Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3360
“Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Behold, and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord has afflicted me in the day ofHis fierce anger.” Lamentations 1:12.
THIS was the lamentation of Jeremiah. As he saw the desolation of the beloved city, as he marked the cruelties inflicted by the invaders upon the Jewish youth, children and maidens, and as he foresaw the long years of bitterness reserved for the captives in Babylon, he felt as if he were a peer in the realm of misery—indeed peerless. He stands foremost, a very emperor of grief, a king of sighs and tears. “Behold, and see,” he said, “if there was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me.”
But may there not have been griefs as great as those of Jeremiah? Is the language that flows from his lips strictly accurate? Like most of the periods which flow from abundant grief, is there not some exaggeration here? If we take the words out of the mouth of Jeremiah and put them into the mouth of Jesus—if we suppose them to be spoken by Him, as, hanging on the Cross He did bear the wrath of God for us, then there is no hyperbole, no exaggeration! The words may be read as they stand—and stand as we read them—and their fullest weight shall not outweigh the truth!
This evening two things challenge our attention—an earnest expostulation—“Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by?” And a solemn question—“Behold, and see, was there ever sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me?” First—
I. An Earnest Expostulation
The Son of God has become Incarnate. He became Man out of love to men. But men loved Him not and though in Him was every perfection, they hunted and hounded Him to death! The story is told four times over by Inspired authority in this Book, but the mass of mankind feel no concern in it. I come here tonight and I say to many of you—does not the story of Jesus at all interest you? You heard it read just now, did it fall flat and stale upon your ears? Did you say to yourselves, “It is dry work to listen to that. There is nothing there to strike the attention. If I had taken up a newspaper and had read of some murder, my wits would have been all awakened, but in the hearing of this death of Christ, I feel not at all stirred.” Well, then, I ask you—Why is this? Why is it so? If there is anything in all the world that ought to interest a man, it is the death of Christ! Yet I find men, learned men, spending year after year in sorting out butterflies, beetles and gnats, or in making out the various orders of shells, or in digging into the earth and seeking to discover what strange creatures once floundered through the boundless mire, or swam in the vast seas! I find men occupied with things of no sort of practical moment and which, to me, do not seem so wonderfully enchanting. Yet the story of God, Himself, who deigned to become a man and as a Man suffered, and bled, and died, is thought to be too small a trifle for minds to dwell upon it. O reason! Where have you gone? O judgment! Where have you fled? Men spend their strength on trifles, but on God Incarnate they turn their backs!
It is strange that even the sufferings of Christ do not attract the attention of men, for generally if we hear any sad story of the misfortunes of our fellow creatures, we are interested. The newspaper is accounted more than usually interesting which contains full particulars of shipwrecks, the blowing down of houses, murders, shootings, killings and I do not know what! Everybody has felt he could read such a paper as that because it concerned his fellow men—what they had lost and what they had suffered. Everyone stops to hear the tale of the ancient mariner! Even the wedding guest is held while he, with the earnest eyes, tells how he suffered on the wide, deep, stagnant sea. And yet this story of a Man who came to our earth with no motive but love, and lived here to do nothing but good, and yet was so despised and rejected as
to be nailed to a cross, and there made to die in the midst of jeers, sneers, pains and unknown agonies—this does not interest men! I marvel, and yet I marvel not at the strange indifference of this age to the wonders of Calvary! How is it Earth does not stretch out her hands and say, “Come and tell us of the God that loved us and came down to our low estate—and suffered for us men and for our salvation”? How is it that the crowds of this great city do not come and besiege our houses and say, “Tell us yet again this strange, mysterious story of the sufferings of the perfect Son of God”? It ought to interest us, if nothing more! Is it nothing to you, however? Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by?