These men learned to be ashamed of their cowardice, and their dumb lips
learned to speak, and their shy, hidden love forced for itself a
channel by which it could flow out into the light; because of Christ's
death. And in another fashion that same death and Cross are for us,
too, the cure of all cowardice and selfish silence. The sight of
Christ's Cross makes the coward brave. It was no small piece of courage
for Joseph to go to Pilate and avow his sympathy with a condemned
criminal. The love must have been very true which was forced to speak
by disaster and death. And to us the strongest motive for stiffening
our vacillating timidity into an iron fortitude, and fortifying us
strongly against the fear of what man can do to us, is to be found in
gazing upon His dying love who met and conquered all evils and terrors
for our sakes.
That Cross will kindle a love which will not rest concealed, but will
be 'like the ointment of the right hand which bewrayeth itself.' I can
fancy men to whom Christ is only what He was to Nicodemus at first, 'a
Teacher sent from God,' occupying Nicodemus' position of hidden belief
in His teaching without feeling any need to avow themselves His
followers; but if once into our souls there has come the constraining
and the melting influence of that great and wondrous love which died
for us, then, dear brethren, it is unnatural that we should be silent.
If those 'for whom Christ has died' should hold their peace, 'the
stones would immediately cry out.' That death, wondrous, mysterious,
terrible, but radiant, and glorious with hope, with pardon, with
holiness for us and for all the world--that death smites on the chords
of our hearts, if I may so speak, and brings out music from them all.
The love that died for me will force me to express my love, 'Then shall
the tongue of the dumb sing,' and silence will be impossible.
The sight of the Cross not only leads to courage, and kindles a love
which demands expression, but it impels to joyful surrender. Joseph
gave a place in his own new tomb, where he hoped that one day his bones
should be laid by the side of the Master against whom he had
sinned--for he had no thought of a resurrection. Nicodemus brought a
lavish, almost an extravagant, amount of costly spices, as if by honour
to the dead he could atone for treason to the living. And both the one
and the other teach us that if once we gain the true vision of that
great and wondrous love that died on the Cross for us, then the natural
language of the loving heart is--
'Here, Lord! I give _myself_ away;
'Tis all that I can do.'
If following Him openly involves sacrifices, the sacrifices will be
sweet, so long as our hearts look to His dying love. All love delights
in expression, and most of all in expression by surrender of precious
things, which are most precious because they give love materials which
it may lay at the beloved's feet. What are position, possessions,
reputation, capacities, perils, losses, self, but the 'sweet spices'
which we are blessed enough to be able to lay upon the altar which
glorifies the Giver and the gift? The contemplation of Christ's
sacrifice--and that alone--will so overcome our natural selfishness as
to make sacrifice for His dear sake most blessed.
I beseech you, then, look ever to Him dying on the Cross for each of
us. It will kindle our courage, it will make our hearts glow with love,
it will turn our silence into melody and music of praise; it will lead
us to heights of consecration and joys of confession; and so it will
bring us at last into the possession of that wondrous honour which He
promised when He said, 'He that confesseth Me before men, him will I
also confess; and he that denieth Me before men, him will I also deny.'