In Hebrews, we read that we have a high priest who know us, know about us, knows what it’s like to be alive, knows what it’s like to lose friends and family members, to struggle with a lack of food, to see discrimination and to respond to it.

In his walking around earth, Jesus apparently watched his step-dad die, heard about the murder of his relative and colleague John the Baptist. He stepped across gender and religious boundaries to have meaningful conversations with a Samaritan woman and Martha and a palestinian woman. He watched the brutally random Roman occupation executing people, demanding indignities. He watched a plot develop against him and was unwilling to thwart it. He was constantly misunderstood, regularly fatigued, intentionally homeless. He stepped away from social ladders, consistently conversing with and even touching people who were unclean, unpopular, unchosen.

So when we read that we have a high priest who understands us, he actually understands us. He modeled how to live in the middle of those obstacles. And he is with us as we are in them.

 We can say, “You don’t understand”. We can say it, but he went to great lengths for it not to be true.