VIA DOLOROSA
We have finished the first part of our theme--the Trial of Jesus--and
turn now to the second and more solemn part of it--His Death. The
trial had been little better than a mockery of justice: on the part of
the ecclesiastical authority it was a foregone conclusion, and on the
part of the civil authority it was the surrender of a life acknowledged
to be innocent to the ends of selfishness and policy. But at last it
was over, and nothing remained but to carry the unjust sentence into
execution. So the tribunal of Pilate was closed for the day; the
precincts of the palace were deserted by the multitude; and the
procession of death was formed.
I.
Persons condemned to death in modern times are allowed a few weeks, or
at least days, to prepare for eternity; but Jesus was crucified the
same day on which He was condemned. There was a merciful law of Rome
in existence at the time, ordaining that ten days should intervene
between the passing of a capital sentence and its execution; but either
this was not intended for use in the provinces or Jesus was judged to
be outside the scope of its mercy, because He had made Himself a king.
At all events He was hurried straight from the judgment-seat to the
place of execution, without opportunity for preparation or farewells.
Of course the sentence was carried out by the soldiers of Pilate. St.
John, indeed, speaks as if Pilate had simply surrendered Him into the
hands of the Jews, and they had seen to the execution. But this only
means that the moral responsibility was theirs. They did everything in
their power to identify themselves with the deed. So intent were they
on the death of Jesus, that they could not leave the work to the proper
parties, but followed the executioners and superintended their
operations. The actual work, however, was performed by the hands of
Roman soldiers with a centurion at their head.
In this country executions are now carried out in private, inside the
walls of the prison in which the criminal has been confined. Not many
years ago, however, they took place in public; and not many generations
ago the procession of death made a tour of the public streets, that the
condemned man might come under the observation and maledictions of as
many of the public as possible. This also was the manner of Christ's
death. Both among the Jews and the Romans executions took place
outside the gate of the city. The traditional scene of Christ's death,
over which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built, is inside the
present walls, but those who believe in its authenticity maintain that
it was outside the wall of that date. This, however, is extremely
doubtful; and, indeed, it is quite uncertain outside which gate of the
city the execution took place. The name Calvary or Golgotha probably
indicates that the spot was a skull-like knoll; but there is no reason
to think that it was a hill of the size supposed by designating it
Mount Calvary. Indeed, there is no hill near any gate corresponding to
the image in the popular imagination. In modern Jerusalem there is a
street pointed out as the veritable _Via Dolorosa_ along which the
procession passed; but this also is more than doubtful. Like ancient
Rome, ancient Jerusalem is buried beneath the rubbish of centuries.[1]
From the scene of the trial to the supposed site of the execution is
nearly a mile. And it is quite possible that Jesus may have had to
travel as far or farther, while an ever-increasing multitude of
spectators gathered round the advancing procession.
One special indignity connected with the punishment of crucifixion was
that the condemned man had to carry on his back through the streets the
cross upon which he was about to suffer. In pictures the cross of
Jesus is generally represented as a lofty structure, such as a number
of men would have been needed to carry; but the reality was something
totally different: it was not much above the height of a man,[2] and
there was just enough of wood to support the body. But the weight was
considerable, and to carry it on the back which had been torn with
scourging must have been excessively painful.
Another source of intense pain was the crown of thorns, if, indeed, He
still wore it. We are told that before the procession set out towards
Golgotha the robes of mockery were taken off and His own garments put
on; but it is not said that the crown of thorns was removed.
Most cruel of all, however, was the shame. There was a kind of savage
irony in making the man carry the implement on which he was to suffer;
and, in point of fact, throughout classical literature this mode of
punishment is a constant theme of savage banter and derision.[3]
There is evidence that the imagination of Jesus had occupied itself
specially beforehand with this portion of His sufferings. Long before
the end He had predicted the kind of death He should die; but even
before these predictions had commenced He had described the sacrifices
which would have to be made by those who became His disciples as
cross-bearing--as if this were the last extreme of suffering and
indignity. Did He so call it simply because His knowledge of the world
informed Him of this as one of the greatest indignities of human life?
or was it the foreknowledge that He Himself was to be one day in this
position which coloured His language? We can hardly doubt that the
latter was the case. And now the hour on which His imagination had
dwelt was come, and in weakness and helplessness He had to bear the
cross in the sight of thousands who regarded Him with scorn. To a
noble spirit there is no trial more severe than shame--to be the object
of cruel mirth and insolent triumph. Jesus had the lofty and refined
self-consciousness of one who never once had needed to cringe or stoop.
