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‘They gave Him vinegar to drink … and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink.’
Mat_27:34
I. Endurance to the end.—What is our lesson from this last act of self-denial of Jesus Christ? Is it not this, that to suffer pain which we may evade if we will, to endure unto the end, is often the most imperative of duties? A commonplace lesson, indeed; but it is just these commonplace lessons that are hardest to learn.
(a) In the ordinary affairs of business we often see a man lose all profit of his toil, because he will not take the small additional pains which are needed to bring his machinery or his organisation to perfection. After long toil, effort becomes enfeebled, and enthusiasm wanes; and it is only the exceptional man who is so determined of purpose and so completely master of himself that he will endure the pains of labour up to the end.
(b) Or, again, in domestic life, is it not in little acts of self-denial rather than in great that character most truly displays itself? It is often because a man or woman will not give up some trivial indulgence, will not undertake some trivial daily task, that the happiness of a home is endangered.
(c) Or in the personal life of the soul, is it not by small decisions that the religious character is formed? It is, perhaps, in the pains which we experience when we resist temptation that we approach most nearly to that state which St. Paul describes as being crucified with Christ. Our pains are not, indeed, comparable to His. Nay! and yet we, too, must not only endure, but—they are His own words—take up the cross.
II. Fellowship with His sufferings.—There is a pain of renunciation which you are called to endure for a season at least. You may refuse to give up any of your time to the claims of God’s Church or His poor on the plea that you have no leisure. But remember that the pain entailed in the consecration of our leisure to the service of God rather than to the indulgence of self may be the very pain by which we shall best appropriate to ourselves Christ’s message in His Passion. To be crucified with Him means more than to be affected with a passing emotion by the Tragedy of the Cross.
Dean Bernard.