Is There Any Sorrow Like Christ's?

8/24 Reading Portions: 1 Samuel 16; Romans 14; Lamentations 1; Psalm 32

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of His fierce anger. From on high He sent fire; into my bones He made it descend; He spread a net for my feet; He turned me back; He has left me stunned, faint all the day long.” Lamentations 1:12-13

Jeremiah penned five dirges, or lamentations, about the fall of Judah and destruction of Jerusalem after the Babylonians’ third siege. Although he does not strictly follow the rules for an acrostic, such as we see in Psalm 119, Jeremiah provides the words of YHVH God’s heart from the Hebrew alef-beyt (alphabet). Moreover, although the five chapters in this book express the reality of the destruction of Jerusalem, as a prophet of God, Jeremiah provides God-breathed foreshadows into the person, ministry, and mission of the Messiah (John 5:39). Our portion today presents a few prophetic insights into Christ’s sufferings upon Calvary’s cross.

 When Jesus hung upon the cross, “those who passed by derided Him, wagging their heads” (Matt 27:39). Sin causes man to be so void of love, mercy, and compassion, when the unredeemed walked by to see a human being reduced to a beaten, bloody, brutalized stain of torn flesh pinned to a Roman cross, they acted as if it were meaningless, as if it was nothing to them. Christ’s very ravaged form upon the cross commands men to look and see and consider the depths of Christ’s grief (sorrow like my sorrow) when He suffered the holy justice of God for sins He did not commit (the LORD inflicted on the day of His fierce anger). God’s wrath was so severe, Jesus could even physically feel it in the depth of His being (sent fire; into my bones He made it descend). Because of the corruptions still remaining in our flesh, we also tend to take a casual, even complacent view of Christ’s cross. The only remedy is to keep at Christ’s cross and to know Christ’s sorrows.

The cross of Christ, God’s sorrow rais’d
In shameful misery;
He bore the weight of our sin’s shame
While pinn’d upon a tree.

“Is There Any Sorrow Like Christ’s?” Lamentations 1:12-13

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