He loved and honoured men too much not to wish to be loved and honoured
by them; He had enjoyed days of unbounded popularity, but now His soul
was filled with reproach to the uttermost; and He could have
appropriated the words of the Psalm, "I am a worm and no man; a
reproach of men and despised of the people."
The reproach of Christ is all turned into glory now; and it is very
difficult to realise how abject the reality was. Nothing perhaps
brings this out so well as the fact that two robbers were sent away to
be executed with Him. This has been regarded as a special insult
offered to the Jews by Pilate, who wished to show how contemptuously he
could treat One whom he affected to believe their king. But more
likely it is an indication of how little more Christ was to the Roman
officials than any one of the prisoners whom they put through their
hands day by day. Pilate, no doubt, had been interested and puzzled
more than usual; but, after all, Jesus was only one of many; His
execution could be made part of the same job with that of the other
prisoners on hand. And so the three, bearing their crosses, issued
from the gates of the palace together and took the Dolorous Way.
II.
Though He bore His own cross out of the palace of Pilate, He was not
able to carry it far. Either He sank beneath it on the road or He was
proceeding with such slow and faltering steps that the soldiers,
impatient of the delay, recognised that the burden must be removed from
His shoulders. The severity of the scourging was in itself sufficient
to account for this breakdown; but, besides, we are to consider the
sleepless night through which He had passed, with its anxiety and
abuse; and before it there had been the agony of Gethsemane. No wonder
His exhaustion had reached a point at which it was absolutely
impossible for Him to proceed farther with such a burden.
One or two of the soldiers might have relieved Him; but, in the spirit
of horseplay and mischief which had characterised their part of the
proceedings from the moment when Christ fell into their hands, they lay
hold of a casual passer-by and requisitioned his services for the
purpose. He was coming in from the region beyond the gate as they were
going out, and they acted under the sanction of military law or custom.
To the man it must have been an extreme annoyance and indignity.
Doubtless he was bent on business of his own, which had to be deferred.
His family or his friends might be waiting for him, but he was turned
the opposite way. To touch the instrument of death was as revolting to
him as it would be to us to handle the hangman's rope; perhaps more so,
because it was Passover time, and this would make him ceremonially
unclean. It was a jest of the soldiers, and he was their
laughing-stock. As he walked by the side of the robbers, it looked as
if he were on the way to execution himself.
This is a lively image of the cross-bearing to which the followers of
Christ are called. We are wont to speak of trouble of any kind as a
cross; and doubtless any kind of trouble may be borne bravely in the
name of Christ. But, properly speaking, the cross of Christ is what is
borne in the act of confessing Him or for the sake of His work. When
anyone makes a stand for principle, because he is a Christian, and
takes the consequences in the shape of scorn or loss, this is the cross
of Christ. The pain you may feel in speaking to another in Christ's
name, the sacrifice of comfort or time you may make in engaging in
Christian work, the self-denial you exercise in giving of your means
that the cause of Christ may spread at home or abroad, the reproach you
may have to bear by identifying yourself with militant causes or with
despised persons, because you believe they are on Christ's side--in
such conduct lies the cross of Christ. It involves trouble, discomfort
and sacrifice. One may fret under it, as Simon did; one may sink under
it, as Jesus did Himself; it is ugly, painful, shameful often; but no
disciple is without it. Our Master said, "He that taketh not his cross
and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me."
III.
The one thing which makes Simon an imperfect type of the cross-bearer
is that we are uncertain whether or not he bore the burden voluntarily.
The Roman soldiers forced it on him; but was it force-work and nothing
else?
