"With His stripes we are healed."

At home we have an updated revision of Spurgeon's most popular work, Morning and Evening. As indicated by the title, each day has two devotionals - one for the morning and one for (you guessed it!) the evening. This morning's devotional was especially moving in light of this being Holy Week, as our thoughts are centered on Jesus' death and resurrection.

In meditating on the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 53:5, "With His stripes we are healed," Spurgeon writes,

Pilate delivered our Lord to the Roman officers to be scourged. The Roman scourge was a most dreadful instrument of torture. It was made of the sinews of oxen. Sharp bones were intertwined here and there among the sinews, so that every time the lash came down, pieces of bone inflicted fearful lacerations and tore the flesh from the bone. The Savior was, no doubt, bound to the column, and thus beaten. He had been beaten before, but this beating by the Roman soldiers was probably the severest of His flagellations. My soul, stand here and weep over His poor stricken body. Believer in Jesus, can you gaze on Him without tears, as He stands before you the image 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 that His stripes have worked in us, do not our hearts 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 He temples gor'd and gash'd

Send streams of blood from every part;

His back's with knotted scourges lash'd.

But sharper scourges tear His heart.

We would gladly go to our rooms and weep; but since our business calls us away, we will first pray for our Beloved to print the image of His bleeding self on the tablets of our hearts throughout the day. At nightfall, we will return to commune with Him, and grieve that our sin should have cost Him so much.