A MAN OF SORROWS

Isaiah foretold what Jesus would go through as one acquainted with grief, and if we genuinely identify with Him, our mantle will be as His.

He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Isaiah 53:3

When we came into this world, we initially took a rational view of life and believed that by controlling our instincts, we could evolve into good, upstanding individuals. But we continually stumbled, finally realizing that there was something short-circuiting our efforts ... the 'sin nature'. 

When the truth of one's guilt comes to the surface, you can then reconcile yourself to the idea that sin is the only explanation for why Jesus Christ came ... and the reason for the grief and sorrow He bore as God's 'Suffering Servant'. 

Spurgeon -

'A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief' ... With grief, he had an intimate acquaintance. He did not know merely what it was in others, but it came home to himself. We have read of grief, we have sympathized with grief, and we have sometimes felt grief: but the Lord felt it more intensely than other men in his innermost soul; he, beyond us all, was conversant with its dark depths. He knew the secret of the heart which refuses to be comforted. He had sat at grief’s table, eaten of grief’s black bread, and dipped his morsel in her vinegar. 

By the bitter waters of Marah, he dwelt. He and grief were close friends. It was a continuous acquaintance. He did not call at grief’s house sometimes to take a tonic by the way, neither did he sip now and then of the wormwood and the gall, but the bitter cup was always in his hand, and ashes were always mingled with his bread. 

It was indeed a growing acquaintance with grief, for each step took him deeper down into the grim shades of sorrow. The tempest loomed darker and darker. His sun rose in a cloud, but it set in congregated horrors of the heaped-up night. 

Till in a moment the clouds were suddenly rent in sunder and, as a loud voice proclaimed, ‘It is finished’, a glorious morning dawned where all expected an eternal night.

The life that Christians are to lead conflicts with the reality that they must endure. 

We need to be realistic about the problems we will encounter as believers in these last days. Though we are not as deeply acquainted with grief as was our Lord, it remains part of one's walk of faith ... true Christianity is not a superficial experience.