CALVARY
Anyone writing on the life of our Lord must many a time pause in secret
and exclaim to himself, "It is high as heaven, what canst thou do?
deeper than hell, what canst thou know?" But we have now arrived at
the point where this sense of inadequacy falls most oppressively on the
heart. To-day we are to see Christ crucified. But who is worthy to
look at this sight? Who is able to speak of it? "Such knowledge is
too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain unto it." In the
presence of such a subject one feels one's mind to be like some tiny
creature at the bottom of the sea--as incapable of comprehending it all
as is the crustacean of scooping up the Atlantic in its shell.
This spot to which we have come is the centre of all things. Here two
eternities meet. The streams of ancient history converge here, and
here the river of modern history takes its rise. The eyes of
patriarchs and prophets strained forward to Calvary, and now the eyes
of all generations and of all races look back to it. This is the end
of all roads. The seeker after truth, who has explored the realms of
knowledge, comes to Calvary and finds at last that he has reached the
centre. The weary heart of man, that has wandered the world over in
search of perfect sympathy and love, at last arrives here and finds
rest. Think how many souls every Lord's Day, assembled in church and
chapel and meeting-house, are thinking of Golgotha! how many eyes are
turned thither every day from beds of sickness and chambers of death!
"Lord, to whom can we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."
Though, therefore, the theme is too high for us, yet we will venture
forward. It is too high for human thought; yet nowhere else is the
mind so exalted and ennobled. At Calvary poets have sung their
sweetest strains, and artists seen their sublimest visions, and
thinkers excogitated their noblest ideas. The crustacean lies at the
bottom of the ocean, and the world of waters rolls above it; it cannot
in its tiny shell comprehend these leagues upon leagues of solid
translucent vastness; and yet the ocean fills its shell and causes its
little body to throb with perfect happiness. And so, though we cannot
take in all the meaning of the scene before which we stand, yet we can
fill mind and heart with it to the brim, and, as it sends through our
being the pulsations of a life divine, rejoice that it has a breadth
and length, a height and depth, which pass understanding.
I.
The long journey through the streets to the place of execution was at
length ended, and thereby the weary journeyings of the Sufferer came to
a close. The soldiers set about their preparations for the last act.
But meanwhile a little incident occurred which the behaviour of Jesus
filled with significance.
The wealthy ladies of Jerusalem had the practice of providing for those
condemned to the awful punishment of crucifixion a soporific draught,
composed of wine mixed with some narcotic like gall or myrrh,[1] to
dull the senses and deaden the pain. It was a benevolent custom; and
the cup was offered to all criminals, irrespective of their crimes. It
was administered immediately before the frightful work of nailing the
culprit to the tree commenced. This draught was handed to Jesus on His
arrival at Golgotha. Exhausted with fatigue and burning with thirst,
He grasped the cup eagerly and lifted it without suspicion to His lips.
But, as soon as He tasted it and felt the fumes of the stupefying
ingredient, He laid it down and would not drink.
It was a simple act, yet full of heroism. He was in that extremity of
thirst when a person will drink almost anything; and He was face to
face with outrageous torture. In subsequent times many of His own
faithful martyrs, on their way to execution, gladly availed themselves
of this merciful provision. But He would not allow His intellect to be
clouded. His obedience was not yet complete; His plan was not fully
wrought out; He would keep His taste for death pure. I have heard of a
woman dying of a frightful malady, who, when she was pressed by those
witnessing her agony to take an intoxicating draught, refused, saying,
"No, I want to die sober." She had caught, I think, the spirit of
Christ.
This is a very strange place in which to alight on the problem of the
use and abuse of those products of nature or art which induce
intoxication or stupefaction. Roots or juices with such properties
have been known to nearly all races, the savage as well as the
civilised; and they have played a great part in the life of mankind.
Their history is one of the most curious. They are associated with the
mysteries of false religions and with the phenomena of heathen prophecy
and witchcraft; acting on the mind through the senses, they open up in
it a region of mystery, horror and gloomy magnificence of which the
normal man is unconscious. They have always been a favourite resource
of the medical art, and in modern times, in such forms as opium and
other better-known intoxicants, they have created some of the gravest
moral problems.
