The Man with the bruised heel & crown of thorns!''

Back to THE LOVINGNESS OF JESUS 2

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from Bonar's book, "The Night of Weeping" 

Jesus' crucifixion was but the closing scene of a whole life of crucifixion! 

He was a cross bearer from the hour that He was laid in the manger. All His days He bore the cross. His life was but a pilgrimage to Calvary with the cross upon His shoulders.
His whole course on earth was a mournful way.

It was all reproach and sorrow from His cradle to His grave. His was a sorrowing life; His death was but the summing up of His many sorrows, the gathering of them all together and pressing them into His cup at once, until the vessel burst, because it could hold no more. 

Throughout life He was the "man of sorrows." 

He was "acquainted with grief." 

His bruised heel is only another way of expressing His character as the suffering, the crucified Son of Man. 

It is the Man with the bruised heel who has won our hearts! 

It is He whom we follow; and His bruised heel we engrave upon our banner as our most honorable badge. 

We are followers of the Man with the pierced hands and feet, the Man who is covered all over with the marks of the buffet and the scourge and the spitting, the Man with the crown of thorns!