II. Consider how we may bear the burdens of others.—1. We can bear them on our hearts in prayer. 2. We can lighten the burden by friendly help. 3. We can by the strength of our sympathies come under the burdens of others.
III. Bearing the burdens of others is the chief way by which we can fulfil the law of Christ.—Nothing will give us such a resemblance to Him. He lives solely for others. He came voluntarily under the burden of man’s miseries, sacrificing Himself for the race.
IV. Consider the importance of obeying this injunction.—1. For our own sakes. 2. For the good of others. 3. For the prosperity of the Church.—The Lay Preacher.
Ver. 5. Burden-bearing.
I. There is the burden of personal responsibility.—This comes out in the formation of character.
II. There is the burden of toil.—Among the steep precipitous mountains of Thibet the traveller meets long processions of hungry, ill-clad Chinamen, carrying enormous loads of tea. There they go, climb, climbing day after day up the rough sides of the mountains, each with his great burden on his back, eyes fixed on the ground, all silent, stepping slowly, and leaning on great iron-pointed sticks, till the leader of the gang gives the signal for a halt, and, after standing for a few minutes, the heavy load again falls on the back and head, the body is again bent towards the ground, and the caravan is once more in motion. You do not wonder that, with a task so monotonous, these poor drudges should acquire a dreary, stupid look, little better than beasts of burden; and you feel sorry for those in whose lives there is a large amount of the like irksome and exhausting routine. Yet there are many who, in order to earn their daily bread, must go through a similar task.
III. There is the burden of sorrow.—Sorrow dwells beneath a king’s robes as much as beneath a peasant’s cloak; the star of the noble, the warrior’s corslet, the courtier’s silken vesture, cannot shut it out. That rural home is such a picture of peace we cannot believe that care or tears are there. That noble castle amidst ancient trees is surely lifted up in its calm grandeur above sighs and sadness. Alas! it is not so. Man is the tenant of both, and wherever man dwells sorrow is sure to be with him.
IV. There is one burden which it is wrong to bear.—It is a sin and a shame to you if you are still plodding along under the burden of unpardoned transgression. The load of guilt, the feeling that our sin is too great for the blood of Christ to expiate, or the grace of God to pardon—this burden it is wrong to bear.—Dr. James Hamilton.
Bearing our Burdens Alone.
I. The loneliness of each one of us.—One of the tendencies of these bustling times it to make us forget that we are single beings, detached souls. Each great star flung out like an atom of gold dust into space may seem lost amid the hundreds of millions of mightier worlds that surround; and yet no; it rolls on, grave in itself, careering in its own orbit, while its sister-stars sweep round on every side. We stand cut off from one another. We are to stave up side by side our own destiny, we are to be alone with our burdens, not lost in the forest of human lives.