In 1901, a Methodist Episcopal minister named Frank Graeff partnered with the composer J. Lincoln Hall to produce a gospel song titled, Does Jesus Care? In the first stanza, Graeff wondered: “Does Jesus care when my heart is pained too deeply for mirth or song, as the burdens press, and the cares distress, and the way grows weary and long?”

I’ve met people, some who identified as Christians and some who had stopped doing so, who have wondered the same thing. Graeff’s answer was: “I know He cares. His heart is touched with my grief.” Other people I have known were not so sure.

We might think ourselves too spiritually mature to ask such questions. Perhaps so. But when the unthinkable happens – I’m remembering the great-grandparents who had to raise their daughter’s infant grandson when a semi slammed into her car and killed her – we might find we are not as advanced as we thought we were.

There are people in the Bible who couldn’t help but wonder if God had forgotten them, if Jesus cared about them. In what is arguably the Bible’s gloomiest psalm, Psalm 88, the friendless, sick, and deeply depressed poet says, “I cry to you for help, O Lord …Why, O Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?”

Job went further. Instead of wondering if God cared about him, he accused God of hurting him. “I loathe my own life,” he said, and placed the blame for his misery on God. He confronts God in prayer: “Does it please you to oppress me?”

In the New Testament, Luke 10 presents a very homey scene. Jesus is staying with Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary. The three of them would become fast friends. Jesus’s disciples are there too, and while Jesus talks with them, Mary sits and listens. This irritates her (probably) older sister Martha, who is working like crazy, trying to get everything ready for dinner. Her sister isn’t lifting a finger to help her.

When she’s had enough, she interrupts Jesus. Luke writes: “Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

Note the telltale words, don’t you care. Perhaps Jesus only cares about important things like orthodoxy, mission, and world evangelism. Perhaps he does not really care when “the burdens press and the cares distress.”

Martha wondered if Jesus cared whether she wore herself out on domestic duties. Perhaps she was not important enough to warrant his concern.

In a very different setting, the apostles wondered the same thing. They were in a boat, in the midst of a terrific windstorm. (The word St. Mark uses to describe it could be translated as “tempest” or “hurricane.”) The experienced fisherman were straining at the oars, adjusting the sail, and toiling furiously as if their lives depended on it. All the while, Jesus was asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat.

They woke him, probably by shouting. What did they shout? Again, those telltale words: “Don’t you care that we’re going to die?”

There is something in us that is not quite sure that he does.

During the Korean War, a young soldier named Richard (later, Brennan) Manning was sitting in a foxhole talking with his childhood friend, Ray Brennan. Suddenly, a live grenade came flying into the trench. Ray looked at Manning, smiled, dropped the chocolate bar he was eating, and threw himself on the grenade. He was killed, but Manning was saved (though it seems he suffered some serious PTSD).

When he was back home, Manning went to visit Ray’s mother, whom he had known for most of his life. They drank tea and talked about Ray and about old times, late into the night. Then a troubled Manning asked Ray’s mother, “Do you think Ray loved me?”

Ray’s mother rose from the couch, stood in front of Manning, and shook her finger in his face. She shouted at him, “What more could he have done for you?”

When we are wondering if Jesus cares, his Father could say the same thing to us that Ray’s mother said to Brennan Manning. “What more could he have done for you? He died for you!”

But he is doing more for us. He not only died for us; he lives for us – “he ever lives to make intercession for you.” Even in our Psalm 88 moments, when we feel like darkness is our only friend, Jesus intercedes for us. He knows how to help, and he is ready and able to do so (Hebrews 4:14-16). He does care.

Sometimes, we need to be reminded of that. Consider this a reminder.