_THE GREAT ATONEMENT DAY._
MATT. xxvi. 1--xxvii. 56.
We enter now on the story of the last day of the mortal life of our
Lord and Saviour. We have already noticed the large proportionate
space given to the Passion Week; but still more remarkable is the
concentration of interest on the Passion Day. The record of that
single day is very nearly one-ninth of the whole book; and a similar
proportion is observed by all the four Evangelists. This proportion of
space is very striking even when we bear in mind that properly
speaking the Gospels are not the record of thirty-three or thirty-four
years, but only of three or four. Of the story of the years of the
public ministry one-seventh part is given to the last day; and this,
too, without the introduction of any lengthened discourse. If the
discourse in the upper room and the intercessory prayer as recorded by
St. John were added, it would be, not one-seventh, but almost
one-fourth of the whole. Truly this must be the Day of days!
Unspeakably sacred and precious as is the entire life of our Lord and
Saviour, sacred above all and precious above all is His death of shame
and agony. The same pre-eminence was evidently given to the dying of
the Lord Jesus in the special revelation granted to St. Paul, as is
evident from the fact that, in setting forth the gospel he had been
commissioned to preach, he spoke of it as the gospel of "Jesus Christ
and Him crucified," and put in the foreground, not the incarnate life,
great as he recognised it to be (1 Tim. iii. 16), but the atoning
death of Christ: "I delivered unto you _first of all_ that which I
also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures." Here, then, we have the very gospel of the grace of God.
Here we enter the inner shrine of the Word, the Holy of Holies of the
new covenant. Let us draw near with holy reverence and deep humility,
yet with the eye of faith directed ever upwards in reliance on the
grace of Him Who searcheth all things, even the deep things of God,
and Whose work and joy it is to take of the things of Christ, even
those that are among the deepest things of God, and show them unto us.
"AFTER TWO DAYS" (xxvi. 1-19).
This passage does not strictly belong to the history of the one great
day, but it is the approach to it. It opens with the solemn
announcement "After two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son
of man is betrayed to be crucified"; and without any record of the
Saviour's doings in the interval,[24] it closes with the preparation
for the keeping of the feast with His disciples, the directions for
which are introduced by the pathetic words, "My time is at hand."
The incident at Bethany (vv. 6-13) seems to be introduced here in
connection with the development of treason in the soul of Judas. This
connection would not be so apparent were it not for the information
given in St. John's account of the feast, that it was Judas especially
who objected to what he called "this waste" of the ointment, and that
the reason why he was displeased at it was because "he had the bag,
and bare what was put therein." With this in mind we can see how
natural it was that, having had no occasion before to tell the story
of the feast at Bethany, the Evangelist should be disposed to tell it
now, as connected in his mind with the traitor's selling of his Lord
for thirty pieces of silver.
The two days of interval would extend from the evening following the
abandonment of the Temple to the evening of the Passover feast. It is
important always, and especially in studying the days of the Passion
week, to bear in mind that, according to the Jewish mode of reckoning,
each new day began, not with the morning as with us, but with the
evening. In this they followed a very ancient precedent: "The evening
and the morning were the first day." The two days, then, would be from
Tuesday evening till Thursday evening; so that with Thursday evening
began the last day of our Lord's Passion. There is no record at all of
how He spent the Wednesday; in all probability it was in seclusion at
Bethany. Nor have we any account of the doings of the Thursday save
the directions given to prepare the Passover, the keeping of which was
to be the first act of the last day.
We may think of these two days, then, as days of rest for our Lord, of
holy calm and quietude--a sacred lull before the awful storm. What
were His thoughts? what His feelings? What passages of Scripture were
His solace? Would not the ninety-fourth psalm be one of them? If so,
how fondly would He dwell upon that sentence of it, "In the multitude
of my thoughts within me Thy comforts delight my soul." If we only had
a record of His prayers, how rich it would be! If we had the spiritual
history of these two days it would no doubt be full of pleading as
rich and precious as the prayer of intercession His disciples heard
and one of them recorded for our sakes, and of yearning as tender and
touching as His wail over Jerusalem. But the Spirit, Who takes of the
things of Christ and shows them unto us, does not invade the privacy
of the Saviour's hours of retirement. No diary is published; and
beyond doubt it is better so. It may be that in the lives of the
saints there has been too much of this--not too much of spiritual
communing, but too much unveiling of it. It may be that there is a
danger of leading us to seek after such "exercises" as an end in
themselves, instead of as mere means to the end of holy and unselfish
living. What the world should see is the life that is the outcome of
those secret communings with God--it should see the life which was
with the Father manifested in glowing word and self-forgetting deed.
Why have we no need to see into that holy, loving heart during these
two sacred days in Bethany? Because it is sufficiently revealed in the
story of the day that followed it. Ah! the words, the deeds of that
day--what revealings of heart, what manifestations of the life within
are there!
The very silence of these two days is strikingly suggestive of repose.
We are presently to hear of the awful agony in the Garden; but from
the very way in which we shall hear of it we shall be strengthened in
the impression, which no doubt is the true one, that the two days of
interval were not days of agony, but days of soul rest; and in this
we recognise a striking contrast to the restlessness of those who
spent the time in plotting His destruction. Contrast, for example, the
calm of our Lord's announcement in the second verse, with the uneasy
plotting in the palace of the high priest. Without agitation He faces
the horror of great darkness before Him; without flinching He
anticipates the very darkest of it all: "betrayed"--"crucified";
without a tremor on His lips He even specifies the time: "after two
days." Now look at that company in the palace of the high priest, as
with dark brows and troubled looks they consult how they may take
Jesus by subtlety. Observe how in fear they put it off,--as not safe
yet, not for nine days at least, till the crowds at the feast, so many
of whom had so recently been shouting "Hosanna to the Son of David!"
shall have gone home. "Not for nine days," so they resolve. "After two
days," so He has said.
"Oh, but the counsel of the Lord
Doth stand, for ever sure."
Christ knew far more about it than if there had been a spy in the
palace of the high priest, reporting to Him. He was in communication
with One Who doeth according to His will in the armies of heaven and
among the inhabitants of the earth. Caiaphas and his fellow-conspirators
may plot what they please, it shall be done according to the counsel
of the Lord; it shall be so done that an apostle shall be able
afterwards with confidence to say: "Him, _being delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God_, ye have taken."
The means by which their counsels were overruled was the treason of
Judas, into whose dark heart the Bethany incident will afford us a
glimpse. Its interest turns upon the different values attached to a
deed of love, by Judas[25] on the one hand, and by Jesus on the other.
To Judas it meant waste. And such a waste!--three hundred pence thrown
away on the foolish luxury of a moment! "This ointment might have been
sold for much, and given to the poor." Be it remembered that there was
a good deal to be said for this argument. It is very easy for us, who
have the limelight of our Lord's words on the whole scene, to see how
paltry the objection was; but even yet, with this story now published,
as our Lord said it would be, all over Christendom, how many arguments
are heard of the very same description! It is not so much to be
wondered at that the objection of Judas found a good deal of favour
with some of the disciples. They could not see the blackness of the
heart out of which the suggestion came, nor could they see the beauty
of the love which shed from Mary's heart a perfume far more precious
than the odour of the ointment. Probably even Mary was startled; and,
if her Lord had not at once taken her part, might not have had a word
to say for herself.
