Isaiah 53:5

Pilate delivered our Lord to the lictors to be scourged. The Roman scourge was a most dreadful instrument of torture. It was made of the sinews of oxen, and sharp bones were intertwined here and there among the sinews, so that every time the lash came down, these pieces of bone inflicted fearful laceration and tore the flesh from the bone. The Savior was, no doubt, bound to the column and thus beaten. He had been beaten before, but this scourging by the Roman lictors was probably the most severe of his flagellations. My soul, stand here and weep over his poor, stricken body.

Believer in Jesus, can you gaze upon him without tears, as he stands before you, the mirror of agonizing love? He is at once fair as the lily for innocence and red as the rose with the crimson of his own blood. As we feel the sure and blessed healing that his stripes have worked in us, does not our heart melt at once with love and grief? If we have ever loved our Lord Jesus, surely we must feel that affection glowing now within our hearts.

“See how the patient Jesus stands,
Insulted in his lowest state!
Sinners have bound the Almighty’s hands,
And spit in their Creator’s face.
With thorns his temples gored and gashed
Send streams of blood from every part;
His back is with knotted scourges lashed,
But sharper scourges tear his heart.”

We would gladly go to our rooms and weep; but since our duties call us away, we will first pray that our Beloved will imprint the image of his bleeding self upon the tablets of our hearts throughout the day, and at nightfall return to commune with him and to sorrow that our sin cost him so dear.