April 18 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" (Mark 6:3).

Devotional

The circumstances attending his birth and the subsequent events of his life entered deeply into the fact of his abasement. In each step that he took, he seemed to say, "I was born to humiliation and suffering. This is why I came into the world."

His parents were poor, of lowly descent and humble occupation. Until the age of thirty, he lived a life of seclusion from the world. And as he was submissive to his parents (Luke 2:51), doubtless he employed his early years assisting his father in his lowly calling. Thus, with his own hands, he ministered to his temporal needs.

Remember, it was a material part of the original curse God pronounced on man, "by the sweat of your face shall you eat bread" (Gen. 3:19). Jesus was born under the law that he might endure the curse. That curse he fully sustained. There was not a part, the bitterness of which he did not taste and the enormity of which he did not endure—and that for his elect's sake. Therefore, it is no fantasy to suppose that our Lord personally entered into this feature of the curse; that he fully paid this part of the penalty of human transgression; and that, in his early life, he literally did provide for his own temporal sustenance by the sweat of his face.

Oh touching view of the humiliation of the Son of God! How it dignifies the most lowly occupation, how it sweetens the heaviest trial, and how it lightens the deepest care to reflect, "This is how the Incarnate God lived, and labored, and toiled!"

Corresponding lowliness marked his riper years. The curse tracked his every step, pressing its claims and exacting its penalties. What were all his extreme deprivations, except parts of the same? No home sheltered him; no domestic comforts cheered him; no fond smile greeted him; no affectionate hand welcomed him. "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head" (Luke 9:58) was his heart-rending acknowledgment. And when a day of exhausting toil had closed upon him—a day spent in journeying from village to village and from house to house, preaching the kingdom, healing all manner of diseases, supplying the needs, alleviating the sufferings, and soothing the cares of others—he would retire, lonely and unrefreshed, to the bleak mountain, and spend long nights in unremitting prayer for his church!

O adorable and adored LORD Jesus! Was there ever humiliation and love like yours?

Who is this so weak and helpless,
Child of lowly Hebrew maid,
rudely in a stable sheltered,
coldly in a manger laid?
'Tis the Lord of all creation,
who this wondrous path hath trod;
he is God from everlasting,
and to everlasting God.

Who is this, a Man of Sorrows,
walking sadly life's hard way,
homeless, weary, sighing, weeping
over sin and Satan's sway?
'Tis our God, our glorious Savior,
who above the starry sky
now for us a place prepareth,
where no tear can dim the eye.

Who is this? behold him shedding
drops of blood upon the ground!
Who is this, despised, rejected,
mocked, insulted, beaten, bound?
'Tis our God, who gifts and graces
on his church now poureth down;
who shall smite in holy vengeance
all his foes beneath his throne.

Who is this that hangeth dying
while the rude world scoffs and scorns,
numbered with the malefactors,
torn with nails, and crowned with thorns?
'Tis the God who ever liveth
'mid the shining ones on high,
in the glorious golden city,
reigning everlastingly.

(William Walsham How, 1823–1897)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.