Treading the Wine Press

Here is another fine illustration by Phillips Brooks:

“The Savior Himself, surely He is never so dear, never wins so utter and so tender a love, as when we see what it has cost Him to save us…. Not merely has he conquered completely and conquered in suffering; He has conquered alone. As anyone reads through the Gospels, he feels how hopeless the attempt would be to tell of the loneliness of that life which Jesus lived. ‘I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me. I looked, and there was none to help: therefore mine own arm brought salvation’ (Isa. 63:5). He had friends, but we always feel how far off they stood from the deepest center of His heart. He had disciples, but they never came into the inner circles of His self-knowledge. He had fellow-workers, but they only handed around the broken bread and fishes in the miracle, or ordered the guest chamber on the Passover night. They never came into the deepest work of His life. With the mysterious suffering that saved the world they had nothing to do.