_Social Redemption is Wrought by Vicarious Suffering_
DAILY READINGS
First Day: The Prophetic Succession
And he began to speak unto them in parables. A man planted a
vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the
winepress, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and
went into another country. And at the season he sent to the
husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of
the fruits of the vineyard. And they took him, and beat him, and
sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another servant;
and him they wounded in the head, and handled shamefully. And he
sent another; and him they killed: and many others; beating some,
and killing some. He had yet one, a beloved son: he sent him last
unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those
husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us
kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him,
and killed him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard. What
therefore will the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and
destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto
others.—Mark 12:1-9.
The vineyard parable was meant as an epitome of Jewish history. By the
servants who came to summon the nation to obedience, Jesus meant the
prophets. The history of the Hebrew people was marked by a unique
succession of men who had experienced God, who lived in the consciousness
of the Eternal, who judged the national life by the standard of divine
righteousness, and who spoke to their generation as representatives of
God.(6) The spirit of these men and the indirect permanent influence they
gained in their nation give the Old Testament its incomparable power to
impel and inspire us. They were the moving force in the spiritual progress
of their nation. Yet Jesus here sketches their fate as one of suffering
and rejection.
Have other nations had a succession of men corresponding to the Hebrew
prophets?
Are there any in our own national history?
Second Day: The Suffering Servant of Jehovah
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we
did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities;
the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes
we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned
every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his
mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that
before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. By
oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his
generation, who among them considered that he was cut off out of
the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom
the stroke was due?—Isaiah 53:4-8.
In the latter part of Isaiah are a number of sections describing the
character and mission of “the servant of Jehovah.” Whom did the writer
mean? A single great personality? The suffering and exiled Hebrew nation?
A godly and inspired group of prophets within the nation? The Christian
Church has always seen in this servant of Jehovah a striking prophecy of
Christ. The fact that the interpretation has long been in question
indicates that the characteristics of the servant of Jehovah can be traced
in varying degrees in the nation, in the prophetic order, in single
prophets, and preeminently in the great culminating figure of all
prophethood. Isaiah 53 describes the servant of Jehovah as rejected and
despised, misunderstood, bearing the transgressions and chastisement of
all. It is the first great formulation of the fact of vicarious suffering
in humanity.
Why and how can the sins of a group fall on one?
Third Day: A Contemporary Prophet
And as these went their way, Jesus began to say unto the
multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness
to behold? a reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out to
see? a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft
raiment are in kings’ houses. But wherefore went ye out? to see a
prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. This
is he, of whom it is written,
Behold, I send my messenger before thy face,
Who shall prepare thy way before thee....
But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto
children sitting in the marketplaces, who call unto their fellows
and say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and
ye did not mourn.
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a
demon. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say,
Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans
and sinners! And wisdom is justified by her works.—Matt. 11:7-10;
16-19.
To Jesus prophetism was not merely an historic fact, but a living reality.
He believed in present-day inspiration. He and his contemporaries had seen
one great prophet, fearless, heroic, with all the marks of the type, a
messenger of God inaugurating a new era of spiritual ferment (vs. 12, 13).
But John had to bear the prophet’s lot. He was then in prison for the
crime of telling a king the truth, and was soon to die to please a
vindictive woman. The people, too, had wagged their heads over him. Like
pouting children on the public square, who “won’t play,” whether the game
proposed is a wedding or a funeral, the people had criticized John for
being a gloomy ascetic, and found fault with Jesus for his shocking
cheerfulness. There was no way of suiting them, and no way of making them
take the call of God to heart. Long before electricity was invented, human
nature knew all about interposing nonconductors between itself and the
truth.
_Have we ever noticed students interposing a general criticism between
themselves and a particular obligation?_
Can it be that one of the uses of a higher education is to furnish greater
facility in fuddling inconvenient truth?
Fourth Day: Looking Forward to the Cross
And it came to pass, when the days were well-nigh come that he
should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to
Jerusalem.—Luke 9:51.
In that very hour there came certain Pharisees, saying to him, Get
thee out, and go hence: for Herod would fain kill thee. And he
said unto them, Go and say to that fox, Behold, I cast out demons
and perform cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I am
perfected. Nevertheless I must go on my way to-day and to-morrow
and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet perish out
of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets,
and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her own
brood under her wings, and ye would not!—Luke 13:31-34.
