Isaiah 53:3-7 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him… It is but a step now to go on and speak of the saddening effect necessarily flowing from the circumstances under which in this world Christian work has to be done. It was the love which Christ had for the world that made Him sad while doing His work in the world; and the infinitude of His love is what explains the unutterableness of His pain; for the world in which Christ fulfilled His mission was a suffering world. Now a man who is without love can be in the midst of suffering and, not suffer. A loveless spirit grieves over his own pain, but has no sense of another's pain, and no feeling of being burdened by another's pain. Love has this peculiar property, that it makes the person whom we love one with us, so that his experience becomes a part of our own life, his pain becomes painful to us, his burdens make us tired. The mother feels her child's pain as keenly as though it were her own pain, perhaps more so. In its Divine relations this is all expressed in those familiar words of Scripture, "In all their affliction He was afflicted." Sympathy is the form which love takes in a suffering world. Love is the finest type of communism. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. |
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