118 Sympathy

Sympathy, by Octavius Winslow. Jesus wept, John 11, verse 35. The creator of all worlds, the author of all beings, the upholder of the universe, raining tears of human woe and sympathy upon a grave. Oh, there lies not a being in the universe who can enter into our bereavements with the sympathy, the support, and the soothing of Christ. They were tears of sympathy. His heart was not only touched with the sense of his own personal affliction, but it was also touched, deeply touched, with sympathy for the sorrow of others. He wept because the mourning sisters wept. He mingled his tears with theirs. This is true sympathy, weeping with those that weep, making their sorrow our own. How really our Lord does this with his people. So completely is he our surety that he takes our sins and infirmities, our trials and sorrows upon himself as if they were all and entirely his own. Our sins were so completely laid upon him that not one remains charged to the account of those who believe in Jesus. And our present griefs are so entirely absorbed in him that, softened by his love, soothed by his sympathy, supported by his grace, trial is welcome, affliction is sweet, and the rod of a father's chastening buds and blossoms into delectable fruit. Bereaved mourner, the sympathy of Christ is yours. The Savior who wept at the grave of Bethany now shares your grief and joins your tears. Deem not your sorrow as isolated or that your tears are forbidden or unseen. You have a merciful and faithful High Priest who is touched with your present calamity. There exists no sympathy so real, so intelligent, so deep, so tender, so sanctifying as Christ's sympathy. And if your Heavenly Father has seen it wise and good to remove from you the spring of human pity, it is but that he may draw you closer beneath the wing of Jesus's compassion, presence, and love. O child of sorrow, will not this suffice, that you possess Christ's sympathy, immeasurable and exhaustless as the ocean, exquisite and changeless as his being? Yield your heart to his rich compassion. Will Jesus be regardless of what I feel and the sorrows under which I groan? Oh no, the sigh which bursts in secret from my heart is not secret to him. The tear which is my food day and night and drops unperceived and unknown is known and remembered by him. You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56 verse 8.