Jesus early knew that the decision was going against him. He saw the cross
on the horizon of his life long before others saw it. Painters have
pictured him in his father’s carpenter shop, with tools on his shoulder,
gazing down at his shadow shaped like a cross. He accepted death
consciously and “stedfastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem,” though he
knew what was awaiting him. Jerusalem had acquired a sad preeminence as
the place where the struggles between the prophets and the heads of the
nation were settled. He saw his own death as part of the prophetic
succession. He went to it, not as a driven slave, but as a free spirit.
That jackal of a king, Herod, could not scare him out of Galilee. His time
was in his Father’s hand. Today, tomorrow, and the day following, he would
work, and then he would be perfected.
Fifth Day: New Prophets to Follow
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the
sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the
righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we
should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the
prophets. Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of
them that slew the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your
fathers. Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape
the judgment of hell? Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets,
and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify;
and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and
persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the
righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the
righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye
slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you,
All these things shall come upon this generation.—Matt. 23:29-36.
This is the climax of the great invective against the religious leaders of
the nation. The last count in the indictment is that they were about to
complete the record of their fathers by rejecting and persecuting the
prophets of their generation. The fact had sunk into the public mind that
former generations had been guilty of this. “If we had been in the days of
our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of
the prophets.” Jesus promises to make a test of this and foretells that
they will go the old way and so declare their spiritual solidarity with
the sins of the past. We see here that he thought of his disciples as
moving in the prophetic succession.
“Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against the
land?”
“Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed
by.”
Sixth Day: The Cross for All
From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples, that he
must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and
chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be
raised up. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be
it far from thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee. But he
turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a
stumbling-block unto me: for thou mindest not the things of God,
but the things of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any
man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose
it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find
it.—Matt. 16:21-25.
When the tide was turning against Jesus, he tested the attitude of the
inner circles of his disciples, and drew from Peter on behalf of all a
ringing declaration of faith and loyalty (vs. 13-16). “From that time”
Jesus began to share with them his outlook toward death. Peter expressed
the shock which all felt and protested against the possibility. The
vehemence with which Jesus repelled Peter’s suggestion gives us a glimpse
of the inner struggles in his mind, of which we get a fuller revelation in
his prayer in Gethsemane. But instead of receding from his prediction of
the cross, he expanded it by laying the obligation of prophetic suffering
on all his disciples. Their adjustment toward that destiny would at the
same time be the settlement of their own salvation. When the Kingdom of
God is at stake, a man saves his life by losing it and loses his life by
saving it, and the loss of his higher self can not be offset by any amount
of external gain.
_Looking ahead to the profession which we expect to enter, where do we
foresee the possibility of losing our lives by trying to save them, or of
saving our lives by apparently losing them?_
Seventh Day: The Consolations of the Prophet
Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye
therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of
men: for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their
synagogues they will scourge you; yea and before governors and
kings shall ye be brought for my sake, for a testimony to them and
to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up be not anxious how
or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour
what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit
of your Father that speaketh in you.—Matt. 10:16-20.
Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read the scriptures,
The stone which the builders rejected,
The same was made the head of the corner;
This was from the Lord,
And it is marvellous in our eyes?—Matt. 21:42.
Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’
sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men
shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil
against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad:
for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the
prophets that were before you.—Matt. 5:10-12.
These three passages express three great consolations for those who share
prophetic opposition with Christ. They will have to face great odds;
numbers and weight will be against them. But there will be a quiet voice
within to prompt them and sustain them: “It is not ye that speak, but the
Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.”
The second consolation is that the higher court will reverse the verdict
of the lower. The stonemasons may look a stone over and conclude that it
will not fit into the building; but the architect may have reserved that
stone for the head of the corner. The prophet rarely lives to see his own
historical vindication, but faith knows it is inevitable.
The third consolation is contained in the last of the Beatitudes. Those
who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake may well rejoice for the
company they are in, for the Leader whose name they bear, and for the
Kingdom of God which is now and ever shall be their heritage.
Imagine two classmates in the same profession, reaching the end of their
career. The one has attained success, wealth, eminence, together with a
reputation of never having done a courageous and self-sacrificing action,
and with the consciousness that his soul has grown small as he has grown
old. The other has been a fighter for the right, a conspicuous man, but
has kept out of office, tasting poverty and opposition with his family,
yet with the consciousness that he has had the salt of the earth for his
friends and that he has put in some mighty good licks for righteousness.
