"He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not
His mouth; He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before
her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth." Isaiah liii. 7.
ST. PETER makes it almost a description of a Christian, that he loves
Him whom he has not seen; speaking of Christ, he says, "whom having not
seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Again he speaks of "tasting that
the Lord is gracious." [1 Pet. i. 8; ii. 3.] Unless we have a true love
of Christ, we are not His true disciples; and we cannot love Him unless
we have heartfelt gratitude to Him; and we cannot duly feel gratitude,
unless we feel keenly what He suffered for us. I say it seems to us impossible,
under the circumstances of the case, that any one can have attained to
the love of Christ, who feels no distress, no misery, at the thought of
His bitter pains, and no self-reproach at having through his own sins had
a share in causing them.
I know quite well, and wish you, my brethren, never to forget, that
feeling is not enough; that it is not enough merely to feel and nothing
more; that to feel grief for Christ's sufferings, and yet not to go on
to obey him, is not true love, but a mockery. True love both feels right,
and acts right; but at the same time as warm feelings without religious
conduct are a kind of hypocrisy, so, on the other hand, right conduct,
when unattended with deep feelings, is at best a very imperfect sort of
religion. And at this time of year [Note] especially are we called upon
to raise our hearts to Christ, and to have keen feelings and piercing thoughts
of sorrow and shame, of compunction and of gratitude, of love and tender
affection and horror and anguish, at the review of those awful sufferings
whereby our salvation has been purchased.
Let us pray God to give us all graces; and while, in the first place,
we pray that He would make us holy, really holy, let us also pray Him to
give us the beauty of holiness, which consists in tender and eager affection
towards our Lord and Saviour: which is, in the case of the Christian, what
beauty of person is to the outward man, so that through God's mercy our
souls may have, not strength and health only, but a sort of bloom and comeliness;
and that as we grow older in body, we may, year by year, grow more youthful
in spirit.
You will ask, how are we to learn to feel pain and anguish at the thought
of Christ's sufferings? I answer, by thinking of them, that is, by dwelling
on the thought. This, through God's mercy, is in the power of every one.
No one who will but solemnly think over the history of those sufferings,
as drawn out for us in the Gospels, but will gradually gain, through God's
grace, a sense of them, will in a measure realize them, will in a measure
be as if he saw them, will feel towards them as being not merely a tale
written in a book, but as a true history, as a series of events which took
place. It is indeed a great mercy that this duty which I speak of; though
so high, is notwithstanding so level with the powers of all classes of
persons, learned and unlearned, if they wish to perform it. Any one can
think of Christ's sufferings, if he will; and knows well what to think
about. "It is not in heaven that thou shouldst say, Who shall go up for
us to heaven and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it? Neither
is it beyond the sea that thou shouldst say, Who shall go over the sea
for us? ... but the word is very nigh unto thee;" very nigh, for it is
in the four Gospels, which, at this day at least, are open to all men.
All men may read or hear the Gospels, and in knowing them, they will know
all that is necessary to be known in order to feel aright; they will know
all that any one knows, all that has been told us, all that the greatest
saints have ever had to make them full of love and sacred fear.
Now, then, let me make one or two reflections by way of stirring up
your hearts and making you mourn over Christ's sufferings, as you are called
to do at this season.
1. First, as to these sufferings you will observe that our Lord is called
a lamb in the text; that is, He was as defenceless, and as innocent, as
a lamb is. Since then Scripture compares Him to this inoffensive and unprotected
animal, we may without presumption or irreverence take the image as a means
of conveying to our minds those feelings which our Lord's sufferings should
excite in us. I mean, consider how very horrible it is to read the accounts
which sometimes meet us of cruelties exercised on brute animals. Does it
not sometimes make us shudder to hear tell of them, or to read them in
some chance publication which we take up? At one time it is the wanton
deed of barbarous and angry owners who ill-treat their cattle, or beasts
of burden; and at another, it is the cold-blooded and calculating act of
men of science, who make experiments on brute animals, perhaps merely from
a sort of curiosity. I do not like to go into particulars, for many reasons;
but one of those instances which we read of as happening in this day, and
which seems more shocking than the rest, is, when the poor dumb victim
is fastened against a wall, pierced, gashed, and so left to linger out
its life. Now do you not see that I have a reason for saying this, and
am not using these distressing words for nothing? For what was this but
the very cruelty inflicted upon our Lord? He was gashed with the scourge,
pierced through hands and feet, and so fastened to the Cross, and there
left, and that as a spectacle. Now what is it moves our very hearts, and
sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes? I suppose this first,
that they have done no harm; next, that they have no power whatever of
resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims
which makes their sufferings so especially touching. For instance, if they
were dangerous animals, take the case of wild beasts at large, able not
only to defend themselves, but even to attack us; much as we might dislike
to hear of their wounds and agony, yet our feelings would be of a very
different kind; but there is something so very dreadful, so satanic in
tormenting those who never have harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves,
who are utterly in our power, who have weapons neither of offence nor defence,
that none but very hardened persons can endure the thought of it. Now this
was just our Saviour's case: He had laid aside His glory, He had (as it
were) disbanded His legions of Angels, He came on earth without arms, except
the arms of truth, meekness, and righteousness, and committed Himself to
the world in perfect innocence and sinlessness, and in utter helplessness,
as the Lamb of God. In the words of St. Peter, "Who did no sin, neither
was guile found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again;
when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that
judgeth righteously." [1 Pet. ii. 22, 23.] Think then, my brethren, of
your feelings at cruelty practised upon brute animals, and you will gain
one sort of feeling which the history of Christ's Cross and Passion ought
to excite within you. And let me add, this is in all cases one good use
to which you may turn any accounts you read of wanton and unfeeling acts
shown towards the inferior animals; let them remind you, as a picture,
of Christ's sufferings. He who is higher than the Angels, deigned to humble
Himself even to the state of the brute creation, as the Psalm says, "I
am a worm, and no man; a very scorn of men, and the outcast of the people."
