reap.' The effects of our evil deeds come
back to roost; and they never make a mistake as to where they should
alight. If I have sown, I, and no one else, will gather. No sympathy
will prevent to-morrow's headache after to-night's debauch, and nothing
that anybody can do will turn the sleuth-hounds off the scent. Though
they may be slow-footed, they have sure noses and deep-mouthed fangs.
'If thou be wise thou shalt be wise for thyself, and if thou scornest
thou alone shalt bear it.' So there are burdens which can, and burdens
which cannot, be borne.

II. Jesus Christ is the Burden-bearer for both sorts of burdens.

'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ,' not
only as spoken by His lips, but as set forth in the pattern of His life.
We have, then, to turn to Him, and think of Him as Burden-bearer in even
a deeper sense than the psalmist had discerned, who magnified God as 'He
who daily beareth our burdens.'

Christ is the Burden-bearer of our sin. 'The Lord hath laid'--or made to
meet--'upon Him the iniquity of us all.' The Baptist pointed his lean,
ascetic finger at the young Jesus, and said, 'Behold the Lamb of God
which beareth'--and beareth away--'the sin of the world.' How heavy the
load, how real its pressure, let Gethsemane witness, when He clung to
human companionship with the unutterably solemn and plaintive words, 'My
soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death. Tarry ye here and watch
with Me.' He bore the burden of the world's sin.

Jesus Christ is the bearer of the burden of the consequences of sin, not
only inasmuch as, in His sinless humanity, He knew by sympathy the
weight of the world's sin, but because in that same humanity, by
identification of Himself with us, deeper and more wonderful than our
plummets have any line long enough to sound the abysses of, He took the
cup of bitterness which our sins have mixed, and drank it all when He
said, 'My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?' Consequences still
remain: thank God that they do! 'Thou wast a God that forgavest them,
and Thou didst inflict retribution on their inventions.' So the outward,
the present, the temporal consequences of transgression are left
standing in all their power, in order that transgressors may thereby be
scourged from their evil, and led to forsake the thing that has wrought
them such havoc. But the ultimate consequence, the deepest of all,
separation from God, has been borne by Christ, and need never