Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

March 31– Morning

 by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and edited by W. C. Neff

“With his stripes we are healed.” 

—Isaiah 53:5

 

The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, delivered our Lord to the soldiers to be scourged. The Roman whip was a most 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 terrible lacerations and tore off the flesh from the bone. Jesus was, no doubt, bound to the column and beaten like this in a most severe manner.

It is right to stand here for a moment and weep over his poor stricken body. Believer in Jesus, can you gaze upon him without tears as he stands before you— the very mirror of agonizing love? He is at the same time pale in his innocence and “rose-red” with the crimson of his own blood.

As we feel the sure and blessed healing that his stripes have accomplished 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. It would be right for us to go to weep in privacy for a while, but if we are unable to do that right now, let’s ask our Savior to print the image of his bleeding self upon our minds and hearts until we can return to commune with him and be sorry that our sin should have cost him so much. [M&E]