Jesus understood human life — all the messy physical realities of being human. Jesus wasn’t simply God playacting at being human. Here’s an earthy example: Last year a vicious stomach flu tore through my Jesuit community. Despite vigorous hand washing, it hit me one night. Without going into details, it was the sickest I have ever been… As I hunched over the toilet for the fifth time that night, I had a surprising thought: Jesus did this. Admittedly, he did not contract a norovirus in a Jesuit community, but Jesus certainly got sick. He got hungry. He ate. He drank. We know, explicitly from the Gospels, that he got tired, as when he falls asleep in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. The physical realities of human life were not unknown to him.

Fr James Martin, SJ, Jesus: A pilgrimage.