Octavius Winslow on Christ's Sufferings

I have had a post 'percolating' for the past couple weeks and I just haven't been able to get back to it and finish it.

I have been hanging out in Matt 26 for a while--so long as a matter of fact that I forgot what chapter number it was and when asked was calling it Matt 29--which doesn't exist. I have been captured by the passion of Christ. I can't stop reading and re-reading about the Son of Man and his personal walk through the valley of the shadow of death. One of these days I will post some more on things I have found there (Lord willing). However, my wife received a fantastic quote from a guy I have never heard of before and it was like--Boom!--the very things I was scratching for. He wrote it with such confidence, passion and beauty. You have probably read it on Heather's blog, but I have it here below as well. I made a comment on her blog and thought it might be a good beginning to some posts I've been wanting to 'spawn.'

"We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 4:15. See Him bearing our sicknesses and our sorrows; more than this, carrying our iniquities and our sins. Think not that your path is a isolated one. The incarnate God has trodden it before you, and He can give you the clear eye of faith to see His footprint in every step. Jesus can say, and He does say to you, "I know your sorrow; I know what that cross is, for I have carried it. You have not a burden that I did not bear, nor a sorrow that I did not feel, nor a pain that I did not endure, nor a path that I did not tread, nor a tear that did not bedew my eye, nor a cloud that did not shade my spirit, before you, and for you. Is it bodily weakness? I once walked forty miles, to carry the living water to a poor sinner at Samaria. Is it the sorrow of bereavement? I wept at the grave of my friend, although I knew that I was about to recall the loved one back again to life. Is it the frailty and the fickleness of human friendship? I stood by and heard my person denied by lips that once spoke kindly to me; lips now renouncing me with an oath that once vowed affection unto death. Is it straitness of circumstance, the galling sense of dependence? I was no stranger to poverty, and was often nourished and sustained by the charity of others. Is it that you are houseless and friendless? So was I. The foxes have their shelter, and the birds their nests; but I, though Lord of all, had nowhere to lay my head; and often day after day passed away, and no soothing accents of friendship fell upon my ear. Is it the burden of sin? Even that I bore in its accumulated and tremendous weight when I hung accursed upon the tree." - Octavius Winslow

Thank God for Octavius Winslow. Praise Him even more for the book of Hebrews and the Incarnation! A God who became a man and can now in experience and empathy know the pain and the darkness that we encounter in this life (Heb 4:14-16). One benefit of trial is that because he 'shared in our sufferings', we can now, in each of our trials, understand and empathize a little bit more with His sufferings. Holy and 'happy' fellowship! O to know Jesus more!