Morning    “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.”

Psalm 22:14

Did earth or heaven ever behold a sadder spectacle of woe! In soul and body, our

Lord felt himself to be weak as water poured upon the ground. The placing of the

cross in its socket had shaken him with great violence, had strained all the

ligaments, pained every nerve, and more or less dislocated all his bones.

Burdened with his own weight, the august sufferer felt the strain increasing

every moment of those six long hours. His sense of faintness and general

weakness were overpowering; while to his own consciousness he became nothing but

a mass of misery and swooning sickness. When Daniel saw the great vision, he

thus describes his sensations, “There remained no strength in me, for my

vigour was turned into corruption, and I retained no strength:” how much more

faint must have been our greater Prophet when he saw the dread vision of the

wrath of God, and felt it in his own soul! To us, sensations such as our Lord

endured would have been insupportable, and kind unconsciousness would have come

to our rescue; but in his case, he was wounded, and felt the sword; he drained

the cup and tasted every drop.

“O King of Grief! (a title strange, yet true

To thee of all kings only due)

O King of Wounds! how shall I grieve for thee,

Who in all grief preventest me!”

As we kneel before our now ascended Saviour’s throne, let us remember well the

way by which he prepared it as a throne of grace for us; let us in spirit drink

of his cup, that we may be strengthened for our hour of heaviness whenever it

may come. In his natural body every member suffered, and so must it be in the

spiritual; but as out of all his griefs and woes his body came forth uninjured

to glory and power, even so shall his mystical body come through the furnace

with not so much as the smell of fire upon it.

 

Evening   “Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins.”

Psalm 25:18

It is well for us when prayers about our sorrows are linked with pleas

concerning our sins–when, being under God’s hand, we are not wholly taken up

with our pain, but remember our offences against God. It is well, also, to take

both sorrow and sin to the same place. It was to God that David carried his

sorrow: it was to God that David confessed his sin. Observe, then, we must take

our sorrows to God. Even your little sorrows you may roll upon God, for he

counteth the hairs of your head; and your great sorrows you may commit to him,

for he holdeth the ocean in the hollow of his hand. Go to him, whatever your

present trouble may be, and you shall find him able and willing to relieve you.

But

we must take our sins to God too. We must carry them to the cross, that the

blood may fall upon them, to purge away their guilt, and to destroy their

defiling power.

The special lesson of the text is this:–that we are to go to the Lord with

sorrows and with sins in the right spirit. Note that all David asks concerning

his sorrow is, “Look upon mine affliction and my pain;” but the next petition is

vastly more express, definite, decided, plain–“Forgive all my sins.” Many

sufferers would have put it, “Remove my affliction and my pain, and look at my

sins.” But David does not say so; he cries, “Lord, as for my affliction and my

pain, I will not dictate to thy wisdom. Lord, look at them, I will leave them to

thee, I should be glad to have my pain removed, but do as thou wilt; but as for

my sins, Lord, I know what I want with them; I must have them

forgiven; I cannot endure to lie under their curse for a moment.” A Christian

counts sorrow lighter in the scale than sin; he can bear that his troubles

should continue, but he cannot support the burden of his transgressions.