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The Suffering Sympathy of Christ

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The Suffering Sympathy of Christ

Taken from The Marvelous Riches of Savouring Christ: The Letters of Ruth Bryan

5 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

“Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God” (Hebrews 2:17).

My tenderly beloved friend,

This morning you are much on my mind in connexion with our precious suffering Head, and I must send you a few lines.

“Jesus has shewed Himself again” to His poor worm. It is in Psalm 22, especially the first part, where He is described as suffering the anguish of experimental forsaking and also great conflict from unanswered prayer. This I never fully realized before. Oh, how He has left His precious footprints in every thorny path. “The footsteps of the flock” are thus so prepared that

No thorns can harm, for Jesus went Before to tread them down.

We feel that He, having suffered before us, is able both to sympathize and to succour. How touching to hear Him compare the deliverance of His people with His own unsuccoured condition—” Our fathers trusted in Thee: they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. They cried unto Thee, and were delivered: they trusted in Thee, and were not confounded.” Then, stooping to the lowest point of abasement, as if less than any of them, He says, “But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.” It was as though, in that degraded position which He had taken for His people, He must not expect to be dealt with as tenderly as they.

O love! of unexampled kind, Which leaves all thought so far behind.

My soul was deeply humbled in the depths of verse 2, “O my God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.” It was a night season indeed, even darkness which might be felt. For what agony of soul did our Beloved not endure when He had no answer from God. It is wonderful to see, “How in all points tempted like as we are,” not only tempted with evil by Satan but tried by His friends, tried by His Father, and tried in all the sensibilities of the nature which He had taken, yet in all He endured without sin.

His sorrowful utterances were to shew that He had the tenderest susceptibility of feelings in all of His sufferings, but there was not one murmur or rebellious feeling or one hard thought. He pitied His disciples—“the flesh is weak”— and though He knew they would all forsake Him through fear, He even made way for that escape in His matchless love: “If ye seek Me, let these go their way.” His Father He fully justified in all His dealings with Him as the Surety, for while crying in anguish, “Thou hearest not,” He directly adds, “But Thou art holy, O Thou who inhabitest the praises of Israel.” He was indeed a Lamb without blemish. His Father, His enemies, and His Church have to say, “I find no fault in Him.” This precious, spotless One gave Himself for us to the sorrows of death and the pains of hell, which bitter cup of trembling he drained even to the very dregs, so that He could triumphantly say, “It is finished.” Ah! but never will He say, either of the love or of the glory, “It is finished.” Oh, no! while eternal ages roll on, love will be ever inflowing and glory ever unfurling , and all coming to us through that rich medium—His suffering and death. We read of “the sufferings of Christ and the glory which should follow.” The sufferings are past; he has entered into glory, but the full revelation of it, in and to His Bride, is yet to come. O wonderful Bridegroom, reveal to us more of Thy wonderful love in Thy humiliation and exaltation. Let us live in that undying flame, that in our joys and sorrows we may be a sweet savour of Thee to Thy loved ones—

Bruised Bridegroom, take us wholly; Take and make us what Thou wilt.

Only continually draw us out of self into Thee, and cause us to grow up in Thee in all things, while many winds and storms and heart achings cause us to root down in Thee also. Oh, do Thou shine more and more brightly in us to the perfect day.

It is blessed, dearest friend, to spend Good Friday under His shadow as the crucified One; there His fruits are sweet to our taste. It is precious to be led on by His Spirit to His joy as the glorified One, for then our joy is full. They that “dwell in (this) secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” It is a secret place for hidden ones, of which He says, “There is a place by Me: and I will put thee in a cleft of the rock.” This hallowed place is kept secret from all those who are “alive without the law”; they want not this blessed hiding place. No carnal eye ever saw it; no carnal heart ever enjoyed the rest. It is the secret chamber for the secret life, where He who is our life says, “There I will give thee My loves.1” He gives all in Himself. At Calvary we see how He the Living Rock was cleft that His dove might be spared, and how lovingly He says, “Oh My dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, let Me see thy countenance, let Me hear thy voice.”2

My dear heavenly Boaz has made this a Good Friday to His unworthy gleaner. I had feared I should not find Him whom my soul loveth and have fellowship of love in His sufferings, but when mine enemies dealt proudly He has been above them.3 Praise to the worthy Lamb. “Praise is comely for the upright:”4 I made thee go upright; and then follows your Psalm 84:12.

This is not like a letter, but if the Spirit will breathe of Jesus’ fragrance through it, you will rejoice with me in Him.


1 Song 7:12

2 Song 2:14

3 Psalm 64:10,13

4 Lev. 24:13

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