And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:41-44)
A debate has emerged on social media about empathy. Is empathy a virtue to be embraced and encouraged because it models Christ’s love for us? Or is empathy a dangerous vice that requires us to over-identify with others’ pain and weakness and consequently lose the vantage point from which we could help them?” For those interested in learning more about what has sparked this debate, I commend Daniell Treweek’s thorough and critical review of The Sin of Empathy on Mere Orthodoxy.
Defining empathy in the second way mentioned is the equivalent of renaming rage and calling it “anger,” and then stating that anger is by definition sinful. The biblical description of anger is clear; it is not inherently sinful, but certain forms of anger, such as rage, can become sin. In the same way, empathy is not sin, but certain forms of empathy, in which we so enter someone else’s pain that we lose our moral compass, would be.
When we feel miserable, it is true that we do not need someone to come and sit in the mud next to us and, through proximity and imagination, begin to feel as miserable and despondent as we do. However, that is not empathy, which by definition is merely “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.”
It does not inherently involve losing our sense of self, an objective perspective, or capitulating to all the expectations or demands of the person in pain. Rather, it means putting ourselves in the shoes of others, imagining a situation from their point of view, acknowledging their feelings and perspective, and responding with the compassion we would hope to receive in that situation. When we are suffering, there is great relief in knowing that we are not alone, in someone coming alongside us to express understanding, often because of a similar experience. This example gives us hope that it’s possible to survive and even to thrive in the aftermath.
On a theological level, we can look to Christ’s Incarnation as the basis for empathy in its sinless and God-given state. As the Son of God who took on human flesh, Jesus chose to identify with humanity, which was suffering and lost, and he did so without holding anything back. He didn’t come into the world with one hand on a heavenly ripcord in case things became too difficult. For example, he refused to call in angelic reinforcements to rescue him from arrest (Matt. 26:53).
Jesus entered our suffering and pain and shared it—to the point of bleeding and death. For God loved the world in this way that he sent his one and only Son into the world. God’s love moved him, while we were yet sinners, to send his Son to become one of us. He didn’t merely skim the surface of our human experience, brokenness, and mortality, but rather he came to face it head-on. He endured some of the darkest suffering and pain known to humankind, and became an object of ridicule, scorn, and some of the worst torture imaginable in doing so.
Of course Christ’s Incarnation and consequent suffering means he understands us—or, as the commercial series puts it, he “gets” us. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews writes, “Jesus understands every weakness of ours, because he was tempted in every way that we are” (4:15). But that is not the totality or limit of Christ’s Incarnation and suffering for us. This empathetic act on God’s part would not in and of itself have been enough to save us. We do not merely need a Savior who only understands our suffering; we need one who has the compassion to identify himself with us in our pain, our sin, and our death and the authority to overcome it for our sake (Rom. 4:25).
For instance, at the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus shows a deep empathy for the grieving sisters Mary and Martha; he is moved to tears by the death of his friend and the pain it causes his loved ones. While his identification with their grief may have brought the solace of knowing they were not alone, that does not compare to what Jesus did next. He calls the dead man from his tomb. By sharing in our flesh and accepting the suffering and pain and cost of sin upon himself, he redeemed it. This is why the Incarnation leads inexorably to the cross and Easter Day.
While empathy is not enough to save, it is one way to describe what moved God to send his son. The English words love and compassion, while all defined slightly differently, each help to describe the heart God had for us that led to the sending of his Son. And Jesus’ ability to empathize with us makes him a unique mediator between us and God the Father.
The NIV translation of Hebrew 4:15 even uses empathize—Christ empathizes with our weaknesses. Other translations use the verb sympathize or understand, but I find empathize best captures the emphasis. Because he shares our nature, Jesus knows, understands, and, yes, empathizes with our pain, our weakness, and our vulnerability to temptation.
Therefore, when we are in need, we can come to him and expect to find “grace to help in time of need.” Jesus’ compassion for us is forever marked by his experience of being human. And because Jesus did not “disincarnate” at the Ascension, that nature persists even know. He stands at the right hand of God the Father, our great high priest, interceding for us as one of us.
Near the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem, there is a church that goes by various names—the Church of All Nations, the Church of Gethsemane, and the Basilica of the Agony. It is a fitting place for us to go in our imaginations during Holy Week as we hear again the story of Jesus’ agony.
He walked the same valley that we experience. This man of sorrows can identify with us in our grief because of the weakness he felt as he knelt and turned to his Father in prayer. In his words, we can sense his fear of pain, his desire to escape suffering, and the dread he felt when he anticipated the day to come. It is perhaps the most honest prayer in the Bible. The gospel accounts do not attempt to sugarcoat Jesus as a superman who coasted through his final days as he knowingly approached a brutal death.
And yet, as Hebrews indicates, Jesus ultimately triumphs over temptation by saying “Thy will be done, not mine.” Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane shows us that he has plumbed the depths of human struggle and come out on the other side, committed to doing his Father’s will. “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5-8).
It is this same God-man who now reigns at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for us, as illustrated by the mosaic on the Church of Gethsemane. The mosaic that covers the pediment of the building depicts Jesus kneeling at the center, with two groups of people flanking him. On Jesus’ right stands a group of men who appear to represent human strength and power—a philosopher, a musician, a soldier, and a king with his crown placed on the ground before him. They all bow their heads or hold a hand over their face before Christ. On Jesus’ left stands a group of women in dark robes; they appear to represent human suffering and weakness. Some hang their heads in sorrow, one woman clutching the lifeless body of her child, while others lift their faces and clasp their hands upward in prayer.
Jesus is kneeling between these two groups, wearing a red robe as a symbol of the blood that he shed for them. He holds his hands out toward them and looks up at God the Father, as if to draw his Father’s attention to their sorrow and suffering. He seems to be asking, “Father, for them I suffered and died; give to them the benefits of my passion. Heal them. Comfort them. Shield them.” It beautifully depicts Jesus in his humanity and his divinity, asking his Father for mercy on our behalf, and all on the doorstep of Gethsemane, where Jesus felt so deeply the weight and frailty of being human.
In our time of need and despondency, when we feel like we are mired in the mud, we can reach out in prayer to our Father just as Jesus did in the garden; and Hebrews assures us that we can approach him in the hope that we will receive “grace to help in time of need.” For God knows our weakness; as we remembered on Ash Wednesday. God knows that we are but dust, and in the person of Christ, God knows this not in an abstract and distanced way but from the inside out. In the Incarnation, God has come alongside us. He joined us in the mud, and then through his submission to death and ultimate triumph, he has opened the way for us to be lifted up and reconciled to his Father.
The Rev. Sarah Puryear lives in Nashville with her family and serves as priest associate at St. George’s Episcopal Church.
