VirginiaHuguenot
Puritanboard Librarian
Octavius Winslow, Evening Thoughts (March 17), pp. 136-138:
MARCH 17
"In all their affliction he was afflicted."—Isa 63:9
Here is the true and blessed source of comfort, open for times and situations of sorrow. The Lord's people are tried; Jesus was a tried Savior. The Lord's people are afflicted; Jesus drank deep of its bitter cup. The Lord's people sorrow; Jesus was a "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isa 53:3). He brought Himself down to the level of the circumstances of His people. He completely identified Himself with them.
We are not, however, to suppose that, in every specific of our trial, we identify with our dear Lord. There are trials growing out of peculiar circumstances and relationships in life to which He was a stranger. But Jesus did take on pure humanity in its suffering form; he was deeply acquainted with sorrow as sorrow. Through these circumstances, He was fit to comfort, sustain, and sympathize with His afflicted, sorrowing people in all things, whatever the case. It is enough for us that He was "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." It is enough for us that His heart was composed of all the tenderness, sympathy, and gentleness of our nature, and that, too, freed from everything growing out of the infirmity of sin, that could weaken, and impair, and blunt His sensibilities.
It is enough for us that His heart was no stranger to sorrow, that affliction had deeply furrowed His soul, and that grief had left its traces on every line of His expressions. What more do we require? What more can we ask? Our nature? He took it. Our sicknesses? He bore them. Our sorrows? He felt them. Our crosses? He carried them. Our sins? He pardoned them. He went before His people and trod out the path, leaving His footprint; they will walk in no way He has not gone, sustain no sorrow He has not suffered, bear no burden He did not bear, and drink no cup He did not take. It is enough for Him that you are a child of grief and that sorrow is the bitter cup you are drinking. He asks no more. In one moment, a chord is touched in His heart that vibrates to what was touched in yours, whether it be a pleasing or mournful note. Always remember that Jesus has sympathy for the joys, as well as for the sorrows, of His people. He rejoices with those who rejoice, and He weeps with those who weep.
But how does Jesus sympathize? Not in the sense in which some may suppose, so that when we weep He actually weeps, and when we suffer He actually suffers. This may have been true at one time, but we do not know Christ in the flesh as He was once known. There was a period when "Jesus wept"; there was a period when His heart was wrung with anguish and when His body agonized in pain. That period has ended. Yet there is still a sense, and an important one, in which Jesus feels sympathy. When the believer suffers, the tenderness of Jesus is drawn out. His sustaining strength, His sanctifying grace, and His comforting love are all unfolded in the experience of His child passing through the furnace. The Son of God is with him in the flames. Jesus of Nazareth is walking with him on the billows. He has the heart of Christ. This is sympathy, this is fellowship; this is to be one with Christ Jesus.
