.....from "Morning and Evening" for 3/30/11, by Charles Hadden Spurgeon. I found these words today to bring a chill back to my bones, a chill that should never leave when pondering the gruesome death that my Savior suffered....all because of my hideous sin.
"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 intertwisted 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 gored and gashed send streams of blood from every part; His back's with knotted scourges lashed. 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 sins should have cost Him so dear.
