Bishop Eric Menees
They Shall Look Upon Him Whom They Have Pierced
We truly may affirm, Christ, not in part, but wholly, was
pierced. For we should do injury to the sufferings of our Saviour, if we should
conceive by this piercing none other than that of the spear.
And may a soul then be pierced? Can any spear-point go through
it? Truly does Simeon say to the blessed Virgin by way of prophecy, that the
sword should go through her soul at the time of his Passion. And as the sword
went through hers, so I do not question the spear also through his. And if
through hers which was but the soul of compassion, much more through his, which
was the soul of passion; since compassion is but passion at rebound. Howbeit,
it is not a sword of steel, or a spear-head of iron, that enters the soul, but
metal of another temper whose force gores and wounds the soul no less in
proportion than those of iron do to the body. So that we extend this piercing
of Christ further than the visible gash in His side, even to a piercing of
another nature, whereby not his heart only was stabbed, but his very spirit
wounded too.
The Scripture recounts two, and of them both expressly say,
that they both pierce the soul. The apostle says it by sorrow: pierced
themselves through with many sorrows. The Prophet speaks of reproach: There are
whose words are like the pricking of a sword; and both sorrow and reproach
prick the soul, for the body feels neither. With these, even with both these,
was the soul of Christ Jesus wounded.
For sorrow--it is plain through all four Evangelists: My
soul is encircled on every side with sorrow, even to the death; Jesus began to
be distressed and in great anguish; being cast into an agony; now is My soul
troubled. Avowed by them all and
confessed by himself. Yea, his strange and never else heard of sweat--drops of
blood plenteously issuing from him all over his body, at a time when no manner
of violence was offered to his body, no man then touching him, none being near
Him; that blood came certainly from some great sorrow wherewith His soul was
pierced.
His most dreadful cry, which at once moved all the powers of
Heaven and earth, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me, was the voice of
some mighty anguish, wherewith his soul was smitten; and that in other sort,
than with any material spear, for the body cannot feel it, or tell what it
means. It is the soul's complaint, and therefore without any doubt his soul
within him was pierced and suffered.
To this edge of sorrow, if the other of piercing scorn be
added as a point, as added it was, it will strike deep into any heart; especially
being wounded with so many sorrows before. But the more noble the heart, the
deeper; who bears any grief more easily than this grief, the grief of
humiliating and haughty reproach.To persecute a poor distressed soul, and seek
to vex him that is already wounded at the heart -- why, it is the very thrust
of all wickedness; the very extremity that malice can do, or affliction can
suffer. And to this attack they came, when after all their wretched villainies
and spittings, and all their savage indignities in reviling him most
shamefully, he being in the depth of all his distress and for very anguish of
soul crying, Eli, Eli, they stopped those that would have relieved him, and
devoid of all humanity did scorn him saying, Stay, let alone, let us see if
Elijah will now come and take Him down. This barbarous and brutish inhumanity
of theirs, must needs pierce deeper into His soul, than ever did the iron into
His side.
To all of which if we add, not only that horrible
ingratitude of theirs seen by him there, but ours also, no less than theirs by
him foreseen at the same time; who make so slender reckoning of these his
piercings, and, as though they were a matter not worth the looking on, grant
not so much as to spend an hour in the due regard and meditation of them; nay,
not that only, but farther by our incessant sinning, and that without remorse,
we most unkindly repay his bitter pains, and as much as in us lies, even
crucify afresh the Son of God, making a mock of him and his piercings. These I
say, for these all and every of them in that instant were before his eyes,
these must of force enter into, and go through and through his soul and spirit;
that with those former sorrows, and with these subsequent indignities, the
Prophet might truly say of him, and he of himself, upon Me -- not whose body or
whose soul, but whom entirely and wholly, both in body and soul, alive and dead
-- they have pierced and put to passion this day on the cross.
Now, as it was sin that gave him these wounds, so it was
love to us that made him receive them, being otherwise able enough to have
avoided them all. So it was that he was pierced with love no less than with
grief, and it was that wound of love which made him so constantly to endure all
the other. This love we may read in the palms of his hands, as the Fathers
express it out of Isaiah 49:16, for in the palms of His hands He hath graven
us, that He might not forget us. And the print of the nails in them, are as
capital letters to record His love towards us. For Christ pierced on the cross
is the very book of love laid open before us. And again, this love of his we
may read in the cleft of his heart as Saint Bernard says: the point of the
spear serves us instead of a key, letting us through his wounds see his very
heart, his heart of tender love and most kind compassion, that would for us
endure to be so entreated. That if the Jews that stood by said truly of Him at
Lazarus' grave, See how much he loved him!
when he shed a few tears out of his eyes; much more truly may we say of
him, See how much he loves us!, seeing him shed both water and blood, and that
in great plenty, out of His heart.
This sight ought to pierce us with love too, no less than
before it did with sorrow. With one or both, for both have power to pierce; but
especially love, which unless it had entered first and pierced his heart, no
nail or spear could ever have entered his body. Then let this be the third
piercing: look and be pierced with love of him, who so loved thee, that he gave
himself in this way to be pierced for you.
And forasmuch as it is Christ himself, who, likening his
Passion on the cross to the bronze serpent lift up in the wilderness, makes a
correspondence between their beholding and our believing -- for so it is John
3:14 -- we cannot avoid, but must needs make that an effect too; even behold
and believe. And well may we believe and trust him, whom we have seen but a
little before so constantly loving us. For the sight of that love makes
credible unto us whatsoever in the whole Scripture is affirmed to us of Christ,
or promised in his name; so that we believe it, and believe all. Neither is
there any time wherein with such cheerfulness or fullness of faith we cry unto
Him, My Lord and My God, as when our eye is fixed upon the print of the nails, and
on the hole in the side of him who was pierced for us.
And shall we always receive grace, even streams of grace
issuing from him that is pierced, and shall there not from us issue something
back again, that he may look for and receive from us, who from him have and do
daily, receive so many good things? No doubt there shall be, if the love which
pierced him has pierced us aright; especially since we, by this day, both see
and receive that which he and many others desired to see and receive, and could
not. Or if we have nothing to render, let us ourselves return with the
Samaritan, and falling down at His feet, with a loud voice, glorify his
goodness; for he, finding us in the condition that other Samaritan found the
forlorn and wounded man, healed us by being wounded himself, and by his own
death restored us to life. For all his kindness -- if nothing will come from us
-- we are certainly worthy that he should restrain the fountain of his
benefits, which hitherto has flowed most plenteously, and neither let us see
nor feel him any more.
But I hope for better things: that love, and so great love, will pierce us,
and cause both other fruits and especially thoughts of thankfulness to issue
from us, who have looked upon him whom we have pierced.
Lancelot Andrewes, sermon preached on Good Friday (1597)
