'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ,' not
only as spoken by His lips, but as set forth in the pattern of His life.
We have, then, to turn to Him, and think of Him as Burden-bearer in even
a deeper sense than the psalmist had discerned, who magnified God as 'He
who daily beareth our burdens.'
Christ is the Burden-bearer of our sin. 'The Lord hath laid'--or made to
meet--'upon Him the iniquity of us all.' The Baptist pointed his lean,
ascetic finger at the young Jesus, and said, 'Behold the Lamb of God
which beareth'--and beareth away--'the sin of the world.' How heavy the
load, how real its pressure, let Gethsemane witness, when He clung to
human companionship with the unutterably solemn and plaintive words, 'My
soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death. Tarry ye here and watch
with Me.' He bore the burden of the world's sin.
Jesus Christ is the bearer of the burden of the consequences of sin, not
only inasmuch as, in His sinless humanity, He knew by sympathy the
weight of the world's sin, but because in that same humanity, by
identification of Himself with us, deeper and more wonderful than our
plummets have any line long enough to sound the abysses of, He took the
cup of bitterness which our sins have mixed, and drank it all when He
said, 'My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?' Consequences still
remain: thank God that they do! 'Thou wast a God that forgavest them,
and Thou didst inflict retribution on their inventions.' So the outward,
the present, the temporal consequences of transgression are left
standing in all their power, in order that transgressors may thereby be
scourged from their evil, and led to forsake the thing that has wrought
them such havoc. But the ultimate consequence, the deepest of all,
separation from God, has been borne by Christ, and need never be borne
by us.
I suppose I need not dwell on the other aspects of this burden-bearing
of our Lord, how that He, in a very deep and real sense, takes upon
Himself the sorrows which we bear in union with, and faith on, Him. For
then the griefs that still come to us, when so borne, are transmitted
into 'light affliction which is but for a moment.' 'In all their
afflictions He was afflicted.' Oh, brethren! you with sad hearts, you
with lonely lives, you with carking cares, you with pressing, heavy
duties, cast your burden on the Christ, and He 'will sustain you,' and
sorrows borne in union with Him will change their character, and the
very cross shall be wreathed in flowers.
Jesus bears the burden of that solemn solitude which our personal being
lays upon us all. The rest of us stand round, and, as I said, hoist
signals of sympathy, and sometimes can stretch a brotherly hand out and
grasp the sufferer's hand. But their help comes from without; Christ
comes in, and dwells in our hearts, and makes us no longer alone in the
depths of our being, which He fills with the effulgence and peace of His
companionship. And so for sin, for guilt, for responsibility, for
sorrow, for holiness, Christ bears our burdens.
Yes! And when He takes ours on His shoulders, He puts His on ours. 'My
yoke is easy, and My burden is light.' As the old mystics used to say,
Christ's burden carries him that carries it. It may add a little weight,
but it gives power to soar, and it gives power to progress. It is like
the wings of a bird, it is like the sails of a ship.
III. Lastly, Christ's carrying our burdens binds us to carry our
brother's!
'So fulfil the law of Christ.' There is a very biting sarcasm, and, as I
said about another matter, a grave irony in Paul's use of that word
'law' here. For the whole of this Epistle has been directed against the
Judaising teachers who were desirous of cramming Jewish law down
Galatian throats, and is addressed to their victims in the Galatian
churches who had fallen into the trap. Paul turns round on them here,
and says, 'You want law, do you? Well, if you _will_ have it, here it
is--the law of Christ.' Christ's life is our law. Practical Christianity
is doing what Christ did. The Cross is not only the ground of our hope,
but the pattern of our conduct.
And, says Paul in effect, the example of Jesus Christ, in all its sweep,
and in all the depth of it, is the only motive by which this injunction
that I am giving you will ever be fulfilled. 'Bear ye one another's
burdens.' You will never do that unless you have Christ as the ground of
your hope, and His great sacrifice as the example for your conduct. For
the hindrance that prevents sympathy is self-absorption; and that
natural selfishness which is in us all will never be exorcised and
banished from us thoroughly, so as that we shall be awake to all the
obligations to bear our brother's burdens, unless Christ has dethroned
self, and is the Lord of our inmost spirits.
I rejoice as much as any man in the largely increased sense of mutual
responsibility and obligation of mutual aid, which is sweetening society
by degrees amongst us to-day, but I believe that no Socialistic or other
schemes for the regeneration of society which are not based on the
Incarnation and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ will live and grow. There is
but one power that will cast out natural selfishness, and that is love
to Christ, apprehending His Cross as the great example to which our
lives are to be conformed. I believe that the growing sense of
brotherhood amongst us, even where it is not consciously connected with
any faith in Christianity, is, to a very large extent, the result of the
diffusion through society of the spirit of Christianity, even where its
body is rejected. Thank God, the river of the water of life can
percolate through many a mile of soil, and reach the roots of trees far
away, in the pastures of the wilderness, that know not whence the
refreshing moisture has come. But on the wide scale be sure of this: it
is the law of Christ that will fight and conquer the natural selfishness
which makes bearing our brother's burdens an impossibility for men.
Only, Christian people! let us take care that we are not robbed of our
prerogative of being foremost in all such things, by men whose zeal has
a less heavenly source than ours ought to have. Depend upon it, heresy
has less power to arrest the progress of the Church than the selfish
lives of Christian professors.
So, dear friends, let us see to it that we first of all cast our own
burdens on the Christ who is able to bear them all, whatever they are.
And then let us, with lightened hearts and shoulders, make our own the
heavy burdens of sin, of sorrow, of care, of guilt, of consequences, of
responsibility, which are crushing down many that are weary and heavy
laden. For be sure of this, if we do not bear our brother's burdens, the
load that we thought we had cast on Christ will roll back upon
ourselves. He is able to bear both us and our burdens, if we will let
Him, and if we will fulfil that law of Christ which was illustrated in
all His life, 'Who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor,'
and was written large in letters of blood upon that Cross where there
was 'laid on Him the iniquity of us all.'