"But Jesus, perceiving[26] it, said unto them, Why trouble ye the
woman? for she hath wrought a good work on Me." He understood
her--understood her perfectly, read at once the whole secret of her
loving heart, explained her conduct better even than she understood it
herself, as we shall presently see. He deals very tenderly with the
disciples; for He understood them too, saw at once that there was no
treason in their hearts, that though they took up the suggestion of
the traitor it was in no sympathy with his spirit, but simply because
of their want of insight and appreciation. He, however, does rebuke
them--gently; and then He quietly opens their eyes to the surpassing
beauty of the deed they had ventured to condemn. "She hath wrought a
good work upon Me." The word translated "good" has prominent in it the
thought of beauty. And since our Lord has set that deed of Mary in its
true light, there is no one with any sense of beauty who fails to see
how beautiful it is. The very impulsiveness of the act, the absence of
all calculation, the simplicity and naturalness of it, the womanliness
of it--all these add to its beauty as an outburst of love. We can well
imagine that these words of Jesus may have furnished much of the
inspiration which thrilled the soul of the apostle as he wrote to the
Corinthians his noble eulogy of love. Certainly its pricelessness
could not have been more notably or memorably taught. Three hundred
pence to be weighed against a true woman's love! "If a man would give
all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be
contemned."
We are led into still more sacred ground as we observe how highly the
Saviour values Mary's affection for Himself. "She hath wrought a good
work upon _Me_"--"_Me_ ye have not always"--"she did it for
My burial." Who can reach the pathos of these sacred words? There is
no doubt that amid the hate by which Jesus was surrounded, with His
knowledge of the treason in the dark soul of Judas, and His keen sense
of the want of sympathy on the part of the other disciples, His human
heart was yearning for love, for sympathetic love. Oh, how He loved!
and how that love of His was going out to all around Him throughout
the Passion week--without return! We may well believe, then, that this
outburst of love from the heart of Mary must have greatly cheered Him.
"She hath wrought a good work _upon Me_." With the ointment on
His head, there had come a far sweeter balm to His wounded heart; for
He saw that she was not wanting in sympathy--that she had some idea,
however vague it might be, of the pathos of the time. She felt, if she
did not quite see, the shadow of the grave. And this presentiment
(shall we call it?) not as the result of any special thought about it,
but in some dim way, had prompted her to choose this touching manner
of showing her love: "In that she hath poured this ointment on My
body, she did it for My burial." Verily, a true human heart beats
here, welcoming, oh! so gladly, this woman's loving sympathy.
But the Divine Spirit is here too, looking far beyond the needs of
the moment or the burdens of the day. No one could more tenderly
consider the poor; nothing was nearer to His heart than their
necessities,--witness that wonderful parable of judgment with which He
finished His public ministry; but He knew well that in that personal
devotion which was shown in Mary's loving act was to be found the
mainspring of all benevolence, and not only so but of all that was
good and gracious; therefore to discourage such personal affection
would be to seal up the fount of generosity and goodness; and
accordingly He not only commends it, but He lifts it up to its proper
dignity, He gives a commendation beyond all other words of praise He
ever spoke; looking away down the ages, and out to the ends of the
earth, and recognising that this love to Himself, this personal
devotion to a dying Saviour, was to be the very central force of the
gospel, and thus the hope of the world, He adds these memorable words:
"Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in
the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be
told for a memorial of her."
* * * * *
From "this that this woman hath done" the record passes at once to
that which was done by the man who had dared to find fault with it. It
also is told wherever the gospel is preached as a memorial of him.
Behold, then, the two memorials side by side. Has not the Evangelist
shown himself the true historian in bringing them together? The
contrast intensifies the light that shines from the love of Mary, and
deepens the darkness of the traitor's sin. Besides, the story of the
three hundred pence is a most fitting prelude to that of the thirty
pieces of silver. At the same time, by suggesting the steps which led
down to such an abyss of iniquity, it saves us from the error of
supposing that the sin of Judas was so peculiar that no one now need
be afraid of falling into it; for we are reminded in this way that it
was at bottom the very sin which is the commonest of all, the very sin
into which Christians of the present day are in greatest danger of
falling.
What was it that made so great a gulf between Judas and all the rest?
Not natural depravity; in this respect they were no doubt much alike.
When the Twelve were chosen there was in all probability as good
material, so to speak, in the man of Kerioth as in any of the men of
Galilee. What, then, made the difference? Simply this, that his heart
was never truly given to his Lord. He tried throughout to serve God
and mammon; and if he had been able to combine the two services, if
there had been any fair prospect of these thrones on which the Twelve
were to sit, and the honours and emoluments of the kingdom with which
his fancy had been dazzled, treason would never have entered his mind;
but when not a throne but a cross began to loom before him, he found,
as every one finds some time, that he must make his choice, and that
choice was what it invariably is with those who try to serve the two
masters. The god of this world had blinded him. He not only failed to
see the beauty of Mary's loving deed, as some of the other disciples
did just at the first, but he had become quite incapable of any
spiritual insight, quite incapable of seeing his Master's glory, or
recognising His claims. In a certain sense, then, even Judas himself
was like the other murderers of Christ in not knowing what he did.
Only he might have known, would have known, had not that accursed
lust of gold been always in the way. And we may say of any ordinary
worshipper of mammon of the present day, that if he had been in Judas'
place, with the prospects as dark as they were to him, with only the
one course left, as it would seem to him, of extricating himself from
a losing concern, he would be in the highest degree likely to do the
very same thing.
As the two days draw to a close we see Judas seeking opportunity to
betray his Master, and Jesus seeking opportunity to keep His last
Passover with His disciples. Again what a contrast! The traitor must
lurk and lie in wait; the Master does not even remain in Bethany or
seek some lonely house on the Mount of Olives, but sends His disciples
right over into the city, and with the same readiness with which He
had found the ass's colt on which He rode into Jerusalem He finds a
house in which to keep the feast.
I.--THE EVENING (xxvi. 20-30).
The last day of our Lord's Passion begins at eventide on Thursday with
the Passover feast,[27] at which "He sat down with the Twelve."
The entire feast would be closely associated in His mind with the
dark event with which the day must close; for of all the types of the
great sacrifice He was about to offer, the most significant was the
paschal lamb. Most fitting, therefore, was it that towards the close
of this feast, when its sacred importance was deepest in the
disciples' minds, their Master should institute the holy ordinance
which was to be a lasting memorial of "Christ our Passover sacrificed
for us." Of this feast, then, with its solemn and affecting close, the
passage before us is the record.
It falls naturally into two parts, corresponding to the two great
burdens on the Saviour's heart as He looked forward to this feast--the
Betrayal and the Crucifixion (see ver. 2). The former is the burden of
vv. 21-25; the latter of vv. 26-30. There was indeed very much besides
to tell--the strife which grieved the Master's heart as they took
their places at the table, and His wise and kindly dealing with it
(Luke xxii. 24, _seq._); the washing of the disciples' feet; the
farewell words of consolation; the prayer of intercession (John
xiii.-xvii.),--but these are all omitted here, that thought may be
concentrated on the two outstanding facts: the unmasking and dismissal
of the traitor, and the committing to the faithful ones of the sacred
charge, "This do in remembrance of Me."
