In the ancient history we read that the citizens of Rome, when they beheld the mangled body and the gory mantle of Cæsar, rushed forth in fury to be avenged upon his murderers. So will the heart of every true believer, when he sees the wounds of Jesus, be stirred up to mutiny and rage—against himself, against those sins which caused the shedding of that innocent blood.
And such emotions best become this solemn time. The language of this sad event is this—“Scarcely for a righteous man will one die, peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die, but God commendeth His love to us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Come, then, to the hallowed scene of Immanuel’s death. Come, and anoint His body with tears of godly sorrow, and swathe it in the fine linen of undissembled love. If David, in that most plaintive of all elegies, could say over the slaughtered bodies of Saul and Jonathan, “Weep, O daughters of Jerusalem, over Saul who clothed you in scarlet, and put ornaments of gold upon your apparel,” much more may we say, “Weep, ye believers in Jesus, weep over the King of Salem, who clothes you with righteousness and crowns you with salvation.”
And are there some among you mourning the loss of dear relatives, departed this life in God’s faith and fear? I bid you look upon the tomb of Christ, and learn what it is to have sorrow sweetened by grace and sanctified by truth. If their Saviour strengthened them amid the weakness of mortality to glory in His cross, and practically to exclaim, “O death, where is thy sting; O grave, where is thy victory?”—if now you feel that the fairest flowers you can strew over their memory are those of faith and hope and love, why should your hearts be heavy and your spirits faint! Know ye not that Christ hath laid them in his own resting-place, and that all who sleep in Jesus, God shall bring with Him? Precious Gospel! which has brought life and immortality to light; which bids us “not be ignorant concerning them that are asleep”—which tells us that our departed brethren are blessed, and that when we too shall come to the shores of the better land, we shall be welcomed by them arrived before us—that we shall together walk along the golden streets of the holy city, and sit down together by the fountains of joy which adorn and beautify our common home.
But whatever may be our private griefs, whatever the hopes we cherish of departed friends, let the burial and grave of Christ remind us that we must die, and that after death there is the judgment. It appeals to the thoughtless and the careless and the gay, with a searching enquiry, “When will your spirit be at rest?” when corruption preys upon your body, it asks “are you united to the Saviour? Have your submitted to the righteousness of God, and renounced your own, as a sinner guilty and hell-deserving? Have you fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before you on the cross of Christ? Or are you yet dead in trespasses and sins—a captive to Satan—a vessel fitted for destruction?”
Men and brethren, the fashion of this world passeth away, the grave, and the mourners, and the funeral train, are preparing for us all. Then it is high time to awake out of sleep.
And now, “O Lord, grant that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with Him; and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for His merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
London: D. Batten, Printer and Publisher, Clapham Common.