Sufferings of Christ

Our privilege of fellowship in the sufferings. Much was borne that we might not have to bear; but as I gaze at yonder cross I interpret the nature of our fellowship in the light of the next clause. Take the voices which sound from the dying Son of Man. (1) “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do!” Can I have fellowship in that? I believe there is not one of us that follows our Lord fully, but we shall be more or less misunderstood, misinterpreted, but let us endeavour to enter into sympathy with the heart and mind of Jesus; and then, if a rough word is spoken, or a brother does not seem to understand us, Christ’s prayer will rise to our lips. (2) “I thirst.” Thank God our thirst shall never be what His was. Yet I am reminded, “Blessed are they that thirst,” etc. And do not be cast down that you have not received the fulness of blessing. Is it not something that your thirst for God and righteousness makes you in a sense partaker of the sufferings of Jesus. (3) “Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother.” In that I see something that I may have fellowship with. In the midst of all His agony He found time to think upon the sorrows of His broken hearted mother and His lonely disciple, and to mingle their griefs with His own. How is human sorrow sanctified by such a revelation as this? Does bereavement come? The same pangs that shot through my Saviour’s heart are become mine, and I am a partaker with Him. (4) “My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” He was forsaken in order that you and I might not be forsaken. And yet, let us consider what it was that caused that cry: it was the dark shadow of imputed sin coming between His soul and God. And as we enter into the fellowship of the sufferings of Jesus, our views of sin will become more keen and clear, and also bring along with them a more painful emotion than could otherwise be ours. Let me enter into the fellowship of the sufferings of Jesus, that will make me hate sin. (5) “This day shalt Thou be with Me in Paradise.” Parched are His lips, and His heart breaking; yet when that dying malefactor’s cry reaches His ear, His eye is turned upon that poor dying man, and the word of peace and pardon is spoken; and the suffering Son of Man takes on Himself the burden of the dying sufferer at His side. Oh for a heart to sorrow in all the sorrows of humanity! (6) “It is finished.” Oh to be partakers with Christ in the glory of that last cry, which is the triumphant issue of suffering. When the will has been so fully yielded that God has been able to work out His own purpose in us, and to reveal His Son in us, then may it one day come to our turn to exclaim with St. Paul, “I have finished my course.” 3. Fellowship in the result of His sufferings. He, the Captain of our salvation, was made “perfect through suffering.” Even so, while there never was a time that the will of the Man Christ Jesus was opposed to the will of the Father, yet there was a time when its obedience was not completed, and thus He learnt obedience by the things which He suffered. If we learn what it is to be conformed to the image of His death, as our wilfulness and waywardness learn to submit themselves to the gentle discipline of suffering, and if in each fresh cross we find a fresh revelation of the loving will of the Father, how calm, how resurrection-like our lives must needs become! (W. M. H. H. Aitken, M. A.)