Spurgeon: April AM
* 04/09/AM
"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."