Expositions of Holy Scripture: the ActsMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries
Then, again, we have His manhood emphasised when His sympathy is to be
commended to our hearts. 'The great High Priest, who is passed into the
heavens' is '_Jesus_' ... 'who was in all points tempted like as we
are.' To every sorrowing soul, to all men burdened with heavy tasks,
unwelcome duties, pains and sorrows of the imagination, or of the
heart, or of memory, or of physical life, or of circumstances--to all
there comes the thought, 'Every ill that flesh is heir to' He knows by
experience, and in the Man Jesus we find not only the pity of a God,
but the sympathy of a Brother.
When one of our princes goes for an afternoon into the slums in East
London, everybody says, and says deservedly, 'right!' and 'princely!'
_This_ prince has learned pity in 'the huts where poor men lie,' and
knows by experience all their squalor and misery. The Man Jesus is the
sympathetic Priest. The Rabbis, who did not usually see very far into
the depth of things, yet caught a wonderful glimpse when they said:
'Messias will be found sitting outside the gate of the city _amongst
the lepers_.' That _is_ where He sits; and the perfectness of His
sympathy, and the completeness of His identification of Himself with
all our tears and our sorrows, are taught us when we read that our High
Priest is not merely Christ the Official, but Jesus the Man.
And then we find such words as these: 'If we believe that _Jesus_ died
and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring
with Him': I think any one that reads with sympathy must feel how very
much closer to our hearts that consolation comes, 'Jesus rose again,'
than even the mighty word which the Apostle uses on another occasion,
'Christ is risen from the dead.' The one tells us of the risen
Redeemer, the other tells us of the risen Brother. And wherever there
are sorrowing souls, enduring loss and following their dear ones into
the darkness with yearning hearts, they are comforted when they feel
that the beloved dead lie down beside their Brother, and with their
Brother they shall rise again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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