1. It must have been sorrowful enough for the Master as He sat down
with the Twelve to mark their unseemly strife, and sadder still to
think that, though for the hour so closely gathered round Him, they
would soon be scattered every man to his own and would leave Him
alone; but He had the comfort of knowing that eleven were true at
heart and foreseeing that after all wanderings and falls they would
come back again. "He knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are
dust"; and therefore with the eye of divine compassion He could look
beyond the temporary desertion, and find satisfaction in the fidelity
that would triumph in the end over the weakness of the flesh. But
there was one of them, for whom His heart was failing Him, in whose
future He could see no gleam of light. All the guiding and counsel
with which he had been favoured in common with the rest had been lost
on him,--even the early word of special personal warning (John vi.
70), spoken that he might bethink himself ere it were too late, had
failed to touch him. There is now only one opportunity left. It is the
last night; and the last word must now be spoken. How tenderly and
thoughtfully the difficult duty is done! "As they did eat, He said,
Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me." Imagine in
what tones these words were spoken, what love and sorrow must have
thrilled in them!
The kind intention evidently was to reach the heart of the one without
attracting the attention of the rest. For there must have been a
studied avoidance of any look or gesture that would have marked the
traitor. This is manifest from the way in which the sad announcement
is received. It comes, in fact, to all the eleven as a summons to
great searchings of heart, a fitting preparation (1 Cor. xi. 28) for
the new and sacred service to which they are soon to be invited; and
truly there could have been no better sign than the passing from lip
to lip, from heart to heart, of the anxious question, "Lord, is it I?"
The remembrance of the strife at the beginning of the feast was too
recent, the tone of the Master's voice too penetrating, the glance of
His eye too searching, to make self-confidence possible to them at
that particular moment. Even the heart of the confident Peter seems to
have been searched and humbled under that scrutinising look. If only
he had retained the same spirit, what humiliation would have been
spared him!
There was one who did not take up the question; but the others were
all so occupied with self-scrutiny that no one seems to have observed
his silence, and Jesus forbears to call attention to it. He will give
him another opportunity to confess and repent, for so we understand
the pathetic words which follow: "He that dippeth his hand with Me in
the dish, the same shall betray Me." This was no mere outward sign for
the purpose of denoting the traitor. It was a wail of sorrow, an echo
of the old lament of the Psalmist: "Yea, mine own familiar friend, in
whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel
against me." How could the heart even of Judas resist so tender an
appeal?
We shall understand the situation better if we suppose what is more
than probable,[28] that he was sitting very near to Jesus, perhaps
next to Him on the one side, as John certainly was on the other. We
cannot suppose, from what we know of the customs of the East, that
Judas was the only one dipping with Him in the dish; nor would he be
the only one to whom "the sop" was given. But if his position was as
we have supposed, there was something in the vague words our Saviour
used which tended to the singling of him out, and, though not the only
one, he would naturally be the first to whom the sop was given, which
would be a sufficient sign to John, who alone was taken into
confidence at the time (see John xiii. 25, 26), without attracting in
any special way the attention of the rest. Both in the words and in
the action, then, we recognise the Saviour's yearning over His lost
disciple, as He makes a last attempt to melt his obdurate heart.
The same spirit is manifest in the words which follow. The thought of
consequences to Himself gives Him no concern; "the Son of man goeth,
even as it is written of Him;" it is the awful abyss into which His
disciple is plunging that fills His soul with horror: "but woe unto
that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that
man if he had not been born." O Judas! Thy treachery is indeed a link
in the chain of events by which the divine purpose is fulfilled; but
it was not necessary that so it should be. In some other way the
counsel of the Lord would have been accomplished, if thou hadst
yielded to that last appeal. It was necessary that the Son of man
should suffer and die for the world's sin, but there was nothing to
compel thee to have thy hand in it.
At last Judas speaks; but in no spirit of repentance. He takes up, it
is true, the question of the rest, but not in sincerity--only driven
to it as the last refuge of hypocrisy. Moreover, he asks it in so low
a tone, that neither it nor the answer to it appears to have been
noticed by the general company (see John xiii. 29). And that there is
no inclining of the heart to his Lord appears perhaps in the use of
the formal title Rabbi, retained in the Revised Version: "Is it I,
Rabbi?" Had he repented even at this late hour--had he thrown himself,
humbled and contrite, at the Saviour's feet, with the question "Lord,
is it I?" struggling to find utterance, or better still, the
heart-broken confession "Lord, it is I"--it would not yet have been
too late. He Who never turned a penitent away would have received even
Judas back again and forgiven all his sin; and in lowliness of heart
the repentant disciple might have received at his Master's hands the
symbols of that infinite sacrifice which was sufficient even for such
as he. But his conscience is seared as with a hot iron, his heart is
hard as the nether millstone, and accordingly without a word of
confession, actually taking "the sop" without a sign even of shame, he
gave himself up finally to the spirit of evil, and went immediately
out--"_and it was night_" (see John xiii. 30). There remain now around
the Master none but true disciples.
* * * * *
2. The Passover meal is drawing to a close; but ere it is ended the
Head of the little family has quite transfigured it. When the traitor
left the company we may suppose that the look of unutterable sadness
would gradually pass from the Saviour's countenance. Up to this time
the darkness had been unrelieved. As he thought of the lost disciple's
fate, there was nothing but woe in the prospect; but when from that
dark future he turned to His own, He saw, not the horror of the Cross
alone, but "the joy set before Him"; and in view of it He was able
with a heart full of thanks and praise to appoint for remembrance of
the awful day a feast, to be kept like the Paschal feast by an
ordinance for ever (see Ex. xii. 14).
The connection of the new feast with the old is closely maintained. It
was "as they were eating" that the Saviour took bread, and from the
way in which He is said to have taken "a cup" (R.V.) it is plain that
it was one of the cups it was customary to take at the Paschal feast.
With this in mind we can more readily see the naturalness of the words
of institution. They had been feasting on the body of the lamb; it is
time that they should look directly at the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world; so, taking the new symbol and handing it to
them, He says, "Take, eat; this is My body."
How strange that into words so simple there should have been imported
anything so mysterious and unnatural as some of the doctrines around which
controversy in the Church has raged for weary centuries--doctrines
sadly at variance with "the simplicity that is in Christ."[29] At the
first institution of the Passover the directions for eating it close
with these words, "It is the Lord's Passover." Does any one for a
single moment suppose that in so putting it Moses meant to assert any
mysterious identity of two things so diverse in their nature as the
literal flesh of the lamb and the historical event known as the Lord's
Passover? Why, then, should any one for a moment suppose that when
Jesus says, "This is My body," He had any thought of mysterious
transference or confusion of identity? Moses meant that the one was
the symbol of the other; and in the same way our Saviour meant that
the bread was henceforth to be the symbol of His body. The same
appropriateness, naturalness and simplicity, are apparent in the words
with which He hands the cup: "This is My blood of the covenant" (R.V.
omits _new_, which throws the emphasis more distinctly on _My_) "which
is shed"--not, like the blood of the lamb, for a little family group,
but--"for many," not as a mere sign (see Heb. x.), but "unto remission
of sins."
