C. H. Spurgeon writes: How completely it takes the bitterness out of grief to know that it once was suffered by Him.

The Macedonian soldiers, it is said, made long forced marches which seemed to be beyond the power of mortal endurance, but the reason for their untiring energy lay in Alexander’s (The Great) presence.  He was accustomed to walk with them, and bear the like fatigue.  If the king himself had been carried like a Persian monarch in a palanquin*, in the midst of easy, luxurious state, the soldiers would soon have grown tired; but, when they looked upon the king of men himself, hungering when they hungered, thirsting when they thirsted, often putting aside the cup of water offered to him, and passing it to a fellow-soldier who looked more faint than himself, they could not dream of repining. Why, every Macedonian felt that he could endure any fatigue if Alexander could.

This day, assuredly, we can bear poverty, slander, contempt, or bodily pain, or death itself, because Jesus Christ our Lord has borne it.  By his humiliation it shall become pleasure to be abased for His sake, by the spittle that distilled on his cheeks it shall become a fair thing to be made a mockery for him.  By the buffeting and the blindfolding it shall become an honor to be disgraced.  And by the cross it shall become life itself to surrender life for the sake of such a cause and so precious a Master!

May the man of sorrows now appear to us, and enable us to bear our sorrows cheerfully.  If there be consolation anywhere, surely it is to be found in the delightful presence of the Crucified… 

Taken from a sermon preached by Charles Haddon Spurgeon in March 1873.  From the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 63 vols.  London: (Passmore & Alabaster, 1873), 19:121-32.

*Palanquin – An east Asian covered litter carried on poles on the shoulders  of two or four men.  American Heritage Dictionary, copyright 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1975 by American Heritage Publishing Co.