May 15

"For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul." Jer. 31:25.

His preeminent fitness for this peculiar and difficult office is apparent. His identity with their very nature describes Him as well calculated to address Himself to their case. Of the nature thus oppressed and weary He in part partook. But for this, so infinitely removed had He been from their condition, He had been incapable of meeting its peculiar necessity. Absolute Deity could not, through the medium of sympathy, have conveyed a word of comfort to the weary. There had been wanting, not the power to relieve, but the mode of relieving, the oppressed and sorrowful heart. There had been needed the connecting and transmitting chain—the heavenly highway of thought, of feeling, and of sympathy—between these extremes of being, the loving heart of God and the desolate heart of man. Unacquainted with grief, untouched by sorrow, unbeclouded by care, unaffected by weariness, an absolute God could not possibly offer the support and the condolence which sympathetic feeling alone could give, and which a jaded spirit, a sorrow-touched, care-oppressed, and sin-beclouded soul demanded.

Nor could angels afford the help required. The only burden which they know is the burden of love; the only weariness they feel is the weariness of ever-burning devotion and zeal. It is this which gives strength to their wings, and swiftness to their flight. They are represented as "hearkening to the voice of the Lord," ready to speed their way on some embassy of mercy and love. In fulfilling this their ministry, their eye never slumbers, their pinions never droop. But we needed a nature so constituted as to enter into, and as it were become a part of, the very weariness it sought to relieve. Look at Jesus! "Behold the man!" With weariness in every form He was intimate; He knew what bodily weakness was. Do you not love to linger in pensive thoughtfulness over that touching incident of His life which describes Him as sitting fatigued upon Jacob's well? "Jesus, being wearied, sat thus on the well." Picture Him to your eye! See the dust upon His sandals, for He had walked forty miles that day—the sweat upon His brow, the air of languor upon His countenance, and the jaded expression in His eye! Do we deify His humanity? No. It was real humanity—humanity like our own. It is our joy, our boast, our glory, our salvation, that He was really man, as He was truly God.

Consider, too, what He endured for man, from man. This was no small part of the weariness of our nature into which He entered. How soon did He come to the end of the creature! Alas! the creature has an end, and sooner or later God brings us to it—and in the exercise, too, of the tenderest love of His heart. When most He needed its sheltering protection, He found the creature a withered gourd—and He bore His sorrow alone. And when He repaired to it for the refreshing of sympathy, He found it a broken cistern—and He panted in vain. Where were His disciples now? He was in trouble, but there was no one to help; He was in the storm, but no one would know Him; refuge failed Him, no man cared for His soul; He was in sorrow, but no bosom proffered its pillow; He was accused, but no tongue was heard in His defense; He was scourged, but no arm was lifted to repel; He was condemned, but no one vindicated His innocence, nor sought to arrest His progress to the cross! Oh how fully did Jesus realize the creature's nothingness, and so enter into His people's condition of weariness!