(xxvii. 27-56).
The cool of the morning was passing into the heat of the day, as the
soldiers took Jesus and led Him away to be crucified; and the sun was
at the same angle in the western sky when He bowed His head and gave
up the ghost. In the six hours between lay the crisis of the world
(see John xii. 31, Greek): its judgment, its salvation. The great
conflict of the ages is concentrated in these hours of agony. In the
brief record of them we have the very core and kernel of the gospel of
"Jesus Christ _and Him crucified_."
All we can hope to do is to find some point of view which may afford a
general survey of the awful scene; and such point of observation we
may perhaps discover in the thought of the marvellous significance of
each detail when set in the after light of faith. Most of the
incidents are quite simple and natural--what might in every way be
expected as concomitants of the deed of blood which darkened the
day--and yet the simplest of them is charged with unexpected meaning.
The actors in this dark scene are moved by the basest of passions, are
destitute of the smallest gleam of insight into what is passing; and
yet, in saying what they say and doing what they do, they declare the
glory of the Christ of God as signally as if they were saying and
doing all by divine direction. In more senses than one "they know not
what they do."
From this point of view we might survey all the four records of the
Crucifixion, and find striking illustrations of our thought in each of
them. As a specimen of this we may refer in passing to the words of
Pilate recorded by St. John alone: "Behold the Man!" and again,
"Behold your King!" In these remarkable utterances the procurator
quite unconsciously furnishes the answer to his own as yet unanswered
questions (John xviii. 38; Matt. xxvii. 22), and, Balaam-like, becomes
a preacher of the gospel, summoning the whole world to admiration and
homage, to faith and obedience. But we may not extend our view over
the other Gospels; it will be enough to glance at the particulars
found in that which lies before us.
The first is the mockery of the soldiers. A brutal set they must have
been; and their treatment of their victim, as they intended it, is too
revolting even to think of in detail. Yet, had they been inspired by
the loftiest purpose, and been able to look into the meaning of what
they did with the most penetrating insight, they could not have in a
more striking manner illustrated the true glory of His royalty. Ah!
soldiers, you may well plait that crown of thorns, and put it on His
head; for He is the Prince of Sufferers, the King of Sorrow! On that
head are many crowns--the crown of righteousness, the crown of
heroism, the crown of life; but of them all the very best is the crown
of thorns, for it is the crown of Love.
The next incident is the impressing of Simon of Cyrene to bear His
cross. It was intended as an insult. The service was too degrading
even for any of the rabble of Jerusalem, so they imposed it on this
poor foreigner, coming out of the country. Little did they think that
this same man of Cyrene, who probably had provoked them by showing
some sympathy with the Sufferer, and might by no means grudge the
toil, unjustly forced upon him though it was, should with his two sons
Alexander and Rufus (see Mark xv. 21) be a kind of firstfruits of a
great multitude of foreigners coming out of all countries, who should
consider it the highest honour of their lives to take up and bear
after Jesus the cross which Simon had borne for Him.
The very name Golgotha, though derived in all probability from the
natural appearance of the eminence on which the crosses were erected,
has a certain dreary appropriateness, not only because of the horror
of the deed, but because the thought is suggested that death's
Destroyer gained His victory on death's own ground; and the offering
of the potion usually given to deaden pain gave the pale sufferer an
opportunity of showing by His refusal of it that not only was the
death which ended all a voluntary act, but that each pang of the
passion was borne in the resoluteness of a love-constrained will:
"Thou wilt feel all, that Thou may'st pity all;
And rather wouldst Thou wrestle with strong pain
Than overcloud Thy soul
So clear in agony.
* * * * *
O most entire and perfect Sacrifice,
Renewed in every pulse,
That on the tedious Cross
Told the long hours of death."
The dividing of the garments among the soldiers was a most natural and
ordinary incident; it would seem, indeed, to have been the common
practice at crucifixions; and the fulfilment of prophecy would be the
very last thing that would enter the men's minds as they did it: even
St. Matthew himself, in recording it, does not view it in this light;
for, though he evidently made a point of calling attention to all
fulfilments of prophecy that struck him, he seems to have omitted
this;[35] yet here again, even in a small but most significant matter
of detail, as recorded by St. John (xix. 23, 24), the Scriptures are
fulfilled.
