Evening and Morning
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
March 31
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.