_Which would we rather be?_
Study for the Week
Christian men have differed widely in interpreting the significance of
Christ’s suffering and death, but all have agreed that the cross was the
effective culmination of his work and the key which unlocks the meaning of
his whole life. The Church has always felt that the death of Christ was an
event of eternal importance for the salvation of mankind, unique and
without a parallel. It has an almost inexhaustible many-sidedness. We are
examining here but one aspect. We have seen in the passages studied this
week that Jesus himself linked his own suffering and rejection with the
fate of the prophets who were before him and with the fate of his
disciples who would come after him. He saw a red line running through
history, and his own life and death were part of it. He himself
generalized the social value of his peculiar experience, and taught us to
see the cross as a great social principle of the Kingdom of God. He saw
his death as the highest demonstration of a permanent law of human life.
I
Evil is socialized, institutionalized, and militant. The Kingdom of God
and its higher laws can displace it only by conflict. “Truth forever on
the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.” This clash involves suffering.
This suffering will fall most heavily on those who most completely embody
the spirit and ideas of the Kingdom, and who have the necessary boldness
to make the fight.
In most men the eternal moral conflict gets only confused understanding.
Sometimes they are aroused by sentimental pity or indignation, but soon
tire again. If their own interests are affected they fight well. But there
are men and women whose minds have been made so sensitive by personal
experiences or so cleansed by right education and by the spirit of God
that they take hold of the moral issues with a really adequate
understanding. Living somehow on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Heaven,
they have learned to think and feel according to its higher ways, and when
they turn toward things as they now are, of course there is a collision;
not this time a collision of interests, but a clash of principles, of
justice with wrong, of truth with crafty subterfuges, or of solidarity
with predatory selfishness.
The life and fate of these individuals anticipates the issues of history.
This is the prophetic quality of their lives. Working out the moral and
intellectual problems in their minds before the masses have realized them,
they become the natural leaders in the fight, clarify the minds of others,
and thus become, not only forerunners, but invaluable personal factors in
the moral progress of the race. “The single living spirits are the
effective units in shaping history; all common tendencies working toward
realization must first be condensed as personal forces in such minds, and
then by interaction between them work their way to general recognition”
(Lotze). Lowell’s “Present Crisis” is perhaps the most powerful poetical
expression of the prophetic function in history.
“Count me o’er earth’s chosen heroes—they were souls that stood
alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
By one man’s plain truth to manhood and to God’s supreme design.
"By the light of burning heretics Christ’s bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned
One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath
burned
Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven
upturned.”
II
During the centuries when the Church was herself in need of redemption and
her purification was resisted by the dominant ecclesiastical interests,
such prophetic spirits as Arnold of Brescia, Wycliffe, Huss, and
Savonarola were most frequently found battling for the freedom of the
Church from the despotic grafters inside and outside of the hierarchy, and
for the purity of the gospel. The Church was a chief part of the social
order, and the reform of the Church was the preeminent social problem.
Today the Church is on the whole free from graft, and as openminded as the
state of public intelligence permits it to be. Therefore the prophet minds
are now set free to fight for the freedom of the people in political
government and for the substitution of cooperation for predatory methods
in industry, and the clash is most felt on that field.
The law of prophetic suffering holds true as much as ever. Probably no
group of men have ever undertaken to cleanse a city of profit-making vice
without being made to suffer for it. In the last thirty years this country
has watched eminent men in public life in various great cities making a
sincere drive to break the grip of a grafting police machine, or of a
political clique, or of public service corporations. For a while such a
man has public sentiment with him, for all communities have a desire to be
moral. But when it becomes clear that he really means what he says, and
that important incomes will be hurt, powerful forces set on him with abuse
and ridicule, try to wreck his business or health, and sidetrack his
political ambitions. An eminent editor in the Middle West, speaking before
the Press Association of his State several years ago, said: “There is not
a man in the United States today who has tried honestly to do anything to
change the fundamental conditions that make for poverty, disease, vice,
and crime in our great cities, in our courts and in our legislatures, who,
at the very time at which his efforts seemed most likely to succeed, has
not been suddenly turned upon and rent by the great newspaper
publications.” A volume of truthful biographical sketches of such leaders
would give us a history of the cross in politics, and would tell us more
about Christianity as an effective force in our country than some church
statistics.
III
Jesus took the sin of throttling the prophets very seriously. It is sin on
a higher level than the side-stepping of frail human nature, or the wrongs
done in private grievances. Since the Kingdom of God is the highest thing
there is, an attempt to block it or ruin it is the worst sin. Our hope for
the advance of the race and its escape from its permanent evils is
conditioned on keeping our moral perceptions clear and strong. Suffocating
the best specimens of moral intelligence and intimidating the rest by
their fate quenches the guiding light of mankind. Is anything worse?