Some have supposed that he was an adherent of Christ; but it is
extremely improbable that, just at the moment when the soldiers needed
someone for their purpose, one of the very few followers of Jesus
should have appeared. The tone of the narrative seems rather to
indicate that he was one who happened to be there by mere chance and
had nothing to do with the proceedings till, against his will, he was
made an actor in the drama.
He is said by the Evangelist to have been a Cyrenian, that is, an
inhabitant of Cyrene, a city in North Africa. Strangers from this
place are mentioned among those who were present soon after at the
Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Church in
tongues of fire. And the probability is that Simon had, in a similar
way, come from his distant home to the Passover.[4]
He had come on pilgrimage. Perhaps he was a devout soul, waiting for
the consolation of Israel. In far Cyrene he may have been praying for
the coming of the Messiah and, before setting out on this journey,
pleading for a season of unusual blessing. God had heard and was going
to answer his prayers, but in a way totally different from his
expectations.
For apparently this _rencontre_ issued in his salvation and in the
salvation of his house. The Evangelist calls him familiarly "the
father of Alexander and Rufus." Evidently the two sons were well known
to those for whom St. Mark was writing; that is, they were members of
the Christian circle. And there can be little doubt that the
connection of his family with the Church was the result of this
incident in the father's life. St. Mark wrote his Gospel for the
Christians of Rome; and in the Epistle to the Romans one Rufus is
mentioned as resident there along with his mother. This may be one of
the sons of Simon. And in Acts xiii. 1 one Simeon--the same name as
Simon--is mentioned along with a Lucius of Cyrene as a conspicuous
Christian at Antioch: he is called Niger, or Black, a name not
surprising for one who had been tanned by the hot sun of Africa. There
are Alexanders mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament; but the name
was common, and there is not much probability that any of them is to be
identified with Simon's son. Still putting the details aside, we have
sufficiently clear indications that in consequence of this incident
Simon became a Christian.
Is it not a significant fact, proving that nothing happens by chance?
Had Simon entered the city one hour sooner, or one hour later, his
after history might have been entirely different. On the smallest
circumstances the greatest results may hinge. A chance meeting may
determine the weal or woe of a life. Doubtless to Simon this encounter
seemed at the moment the most unfortunate incident that could have
befallen him--an interruption, an annoyance and a humiliation; yet it
turned out to be the gateway of life. Thus do blessings sometimes come
in disguise, and out of an apparition, at the sight of which we cry out
for fear, may suddenly issue the form of the Son of Man. But it was
not Simon's own salvation only that was involved in this singular
experience, but that of his family as well. How much may follow when
Christ is revealed to any human soul! The salvation of those yet
unborn may be involved in it--of children and children's children.
But think how blessed to Simon would appear in after days the
cross-bearing which was at the time so bitter! No doubt it became the
romance of his life. And to this day who can help envying him for
being allowed to give his strength to the fainting Saviour and to
remove the burden from that bleeding and smarting back? So for all men
there is a day coming when any service they have done to Christ will be
the memory of which they will be most proud. It will not be the
recollection of the prizes we have won, the pleasures we have enjoyed,
the discomforts we have escaped, that will come back to us with delight
as we review life from its close; but, if we have denied ourselves and
borne the cross for Christ's sake, the memory of that will be a pillow
soft and satisfying for a dying head. In that day we shall wish that
the minutes given to Christ's service had been years, and the pence
pounds; and every cup of cold water and every word of sympathy and
every act of self denial will be so pleasant to remember that we shall
wish they had been multiplied a thousandfold.
[1] Interesting details in Ross's _Cradle of Christianity_.
[2] A soldier was able to reach up to the lips of Christ on the cross
with a sponge on a reed.
[3] See Horace, S. ii. 7, 47; E. i. 16, 48.
[4] Many Jews, indeed, who had once been inhabitants of Cyrene lived in
Jerusalem--old people, probably, who had come to lay their bones in
holy ground; for we learn from an incidental notice in the Acts that
they had a synagogue of their own in the city; and Simon may have been
one of these. But the other is the more likely case.