“When we cry to him in the hour of bodily pain or weakness, he knows well what we mean. When our prayers and praises are feeble through bodily weariness, he can understand our condition. He knows our frame. He has learned by experience what it is to be a man. To say that the Virgin Mary, or anyone else, can feel more sympathy for us than Christ is ignorance no less than blasphemy. The man Christ Jesus can enter fully into everything that belongs to man’s condition. The poor, the sick and the suffering have in heaven one who is not only an almighty Saviour, but a most feeling Friend.
Power and sympathy are marvelously combined in him who died for us on the cross. Because he is God, we may repose the weight of our souls upon him with unhesitating confidence. He is mighty to save. Because he is man, we may speak to him with freedom about the many trials to which flesh is heir. He knows the heart of a man. Here is rest for the weary! Here is good news! Our Redeemer is man as well as God and God as well as man. He that believeth on him has everything that a child of Adam can possibly require, either for safety or for peace.” 1
1 – J. C. Ryle (1816-1990), Daily Readings From All Four Gospels For Morning And Evening, compiled by Robert Sheehan, (Welwyn Garden City, UK: EP Books, 1998/2020), 87.
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