He watches with Christ,

who, while he looks on to the future, looks back on the past, and does not so contemplate what his Saviour has purchased for him, as to forget what he has suffered for him. He watches with Christ, who ever commemorates and renews in his own person Christ's cross and agony, and gladly takes up that mantle of affliction which Christ wore here, and left behind him when he ascended. And hence in the Epistles, as often as the inspired writers show their desire for his second coming, so often do they show their memory of his first, and never lose sight of his crucifixion and in his resurrection. ...John Henry Newman icon