jesus did do. Hebrews 4:15 says that we have a high priest (Jesus) who can empathize with our weaknesses. He can understand our humanity. He knows the human condition because He while being fully God is also fully human.

This sounds comforting and it should but for it to be truly meaningful we need to look at Jesus’ life to see how He expressed His humanity. Warning this is not for the faint of heart because for some it might shatter your expectations and show you a whole new Jesus, but that’s OK because we are always seeing Him in a new and more glorious light. We move from glory to glory and faith to faith. We need to always study Christ and when we do, we see more of Him that we did before. So, what would Jesus do, and what did He do?

He called His friends dull and foolish. In Matthew 15:16 Jesus tells the disciples a parable and they just are not getting it. Jesus asks Peter if he is still dull. The Greek for the word there is asynetos and can mean without understanding, foolish, and stupid. Jesus was asking Peter how he could still not get it.

Jesus would flip tables and get mad at people who were stopping others from coming to the Father and I think we all know that story.

He asked the Father for another way. In the garden we see Jesus praying, sweating blood, and asking the Father if there was another way to do this. In the end, He accepted the Father’s will but still, there was a moment when His humanity wanted to know if there was another option. He was honest with the Father about His feelings. He chose obedience but He was still honest with the Father about His emotions.

He did His job. This should probably go before the last one, but Jesus did His job. He knew what was coming and in Luke 9:51 it says He set His face towards Jerusalem. Again, here we see Jesus choosing to make the choice to do His job.

He wept with those who were weeping. Every child’s favorite verse to memorize is John 11:35 “Jesus wept” but this is a huge statement. We do not need to get into why Jesus was weeping right now but what we can see is that He wept. I think it was Charles Spurgeon who said, “a God who never wept could never wipe away my tears.” Jesus can comfort us in times of crisis and pain because He felt crisis and pain. Jesus knows what it means to cry. He knows what sadness feels like. He knows what it is to be broken-hearted. He understands. That is huge, and it gives me great comfort.

He knows what it feels like to be alone. I could talk about the disciples fleeing but instead, I would say look to the cross. In Matt 27:46 Jesus does not say “My God my God why have you forsaken me” He cries out in a loud voice. Those are two very different things. I cannot even express how important that is. Jesus in the middle of His pain and suffering cries out God, where are you? He is feeling alone, and, in His pain, He yells out. This is huge and should give all of us comfort and hope. I don’t care how big you are, how tough you are, or what a fake face you can make, at times we all feel alone and confused. Jesus says Yes, I get it! He knows that feeling and when you feel that He is right there with you saying it’s OK to let it out.

We could go on, but the point is that Jesus expressed the full range of human emotions. He gets it. He understands. He empathizes with us. Because of this, there is nothing you cannot take to Christ and have Him help you with. He is fully human, so He gets it, but He is also fully God, so He is present with you. He is able to understand and be there.

Back to the question. What would Jesus do? He would be honest about how He is feeling. He would be straight with the Father and say I am scared, I am hurt, I am feeling alone, I feel abandoned, I would prefer another way. Whatever it is He would be honest about how He is feeling. That is the Savior we have. We have a Savior who can completely understand what we are dealing with. We have a God who can relate to us because we could never relate to Him. We have a Comforter.

The world is crazy, and people will hurt you. Dreams and people will die but Christ gets it. He knows what you are feeling so do not go to Him, run to Him. Do not say God where are you, let it out and cry out God I need you!

Just a thought,

Mike