The new symbols were evidently much more suitable to the ordinance
which was to be of world-wide application. Besides, it was no longer
necessary that there should be further sacrifice of life. Christ our
Passover was sacrificed once for all; and therefore there must be no
thought of repetition of the sacrifice; it must be represented only;
and this is done both simply and impressively in the breaking of the
bread and the pouring of the wine. Nothing could be more natural than
the transition from the old to the new Passover feast.
Rising now above all matters of detail and questions of
interpretation, let us try humbly and reverently to enter into the
mind of Christ as He breaks the bread and pours the wine and
institutes the feast of love. As in the earlier part of the evening we
had in His dealings with the traitor a touching unveiling of His
human heart, so now, while there is the same human tenderness, there
is with it a reach of thought and range of vision which manifestly
transcend all mortal powers.
Consider first how extraordinary it was that at such a time He should
take pains to concentrate the thoughts of His disciples in all time to
come upon His death. Even the bravest of those who had been with Him
in all His temptations could not look at it now; and to His own human
soul it must have seemed in the very last degree repulsive. To the
disciples, to the world, it must have seemed defeat; yet He calmly
provides for its perpetual celebration as a victory!
Think of the form the celebration takes. It is no mournful solemnity,
with dirges and elegies for one about to die; but a _Feast_--a strange
way of celebrating a death. It may be said that the Passover feast
itself was a precedent; but in this respect there is no parallel. The
Passover feast was no memorial of a death. If Moses had died that
night, would it ever have occurred to the children of Israel to
institute a feast for the purpose of keeping in memory so unutterable
a calamity? But a greater than Moses is here, and is soon to die a
cruel and shameful death. Is not that a calamity as much more dreadful
than the other as Christ was greater than Moses? Why, then, celebrate
it by a feast? Because this death is no calamity. It is the means of
life to a great multitude that no man can number, out of every kindred
and tongue and people and nation. Therefore it is most fitly
celebrated by a feast. It is a memorial; but it is far more. It is a
feast, provided for the spiritual nourishment of the people of God
through all their generations. Think what must have been in the
Saviour's mind when He said, "Take, eat"; how His soul must have been
enlarged as He uttered the words "shed for many." Simple words, easily
spoken; but before they came from these sacred lips there must have
risen before His mind the vision of multitudes all through the ages,
fed on the strangest food, refreshed by the strangest wine, that
mortal man had ever heard of.
How marvellously the horizon widens round Him as the feast proceeds!
At first He is wholly engaged with the little circle round the table.
When He says, "One of you shall betray Me," when He takes the sop and
hands it, when He pours out His last lament over the false disciple,
He is the Man of Sorrows in the little upper chamber; but when He
takes the bread and again the cup, the horizon widens, beyond the
cross He sees the glory that shall follow, sees men of all nations and
climes coming to the feast He is preparing for them, and before He
closes He has reached the consummation in the heavenly kingdom: "I say
unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until
that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom." "Truly
this was the Son of God."
Then hear Him singing at the close. How bewildered the disciples, how
rapt the Master, must have been! What a scene for the painter, what a
study of divine calm and human agitation! The "hymn" they sang was in
all probability the latter part of the Great Hallel, which closes with
Psalm cxviii. It is most interesting as we read the psalm to think
what depths of meaning, into which none of His disciples as yet could
enter, there must have been to Him in almost every line.
II.--THE NIGHT (xxvi. 31-75).
As the little company have lingered in the upper room evening has
passed into night. The city is asleep, as Jesus leads the way along
the silent streets, down the steep slope of Moriah, and across the
Kedron, to the familiar place of resort on the mount of Olives. As
they proceed in silence, a word of ancient prophecy lies heavy on His
heart. It was from Zechariah, whose prophecy was often[30] in his
thoughts in the Passion week. "Awake, O sword, against My shepherd,
and against the man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite
the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." It is the last part
of it that troubles Him. For the smiting of the Shepherd He is well
prepared; it is the scattering of the sheep that makes His heart so
sore, and forces Him to break the silence with the sorrowful words,
"All ye shall be offended because of Me this night." What pathos in
these words "_because of Me_": how it pained Him to think that what
must come to Him should be so terrible to them! And is there not a
touch of kind allowance in the words "this night"? "He that walketh in
the night stumbleth," and how could they but stumble in such a night?
Then the thought of the shepherd and the sheep which fills His mind
and suggests the passage He quotes is full of tenderness without even
a hint of reproach. Who will blame the sheep for scattering when the
Shepherd is smitten? And how trustfully and withal how wistfully does
He look forward to the reassembling of the flock in the old home, the
sacred region where they gathered first around the Shepherd: "After I
am risen again, I will go before you (as the shepherd goes before the
flock) into Galilee." Thus after all would be fulfilled His prayer of
intercession, so recently offered on their behalf: "Holy Father, keep
through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be
one."
The silly sheep were not at all alarmed. This was altogether natural;
for the danger was not yet within their sight. Nor was it really at
all unnatural that the impulsive Peter should be now at the very
opposite pole of feeling from where he stood an hour or two before.
Then, sharing the general depression, he joined the rest in the
anxious question, "Lord, is it I?" now, having been relieved from the
anxiety which for the moment pressed upon him, and having been
moreover raised into a glow of feeling and an assurance of faith by
his Master's tender and stirring words, and the prayer of intercession
which so fitly closed them, he has passed from the depths of
self-distrust to the heights of self-confidence, so that he even dares
to say, "Though all men shall be offended because of Thee, yet will
_I_ never be offended."
Ah! Peter, you were safe when you were crying "Lord, is it I?"--you
are very far from safe now, when you speak of yourself in so different
a tone. Jesus sees it all, and gives him warning in the very plainest
words. But Peter persists. He vainly imagines that his Master cannot
know how strong he is, how burning his zeal, how warm his love, how
steadfast his devotion. Of all this he is himself distinctly
conscious. There is no mistake about it. Devotion thrills in every
fibre of his being; and he knows, he feels it in his soul, that no
torture, not death itself, could move him from his steadfastness:
"Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee." "Likewise
also said all the disciples." Quite natural too. For the moment Peter
was the leader of the sheep. They all caught his enthusiasm, and were
conscious of the same devotion: why, then, should they not acknowledge
it as he had done? They had yet to learn the difference between a
transient glow of feeling and abiding inward strength. Only by sad
experience can they learn it now; so Jesus lets them have the last
word.
* * * * *
And now Gethsemane is reached. The olive trees which in the daytime
give a shadow from the heat will now afford seclusion, though the moon
is at the full. Here, then, the Son of man will spend some time with
God, alone, before He is betrayed into the hands of sinners; and yet,
true Son of man as He is, He shrinks from being left alone in that
dread hour, and clings to the love and sympathy of those who have been
with Him in His temptations hitherto. So He leaves eight of the
disciples at the entering in of the olive grove, and takes with Him
into the darkness the three most in sympathy with Him--the same three
who had been sole witnesses of His power in raising from the dead the
daughter of Jairus, and had alone seen His glory on the holy mount.
But even these three cannot go with Him all the way. He will have them
as near as possible; and yet He must be alone. Did He think of the
passage, "I have trodden the winepress[31] alone, and of the people
there was none with me"?
