James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary
Lamentations 1:12
THE UNHEEDED SORROWS OF JESUS
‘Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?’
Where is the difference between the Church and the world? The world looks on; the Church participates in the sufferings of Jesus.
I. Now the first thing is, What is the fact?—What are these strange things which are being enacted here—in the garden, and in the court, and on the hill?
That Central Figure—it is the Son of God! He is come to this earth, a Man, a simple Man.
And now His sufferings—which have been all along very deep, and His patience eloquent—are reaching the lowest point, and far below the lowest point of human endurance!
And this Man is the Eternal Son of God!
If this be true, there must be something more than meets the eye.
II. What is the solution of this great mystery—God’s own dear Child sent through such a travail as that?—What is the underlying secret? Twofold.
(1) First, it is God’s abhorrence of sin. Sin was as heavy as the world, but Christ was weightier than the world, therefore Christ outweighed the sin. Nothing but the Passion of Jesus could ever make it a just thing for God to forgive man.
(2) The other secret is love. The whole Trinity loves the sinner—so loves, that at any cost whatever, they resolve to restore him to the lost peace, the lost image, and the lost heaven.
III. Now see your part.—Where were you in the Passion? Understand this, that if you were the only person that ever lived—the only person that ever did wrong, if you had only done one wrong action, or thought one wrong thought—yet, all that Christ did and suffered would have been as much required to save you as it is required to save millions upon millions.
Then you did it. You did it!
That is the way—when you are tempted to a sin—to look at it:—‘Can I do this sin, and crucify Christ?’
That is the way to look at a sin when you have done it:—It is red with the blood of Jesus Christ!
IV. But fourthly, no less for comfort and for joy.—It was all for me; for me, pointedly, decidedly, individually, for me!
Were your sins multiplied into all the drops of ocean, and all the stars of both hemispheres one ‘tear’ of those eyes—one drop of that dear Saviour’s life-blood is sufficient to wash it all out!
‘ Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?”
I speak to those who play with religion. Do you know that your soul’s eternity hangs upon the question of what that Suffering One is to you? Have you no sins to confess? Have you no guilt to cancel? Have you no cravings to satisfy? Will you ‘pass on,’ and go along your easy journey of life, and leave that dear Lord, and His Cross, an unnoticed and uncared thing?
If that be ‘nothing,’ what is anything?
—Rev. Jas. Vaughan.
Illustration
‘This Book is remarkable for its great variety of touching images and plaintive laments, all expressing the deepest sorrow. The prophet seems to be passing to and fro amid the ruins of the city and Temple, burned with fire, strewn with the bodies of the slaughtered soldiers and people. He sets himself to turn the people in penitence and faith to the God of their fathers, Whose commands they had so deeply disobeyed. The widowed city is depicted as weeping sore, her cheeks covered with tears, deserted by her former lovers, and overtaken in the narrow mountain passes by her foes. The very roads cry out for the pilgrim feet which no longer traverse them. The departure of her beauty, the sad memory of happier days, the shamelessness of the people’s sin, the violation of the holy place by Gentile feet, the extremity of famine, the unutterableness of her sorrow, the twisted yoke of her sins, the treading of her fruit as in the winepress beneath the feet of Him Who desired to be her Lover and Saviour—all these are depicted in graphic colours. And, finally, the city herself (Lamentations 1:18, etc.) is introduced, lifting up her voice in the bitterest grief, and crying in the ear of God.’