Something really special to share with you, friends: a very special song called Jesus, Man of Sorrows. Let’s savour it to the full and take it to heart. After that, I have shared some thoughts and insights along the lines that it inspires about walking with Jesus, the Man of Sorrows.
At this time when so many songs seem to be veering towards a decidedly ‘me’-centred focus, this one expresses instead a deep longing to be taken up with things that are on His heart.
Many of the best of the old hymns are wonderful statements and declarations of who the Lord is, often couched in beautiful poetry. How grateful we can be for the steady and solid base that they have provided for generations of believers, drawing on biblical teaching and inspiring us to press on to worship the Lord. I love what the Irish poet and hymn writer Cecil Frances Alexander wrote in her great Christmas hymn, that Jesus both ‘feeleth for our sadness, and shareth in our gladness.’ He who is so is glorious in majesty, yet deeply and perfectly identifies with all our joys and griefs.
The best worship songs move on still further to direct our focus attention on the Lord not in the slightly ‘impersonal’ third person form, but rather address Him directly: ‘You are: beautiful beyond description . . . from everlasting to everlasting . . . You are here . . . You are the Lord and that is Your name . . .’ Praise God, we can come up with almost limitless such expressions of love and awe-filled intimacy.
If some praise meetings feel perilously close to parties in that their primary goal almost appear to imply that we are seeking the Lord so that we can feel better, and be blessed in what we are doing, thank God for deeply tender songs as this one by Steffany. These come wrapped in a very different spirit from the ME-generation, inviting us to share the heart of the Lord – who is a Man of Sorrows as well as the King of Glory. Here we find a deep longing to share in all of the Lord – even when He is mourning over things that are grievous; a heart that aches to know Christ in all His fulness, and to know both the power of His resurrection and to share in His sufferings, as Paul so passionately puts it. (Phil. 3:10)
You, dear friends, are like those disciples whom Jesus commended for standing by Him in His trials – and on whom He promised that a kingdom would be conferred, just as His Father conferred one on Him. (Luke 22:28-29) How utterly precious!
To those who are used to worshipping the exalted King of Kings, however, the idea of us comforting the Man of Sorrows may sound somewhat strange. Many godly mystics through the centuries have certainly understood and promoted this concept, but who are we to do so? And how? Indeed, is it even right to think along such lines?
I look at it this way. In His love and identification with His world, and with each of us, Jesus can never take a day off. Whereas most who seek to minister to the needs of the world’s most needy people can (and need to) relax at the end of the day, in His love He can never take His eyes off those who are His and in who are seeking His constant help and guidance – as well as those who are far from His heart, but whom He is longing to draw to Himself.
When we think of how the Lord has to listen day and night to the incessant schemes of dictators and narcissists, and the self-pitying whines of those who think only of their own pleasures and entitlements, how precious it is to the Lord when He find a person, a family, or better still a whole fellowship whose one great desire is to share His heart. Just think how much that means to Him!
May our hearts be both a furnace of love for those who are in need of His saving grace, and as it were a garden for the Lord to walk in. As opposed to being, as ours so often feels more like, gardens that are in constant need of His pruning and attention!
Even if we can but still our heart to share a few moments with the Lord in this way, seeking to focus more on His concerns than ours, Jesus sees and appreciates it. And when we deliberately choose to walk with others as they go through their various ‘mills’ and difficulties, and seek to comfort them in their struggles and sorrows, are we not walking with Jesus the Man of Sorrows then too? We share His acquaintance with grief, and, like Him, have the joy of seeing the fruit and the light that comes as a result of intense spiritual labour. (Is. 53:3,10-11)
Praise God for those who are willing to share our heart and hurts in this way – and praise Him when He empowers us to do as much for others. This is very much part and parcel of fulfilling what Steffany was singing about in this song; how He identifies Himself completely with us – and how, when we identify with walk alongside others who are hurting, we are doing it unto Him, and are fellowshipping with Jesus, who is the Man of Sorrows as well as with the fount and author of our joy.
Let’s make it our aim to try to do this consciously, and as we do so to note what He shows us about His own heart, as well as who He leads us to identify with in such ways.
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