That solitude may not be invaded. We can only, like the disciples of
old, look reverently at it from afar. There are probably many true
disciples who can get no nearer than the edge of the darkness; those
who are closest in sympathy may be able to obtain a nearer view, but
even those who like John have leant on His breast can know it only in
part--in its depth it passeth knowledge. Jesus is alone in Gethsemane
yet, and of the people there is none with Him.
"Ah! never, never can we know
The depth of that mysterious woe."
While it is not possible for any of us to penetrate the deep recesses
of Gethsemane, we have a key to let us in, and open to us something of
its meaning. This help is found in that striking passage in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, where the experience of the Lord Jesus in the
Garden is closely connected with His being "called of God an High
Priest after the order of Melchisedec." It is true that at His baptism
Jesus entered on His ministry in its largest sense, the Prophet,
Priest, and King of men. But there is a sense in which later on, at
successive stages, He was "called of God" to each of these offices in
succession. At His baptism the voice from heaven was, "This is My
Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased." On the mount of
Transfiguration there was this added, "Hear ye Him," and the
withdrawal of Moses and Elias, leaving Jesus alone, indicated that
henceforth He was called of God to be the one prophet of humanity.
Similarly, though from the beginning He was King, it was not till
after He had overcome the sharpness of death that He was "called of
God" to be King, to take His seat on the right hand of majesty in the
heavens. At what period, then, in His ministry was it that He was
called of God to be an high priest? To this natural question the
passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews supplies the answer; and when we
take the thought with us we see that it is indeed a torch to lighten
for us just a little the darkness of the Garden's gloom.
Is there not something in the very arrangement of the group which
harmonises with the thought? Three days ago the Temple had been closed
for ever to its Lord. Its shrine was empty now for evermore: "Behold,
your house is left unto you desolate." But still there is to be a
temple, in which shall minister a priest, not of the line of Aaron,
rather after the older order of Melchisedec--a temple, not of stone,
but of men--of believers, according to the later apostolic word: "Ye
are the temple of the living God." Of that new and living temple we
have a representation in Gethsemane. The eight disciples are its
court; the three are in the holy place; into the holiest of all our
great High Priest has gone--alone: for the veil is not yet rent in
twain.
But why the agony? The difficulty has always been to account for the
sudden change from the calmness of the Paschal feast to the awful
struggle of Gethsemane. What had happened meanwhile to bring about so
great a change? There was light in the upper chamber--it was dark in
the Garden; but surely the darkness and the light were both alike to
Him; or if to His human heart there was the difference we all are
conscious of, it could not be that the mere withdrawal of the light
destroyed His peace. It is altogether probable that both the previous
nights had been spent on this same mount of Olives, and there is no
hint of agony then. It is true that the prospect before Him was full
of unutterable horror; but from the time He had set His face to go up
to Jerusalem it had been always in His view, and though at times the
thought of it would come over Him as a cold wave that made Him shudder
for the moment, there had been up to this hour no agony like this, and
not a trace of pleading that the cup might pass.
What, then, was the new element of woe that came upon Him in that
hour? What was the cup now put for the first time to His sacred lips,
from which He shrank as from nothing in all His sad experience before?
Is not the answer to be found in the region of thought into which we
are led in that great passage already referred to, which speaks of Him
as then for the first time "called of God an High Priest," which
represents Him, though He was a Son, learning His obedience (as a
Priest) by the things which He suffered?
May we not, then, reverently conceive of Him as in that hour taking on
Him the sin of the world, in a more intimate sense than He had ever
done before? "He bare our sins in His own body on the tree." In a
certain sense He had borne the burden all His life, for He had
throughout endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself; but
in some special sense manifestly He bore it on the tree. When did He
in that special sense take the awful burden on Him? Was it not in the
Garden of Gethsemane? If so, can we wonder that the Holy One shrank
from it, as He never shrank from simple suffering? To be identified
with sin--to be "made sin," as the apostle puts it--how His soul
revolted from it! The cup of sorrow He could take without a murmur;
but to take on Him the intolerable load of the world's sin--from this
He shrank with all the recoil of stainless purity, with all the horror
of a heart that could not bear the very thought. It was not the
weakness of His flesh, but the purity of His spirit, that made Him
shrink, that wrung from Him once and again, and yet again, the cry,
"Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." It was a new
temptation, three times repeated, like that old one in the wilderness.
That assault, as we found, was in close relation to His assumption at
His baptism of His work of ministry; this conflict in the Garden was,
we believe, as closely connected with His assuming His priestly work,
undertaking to make atonement for sin by the sacrifice of Himself. As
that followed His baptism, this followed His institution of the holy
supper. In that ordinance He had prepared the minds of His disciples
to turn from the Paschal lamb of the old covenant, to behold
henceforth the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.
From the feast He goes straightway to this lonely garden, and there
begins[32] His dread atoning work.
It must have been a great aggravation of His agony that even the three
disciples could not enter into sympathy with Him, even so much as to
hold their eyes waking. True, they were very weary, and it was most
natural that they should be heavy with sleep; but had they had even a
faint conception of what that agony of their Master meant they could
not possibly have slept; and we can well fancy that in that hour of
anguish the Saviour must have called to mind from the Book of Psalms,
with which He was so perfectly familiar, the sad lament: "Reproach
hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for
some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found
none."
But though He keenly feels His loneliness, His thoughts are far less
of Himself than of them. Realising so vividly the horrors now so close
at hand, He sees, from the very possibility of their sleeping, how
utterly unprepared they are for what awaits them, so He summons them
to "watch and pray," to be on the alert against sudden surprise, and
to keep in constant touch with God, so that they may not find
themselves confronted with temptation which, whatever the devotion of
the spirit, may prove too much for the weakness of the flesh. Think of
the tender consideration of this second warning, when the first had
been so little heeded.
And we cannot but agree with those who see in what He said when He
returned for the last time to the three, not irony, no touch of
sarcasm, but the same tender consideration He has shown throughout.
From the Garden they could easily see the city in the moonlight across
the ravine. As yet there was no sign of life about it: all was quiet;
there was therefore no reason why they should not for the few moments
that might remain to them sleep on now and take their rest. But it can
only be for a short time, for "the hour is at hand." We may, then,
think of the three lying down to sleep, as the eight had probably been
doing throughout, while Jesus, from whose mortal eyes sleep was
banished now for ever, would watch until He saw the gleam of lanterns
and torches as of men from the city coming down the hill, and then He
would wake them and say, "Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand
that doth betray Me."
* * * * *
The arrest immediately follows the agony; and with it, begins the
outward shame and torture of the Passion. The time has now come when
all the indignities and cruelties of which Jesus had spoken to His
disciples "apart in the way" (see xx. 17-19) shall be heaped upon Him.
But none of these things move Him. The inward shame and torture had
almost been too much for Him. His soul had been "exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death"; so that He was in danger of passing away from the
scene of conflict ere yet it would be possible to say "It is
finished." Only by "strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to
save Him from death" had He obtained the needful strength (Luke xxii.
