The sufferings of Jesus

I am conscious that all I can say concerning the sufferings of Jesus, this morning, will be but as a drop of the bucket. None of us know the half of the agony which he endured; none of us have ever fully comprehended the love of Christ which passes knowledge. Philosophers have probed the earth to its very center, threaded the spheres, measured the skies, weighed the hills — nay, weighed the world itself; but this is one of those vast, boundless things, which to measure does surpass all but the Infinite itself. As the swallow but skims the water, and dives not into its depths, so all the descriptions of the preacher but skim the surface, while depths immeasurable must lie far beneath our observation. Well might a poet say,

“O love, thou fathomless abyss!”

for this love of Christ is indeed measureless and fathomless.

From a sermon entitled "The Shameful Sufferer," delivered January 30, 1859. Flickr photo by Zarko Drincic; some rights reserved.