Morning    “With his stripes we are healed.”

Isaiah 53:5

Pilate delivered our Lord to the lictors to be scourged. The Roman scourge was a

most dreadful instrument of torture. It was made of the sinews of oxen, and

sharp bones were inter-twisted every here and there among the sinews; so that

every time the lash came down these pieces of bone inflicted fearful laceration,

and tore off the flesh from the bone. The Saviour was, no doubt, bound to the

column, and thus beaten. He had been beaten before; but this of the Roman

lictors was probably the most severe of his flagellations. My soul, stand here

and weep over his poor stricken body.

Believer in Jesus, can you gaze upon him without tears, as he stands before you

the mirror of agonizing love? He is at once fair as the lily for innocence, and

red as the rose with the crimson of his own blood. As we feel the sure and

blessed healing which his stripes have wrought in us, does not our heart melt at

once with love and grief? If ever we have loved our Lord Jesus, surely we must

feel that affection glowing now within our bosoms.

“See how the patient Jesus stands,

Insulted in his lowest case!

Sinners have bound the Almighty’s hands,

And spit in their Creator’s face.

With thorns his temples gor’d and gash’d

Send streams of blood from every part;

His back’s with knotted scourges lash’d.

But sharper scourges tear his heart.”

We would fain go to our chambers and weep; but since our business calls us away,

we will first pray our Beloved to print the image of his bleeding self upon the

tablets of our hearts all the day, and at nightfall we will return to commune

with him, and sorrow that our sin should have cost him so dear.

 

Evening    “And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the

rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven,

and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts

of the field by night.”

2 Samuel 21:10

If the love of a woman to her slain sons could make her prolong her mournful

vigil for so long a period, shall we weary of considering the sufferings of our

blessed Lord? She drove away the birds of prey, and shall not we chase from our

meditations those worldly and sinful thoughts which defile both our minds and

the sacred themes upon which we are occupied? Away, ye birds of evil wing! Leave

ye the sacrifice alone! She bore the heats of summer, the night dews and the

rains, unsheltered and alone. Sleep was chased from her weeping eyes: her heart

was too full for slumber. Behold how she loved her children! Shall Rizpah thus

endure, and shall we start at the first little inconvenience or

trial? Are we such cowards that we cannot bear to suffer with our Lord? She

chased away even the wild beasts, with courage unusual in her sex, and will not

we be ready to encounter every foe for Jesus’ sake? These her children were

slain by other hands than hers, and yet she wept and watched: what ought we to

do who have by our sins crucified our Lord? Our obligations are boundless, our

love should be fervent and our repentance thorough. To watch with Jesus should

be our business, to protect his honour our occupation, to abide by his cross our

solace. Those ghastly corpses might well have affrighted Rizpah, especially by

night, but in our Lord, at whose cross-foot we are sitting, there is

nothing revolting, but everything attractive. Never was living beauty so

enchanting as a dying Saviour. Jesus, we will watch with thee yet awhile, and do

thou graciously unveil thyself to us; then shall we not sit beneath sackcloth,

but in a royal pavilion.