43) to pass the awful ordeal, and come out of it ready to yield
Himself up into the "wicked hands" by which He must be "crucified and
slain." But now He is strong. St. Matthew does not tell us that the
prayer in the Garden was answered; but we see it as we follow the Son
of man along the dolorous way. If He shrank from taking up the load of
human sin, He does not flinch in carrying it; and amid all He has to
bear at the hands of sinners, He maintains His dignity and
self-possession.
When the armed men approach, He goes calmly out to meet them. Even the
traitor's kiss He does not resent; but only takes occasion to make one
more appeal to that stony heart, "Comrade,"[33] He says, "(do) that
for which thou art come" (see R.V.). There is a brokenness in the
utterance which makes it difficult to translate, but which is
touchingly natural. It would seem as if our Lord, when Judas first
appeared, though He knew well for what purpose He had come, and wished
to show him that He did, yet shrank from putting it into words. When
the traitor had actually done that for which he had come, when he had
not only given the traitor's kiss, and that in a shamelessly effusive
way, as appears from the strong word used in the account both here and
elsewhere, then would come that other appeal which most impressed the
eye-witness from whom St. Luke had his information: "Judas, betrayest
thou the Son of man _with a kiss_?"
At this point probably occurred an incident of the arrest recorded
only in the fourth Gospel, the recoil of the mob when Jesus confronted
them and acknowledged Himself to be the man whom they were seeking.
Though this is not mentioned here, we recognise the effect of it upon
the disciples. It would naturally embolden them when, on the second
advance, they saw their Master in the hands of these men, to ask,
"Lord, shall we smite with the sword?" And it was most characteristic
that "one of them" (whom we should have recognised, even though St.
John had not mentioned his name) should not wait for the answer, but
should smite at once.
All is excitement and commotion. Jesus alone is calm. In such a sea of
trouble, behold the Man! See the heart at leisure from itself to care
for and to cure the wounded servant of the high priest (Luke xxii.
51). Think of the mind so free at such a time to look out far into the
future, using the occasion to lay down the great principle that force,
as a weapon which will recoil on those who use it, must not be
employed in the cause of truth and righteousness. Look at that spirit,
so serenely confident of power with God at the very moment that the
frail body is helpless in the hands of men: "Thinkest thou that I
cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than
twelve legions of angels?" How it enlarges our souls even to try to
enter into that great mind and heart at such a moment. What an outlook
of thought! What an up-look of faith! And again, what mastery! What
self-annihilation! We have seen His self-repression in the prayer He
offered in the Garden; but think of the prayers He did not offer:
think what effort, what sacrifice, what self-abnegation it must have
been to Him to suppress that prayer for help from the legions of
heaven against these bands of the ungodly. But it was enough for Him
to remember, "How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it
must be?" It was necessary that He should suffer at the hands of men;
therefore He allows them to lead Him away, only reminding them that
the force which would have been needful for the arrest of some robber
desperado was surely quite unnecessary in dealing with One Whose daily
practice it had been to sit quietly teaching in the Temple.
The reference to the Scriptures was probably intended not only to
explain His non-resistance, but also to support the faith of His
disciples when they saw Him bound and carried off. Had they known the
Scriptures as under His teaching they might well have known them, not
only would they have seen that "thus it must be," but they would have
had before them the sure prospect of His rising from the dead on the
third day. But in their case the Scriptures were appealed to in vain;
they had not the faith of their Master to venture on the sure Word of
God; and so, hope failing, "all the disciples forsook Him and fled."
Not all finally, however, even for that dark night; for though faith
and hope failed, there remained love enough in the hearts of two to
make them presently stop and think, and then turn slowly and follow
from afar. Only Peter is mentioned here as doing this, because the
sequel concerns him; but that John also went to the palace of the
high priest we know from his own account (John xviii. 15).
* * * * *
The night is not yet over, and therefore there can be no formal
meeting of the Jewish council, according to an excellent law which
enacted that all cases involving the death penalty should be tried in
the daytime. This law was, quite characteristically, observed in the
letter, transgressed in the spirit; for though the formal sentence was
deferred till morning (xxvii. 1), the real trial was begun and ended
before the dawn. The reference by St. Matthew to both sessions of the
council enables us clearly to understand what would otherwise have
appeared a "manifest discrepancy" between his account and that of St.
Luke, the former speaking of the trial as having taken place in the
night, while the latter tells us it only began "as soon as it was day."
Our Evangelist shows himself to be a true historian in that, while
disposing of the formal morning session in half a sentence, he gives a
full account of the night conclave which really settled all. They
proceed in a thoroughly characteristic manner. Having secured their
prisoner, they must first agree upon the charge: what shall it be? It
was no easy matter; for not only had his life been stainless, but He
had shown consummate skill in avoiding all the entanglements which had
been set for Him; and besides, it so happened that nothing they could
prove conclusively against Him, such as His breaking the letter of the
Sabbath law, or rather of their traditions, would suit their purpose,
for they would run the risk on the one hand of calling fresh attention
to the works of healing which had made so deep an impression on the
popular mind, and on the other of stirring up strife between the
opposing factions which had entered into a precarious union based
solely on their common desire to do away with Him. Hence the great
difficulty of securing testimony against Him, and the necessity of
having recourse to that which was false.
We may wonder perhaps that a court so unscrupulous should have made so
much of the difficulty of getting witnesses to agree. Could they not,
for other "thirty pieces of silver," have purchased two that would
have served their purpose? But it must be remembered that men in their
position had to pay some respect to decency; and from their point of
view to pay a man for helping to arrest a criminal was an entirely
different transaction from giving money to procure false witness.
Besides, there were men of the council who did not "consent to the
counsel and deed of them" (see Luke xxiii. 51, and John vii. 50, 51),
and they must be careful. It is not probable of course that Joseph of
Arimathæa and Nicodemus would be present at the secret session in the
night; but they would of course be present, or have the opportunity of
being present, at the regular meeting in the morning.
When, therefore, the attempt to found a charge on the testimony of
witnesses against Him failed, the only hope was to force Him, if
possible, to incriminate Himself. The high priest accordingly
addresses himself to the prisoner, and attempts to induce Him to say
something which might tend to clear up the confusion of the witnesses'
testimony. It was evident that something had been said about
destroying the temple and building it in three days--would He not
state exactly what it was? "But Jesus held His peace." He would not
plead before such a tribunal, or acknowledge the irregular appeal by
so much as a single word.
Caiaphas is baffled; but there is one course left to him, a course
which for many reasons he would have preferred not to take, but he
sees now no other way of setting up a charge that will bear
examination in the morning. He therefore appeals to Jesus in the most
solemn manner to assert or deny His Messiahship.
Silence is now impossible. The high priest has given Him the
opportunity of proclaiming His gospel in presence of the council, and
He will not lose it, though it seal His condemnation. "He cannot deny
Himself." In the most emphatic manner He proclaims Himself the Christ,
the Son of God, and tells them that the time is coming when their
positions shall be reversed--He their Judge, they summoned to His bar:
"Henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of
power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." (R.V.). What light must
have been in His eye, what majesty in His mien, as He spoke those
thrilling words! And who shall limit their power? Who of us shall be
surprised to find members of that very conclave among the ransomed of
the Lord in the New Jerusalem? They might not heed His words that
night, but three days after would they not recall them? And fifty days
after that again--who can tell?
