The Sin-Bearer
Isaiah liii. 6 v. “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
What a burdened conscience! It must have been the most burdened conscience in the world. Yet, this man was personally sinless. How can we account for the anomaly? How can we reconcile the burden with the blamelessness? Easily; nothing can explain the burden hut the blamelessness. Do you know what sinlessness is? It is perfect unselfishness. And do you know what perfect unselfishness is? It is the breaking of the partition between my life and other lives. You have a large room, beautifully furnished, and a little ante-room, separated by a wall, and badly furnished. You break clown the wall and make them one room; and you have lost the prestige of your furniture. The large room has taken in the little one with all its imperfections; it has borne its sins. If it were to become conscious, it would be aware of blemishes within it not its own. So was it with the Divine Man. He broke the middle wall of partition between His room and your room. He destroyed the barrier between the large and the small apartment; He made of twain one. He allowed your mean furniture to blend with His costly adornments. He felt your life to be a part of His life. He was mesmerised by love. He looked at His brother’s temptations, and said, “They did it unto Me.” He bore in His own body the pain of other bodies. It was not the sense of pity; it was the sense of identity — the identity of love. It was His unselfishness that gave Him a universal conscience — “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
Son of Man, let this mind be in me which was also in Thee. It is the sameness of mind that is the test of communion. Thou art never so near to me as when I think like Thee. Break the partition between my room and my j 2 brother’s room. Grive me the sense of one apartment — of membership in the same bocty. Destroy mere pity; it is the barrier-wall from which I look down. Give me the identity of love. Lend me Thy sense of a common life. Create within me the pain of my brother — not the pain for him, but the pain that should be in him. Inspire me with the remorse which he should feel. Impel me to the sacrifice which he should bear. Force me to discharge the debts which he should pay. I shall be nearest life when I have most of Thy death. Thy hand shall be laid very tenderly upon me when Thou hast laid on me my brother’s sin.