THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

aten when He suffered, who on Calvary prayed for His persecutors and died on the cross for sinners. Does your obedience seek to avoid difficult demands and to reject sacrifice, then I will remind you of Him, whose meat it was to do the will of His heavenly Father, not only in life, but who was obedient unto death, even the death on the cross. This sight, I think shall shame your cowardice, shall inspire anew your courage, and shall inflame you to sacrificial love. Christ the crucified shall become to you, that for which He was made by God, namely your sanctification. 7. But I do not step into your midst today only as a minister of the righteousness that has merit before God, no, I will also need to be a comforter to you in your sorrow, in your pain and in your afflictions. This earth is a vale of lamentations and the pathway of the Christian through this wilderness to the heavenly Canaan is a pilgrimage of tears. Therefore a person has need of many consolations, and the most agreeable and the most loved part of my office is the comfort that I need to bring to the suffering. But even for them I again have nothing else, no other comfort, than alone Jesus Christ, the crucified, the One “who in every respect was tempted as we are, yet without sinning” (Heb. 4:16), about whom is written: “For because He Himself has suffered and been tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted.” Beloved, this faithful High Priest was tempted in all things. There is no suffering, no pain, no affliction, that has not passed over Him, no grief that would not have moved His divine soul. Therefore He is also the true source of comfort for all that labor and are heavy laden, as He invites them to Himself, that they might find in Him rest and comfort for their souls. What He suffered, He suffered for us and for our sakes, and as He receives His own into the fellowship of His suffering, so He also receives them into the fellowship of His glory. Therefore “if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him” (II Tim. 2:12). Only draw near, all you sorrowful, disconsolate, and tempted! Whatever suffering you must bear, whatever grief weighs upon you, the Savior is acquainted with it! Do you perhaps sigh under the burden of poverty; do you perhaps belong to those, that in looking upon a small group of hungry children crying for bread, lose courage and say: What shall we eat, what shall we drink, what shall we wear? (Matt. 6:31). O, my beloved, behold Jesus Christ, the crucified, who Himself did not have a place to lay His head (Matt. 8:20), “though 218 THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself taking the form of a servant, being bora in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6, 7). Behold Him, who “though He was rich, became poor for your sakes, that through His poverty, ye might become rich”— yes, so poor that in His death He had not even one thread o