Meantime the only result is to produce real or affected horror. "The
high priest rent his clothes," thereby expressing in a tragic manner
how it tore his heart to hear such "blasphemy"; and with one consent,
or at least with no voice raised against it, He is condemned to death.
The council have now done with Him for the night, and He is handed
over to the custody of the guard and the servants of the high priest.
Then follows that awful scene, which cannot be recalled without a
shudder. To think that the Holy One of God should suffer these
personal indignities--oh, degradation! It is more dreadful to think of
than even the nails and the spear. Alas, even the dregs of the bitter
cup of sorrow were wrung out to Him! "Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto My
sorrow!"
* * * * *
Where is Peter now? We left him following afar off. He has summoned up
courage enough to follow on into the court of the high priest's
palace, and to mingle among the people there. If he had been let
alone, he would with John have in some measure retrieved the disgrace
of all the disciples forsaking their Master in "that night on which He
was betrayed"; but it has been necessary to rally all the remnants of
his bravery to come so far, and now he has none of it to spare.
Besides, he is very tired, and shivering with cold--in no condition,
verily, for anything heroic. Who is there of us will cast the first
stone at him? There are those that speak of him in a tone of contempt
as "quailing before a servant maid," as if the meanness of the
occasion were not the very thing which made it so hard for him. Had he
been summoned to the presence of the high priest, with all the eyes of
the council fastened on him, his tired feeling would have left him all
at once, his pulse would have beat fast, the excitement would have
stirred him so that no fire of coals would have been needed to warm
him, and he might then have acquitted himself in a manner worthy of
the rock-apostle; but to be suddenly met with a woman's question
sprung upon him unawares, with nobody he cared for looking on, with
nothing to rouse his soul from the prostration into which it had been
cast by the suddenness of what looked like overwhelming defeat--that
was more than even Peter could bear; and accordingly he fell--fell
terribly. Not to the bottom all at once. He tries first to pass the
question off with a show of ignorance or indifference: "I know not
what thou sayest." But when the first downward step is taken, all the
rest follow with terrible rapidity. As we look down into the abyss
into which plunged headlong the foremost of the Twelve, and hear these
oaths and curses, what force it lends to the warning in Gethsemane:
"Watch and pray, that ye _enter not_ into temptation"!
What a lesson of charity is here! Suppose for a moment that one of the
Marys had been standing near, and heard Peter denying his Master with
oaths and curses, what would her thought of him have been? What else
could it have been than a thought of sorrowful despair? She would have
felt constrained, however reluctantly, to place him, not with the
timid ten, but alongside of "Judas who betrayed Him." Yet she would
have been wrong; and many good people are quite wrong when they judge
disciples of Christ by what they see of them when at their worst.
After all Peter was true at heart; and though from such an abyss he
could never have recovered himself, he was so linked to his Master by
the true devotion of the days of old that he could not fall utterly
away. It was quite otherwise with Judas. His heart had been set on his
covetousness throughout, while Peter in his inmost soul was loyal and
true. His Master has prayed for him that his faith fail not. His
courage has failed; and if that faith which is the only sure
foundation for enduring courage had utterly failed too, his case would
have been hopeless indeed. But it has not; there is still a link to
bind him to the Lord, Whom in word he is denying for the moment; and
first the crowing of the cock which reminds him of his Master's
warning, and then immediately after, that look which was turned full
on Peter as Jesus passed him, led across the court, perhaps with
jeerings and buffetings at the very moment--that solemn memory and
that sad and loving look recall him to himself again, the old true
life wells up from the depths of the genuine and noble heart of him,
and overflows in tears. So ends the story of that awful night.
III.--THE MORNING (xxvii. 1-26).
The formal meeting of the council in the morning would not occupy many
minutes. The death sentence had been already agreed upon, and it only
remained to take the necessary steps to carry it into effect. Hence
the form in which the Evangelist records the morning session: "All the
chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to
put Him to death." This could not have passed as a minute of the
meeting; but it was none the less a true account of it. As, however,
the law forbade their inflicting the death penalty, "when they had
bound Him, they led Him away, and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the
governor."
This delivering up of Jesus is a fact of the Passion on which special
stress is laid in the sacred records. It seems, indeed, to have
weighed on the mind of Jesus Himself as much as the betrayal, as would
appear from the manner in which, as He was nearing Jerusalem, He told
His disciples what He should suffer there: "Behold, we go up to
Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief
priests and scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death, _and shall
deliver Him unto the Gentiles_ to mock, and to scourge, and to
crucify" (Matt xx. 18, 19; see also Mark x. 33, and Luke xviii. 32).
Long before this, indeed, "He came unto His own, and His own received
Him not." With the sorrow of that rejection He was only too familiar;
but it was a new heart-break to be delivered up to the Gentiles. It
was a second betrayal on a much larger scale. So Stephen puts it in
the impassioned close of his defence, where he charges the council
with being "the _betrayers_ and murderers" of "the Just One"; and
indeed the thought is suggested here, not only by the association with
what follows in regard to the traitor's end, but by the use of the
very same word as applied to the traitor's act; for the word
translated "betrayed" in verse 3 is the very same in the original as
that translated "delivered up" in verse 2. Judas is about to drop out
of sight into the abyss; but the nation is one Judas now.
* * * * *
It may be, indeed, that it was the seeing of his own sin as mirrored
in the conduct of the council which roused at last the traitor's
sleeping conscience. As he saw his late Master led away bound, "as a
lamb to the slaughter," these very words may have come back to his
memory: "They shall deliver the Son of man to the Gentiles to mock,
and to scourge, and to crucify." It is quite possible, indeed, that
the man of Kerioth was too good a Jew to have been willing to sell his
Master to Pilate directly. But now he sees that that is just what he
has done. We have no sympathy with those who imagine that Judas only
intended to give his Master an opportunity of displaying His power and
asserting His rights in a manner that would secure at once the
allegiance of the people; but though we see no evidence of any good
intentions, we can readily believe that in the act of betrayal his
mind did not go beyond the immediate consequences of his action--on
the one hand the money; and on the other what was it but the handing
of his Master to the chief priests and elders, who were after all His
ecclesiastical superiors; and had they not the right to put Him on His
trial? But now that he sees Jesus, Whom by long acquaintance he knows
to be without spot or stain, bound as a common criminal and led away
to execution, his act appears in a new and awful light, he is smitten
with a measureless fear, and can no longer bear to think of what he
has done.
"He repented himself," so we read in our version; but that it is no
true repentance the more expressive Greek makes plain, for the word is
quite distinct from that which indicates "repentance after a godly
sort." Had there been in his heart any spring of true repentance its
waters would have been unsealed long ere this--at the Table, or when
in the Garden he heard his Master's last appeal of love. Not love, but
fear, not godly sorrow, but very human terror, is what moves him now;
and therefore it is not to Jesus that he flies--had he even now gone
up to Him, and fallen at His feet and confessed his sin, he would have
been forgiven--but to his accomplices in crime. Fain would he undo
what he has done; but it is impossible! What he can do, however, he
will; so he tries to get the chief priests to take back the silver
pieces. But they will have nothing to do with them or with him. To his
piteous confession they pay no heed; let him settle his own accounts
with his own conscience: "What is that to us? see thou to that."
