2. He was man — a man, therefore " a man of sorrows." In this time-world those two things shall not be severed. Bodily and mentally, the constitution of a son of man is such that escape is iinpossible. Look at that surface of the human frame which is exposed to outward injury. There runs beneath it, crossed and recrossed in windings inconceivable, a network of nerves, every fibre of which may become the home of pain. There is no inter- stice large enough to admit between them, in a space that does not feel, the finest needle's-point. Beneath all that there is a marvellous machinery. Man anatomised is like an instrument
1 F. W. Robertaon.
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of music. The combined action of ten hundred thousand strings, each moving in its moment and in its place, is the melody and the harmony of health ; but if one chord vibrate out of tune you have then the discord of the harp, the derangement of disease. Our bodies are strung to suffering. That we suffer is no marvel, that we want the repair of the physician is no wonder ; the marvel is this — that a harp of so many strings should keep in tune so long.
Look next at our mental machinery. These incomprehensible hearts of ours are liable to a derangement more terrible than bodily disorganisation. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear ? The inner mind, wrapped up as it seems by impenetrable defences, is yet more exposed to shocks and wounds than the outward skin tissue, and the sensitive network which encompasses that mind is a thousandfold more alive to agony than the nerves that quiver when they are cut. There is such a thing as disappointment in this world. There is such a thing as affection thrown back upon itself. There are such things as slight and injury and insult. There is such a thing as an industrious man finding all his efforts to procure an honest livelihood in vain, and looking upon his pale children with a heart crushed, to feel that there is nothing for them but the poorhouse. There is such a thing as a man going down the hill that leads into the sepulchre, and acknow- ledging as the shadows darken around him that life has been a failure. All this is sorrow ; and just because of the constitution with which he is born. In some form or other this is the portion of the son of man.
And we may remark this also — the susceptibility of suffering is the lot of the highest manhood. Just in proportion as man is exquisitely man, he is alive to endurance. There is a languid, relaxed frame of body in which pain is not keenly felt. The more complete the organisation the severer the endurance. Strong and able manhood suffers more the division of the nerve than softened debilitated frames. So it is with the spirit. The more emphatically you are the son of man, with human nature in its perfection in you, the more exquisitely can your feelings bleed. That which a base and a craven spirit smiles at, is torture to the noblest and the best. It was for this reason that Christ
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was in a peculiar sense the " Man of Sorrows," Things which rough and scornful men would have shaken from them without feeling, went home sharp and deep into His gentle and loving heart. The perfection of His humanity ensured for Him the perfection of endurance, " Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow,"
3. He was a Man of Sorrows in order to save us. For one man entirely at ease, in mind, body, and estate, how many, shall we say, are in a condition of discomfort, of conscious disquietude, in one of these respects, or in all ? Who is there without some definite drawback to entire satisfaction ? The health, or the income — the business, or the family — the affections, or the conscience — the past, or the future — how many could honestly say that in all these things they are entirely and absolutely happy ? Now just in proportion as there is a drawback to happiness, there is what we may call a natural affinity and attraction to Christ, Slow as we are to turn to Him in afflic- tion, we are slower still to turn to Him in prosperity. "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Not until the lights of earth are dimmed, do men commonly look out for the great, central, all-quickening light of heaven. " When He slew them, they sought Him." And then the thing which most touches them is the thought that the Saviour was a suffering man below ; that He tasted not of human joy, but drank to the dregs the cup of human grief ; that He was despised and rejected of men, bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, was Himself (in every sense) a Man of Sorrows, and profoundly acquainted with grief. It is this that makes Him a Saviour for all men and for the whole of life : for the sad as well as the joyful, for hours of gloom as well as for moments of gladness.