Lamentations 1:12-22 Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow, which is done to me… There is a most striking and close parallel between the sufferings of Jerusalem here impersonated as crying, "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?" and those endured by our Saviour, Jesus Christ. 1. The city that was in ruins, was, of all earth's cities, the one most intimately associated with God. The suffering Saviour was "the only begotten Son of God"; He alone, of all living beings, could say, "I and the Father are one." 2. The misery of Jerusalem consisted largely in the wrongs and insults of foes. "Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?" And as His enemies passed by the suffering Saviour on Calvary, they wagged their heads, and said, "He saved others, etc. 3. The misfortunes of Jerusalem were greatly aggravated, because her friends dealt treacherously with her, and became her enemies. The suffering Saviour was betrayed by one disciple, denied by another, and at last "they all forsook Him and fled." 4. In her sorrows, Jerusalem cried unto God "who had left her, and delivered her into the hand of her enemies," The suffering Saviour too appealed to God in the profoundly awful cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" 5. Jerusalem was enduring the greatest misfortunes that history records of any city in any war. The suffering Saviour bore agony that no other being could endure. Every man has to "bear his own burden," but "the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all." I. THOSE WHO SORROW CLAIM OUR SPECIAL ATTENTION. 1. Because by sorrow sympathy is excited. Even those men who are most depraved are quickened to sympathise by any suffering that is placed before them in the peculiar phase they can understand. The best men will be quickened to sympathise with it in whatever form it appears. Christ was. No sort of sorrow was beneath His compassion, nor beyond the limits of HIS sympathy. 2. Because sorrow will generally teach us some lesson. The asking of "Why" this sorrow? How can it be destroyed? will often lead to the discovery of the profoundest and most necessary truths. Parents endure sorrow and suffering that their sons may learn lessons; neighbours, that their neighbours; nations, that surrounding nations may. But if the son will thoughtlessly "pass by" the sorrow of his parent; or the neighbour will "pass by" that of the neighbour; or the nation will "pass by" that of the nation — the son, the neighbour, the nation, must sorrow for themselves. II. OF ALL WHO EVER HAVE SORROWED, JESUS CHRIST PREEMINENTLY CLAIMS OUR ATTENTION. 1. He sorrowed more intensely than all others. He held Himself back from no grief, shrank from no abyss, refused no cross. Others have crowned themselves with royalty. He put the crown of sorrows upon HIS own brow. The solitariness of the Saviour's sufferings, moreover, gives Him preeminence in grief. Others have known the creeping shadows of loneliness; He its midnight. 2. As a sorrower, He taught infinitely more important lessons than all others. (1) The evil of sire If sin could cause that sorrow in a holy Being, what will it cause in us? (2) God's hatred of sin. He loved His Son, and yet He thus gave Him to bruising and to death for us. (3) God's love for man, and way of saving him. Comprehend God's mercy, by comprehending Christ's agony. (A. R. Thomas.) Parallel Verses KJV: Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. |
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