DEAR Christian reader, what wonderful words are these: “I clothe the heaven: with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering. The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.” (Isa. 1:3, 4.) The infinite, the eternal One, the Son of God, Jesus our Lord, ha! condescended to become a Servant. He, who does as He will with the heavens He made, has humbled Himself to the likeness of men!
When upon this earth, the heart of Jesus was open to the weary and afflicted, and it His marvelous service of love and of suffering, He in each act of His life glorified Hi: God and Father.
The blessed Lord has learned in His perfect humanity the loving wisdom to speak to the weary hearts of the children of men God spake words of sweet comfort to His people through His prophets of old, through His servants, David, Isaiah, and others; but “never man spake like this Man.” Till Jesus spake, never did such words as these fall into the hearts of the weary: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The tongue of the learned, the tenderest utterances of the heart of God to man, are Jesus’s only and as we are near Him in spirit we learn His love and catch His words, the reception of which fills the longing hearer with rest and gladness.
“Morning by morning,” says the prophetic word, “He wakeneth―he wakened mine ear to hear as the learner.” The blessed attention of the Holy Servant of God is before us. It is not as if the Lord God gave His Son one gracious direction only to carry out when He became the Servant, but “morning by morning” He received the word from His God. We read of Him, “At that time Jesus answered and said.” His ear was ever open to the words of God; He received continual directions from Him.
The “learned” one, fellow Christian, is not the wise man as men reckon, nor, indeed as we even very frequently regard him; the learned is he who is taught of God. Do not forget our Master’s frequently-uttered words, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear;” for such as have ears wakened to the words of God, being learners, become learned. Let us seek this wisdom, for there is none like it. Hearing is not the easy acquirement we often suppose. To begin with, there must be an ear to hear, and this is of God’s grace.
Now, regarding the Lord Jesus in His service on earth as the example, let us not forget His prayers. After the wondrous events of the day of His ministry recorded by Mark in the opening of his gospel, he tells us, “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” (ch. 1:35.) We may reverently say the events of each day of the adorable Servant on earth were all formed at the direction of His Father. His perfections in His service we cannot tell―they are beyond our grasp. We know, however, He did always the things that pleased His Father, and that He ever was the dependent Man. The evangelist, who tells us how Jesus knew the thoughts of the Pharisees who were in madness at His grace and love, bids us know, almost in the next breath, “And it came to pass in those days, that He went into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.” (Luke 6:8-12.) Knowledge of the thoughts of men; all night in prayer to God; what contrasts, but mysteries of wisdom!
The gracious Servant, our Lord Jesus, having begun His ministry, continued it to the end; He “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” “The Lord God hath opened mine ear,” is the prophetic word, “and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.” In the judgments set before Israel (Ex. 21) relative to the Hebrew servant, we learn that the Hebrew who became a servant was entitled to freedom in the seventh year. There was no obligation imposed upon him that his sabbatic year, as we may express it, his rest year, should be one of servitude. Now if his master had given him a wife during his servitude, then he could not take her and his children into liberty, and thus he had the option of remaining a servant. He was entitled to liberty, but he could abide a servant in love. “If the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.”
Now our gracious Lord says, “Mine ear hast Thou opened.” In figure His ear had been pierced, He had elected to serve, Hip was the constraint of love, for we remember His words, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” (Matt. 26:53, 54)
He was not rebellious. He went on to the end in the service Jehovah had appointed. He offered Himself in love to the bitterest shame and to the most cruel treatment―yes, at the very hands of those He came to serve. He was the scorn of the drunkard, the sport of idle men, the derision of the mighty. Bin He turned not away back―no; on, on He went in the path of love’s service. Thrice He fell on His knees in Gethsemane crying to His Father to remove, if it were possible, the cup from Him, but no, and He took the cup from His Father’s hand.
Then did this blessed Servant surrender Himself to blasphemy and scorn. He was smitten, He was spit upon; they plucked the hair from His cheeks; and so He died in love for us! His dying hours were the occasion for men for whom He died to insult His person and to aggravate His grief. Way ever love like this, or were ever sorrows like unto His in the day Jehovah afflicted Him? It is, and ever will be, a mystery that God could so love us, and that His Son could so die for us. His love is as great as His power. His greatness shines not only it His heavens and His storms; we see it and adore, as we see Him crucified through weakness, Jesus our Saviour.