The writing on the cross is called "His accusation." So indeed it was;
for it was for this he was condemned: no other charge could be made
good against Him. But it was not His accusation only,--it was His
coronation. In vain the chief priests tried to induce the governor to
change it. "What I have written, I have written," was his answer; and
there it stood, and a better inscription for the cross the apostles
themselves could not have devised. "This is _Jesus_," the Saviour--the
name above every name. How it must have cheered the Saviour's heart to
know that it was there! "This is Jesus, _the King_" never more truly
King than when this writing was His only crown. "This is Jesus, the
King _of the Jews_," despised and rejected of them now, but Son of
David none the less, and yet to be claimed and crowned, and rejoiced
in when at last "all Israel shall be saved." Elsewhere we learn that
the inscription was in Hebrew and Greek and Latin,--the first the
tongue of the people to whose keeping had been committed the oracles
of God, the other two the languages in which God's good tidings of
Life through a Crucified Saviour could be best and most quickly
carried "to every creature,"--as if to make the proclamation
world-wide.
His position between the two thieves is told as simply as all the
rest; yet how full of meaning, not only as fulfilling the Scripture
which spoke of Him as "numbered with the transgressors," but as
furnishing a most impressive picture of the Friend of Sinners,
enduring their revilings, and yet as soon as one of them shows the
first signs of coming to a better mind, eagerly granting him
forgiveness and eternal life, and receiving him into His kingdom as
the firstfruits of His redeemed ones.
Again, the mocking cries of the passers-by are exactly what was to be
expected from the coarse natures of the men; yet each one of them when
seen in the after light of faith becomes a tribute to His praise. As
an illustration of this, listen to the cry which comes out of the
deepest abyss of hatred. Hear these chief priests mocking Him, with
the scribes and elders. With bitter taunt they say, in scorn, "He
saved others; Himself He cannot save." With bitter taunt? In scorn?
Ah, "fools and blind," you little know that you are making a garland
of imperishable beauty to wreathe around His brow! It was indeed most
true. It was because He saved others that He could not save Himself.
Were He willing to let others perish--were He willing to let you
perish--He would this very moment save Himself. But He will bear, not
only the cruel nails and spear, but your more cruel mockeries, rather
than give up His self-imposed task of saving others by His perfect
sacrifice!
It is high noon; but there, at that place of a skull, a deed is being
done, from which the sun must hide his face for shame. "From the sixth
hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour." The
simple-hearted Evangelist has no reflections of his own to offer; he
simply records the well-remembered fact, with his usual reticence of
feeling, which makes the deep, dread meaning of it only more
impressive. For there is not only darkness over all the land; there is
darkness in the Sufferer's soul. The agony of the Garden is on Him
once again. He sees no longer the faces of the crowd, and the mocking
voices are now silent, for the people cannot but feel the solemnising
effect of the midday gloom. The presence of man is forgotten, and with
it the shame, even the pain: the Redeemer of the world is again alone
with God.
Alone with God, and the sin of the world is on Him. "He bare our sins
in His own body on the tree," therefore is it that He must enter even
into the very deepest darkness of the soul, the feeling of separation
from God, the sense of forsakenness, which is so appalling to the
awakened sinner, and which even the sinless One must taste, because of
the burden laid upon Him. To Him it was a pang beyond all others,
forcing from these silent lips the lamentable cry, "My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me?" There is no reason indeed to suppose that
the Sufferer was really forsaken by God, even for a moment. Never was
the love of the Father deeper and stronger than when His Son was
offering up the all-atoning sacrifice. Never was the repeated
testimony more sure than now--"This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am
well pleased." But none the less was there the _sense_ of
forsakenness.