[Ps. xxii. 6.]
2. Take another example, and you will see the same thing still more
strikingly. How overpowered should we be, nay not at the sight only, but
at the very hearing of cruelties shown to a little child, and why so? for
the same two reasons, because it was so innocent, and because it was so
unable to defend itself. I do not like to go into the details of such cruelty,
they would be so heart-rending. What if wicked men took and crucified a
young child? What if they deliberately seized its poor little frame, and
stretched out its arms, nailed them to a cross bar of wood, drove a stake
through its two feet, and fastened them to a beam, and so left it to die?
It is almost too shocking to say perhaps, you will actually say it is too
shocking, and ought not to be said. O, my brethren, you feel the horror
of this, and yet you can bear to read of Christ's sufferings without horror;
for what is that little child's agony to His? and which deserved it more?
which is the more innocent? which the holier? was He not gentler, sweeter,
meeker, more tender, more loving, than any little child? Why are you shocked
at the one, why are you not shocked at the other?
Or take another instance, not so shocking in its circumstances, yet
introducing us to another distinction, in which Christ's passion exceeds
that of any innocent sufferers, such as I have supposed. When Joseph was
sent by his father to his brethren on a message of love, they, when they
saw him, said, "Behold, this dreamer cometh; come now, therefore, and let
us slay him." [Gen. xxxvii. 19, 20.] They did not kill him, however, but
they put him in a pit in spite of the anguish of his soul, and sold him
as a slave to the Ishmaelites, and he was taken down into a foreign country,
where he had no friends. Now this was most cruel and most cowardly in the
sons of Jacob; and what is so especially shocking in it is, that Joseph
was not only innocent and defenceless, their younger brother whom they
ought to have protected, but besides that, he was so confiding and loving,
that he need not have come to them, that he would not at all have been
in their power, except for his desire to do them service. Now, whom does
this history remind us of but of Him concerning whom the Master of the
vineyard said, on sending Him to the husbandmen, "They will reverence My
Son?" [Matt. xxi. 37-39.] "But when the husbandmen saw the Son, they said
among themselves, This is the Heir, come, let us kill Him, and let us seize
on His inheritance. And they caught Him, and cast Him out of the vineyard,
and slew Him." Here, then, is an additional circumstance of cruelty to
affect us in Christ's history, such as is suggested in Joseph's, but which
no instance of a brute animal's or of a child's sufferings can have; our
Lord was not only guiltless and defenceless, but He had come among His
persecutors in love.
3. And now, instead of taking the case of the young, innocent, and confiding,
let us take another instance which will present to us our Lord's passion
under another aspect. Let us suppose that some aged and venerable person
whom we have known as long as we could recollect any thing, and loved and
reverenced, suppose such a one, who had often done us kindnesses, who had
taught us, who had given us good advice, who had encouraged us, smiled
on us, comforted us in trouble, whom we knew to be very good and religious,
very holy, full of wisdom, full of heaven, with grey hairs and awful countenance,
waiting for Almighty God's summons to leave this world for a better place;
suppose, I say, such a one whom we have ourselves known, and whose memory
is dear to us, rudely seized by fierce men, stripped naked in public, insulted,
driven about here and there, made a laughing-stock, struck, spit on, dressed
up in other clothes in ridicule, then severely scourged on the back, then
laden with some heavy load till he could carry it no longer, pulled and
dragged about, and at last exposed with all his wounds to the gaze of a
rude multitude who came and jeered him, what would be our feelings? Let
us in our mind think of this person or that, and consider how we should
be overwhelmed and pierced through and through by such a hideous occurrence.