He is now alone; shut up to himself; alone with his sin. Even the
thirty pieces of silver, which had such a friendly sound as he first
dropped them in his purse, have turned against him; now he hates the
very sight of them, and must be rid of them. As the priests will not
take them back, he will cast them "into the sanctuary" (R.V.), and so
perhaps find some relief. But oh, Judas! it is one thing to get the
silver out of your hands, and quite another to get the stain out of
your soul. The only effect of it is to make the solitude complete. He
has at last come to himself; and what a self it is to come to! No
wonder that he "went and hanged himself."
The chief priests have not yet come to themselves. They will
by-and-by, whether after the manner of the prodigal or after the
manner of the traitor time will show; but meanwhile they are in the
full career of their sin, and can therefore as yet consult to very
good purpose. It was not at all a bad way of getting out of their
difficulty with the money found in the sanctuary, to buy with it a
place to bury strangers in; but little did they dream that when the
story of it should be told thereafter to the world they would be
discovered to have unconsciously fulfilled a prophecy (Zech. xi. 12,
13), which on the one hand gibbeted their crime as a valuing of the
Shepherd of Israel at the magnificent price of thirty pieces of
silver, and on the other carried with it the suggestion of those awful
woes which Jeremiah had pronounced at the very spot they had purchased
with the price of blood (Jer. xix.).
* * * * *
From the end of the traitor Judas we return to the issue of the
nation's treason. "Now Jesus stood before the governor." The full
study of Jesus before Pilate belongs rather to the fourth Gospel,
which supplies many most interesting details not furnished here. We
must therefore deal with it quite briefly, confining our attention as
much as possible to the points touched in the record before us.[34]
As before the council, so before Pilate, our Lord speaks, or is
silent, according as the question affects His mission or Himself. When
asked of His Kingship, He answers in the most decided manner ("Thou
sayest" was a strong affirmation, as if to say "Certainly I am"); for
on this depends the only hope of salvation for Pilate--for His
accusers--for all. He will by no means disown or shrink from
acknowledging the mission of salvation on which His Father has sent
Him, though it may raise against Him the cry of blasphemy in the
council, and of treason in the court; but when He is asked what He has
to say for Himself, in the way of answer to the charges made against
Him, He is silent: even when Pilate himself appeals to Him in the
strongest manner to say something in His own defence, "He gave him no
answer, not even to one word" (R.V.). "Insomuch that the governor
marvelled greatly;" for how could he understand? How can a cautious,
cunning, time-serving man of the world understand the selflessness of
the Son of God?
Pilate had no personal grudge against Jesus, and had sense enough to
recognise at once that the claims of Kinghood advanced by his prisoner
did not touch the prerogatives of Cæsar--had penetration also to see
through the motives of the chief priests and elders (ver. 18), and
therefore was not at all disposed to acquiesce in the demand made on
him for a summary condemnation. Besides, he was not without fears,
which inclined him to the side of justice. He was evidently impressed
with the demeanour of his prisoner. This appears even in the brief
narrative of our Evangelist; but it comes out very strikingly in the
fuller record of the fourth Gospel. His wife's influence, too, was
used in the same direction. She evidently had heard something about
Jesus, and had taken some interest in Him, enough to reach the
conviction that He was a "righteous man." It was as yet quite early in
the morning, and she may not have known till after her husband had
gone out that it was for the trial of Jesus he was summoned. Having
had uneasy dreams, in which the Man Who had impressed her so much was
a leading figure, it was natural that she should send him a hasty
message, so as to reach him "while he was sitting on the judgment
seat" (R.V.). This message would reinforce his fears, and increase his
desire to deal justly with his extraordinary prisoner.
On the other hand, Pilate could not afford to refuse point blank the
demand of the Jewish leaders. He was by no means secure in his seat.
There had been so many disturbances under his administration, as we
learn from contemporary history, that his recall, perhaps something
more serious than recall, might be expected from Rome, if he should
again get into trouble with these turbulent Jews; so he did not dare
to run the risk of simply doing what he knew was right. Accordingly he
tried several expedients, as we learn from the other accounts, to
avoid the necessity of pronouncing sentence, one of which is here set
forth at length (ver. 15, _seq._), probably because it brings into
strong relief the absolute rejection of their Messiah alike by the
rulers and by the people.
It was a most ingenious device, and affords a striking example of the
astuteness of the procurator. Barabbas may have had some following in
his "sedition"; but evidently he was no popular hero, but a vulgar
robber or bandit, whose release was not at all likely to be clamoured
for by the multitude; and it was moreover reasonably to be expected
that the chief priests, much as they hated Jesus, would be ashamed to
even hint that He was worse than this wretched criminal. But he did
not know how deep the hatred was with which he had to deal. "He knew
that for envy they had delivered Him;" but he did not know that at the
root of that envy lay the conviction that either Jesus must perish or
they must. They felt that He was "of purer eyes than to behold evil,
and could not look upon iniquity"; and inasmuch as they had made up
their minds to keep their iniquity, they must get rid of Him; they
must seal up these eyes which searched them through and through, they
must silence these tones which, silvery as they were, were to them as
the knell of judgment. They had no liking for Barabbas, and, to do
them justice, no sympathy whatever with his crimes; but they had no
reason to be afraid of him: they could live, though he was free. It
must have been a hard alternative even for them; but there is no
hesitation about it. Themselves and their emissaries are busy among
the mob, persuading them "that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy
Jesus."
The multitudes are only too easily persuaded. Not that they had the
dark envy, or anything like the rooted hatred, of their leaders; but
what will a careless mob not be prepared to do when excitement
prevails and passions are inflamed? It is not at all unlikely that
some of the same people who followed the multitude in shouting
"Hosanna to the Son of David!" only five days before, would join in
the cry which some of the baser sort would be the first to raise,
"Crucify Him! crucify Him!" Those who know human nature best--at its
basest, as in the hatred of the chief priests and elders; at its
shallowest, as in the passions of the fickle crowd--will marvel least
at the way in which the alternative of Pilate was received. There is
no touchstone of human nature like the cross of Christ; and in the
presence of the Holy One of God, sin is forced, as it were, to show
itself in all its native blackness and enormity; and what sin is
there, however small it seem to be, which if allowed to develop its
latent possibility of vileness, would not lead on to this very
choice--"Not Jesus, but Barabbas"?
And Pilate, you may wash your hands before the multitude, and say, "I
am innocent of the blood of this just Person"; but it is all in vain.
There is a Searcher of hearts Who knows you through and through. "See
ye to it," you say; and so said to Judas the chief priests and elders,
using the very same words. But both they and you must see to that
which each fain would put aside for ever. Ay, and it will be less
tolerable for you and for them than even for the thoughtless crowd who
cry, "His blood be upon us and on our children." It was in vain to ask
of people like these, "What shall I do, then, with Jesus which is
called Christ?" There was only one thing to do: the thing which was
right. Failing to do this, you had no alternative but to share in the
sin of all the rest. Even Pilate must take a side, as all must do.
Neutrality here is impossible. Those who persist in making the vain
attempt will find themselves at last on the same side as Pilate took
when he "released unto them Barabbas; but Jesus he scourged and
delivered to be crucified."