This sense of forsakenness seems to have had some mysterious
connection with the pains of death. In the Garden, where the
experience was similar, He said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful,
_even unto death_," and now that death is on Him, now that His
human spirit is about to sink into the unknown abyss, now that
darkness is closing over Him on every side, He feels as if He were
forsaken utterly: yet His faith fails not; perhaps He thinks of the
words, "Yea the darkness hideth not from Thee; but the night shineth
as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee," and
though He cannot now say "Father" even, He can at least cry as from
the depths, His spirit overwhelmed within Him, "My God, My God." That
22nd Psalm which was certainly in His mind must have suggested
thoughts of hope and strength, and ere His spirit leaves the tortured
body He has reached the triumphant close of it; for as its opening
utterance became His cry of agony, its closing word suggests His shout
of victory. The shout is mentioned by St. Matthew; the words we learn
from St. John: "It is finished."
From the sixth hour to the ninth the darkness lasted, and at the ninth
hour Jesus yielded up the ghost. The agony is over. The feeling of
separation, of utter loneliness, is gone, for the last word has been,
"Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit"; and as the spirit of the
Son of man returns to the Father's bosom, the gloom is gone, and the
sun shines out again upon the earth.
How appropriate the rending of the veil,[36] the quaking of the earth,
the shuddering of the graves, and the visitants from the realm of the
unseen greeting the eyes of those for whom heaven was opened now, is
all so plain in the light of faith on the Son of God that it needs no
pointing out. It was no wonder that even the Roman centurion,
unaccustomed as he was to think of such things, could not refrain from
exclaiming, "Truly this was the Son of God." Much more may we echo his
exclamation when in the light of the glory that has followed we look
back on "the things that were done." Recall them,--the crown of
thorns, the cross-bearing of Simon, the place of a skull, the parting
of the garments, the writing on the cross, the company of the thieves,
the mockeries of the people, the darkness of the heavens, the shaking
of the earth, the rending of the veil,--is there not profound meaning
in it all?
The portents at the close, as was natural, impressed the centurion
most; but these are just what make the least impression now, because
we do not see them, and those for whom no veil has been rent by the
Saviour's sacrifice cannot be expected to recognise them. But think of
the other incidents--incidents to which not even the most sceptical
can attach a shadow of doubt: observe how utterly unconscious the
actors were--the soldiers in plaiting the crown of thorns, Pilate in
writing His title, the chief priests in shouting "He saved others;
Himself He cannot save"--and yet how these all, viewed in a light that
did not shine for them, are seen to have vied with each other in
setting forth His glory as the Saviour-King; and then say whether it
could all have been the merest chance, whether there be not in it
manifestly "the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," whether
it is possible to escape the conviction of the Roman centurion, "Truly
this is the Son of God!"
The reference to the "many women," "beholding afar off," forms a
pathetic close to the story of the Great Atonement Day.
[24] The feast in Bethany did not take place during this interval, but
some days before (see John xii. 1); in all probability the very day
before Christ's entry into Jerusalem.
[25] That the name of Judas is not specially mentioned is probably to
be accounted for by the consciousness on the part of St. Matthew that
Judas was not alone in the feeling he expressed, that he and others of
the disciples present sympathised with him in what he said, so that in
fairness he must lay the blame of the objection not alone on the man
who expressly made it, but on the disciples generally (in St. Mark's
Gospel it is "_some_ had indignation"). We may well suppose that
John, the beloved disciple, would be the least likely of all to
sympathise with the objection, and in this we may see the reason why
he should feel no scruple in singling out the traitor as the man who
was audacious enough to express the feeling of dissatisfaction.
[26] So R.V. The Authorised Version is peculiarly unhappy at this
point. "When Jesus understood it" seems to suggest that it took Him
some time to make out what they were grumbling about. It is altogether
likely that the murmuring was among themselves, and the speech of
Judas was probably spoken not loud enough for Jesus to hear, but in a
low tone to the knot of sympathisers around Him. But there is no hint
in the original of any time elapsing before Jesus understood the
situation. As always, He "knew their thoughts" at once.