On the wide question of the use of such substances as stimulants we
need not at present enter; it is to their use for the opposite purpose
of lowering consciousness that this incident draws attention. That in
some cases this use is both merciful and permissible will not be
denied. The discovery in our own day, by one of our own countrymen, of
the use of chloroform is justly regarded as among the greatest benefits
ever conferred on the human race. When the unconsciousness thus
produced enables the surgeon to perform an operation which might not be
possible at all without it, or when in the crisis of a fever the sleep
induced by a narcotic gives the exhausted system power to continue the
combat and saves the life, we can only be thankful that the science of
to-day has such resources in its treasury.
On the other hand, however, there are grave offsets to these
advantages. Millions of men and women resort to such substances in
order to dull the nerves and cloud the brain during pain and sorrow
which God intended them to face and bear with sober courage, as Jesus
endured His on the cross. On the medical profession rests the
responsibility of so using the power placed in their hands as not to
destroy the dignity of the most solemn passages of life.[2] It will
for ever remain true that pain and trial are the discipline of the
soul; but to reel through these crises in the drowsy forgetfulness of
intoxication is to miss the best chances of moral and spiritual
development. Men and women are made perfect through suffering; but
that suffering may do its work it must be felt. There is no greater
misfortune than to bear too easily the strokes of God. A bereavement,
for example, is sent to sanctify a home; but it may fail of its mission
because the household is too busy, or because too many are coming and
going, or because tongues, mistakenly kind and garrulous, chatter God's
messenger out of doors. It is natural that physicians and kind friends
should try to make sufferers forget their grief. But they may be too
successful. Though the practice of the ladies of Jerusalem was a
benevolent one, the gift mixed by their charitable hands appeared to
our Lord a cup of temptation, and He resolutely put it aside.
II
All was now ready for the last act, and the soldiers started their
ghastly work.
It is not my intention to harrow up the feelings of my readers with
minute descriptions of the horrors of crucifixion.[3] Nothing would be
easier, for it was an unspeakably awful form of death. Cicero, who was
well acquainted with it, says: "It was the most cruel and shameful of
all punishments." "Let it never," he adds, "come near the body of a
Roman citizen; nay, not even near his thoughts or eyes or ears." It
was the punishment reserved for slaves and for revolutionaries, whose
end was intended to be marked by special infamy.
The cross was most probably of the form in which it is usually
represented--an upright post crossed by a bar near the top. There were
other two forms--that of the letter T and that of the letter X--but, as
the accusation of Jesus is said to have been put up over His head,
there must have been a projection above the bar on which His arms were
outstretched. The arms were probably bound to the cross-beam, as
without this the hands would have been torn through by the weight. And
for a similar reason there was a piece of wood projecting from the
middle of the upright beam, on which the body sat. The feet were
either nailed separately or crossed the one over the other, with a nail
through both. It is doubtful whether the body was affixed before or
after the cross was elevated and planted in the ground. The head hung
free, so that the dying man could both see and speak to those about the
cross.
In modern executions the greatest pains are taken to make death as
nearly as possible instantaneous, and any bungling which prolongs the
agony excites indignation and horror in the public mind. But the most
revolting feature of death by crucifixion was that the torture was
deliberately prolonged. The victim usually lingered a whole day,
sometimes two or three days, still retaining consciousness; while the
burning of the wounds in the hands and feet, the uneasiness of the
unnatural position, the oppression of overcharged veins and, above all,
the intolerable thirst were constantly increasing. Jesus did not
suffer so long; but He lingered for four or five hours.
I will not, however, proceed further in describing the sickening
details. How far all these horrors may have been essential elements in
His sufferings it would be difficult to say. Apart from the prophecies
going before which had to be fulfilled, was it a matter of indifference
what death He died? Would it have served equally well if He had been
hanged or beheaded or stoned? We cannot tell. Only, when we know the
secret of what His soul suffered, we can discern the fitness of the
choice of the most shameful and painful of all forms of death for His
body.[4]
The true sufferings of Christ were not physical, but internal. Looking
on that Face, we see the shadow of a deeper woe than smarting wounds
and raging thirst and a racking frame--the woe of slighted love, of a
heart longing for fellowship but overwhelmed with hatred; the woe of
insult and wrong, and of unspeakable sorrow for the fate of those who
would not be saved. Nor is even this the deepest shadow. There was
then in the heart of the Redeemer a woe to which no human words are
adequate. He was dying for the sin of the world. He had taken on
Himself the guilt of mankind, and was now engaged in the final struggle
to put it away and annihilate it. On the cross was hanging not only
the body of flesh and blood of the Man Christ Jesus, but at the same
time His mystical body--that body of which He is the head and His
people are the members. Through this body also the nails were driven,
and on it death took its revenge. His people died with Him unto sin,
that they might live for evermore.
