“With his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
Pilate delivered our Lord to the Roman soldiers to be scourged. The Roman scourge was a dreadful instrument of torture. It was made of the sinews of oxen, and sharp bones were inter-twisted every here and there among the sinews; so that every time the lash came down, these pieces of bone inflicted deep wounds, and tore off the flesh from the bone. The Savior was, no doubt, bound to the column, and beaten with one of these. He had been beaten before; but this one from the soldiers was probably the most severe. My soul, stand here and weep over his poor stricken body.
Believer in Jesus, can you gaze upon him without tears, as he stands before you, the mirror of agonizing love? He is at once fair as the lily for innocence, and red as the rose with the crimson of his own blood. As we feel the sure and blessed healing which his stripes have done in us, doesn’t our heart melt at once with love and grief? If ever we have loved our Lord Jesus, surely we must feel that affection glowing now within our hearts.
See how the patient Jesus stands,
Insulted in his lowest case!
Sinners have bound the Almighty’s hands,
And spit in their Creator’s face.
With thorns his temples gored and gashed
Send streams of blood from every part;
His back, with knotted scourges lashed.
But sharper scourges tear his heart.
We would gladly go to our chambers and weep; but since our business calls us away, we will first pray that our Beloved print the image of his bleeding self upon the tablets of our hearts all day, and at nightfall we will return to commune with him, and sorrow that our sin should have cost him so much.
Adapted from Morning and Evening.
