Acquainted With Grief

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The sufferings of humanity ever touched the heart and called forth the sympathy and love of Christ. He exercised pity and compassion toward those who were afflicted in soul or body. His example in the matter of treating the suffering and afflicted should teach us how to have compassion and pity for the sufferings of His creatures.

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Christ had suffered in the flesh. He had clothed His divinity with humanity, and in every period of His life, through infancy, childhood, youth, and manhood, He had suffered every phase of trial and temptation with which humanity is beset. He knew what it was to suffer keen pangs of hunger, and He has given special lessons in regard to feeding the hungry and caring for the needy poor, and has declared that in ministering to the needy we are ministering unto Himself in the person of His saints. He says, «I was an hungered and ye gave me meat.» He knew the discomfort and suffering of thirst, and He declared that a cup of cold water given in His name to any of His disciples should not lose its reward.

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He was often weary, oppressed with poverty, and He experienced the taxation of acting His part to support the family of which He was a member. He suffered reproach, and experienced the bitter hostility of those who knew Him not. In His own home He was made to suffer the discomfort and sorrow that results from envy and jealousy. His brethren thought that it was their privilege to exercise authority over Him, and presume to dictate to Him what should be His course. The misapprehension of His relatives was most painful to Him, because His own heart was full of kindness and love, and He appreciated tender regard in the family relation. But His own brethren often wounded and grieved His heart. They desired that He should concede to their wishes and ideas when such a course would be utterly out of harmony with His divine mission. The statement is made in the Scriptures, «Neither did His brethren believe on Him.»

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Oh, if His brethren, the members of His own family, had been His friends, what a comfort they might have been to Him! The life of Christ was far superior to that of His home relations. They were not all converted, and they looked upon Christ as one in need of their advice and counsel. They judged Him from their human standpoint, and they thought that if He would only be advised by them, and speak only such things before the scribes and Pharisees as would not arouse their hostility, He would avoid all the disagreeable controversy that His words aroused. They charged Him with blame for many things that He said, and declared that He ought to have left them unsaid.

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They could not fathom by their short human measuring line the divine mission which He came to fulfil, and therefore could not be partakers with Him of His trials. Their coarse, unappreciative words revealed the fact that they had no conception of the fine texture of His character, and did not discern that the divine blended with the human. They often saw Him full of grief, but instead of comforting Him, their spirit and words only grieved His heart. His sensitive nature was tortured, His motives misunderstood, His work uncomprehended. So pained was Christ by the atmosphere of misapprehension in His own home, that He felt relieved when He could be in a place where it did not exist, and where His spirit could rest. He loved to visit the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. Here His spirit found rest, and His motive and words were not misconstrued and misapprehended.

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His brethren often brought forward the philosophy of the Pharisees, which was hoary with age and threadbare, and presumed to think that they could teach Him who understood all truth and comprehended all mysteries. He was the Author of truth, and His soul was wearied and distressed. He found relief in being alone, and in communing with His heavenly Father. His brethren thought their wisdom was far superior to that of Jesus, and did not apprehend that He was the fountain of all wisdom and knowledge. They freely condemned that which they could not understand, and their reproaches probed Him to the quick. They avowed faith in God, and thought that they were vindicating God, when God was with them in the flesh, and they knew Him not. These things made His path a thorny one to travel.