"In their distress He too was distressed. It was no envoy or angel, but His own presence that saved them." (Isaiah 63:9, NIV alternate translation)
"....He too was distressed", is also revealed in the Gethsemane incident, "And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground."
The hymn says, "He had no tears for His own grief, but sweat-drops of blood for mine." The world's suffering is God's suffering. It was He Himself Who was, "....being in agony..," in Gethsemane, "....He too was distressed." Furthermore, the Father and Holy Spirit did not view the Cross from some heavenly sanctuary. "God was IN Christ reconciling the world to Himself"--------------- "He too was distressed."
Jesus Christ is in us, right this very moment, participating with and in us in our grief, sorrow, sickness, pain and distress (Isaiah 53), all of which Jesus destroyed, "....in His Own Body on the Tree." And the conclusion of our text, as indeed of Covenant History? "It was...His Own Presence that saved them."
Father, in Jesus' Name, I too, "....stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how He could love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean." Amen.
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
Hebrews 12:2
