Mark 7:31-37 And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came to the sea of Galilee, through the middle of the coasts of Decapolis.… In all our Saviour's sorrows — I do not enter now into the mysteries of Gethsemane and Calvary — but in all the sorrows of our Saviour's life among men, there are two features characteristic, beautiful, and instructive. Our Saviour's recorded sadnesses were all for others. They were either, as at Bethany, sympathy with others' griefs; or as when He wept over Jerusalem, or when He encountered the opposition of the Sadducees, for our sins; the selfish element was unknown. Again, His sorrow was never an idle sentiment. There is a great deal of useless, impassioned feeling in the world. Thousands are pained by the wickedness and misery they see around; they descant upon it; they can even weep when they speak of it — but it leads to no action. There is no effort; there is no self-sacrifice. It is almost poetry. It is but little more than the luxury of a tragedy. How different His! We never read of a sigh or tear of Jesus, but it immediately clothes itself into a benevolent word, or a benevolent work. I question whether, if we were in a right state, there would ever be a sorrow which did not throw itself into an action. Some receive affliction passively and meditatively. They go into seclusion. But others at once go forth the more. They see in their trial a call to energy. The sigh of Jesus, as He healed the deaf and dumb man in Decapolis, has been made to speak many languages, according to the varied habits of mind of those who have interpreted it. I will arrange them under four heads, and we may call them: — the Sigh of Earnestness; the Sigh of Beneficence; the Sigh of Brotherhood; and the Sigh of Holiness. Let us note each: lest, by omitting one, we should miss our lesson. 1. Because it says that "looking up to heaven, He sighed," some connect the two words, and account that the sigh is a part of the prayer — an expression of the intensity of the workings of our Lord's heart when He was supplicating to the Father. And if, brethren, if the Son of God sighed when He prayed, surely they have most of the spirit of adoption — such a sense of what communion with God is — who, in their very eagerness, exhaust themselves; till every tone and gesture speak of the struggle and ardour they feel within. 2. But it has been said again, that He who never gave us anything but what was bought by His own suffering — so that every pleasure is a spoil purchased by His blood — did now by the sigh, and under the feeling that He sighed, indicate that He purchased the privilege to restore to that poor man the senses he had lost. 3. But furthermore, as I conceive of this, that sigh was the Sigh of Fellowship — the Sigh of Brotherhood. 4. But fourthly. All this still lay on the surface. Do you suppose that our Saviour's mind could think of all the physical evil, and not go on to the deeper moral causes from which it sprang? But, after all, what is worth sighing for, but sin? And observe, He only sighed. He was not angry. He sighed. That is the way in which perfect holiness looked on the sins of the universe. (J. Vaughan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. |
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