Luke 23:56

REFLECTIONS

See, my soul! thy Lord taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generations? Behold Pilate, Herod, the Chief Priests, and Scribes, yea, the whole multitude, all engaged in the foul act of Christ's crucifixion. And was there none beside? Think, my soul! how much thy sins, both in the original and actual transgression of thine Adam-nature, added to the vast account. Oh! for grace, that in a conscious sense of my own sins, upon this solemn occasion, I may look unto him whom I have pierced, and mourn, as one that mourneth for his only son; and be in bitterness, as one that is in bitterness for his first born!

Precious Jesus! enable me to connect with the solemn view of thine unequalled sufferings, that thou hast made my peace by the blood of thy cross, and by thy stripes I am healed. And from the cross enable me to behold thee proclaiming peace to all thy people, and doing away, the whole of sin by the sacrifice of thyself. Yes! thou Almighty Lord! truly, in the instance of the dying thief, thou hast shewn the sovereign efficacy of thy finished salvation. Here may poor, despairing, self-condemned, and self-condemning sinners, find the sweetest encouragement. And, if Jesus in the days of his flesh offered up strong crying and tears, and was heard in that he feared, will he not have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way, since he himself was thus compassed with infirmity?

Lord! I would take my stand at the door of the sepulchre. Like Mary, I would wait in humble sorrow until my risen and triumphant Savior shall speak to me, as the Lord did to that poor woman. Oh! for grace, to have the first views of Jesus, the first love tokens as she had of Jews, that I might hasten with the same tender commission, and tell the brethren of Jesus of the glorious tidings of the resurrection. Lord! give me the assured earnest, in a resurrection of grace, for that great day of my God, when all his redeemed will partake in a resurrection to glory!