But what is all this to the suffering of the holy Jesus, which we bear
to read of as a matter of course! Only think of Him, when in His wounded
state, and without garment on, He had to creep up the ladder, as He could,
which led Him up the cross high enough for His murderers to nail Him to
it; and consider who it was that was in that misery. Or again, view Him
dying, hour after hour bleeding to death; and how? in peace? no; with His
arms stretched out, and His face exposed to view, and any one who pleased
coming and staring at Him, mocking Him, and watching the gradual ebbing
of His strength, and the approach of death. These are some of the appalling
details which the Gospels contain, and surely they were not recorded for
nothing; but that we might dwell on them.
Do you think that those who saw these things had much heart for eating
or drinking or enjoying themselves? On the contrary, we are told that even
"the people who came together to that sight, smote their breasts and returned."
[Luke xxiii. 48.] If these were the feelings of the people, what were St.
John's feelings, or St. Mary Magdalene's, or St. Mary's, our Lord's blessed
mother? Do we desire to be of this company? do we desire, according to
His own promise, to be rather blessed than the womb that bare Him, and
the paps that He sucked? do we desire to be as His brother, and sister,
and mother [Matt. xii. 46, &c.]? Then, surely, ought we to have some
portion of that mother's sorrow! When He was on the cross and she stood
by, then, according to Simeon's prophecy, "a sword pierced through her
soul." [Luke ii. 35.] What is the use of our keeping the memory of His
cross and passion, unless we lament and are in sorrow with her? I can understand
people who do not keep Good Friday at all; they are indeed very ungrateful,
but I know what they mean; I understand them. But I do not understand at
all, I do not at all see what men mean who do profess to keep it, yet do
not sorrow, or at least try to sorrow. Such a spirit of grief and lamentation
is expressly mentioned in Scripture as a characteristic of those who turn
to Christ. If then we do not sorrow, have we turned to Him? "I will pour
upon the house of David," says the merciful Saviour Himself, before He
came on earth, speaking of what was to come, "upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon Me whom
they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his
only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness
for his first-born." [Zech. Xii. 10.]
One thing I will add:—if there be persons here present who are conscious
to themselves that they do not feel the grief which this season should
cause them, who feel now as they do at other times, let them consider with
themselves whether perhaps this defect does not arise from their having
neglected to come to church, whether during this season or at other times,
as often as they might. Our feelings are not in our own power; God alone
can rule our feelings; God alone can make us sorrow, when we would but
cannot sorrow; but will He, if we have not diligently sought Him according
to our opportunities in this house of grace? I speak of those who might
come to prayers more frequently, and do not. I know well that many cannot
come. I speak of those who can, if they will. Even if they come as often
as they are able, I know well they will not be satisfied with their own
feelings; they will be conscious even then that they ought to grieve more
than they do; of course none of us feels the great event of this day as
he ought, and therefore we all ought to be dissatisfied with ourselves.
However, if this is not our own fault, we need not be out of heart, for
God will mercifully lead us forward in His own time; but if it arises from
our not coming to prayers here as often as we might, then our coldness
and deadness are our own fault, and I beg you all to consider that that
fault is not a slight one. It is said in the Book of Revelation, "Behold
He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which
pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him."
[Rev. i. 7.] We, my, brethren, every one of us, shall one day rise from
our graves, and see Jesus Christ; we shall see Him who hung on the cross,
we shall see His wounds, we shall see the marks in His hands, and in His
feet, and in His side. Do we wish to be of those, then, who wail and lament,
or of those who rejoice? If we would not lament at the sight of Him then,
we must lament at the thought of Him now. Let us prepare to meet our God;
let us come into His Presence whenever we can; let us try to fancy as if
we saw the Cross and Him upon it; let us draw near to it; let us beg Him
to look on us as He did on the penitent thief, and let us say to Him, "Lord
remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom." [Luke xxiii. 42.]
Let this be added to the prayer, my brethren, with which you are about
to leave this church. After I have given the blessing, you will say to
yourselves a short prayer. Well; fancy you see Jesus Christ on the cross,
and say to Him with the penitent thief, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest
in Thy kingdom;" that is, "Remember me, Lord, in mercy, remember not my
sins, but Thine own cross; remember Thine own sufferings, remember that
Thou sufferedst for me, a sinner; remember in the last day that I, during
my lifetime, felt Thy sufferings, that I suffered on my cross by Thy side.
Remember me then, and make me remember Thee now."
Copyright © 2000 by Bob Elder. All rights reserved.
Used with permission. See the Newman website:
http://www.newmanreader.org/index.html
