Acquainted With Grief

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 19, 1882

“Acquainted With Grief.”

There are some of us who have tasted sorrow; we have perhaps at times known bitter grief, and look back upon a day of bitter anguish, or a night when a horror of great darkness sat upon our souls. But our griefs were transient; we did not become accustomed to sorrow in a day, or acquainted with sadness in an hour. But of him who was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and tempted in all points like as we are, who tasted the bitterness of earthly sorrow, and bore our sins in his own body on the tree, it was said, “He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

He knew what grief was. By day and by night he shared its bitter companionship; year after year he bore upon his heart the burden of human sorrow, human anguish, and human guilt. He endured misunderstanding, misrepresentation, reproach, betrayal, desertion, scorn, shame, mockery, crucifixion, and death. He measured the heights of human anguish, and sounded the depths of human woe. He was “acquainted with grief;” and having become acquainted with our sorrows, he offers to make us acquainted with his eternal joys. How mighty the change, how rich the privilege! But how vast the price the Saviour paid, when, that he might bring many sons to glory, he, as the Captain of their salvation, was made perfect through sufferings, bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, and by the grace of God tasting death for every man.

“Oh, for such love let rocks and hills Their lasting silence break ! And all harmonious human tongues Their Saviour’s praises speak.” —The Christian.