[27] We may not enter fully into the vexed question whether our Lord
kept the Passover on the day appointed by law, or anticipated it by
twenty-four hours, as some suppose to be the necessary inference from
the narrative of St. John. It is a long and intricate subject; but
much unnecessary difficulty has been imported into it by those who
fail to realise two important facts: (1) The word "Passover" is
frequently used for the entire Feast of Unleavened Bread (see Luke
xxii. 1). This is the regular usage of St. John throughout his Gospel;
yet many assume that in his story of the Passion "Passover" must mean
Passover Day. (2) "The preparation of the Passover" (see John xix. 14)
does not mean, as many suppose, the preparation for the paschal feast,
but the preparation for the Sabbath. This is in fact proved, not only
by Mark xv. 42, but by a subsequent reference in the same Gospel (John
xix. 31). Suppose the paschal feast to have been eaten on Thursday
night, Friday would still be the preparation day of the Passover,
inasmuch as the next day (Saturday) was the Sabbath of the Passover.
If these facts be borne in mind, little difficulty will remain in
accepting as the order of events that our Lord kept the Passover at
the proper time, on the evening of the 14th Nisan (Thursday), died on
the afternoon of the 15th (Friday), lay in the grave over the Sabbath
(Saturday, 16th Nisan), and rose on the morning of the 17th, the first
day of the week.
[28] See the interesting discussion on the arrangement of the table in
Edersheim, "Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah," vol. ii., p. 494.
[29] The high Sacramentarian view of the Lord's Supper is not only at
variance with the simple and obvious meaning of the central words of
institution, but seems to disregard in the most wanton manner the
plainest statements of the very authority on which the ordinance is
based. According to the Gospel it was "as they were eating" that Jesus
took the bread and gave it to the disciples; according to the
Ritualist it ought to be before anything else has touched the lips.
For their mystical act of consecration on the part of the priest, all
they can find either in gospel or epistle is the simple giving of
thanks (that "blessed" of ver. 26 is the same act precisely is obvious
by comparing the corresponding passages in the other Gospels and in
the first Epistle to the Corinthians--xi. 24); while in opposition to
the emphatic "_Drink ye all of it_" the cup has been refused by
the Church of Rome to the great majority of her communicants!
[30] See Zech. ix. 9, xi. 12, xiii. 7.
[31] Gethsemane means _oil-press_.
[32] Observe the emphatic word, "_began_ to be sorrowful" (ver. 37).
[33] The word "friend" is too strong. It is not the same word our Lord
uses when He says: "I have not called you servants, I have called you
friends"; it is a word which indicates not heart-friendship, but that
familiar intercourse which is supposed to take place only between
friends. The selection of the word is a striking illustration of our
Lord's carefulness of the claims of sincerity and truth, while He is
anxious if possible to use a word that will touch the traitor's heart.
[34] It is most instructive at this point to note the extreme
condensation of this report of the trial before Pilate. This is
especially noticeable at the first stage of the trial. In the fuller
reports by St. John (xviii. 29-38) we find indeed the question, "Art
thou king of the Jews?" (v. 33), and the answer, "Thou sayest" (v.
37); but how much more besides! So is it beyond question in many other
places where there is not the same opportunity of supplying what has
been omitted. If this were always borne in mind in reading the
Gospels, we should avoid many difficulties, which have often
needlessly perplexed the best of people. There is often much to read
between the lines, and not only so, but much between the lines we
cannot read, the knowledge of which would make crooked things straight
and rough places plain. The difficulty of accurately realising a
complex scene from a report of it which, however accurate, is highly
condensed, ought to be always present to the minds of readers of the
Gospels, and ought to be a check on those who attribute to the
"mistakes" of the writers what in all probability is due to the
ignorance of the readers--ignorance, it may be, of some little matter
of detail, or some comparatively unimportant saying, the knowledge of
which would at once clear up a difficulty which to the unaided
imagination may appear insoluble.
[35] The reference is inserted in our Authorised Version, but without
sufficient authority. The Revised Version properly omits it.
[36] "From the top to the bottom,"--rent, therefore, by no human hand.