Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1099
“A Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Isaiah 53:3.
POSSIBLY a murmur will pass round the congregation, “This is a dreary subject and a mournful theme.” But, O Beloved, it is not so, for great as were the woes of our Redeemer, they are all over now and are to be looked back upon with sacred triumph! However severe the struggle, the victory has been won! The laboring vessel was severely tossed by the waves, but she has now entered into the desired haven. Our Savior is no longer in Gethsemane agonizing, or upon the Cross dying—the crown of thorns has been replaced by many crowns of sovereignty! The nails and the spear have given way to the scepter!
Nor is this all, for though the suffering is ended, the blessed results never end. We may remember the travail, for the Man Child is born into the world. The sowing in tears is followed by a reaping in joy. The bruising of the heel of the woman’s Seed is well recompensed by the breaking of the serpent’s head. It is pleasant to hear of battles fought when a decisive victory has ended war and established peace. So that the double refection that all the work of suffering is finished by the Redeemer and that, from now on He beholds the success of all His labors, we shall rejoice even while we enter into fellowship with His sufferings! Let it never be forgotten that the subject of the sorrows of the Savior has proven to be more efficacious for comfort to mourners than any other theme in the compass of Revelation, or out of it.
Even the glories of Christ afford no such consolation to afflicted spirits as the sufferings of Christ. Christ is in all attitudes the consolation of Israel, but He is most so as the Man of Sorrows. Troubled spirits turn not so much to Bethlehem as to Calvary—they prefer Gethsemane to Nazareth. The afflicted do not so much look for comfort in Christ as He will come a second time in splendor of state, as to Christ as He came the first time, a weary Man and full of woes. The passion flower yields us the best perfume. The tree of the Cross bleeds the most healing balm. Like in this case cures like, for there is no remedy for sorrow beneath the sun like the sorrows of Immanuel.
As Aaron’s rod swallowed up all the other rods, so the griefs of Jesus make our griefs disappear. Thus you see that in the black soil of our subject, light is sown for the righteous—light which springs up for those who sit in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death. Let us go, then, without reluctance to the house of mourning and commune with “The Chief Mourner,” who above all others could say, “I am the Man that has seen affliction.” We will not stray from our text this morning, but keep to it so closely as even to dwell upon each one of its words. The words shall give us our divisions—“A Man.” “A Man of sorrows.” “Acquainted with grief.”
I. “A Man.” There is no novelty to anyone here present in the doctrine of the real and actual Manhood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But, although there is nothing novel in it, there is everything important in it. Therefore, let us hear it again. This is one of those Gospel Church bells which must be rung every Sunday—this is one of those provisions of the Lord’s household, which, like bread and salt, should be put upon the table at every spiritual meal. This is the manna which must fall every day round about the camp.
We can never meditate too much upon Christ’s blessed Person as God and as Man. Let us reflect that He who is here called a Man was certainly “very God of very God.” “A Man,” and, “a Man of sorrows,” and yet at the same time, “God over all, blessed forever.” He who was “despised and rejected of men” was beloved and adored by angels! And He, from whom men hid their faces in contempt, was worshipped by cherubim and seraphim! This is the great mystery of godliness. God was “manifest in the flesh.” He who was God and was in the beginning with God, was made flesh and dwelt among us.
The Highest stooped to become the Lowest. The Greatest took His place among the least. Strange, and needing all our faith to grasp it, yet it is true that He who sat upon the well of Sychar and said, “Give Me to drink,” was none other
than He who dug the channels of the ocean and poured into them the floods! Son of Mary, You are also Son of Jehovah! Man of the substance of Your mother, You are also essential Deity! We worship You this day in spirit and in truth! Remembering that Jesus Christ is God, it now behooves us to remember that His Manhood was none the less real and substantial. It differed from our own humanity in the absence of sin, but it differed in no other respect.
It is idle to speculate upon a heavenly Manhood, as some have done, who have, by their very attempt at accuracy, been borne down by whirlpools of error. It is enough for us to know that the Lord was born of a woman, wrapped in swaddling bands, laid in a manger and needed to be nursed by His mother as any other little child. He grew in stature like any other human being and as a Man we know that He ate and drank, that He hungered and thirsted, rejoiced and sorrowed. His body could be touched and handled, wounded and made to bleed. He was no phantom, but a Man of flesh and blood even as ourselves. He was a Man needing sleep, requiring food, and subject to pain—and a Man who, in the end—yielded up His life to death.