This is the mystery, but it is also the glory of the scene. Till He
hung on it, the cross was the symbol of slavery and vulgar wickedness;
but He converted it into the symbol of heroism, self-sacrifice and
salvation. It was only a wretched framework of coarse and
blood-clotted beams, which it was a shame to touch; but since then the
world has gloried in it; it has been carved in every form of beauty and
every substance of price; it has been emblazoned on the flags of
nations and engraved on the sceptres and diadems of kings.[5] The
cross was planted on Golgotha a dry, dead tree; but lo! it has
blossomed like Aaron's rod; it has struck its roots deep down to the
heart of the world, and sent its branches upwards, till to-day it fills
the earth, and the nations rest beneath its shadow and eat of its
pleasant fruits.[6]
III.
At length the ghastly preparations were completed; and in the greedy
eyes of Jewish hatred the Saviour, whom they had hunted to death with
the ferocity of bloodhounds, was exposed to full view. But the first
triumphant glance of priests, Pharisees and populace met with a violent
check; for above the Victim's head they saw something which cut them to
the heart.
The practice of affixing to the apparatus of execution a description of
the crime prevails in some countries to this day. In the Life of
Gilmour of Mongolia there is a description of an execution which he
witnessed in China; and in the cart which conveyed the condemned man to
the scene of death a board was exhibited describing his misdeeds. The
custom was a Roman one; and, besides, there was generally an official
who walked in front of the procession of death and proclaimed the
crimes of the condemned. No mention, however, of such a functionary
appears in the Gospels; nor does the inscription appear to have been
visible to all till it was affixed to the cross. It was fastened to
the top of the upright beam; and Pilate made use of this opportunity to
pay out the Jews for the annoyance they had caused him. He had parted
from them in anger, for they had humiliated him; but he sent after them
that which should be a drop of bitterness in their cup of triumph.
When they were still at his judgment-seat, his last blow in his
encounter with them had been to pretend to be convinced that Jesus
really was their king. This insult he now prolonged by wording the
inscription thus: "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." It was as
much as to say, This is what becomes of a Jewish king; this is what the
Romans do with him; the king of this nation is a slave, a crucified
criminal; and, if such be the king, what must the nation be whose king
he is?
So enraged were the Jews that they sent a deputation to the governor to
entreat him to alter the words. No doubt he was delighted to see them;
for their coming proved how thoroughly his sarcasm had gone home. He
only laughed at their petition and, assuming the grand air of authority
which became no man so well as a Roman, dismissed them with the words,
"What I have written I have written."
This looked like strength of will and character; but it was in reality
only a covering for weakness. He had his will about the inscription--a
trifle; but they had their will about the crucifixion. He was strong
enough to browbeat them, but he was not strong enough to deny himself.
Yet, though the inscription of Pilate was in his own mind little more
than a revengeful jest, there was in it a Divine purpose. "What I have
written I have written," he said; but, had he known, he might almost
have said, "What I have written God has written." Sometimes and at
some places the atmosphere is so charged and electric with the Divine
that inspiration alights and burns on everything; and never was this
more true than at the cross. Pilate had already unconsciously been
almost a prophet when, pointing to Jesus, he said, "Behold the Man"--a
word which still preaches to the centuries. And now, after being a
speaking prophet, he becomes, as has been quaintly remarked, a writing
one too; for his pen was guided by a supernatural hand to indite the
words, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."
It added greatly to the significance of the inscription that it was
written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin. What Pilate intended thereby
was to heighten the insult; he wished all the strangers present at the
Passover to be able to read the inscription; for all of them who could
read at all would know one of these three languages. But Providence
intended something else. These are the three great languages of the
ancient world--the representative languages. Hebrew is the tongue of
religion, Greek that of culture, Latin the language of law and
government; and Christ was declared King in them all. On His head are
many crowns. He is King in the religious sphere--the King of
salvation, holiness and love; He is King in the realm of culture--the
treasures of art, of song, of literature, of philosophy belong to Him,
and shall yet be all poured at His feet; He is King in the political
sphere--King of kings and Lord of lords, entitled to rule in the social
relationships, in trade and commerce, in all the activities of men. We
see not yet, indeed, all things put under Him; but every day we see
them more and more in the process of being put under Him. The name of
Jesus is travelling everywhere over the earth; thousands are learning
to pronounce it; millions are ready to die for it. And thus is the
unconscious prophecy of Pilate still being fulfilled.
