Luke xii. 50. I have a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished !
ANY one who understands the true nature of Christianity would suppose that the religion of Jesus must of necessity approve itself to the heart and judgment of every person to whom it is proclaimed ; and, above all, that the Founder of it, in whom every species and degree of excellence were combined, must, so far as his character is made known, be an object of universal approbation. But the very reverse of this has proved to be the fact, even as our blessed Lord himself declared it would be. In the verse before my text, he says, " I am come to send fire on the earth." And in the verse after my text, he puts
the question to us ; " Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth ? I tell you, Nay ; but rather division ;" and such a division, too, as shall separate from each other the nearest and dearest relatives3. As to himself, he states, that he had nothing but the bitterest persecution to expect, so long as he should continue upon earth : and that, in fact, he longed for the period when the storm should burst upon him : " I have a baptism to be baptized with : and how am I straitened till it be accomplished ! "
In discoursing on these words, it will be proper for me to shew,
I. What a fearful " baptism " awaited him —
In baptism, the whole body was frequently im- mersed under water : and, in reference to this, our blessed Lord calls his own sufferings " a baptism ;" because he was about to be whollv immersed in sorrow, and to become, to an extent that no other person ever did or could become, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief V
Inconceivably great were the agonies of his body —
[We forbear to notice his privations during the course of his ministry: when he, on many occasions, " had not where to lay his head." We will notice only his sufferings during the short period of one single day. Follow him, after his seizure by those who were sent to apprehend him, and see how he was treated at the tribunals of his judges : see him arrayed in mock majesty, insulted in every possible way, spit upon, smitten in the face, and the crown of thorns driven into his temples : see him scourged, so that " long and deep furrows were made upon his back :" see him fastened to the cross by nails driven through his hands and feet; and the cross, with him suspended on it, descending with such violence into the hole prepared for its reception, that almost all " his bones were dislocated" by the shock c : see him left thus in the midst of all imaginable indig- nities, till he should be relieved by death : surely " his visage was marred more than any man's, and his form more than the sons of mend :" so that it may well be asked, " Was ever sor- row like unto his sorrow e ? " ]
a ver. 49, 51—53. b Isai. liii. 3. c Ps. xxii. 14.
d Isai. Hi. 14. e Lam. i. 12.