MEDITATIONS
FROM LAMENTATIONS
March 28,
2007
Reading: Lamentations 1:12-16
"Is it nothing to you, all you that pass
by?” Lamentations 1:12
Dear Jesus! At this moment I would cast everything
out of my mind other than this contemplation. Yet, as I do so, I am conscious
of the fact that I cannot fully understand what it means. There is no sorrow
like that which You suffered. There was no sorrow
deeper than in the cup of trembling which You drank.
And, as in all the afflictions of Your people, You were
afflicted with all Your own personal sufferings as well as those of Your
people. And where shall I begin, dear Lord, to contemplate the amazing history
of Your sorrow? From the manger to the cross, every
path was suffering. Indeed, You are called “the man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief.” The curse of the land is thorns and
thistles because of man’s sin as is evidenced in human nature at large; but,
as in taking away this curse, You became a curse for Your
people. None but Yourself, dear Jesus, was ever crowned
with thorns; as if to testify of the supremacy of Your sufferings.
All of our
curses fell upon You. All the
Father’s wrath in the full vials of his anger against sin, You bore in Your
body. Indeed, You became that which You abhorred. You
experienced it, and sustained it all, and bore it all, so that Your redeemed might be delivered. Great drops of blood on a
cold night fell from Your sacred body, brought about
by the agony of the suffering of Your soul. The Son of God,
who from all eternity shared in His glory, the only begotten and dearly
beloved of his affection, died under amazement and exceeding sorrow. The
cry of his soul resounded through time and space as His Father’s desertion
swept over Him. These were among the sorrows of Jesus? And is it nothing to
you, all you that pass by? Is it nothing to you, Oh you that by disregard and
indifference would crucify the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame,
is it nothing to you?
“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold
and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which has been brought on me,
which the LORD has inflicted in the day of His fierce anger” Lamentations 1:12.
“Come
hither, ye who are indifferent and unconcerned; come hither, ye that make a
mock of sin; come hither, ye drunkards and defiled of every description and character,
whose cups of licentiousness and mirth have mingled for him the wormwood and
the gall; behold Jesus, and say, “is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?“
My soul bring the question home to thine own heart,
and never give over the solemn meditation. It is indeed to thee every thing
that is momentous and eternally interesting. Yes! precious
Jesus! every wound of thine speaks; every feature,
every groan, every cry pleads for me, and with me. If I forget thee, O thou bleeding Lamb! let my right
hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the
roof of my mouth; yea, if I prefer not the solemn meditation of