I. We have, first, then, the world's sacrificial feast.

The Jewish ritual, and that of many other nations, as I have remarked,
provided for a festal meal following on, and consisting of the material
of, the sacrifice. A generation which studies comparative mythology, and
spares no pains to get at the meaning underlying the barbarous worship
of the rudest nations, ought to be interested in the question of the
ideas that formed and were expressed by that elaborate Jewish ritual. In
the present case, the signification is plain enough. That which, in one
aspect, is a peace-offering reconciling to God, in another aspect is the
nourishment and the joy of the hearts that accept it. And so the work of
Jesus Christ has two distinct phases of application, according as we
think of it as being offered to God or appropriated by men. In the one
case it is our peace; in the other it is our food and our life. If we
glance for a moment at the marvellous picture of suffering and
desolation in the previous portion of this psalm, which sounds the very
depths of both, we shall understand more touchingly what it is on which
Christian hearts are to feed. The desolation that spoke in 'Why hast
Thou forsaken Me?' the consciousness of rejection and reproach, of
mockery and contempt, which wailed, 'All that see Me laugh Me to scorn;
they shoot out the lip; they shake the head, saying, "He trusted on the
Lord that He would deliver Him; let Him deliver Him, seeing He
delighteth in Him"'; the physical sufferings which are the very picture
of crucifixion, so as that the whole reads liker history than prophecy,
in 'All My bones are out of joint; My strength is dried up like a
potsherd; and My tongue cleaveth to My jaws'; the actual passing into
the darkness of the grave, which is expressed in 'Thou hast brought Me
into the dust of death'; and even the minute correspondence, so
inexplicable upon any hypothesis except that it is direct prophecy,
which is found in 'They part My garments among them, and cast lots upon