Written by April 9, 2023. Easter Sunday. A sliver of the burden. To me, this is not just some story that has been handed down through the ages, but rather a current event, for He Lives! Each one of our sins paid in full. Our sins, you see, each one of them, a sliver of the burden He took to the cross. Read this story. Feel this story. There has been no greater gift.
Morning Devotional from Charles Spurgeon – April 09.
“And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.”
Luke 23:27
Amid the rabble rout which hounded the Redeemer to his doom, there were some gracious souls whose bitter anguish sought vent in wailing and lamentations–fit music to accompany that march of woe. When my soul can, in imagination, see the Saviour bearing his cross to Calvary, she joins the godly women and weeps with them; for, indeed, there is true cause for grief–cause lying deeper than those mourning women thought.
They bewailed innocence maltreated, goodness persecuted, love bleeding, meekness about to die; but my heart has a deeper and more bitter cause to mourn. My sins were the scourges which lacerated those blessed shoulders, and crowned with thorn those bleeding brows: my sins cried “Crucify him! crucify him!” and laid the cross upon his gracious shoulders. His being led forth to die is sorrow enough for one eternity: but my having been his murderer, is more, infinitely more, grief than one poor fountain of tears can express.
Why those women loved and wept it were not hard to guess: but they could not have had greater reasons for love and grief than my heart has. Nain’s widow saw her son restored–but I myself have been raised to newness of life. Peter’s wife’s mother was cured of the fever–but I of the greater plague of sin. Out of Magdalene seven devils were cast–but a whole legion out of me. Mary and Martha were favoured with visits–but he dwells with me. His mother bare his body–but he is formed in me the hope of glory. In nothing behind the holy women in debt, let me not be behind them in gratitude or sorrow.
“Love and grief my heart dividing,
With my tears his feet I’ll lave–
Constant still in heart abiding,
Weep for him who died to save.”
Connecting to these words is a powerful feeling. Knowing that death was coming, still God sent his only Son. To die for all of us. Each of our failings to rise above our sinful nature provided yet another sliver of the burden. But that is not the end of the story. There is hope eternal because He Lives! He was born (Christmas – God’s only Son, no greater gift). He lived. He loved. He taught. He suffered more than any of us could bear. He died. He rose again. He lives today.
Think deeply on these things and if you are not moved by the process, think on the possibility of these words. Think about the fact that all of mankind’s stockpile from the aggregation of marginal gains still leaves us short of heaven. We cannot bring ourselves into the world, nor can we shake ourselves free of eternal damnation. There is but one way.
John 3:16-17 (NIV)
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
