One way to help us appreciate Jesus as the Lord of Suffering is to turn to the Old Testament book called Lamentations. The historical context of this book revolves around Solomon’s temple, which was destroyed in 586 B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar’s army. The book of Lamentations is the funeral song, the lament, of that destruction.

In the first chapter of Lamentations, verse 12 stands out. This verse contains a call and a question. The call is to “look around and see”—to behold and consider this occasion of suffering at the Lord’s hand. The question pertains to the effect of the call on your heart. “Is it nothing to you?” In our day we might ask, “Are you fazed by this at all?”

I remember when one of my daughters started gymnastics. The first week on the uneven bars, her palms were red with open blisters. Her hands were not used to being exposed to the harsh contact. They were very sensitive. Just weeks later, she had no problem. Why? A person’s hands get calloused by repeated exposure to abrasion. They get desensitized. That can happen to hands, but it also happens to hearts and to feelings. We can even become desensitized to the things of God. What we read about in the Scriptures can become unprofitably familiar.

The destruction of Jerusalem is an example. We memorize the date 586 B.C. and think we have the event in hand. But the prophet in Lamentations 1:12 beckons all those who pass by: “Look at what has happened here.” The city and her tragedy are personified by the writer. “Look at me, look at my destruction, look at my suffering. There is nothing like it.”

Is the prophet exaggerating? Not when we consider both the heights and the depths of the situation. We see the heights as we consider the great holy city, and the glorious temple. Those suffering were the chosen people of God. Then look at the depths of this suffering. There was horrific physical suffering. But beyond that, we have to consider the spiritual dimension connected with the displeasure of the Lord God himself. We hear an echo of Lamentations in Daniel 9:12: “You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us great disaster. Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.”

So, flowing out of the call to look is the great question, “Is it nothing to you?” Do you appreciate the catastrophe and its gravity, the seriousness of an historic judgment like this? Are you more deeply aware of the holiness of God, and the consequences and misery of sin? Have we learned the lessons—and there are many—that we ought to learn as we consider God’s judgment against Jerusalem?

But is this where our thoughts on this verse should end? When Lamentations 1:12 has been meditated on throughout the ages of the Church, believers’ thoughts have gone beyond the suffering of the people and the prophet. To whom might this question preeminently belong? “Is any suffering like my suffering, that was inflicted on me, that the Lord brought on me, in the day of his fierce anger?” If you have ever listened to Handel’s Messiah, you know that this verse was used to capture the suffering of the Lord Jesus, the one who said, “Tear this temple down and I will rebuild it in three days”—referring to his body (John 2:19-21). Frederick Leahy, former principal and professor at Belfast Theological Hall, commented, “Those words in Lamentations must have struck a chord deep in the Saviour’s heart.”

How is it true that it can be said of our Redeemer Jesus, “Never was there a sorrow like His sorrow?” It is true, first, because of the heights of His greatness. When great people suffer, the world takes notice. Before the birth of Prince George, Princess Kate was in the news all over the world, as she suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum. But our wives usually suffer in obscurity, and it just gets called morning sickness. People take note when the great suffer. But there is no one greater than Jesus. He is God the Son, in the flesh. He is the Son of the Most High, yet we see Him suffer. Shall “God the mighty maker die, for man the creature’s sin?” Son though He was, He learned obedience from what He suffered (Heb. 5:8). There was no suffering like His suffering.

It is true, second, because of the heights of His goodness. People always have asked why the good suffer. The better the person, the more good they have done, the more noble the character, the deeper the sense of sadness and injustice when great suffering befalls them. But the best of men are still sinners. No one born of Adam is pure and innocent. The criminal on the cross submitted to his sentence saying, “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong” (Luke 23:41). Did the Son of God deserve to suffer—the one who is holy, blameless, with no sin, no fault, but who was only goodness and purity, the one who went about teaching and healing and blessing? And yet, see Him suffer.

The heights of both His greatness and His goodness must be taken into account. Further, His claim was unique because of the depth of His suffering. Look and see Christ on the cross. Is any suffering like His? Before the cross “his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44) as His holy soul recoiled from the prospect of His deepening suffering. Many people in history have been crucified, but before Jesus died physically, He suffered the “second death” on the cross. In those hours of darkness He endured the outer darkness of hell as He bore the sin of not just one person and one lifetime, but of an innumerable number of people, the hells of myriads of men. At that hour, the face of His own Father was turned away (Ps. 22:1). Utter forsakenness. “Is any suffering like my suffering, that the Lord brought on me in the day of his fierce anger?”

Both these heights and depths come together when we ask, “Why all this suffering?” It was not for Himself but for others, for His people. The marvel of this suffering was that it flowed out of the heights and depths of His love (Eph. 3:18)! Jesus was suffering voluntarily in the place of those whom He loved, those whom the Father had given to Him. Christ’s sorrow and suffering was completely vicarious. The One who knew no sin suffered for those who did. As someone once said, “All the weight of sorrow which He bore was, strictly speaking, ours and not His. He would have not known sorrow, if He had not known us.”

No wonder then that Jesus could ask as no other, “Is there any sorrow like my sorrow?” Truly “those words in Lamentations must have struck a chord deep in the Saviour’s heart.” But the question is, Do they strike a deep chord in your heart? Is it nothing to you? This is a universal question. It is addressed to all who pass by, to all who come under the hearing and preaching of the gospel. Is it nothing to you? Charles Spurgeon once said, “For some I doubt not, Jesus Christ will be nothing to you. It is dreary talk and a weariness to hear about Him.”

Christ Himself lamented the spiritual insensitivity of His contemporaries: “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn’” (Matt. 11:16-17).

Frederick Leahy presses the point home, “Is it nothing to you that Christ came into the world to save sinners? Is it nothing to you that he bore the holy wrath of God against sin so that sinners like you might be saved?”

Sadly, many who “pass by,” who read and hear about the cross of Christ do just that: they pass by and say to themselves, “It is nothing to me.” Apart from the grace of God, we would have all done so! But by God’s grace,the very grace and blessing purchased by the obedience and suffering of Christ, not everyone says that. Is it nothing to you? No! It is something! He is something! By God’s grace, the Lord of suffering is not nothing to me. He is everything to us (Col. 1:18).

He is everything in salvation (see Heb. 2:10). Look and see the Christ who suffered and died to free His people from sin, to bring them to glory. When you are tempted to sin, or maybe even complacent in unrepentant sin, ask again, “Is it nothing to me?”

He is everything in sympathy (see Heb. 4:15). Christ’s profundity of sorrow has generated a perfection of sympathy. Do you despair of sympathy? Do you think no one understands? Do you feel beyond comfort? Look and see! Was any suffering like His suffering? Jesus understands.

He is everything in our perseverance (see Heb. 12:2-4). In your Christian life and service, are you close to taking your hand from the plow? Are you tempted to look back? Are you flagging in zeal, ready to succumb to the pressure and problems and pains of life? Look and see, is it nothing to you?

He is everything in our worship (see Phil. 2:8-10). Is your worship stale and dry? Is there a formalism creeping in? Look and see, is it nothing to you?

In the gospel, Christ is clearly portrayed as crucified (Gal. 3:1). Stop and look and see, all you who pass by! Is it nothing to you? Friends, Jesus is the Lord of suffering. And because no suffering was like His suffering (Lam. 1:12), no blessing is like His blessing. “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lam. 3:22).

—Matt Kingswood is pastor of Russell, Ont., RPC. The 2013 Synod’s devotional messages were on suffering, and this is the second in a series of articles based on those messages.