After great pain, a formal feeling comes

The appearance of Jesus Christ occurs in the opening stanza: “The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’ / And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before?’” (Lines 3-4). The speaker capitalizes He, and the capital pronoun, along with the context, indicates that “He” (Line 3) is Jesus Christ. One interpretation presents Christ as a symbol of grandiosity. The person in pain connects their pain to the hurt Christ suffered on the crucifix. Though the person in pain is an ordinary person, and their pain isn’t because they’re sacrificing themselves for the redemption of humanity, the intensity of their pain makes them feel like they’ve become an exceptional, godlike figure. The pain minimizes their modesty, and the person, alienated from their typical human status, puts themselves on the same level as a martyred god. The identification with Christ brings the pain into the present. As the person associates with Christ, His pain (the crucifixion) didn’t occur on April 3, AD 33 but in the present, when the person first felt their “great pain” (Line 1). 

A more positive interpretation links Christ to a symbol of comfort. The person in pain thinks of Christ and realizes that they’re not the only one to experience torment.