[1] One Evangelist says gall, another myrrh, and on this difference
harmonists and their antagonists have spent their time; but surely it
is not worth while.
[2] The distinction between the legitimate and the illegitimate use is
not very easy to draw; but there is an obvious difference between
destroying pain for an ulterior purpose and destroying it merely to
save the feeling of the sufferer.
[3] On the details of crucifixion there is an extremely interesting and
learned excursus in Zöckler's _Das Kreus Christi_ (Beilage III.).
Cicero's Verrine Orations contain a good deal that is valuable to a
student of the Passion, especially in regard to scourging and
crucifixion. Crucifixion was an extremely common form of punishment in
the ancient world; but "the cross of the God-Man has put an end to the
punishment of the crow."
[4] Zöckler maintains that crucifixion, while the most shameful, was
not absolutely the most painful form of death.
[5] The appreciation of the significance of the Cross has gone on in
two lines--the Artistic and the Doctrinal--both of which arc followed
out with varied learning in Zöckler's _Kreus Christi_.
The English reader may with great satisfaction trace the artistic
development in Mrs. Jameson's _History of our Lord as exemplified in
Works of Art_, where the following scheme is given of the varieties of
treatment:--
"_Symbolical_, when the abstract personifications of the sun and moon,
earth and ocean, are present.
"_Sacrificially symbolical_, when the Eucharistic cup is seen below the
Cross, or the pelican feeding her young is placed above it.
"_Simply doctrinal_, when the Virgin and St. John stand on each side,
as solemn witnesses; or our Lord is drinking the cup, sometimes
literally so represented, given Him of the Father, while the lance
opens the sacramental font.
"_Historically ideal_, as when the thieves are joined to the scene, and
sorrowing angels throng the air.
"_Historically devotional_, as when the real features of the scene are
preserved, and saints and devotees are introduced.
"_Legendary_, as when we see the Virgin fainting.
"_Allegorical and fantastic_, as when the tree is made the principal
object, with its branches terminating in patriarchs and prophets,
virtues and graces.
"_Realistic_, as when the mere event is rendered as through the eyes of
an unenlightened looker-on.
"These and many other modes of conception account for the great
diversity in the treatment of this subject; a further variety being
given by the combination of two or more of these modes of treatment
together; for instance, the pelican may be seen above the Cross giving
her life's blood for her offspring; angels in attitudes of despair,
bewailing the Second Person of the Trinity; or, in an ideal sacramental
sense, catching the blood from His wounds--the Jews below looking on,
as they really did, with contemptuous gestures and hardened hearts; the
centurion acknowledging that this was really the Son of God, while the
group of the fainting Virgin, supported by the Marys and St. John, adds
legend to symbolism, ideality, and history."
In the study of the doctrinal development nothing is so important as
the exegesis of the New Testament statements about the Cross; and this
has been done in a masterly way by Dr. Dale in his work on the
Atonement. What may be called the Philosophy of the Cross (to borrow a
happy phrase of McCheyne Edgar's) came late. It is usually reckoned to
have commenced with Anselm; and since the Reformation every great
theologian has added his contribution. Yet the work is by no means
completed. Indeed, at the present day there is no greater desideratum
in theology than a philosophy of the Cross which would thoroughly
satisfy the religious mind. Shallow theories abound; but the Church of
Christ will never be able to rest in any theory which does not do
justice, on the one hand, to the tremendously strong statements of
Scripture on the subject and, on the other, to her own consciousness of
unique and infinite obligation to the dying Saviour. Perhaps the most
satisfactory expression of the Christian consciousness on the subject
is to be found in the hymns of the Church, from the Te Deum down
through Scotua Erigena and Fulbert of Chartres to Gerhardt and Toplady.
See Schaff's _Christ in Song_.
A third line of development might be traced--the Practical--in
martyrology, the history of missions, asceticism, and the like; and the
spokesman of this branch of the truth is à Kempis, who, as Zöckler
says, teaches his disciples to know poverty and humility as the roots
of the tree of the Cross, labour and penitence as its bark,
righteousness and mercy as its two principal branches, truth and
doctrine as its precious leaves, chastity and obedience as its
blossoms, temperance and discipline as its fragrance, and salvation and
eternal life as its glorious fruit.
[6] When the Northern nations became Christian they transferred to the
Cross the nobler ideas embodied in the mystic tree Igdrasil; and one of
the commonest ideas of the mystical writers of the Middle Ages is the
identification of the Cross as both the true tree of life and the true
tree of knowledge.