Jesus held that the rejection of the prophets might involve the whole
nation in guilt and doom. How does the action of Caiaphas and a handful of
other men involve all the rest? By virtue of human solidarity. One sins
and all suffer, because all are bound together. A dominant group acts for
all, and drags all into disaster. This points to the moral importance of
good government. If exploiters and oppressors are in control of society,
its collective actions will be guided and determined by the very men who
have most to fear from the Kingdom of God and most inclination to stifle
the prophetic voices.
But the same solidarity which acts as a conductor of sin will also serve
as a basis to make the attack of the righteous few effective for all. If
the suffering of good men puts a just issue where all can see and
understand, it intensifies and consolidates the right feeling of the
community. The suffering of a leader calls out passionate sympathy and
loyalty, sometimes in a dangerous degree. In the labor movement almost any
fault is forgiven to a man who has been in prison for the cause of labor,
and death for a popular cause will idealize the memory of very ordinary or
questionable characters. But if the character of a leader is pure,
suffering accredits him and gives him power. The cross had an incomparable
value in putting the cause of Christianity before the world. It placed
Jesus where mankind could never forget him, and it lit up the whole
problem of sin and redemption with the fire of the greatest of all
tragedies.
“The cross, bold type of shame to homage turned,
Of an unfinished life that sways the world.”
IV
But not all righteous suffering is socially effective. A good man may be
suppressed before he has won a following, or even before he has wrought
out his message in his own mind, and his suppression leaves only a few
bubbles on the waters of oblivion. In that case his life has failed to
discharge the redemptive force contained in it. It only adds a little more
to the horror and tragedy of a sinful, deaf, and blood-stained world. Many
of the men whose lives ebbed away behind the cruel silence of the walls of
the Spanish Inquisition, were such men as Spain needed most. What saving
effect did their death exercise? The uncounted patriots whose chains have
clanked on the march to Siberian exile, have not yet freed Russia from its
blind oligarchy. Our faith is that their lives were dear to God, and that
their sorrows and the bitter tears of those who loved them are somehow
part of an accumulating force which will one day save Russia. But this is
religious faith, “a conviction of things not seen.” We can not prove it.
We can only trust.
Meanwhile it is our business to see that no innocent blood is wasted. Pain
is a merciful and redemptive institution of nature when pain acts as an
alarm-bell to direct intelligent attention to the cause of the pain. If
pain does not force the elimination of its own cause, it is an added evil.
The death of the innocent, through oppression, child labor, dirt diseases,
or airless tenements, ought to arrest the attention of the community and
put the social cause of their death in the limelight. In that case they
have died a vicarious death which helps to redeem the rest from a social
evil, and anyone who utilizes their suffering for that end, shows his
reverence for their death. We owe that duty in even higher measure to the
prophets, who are not passive and unconscious victims, but who set
themselves intelligently in opposition to evil. The moral soundness of a
nation can be measured by the swiftness and accuracy with which it
understands its prophetic voices, or personalities, or events. The next
best thing to being a prophet is to interpret a prophet. This is one of
the proper functions of trained and idealistic minds, such as college men
and women should possess. The more the Kingdom of God is present, the less
will prophets be allowed to suffer. When it is fully come, the cross will
disappear.
V
The social principle of the cross contains a challenge to all who are
conscious of qualities of leadership. Let the average man do average
duties, but let the strong man shoulder the heavy pack. It is no more than
fair that persons of great natural power should deliberately choose work
involving social hardships. At present the theory seems to be that the
strong have a right to secure places where they will be freed from the
necessity of exerting themselves, and can lay their support on the
shoulders of the poor. That is the law of the cross reversed. Our
semi-pagan society has always practiced vicarious suffering by letting the
poor bear the burdens of the rich in addition to their own. Instead of
encouraging the capable to hunt after predatory profit and entrusting
public powers to those who have been most successful in preying, we ought
to encourage solidaristic feeling, and give both power and honor to those
who are ready to serve the commonwealth at severe cost to themselves.
What has the principle of the cross to say to college men and women? If
they have an exceptional outfit, let them do exceptional work. A knight in
armor was expected to charge where others could not venture. A college
education entitles a Christian man to some hard knocks. It seems
contemptible for us to walk off with the pleasures and powers of
intellectual training, and to leave the work of protecting children and
working girls against exploitation to men and women without education,
without leisure, and without social standing, who will have to pay double
the tale of effort for every bit of success they win. In some European
countries foreign mission service has been left mainly to men and women of
the artisan class. In our country college men and women have volunteered
for it. That is as it ought to be. On the other hand, in the struggle for
political liberty the European universities have taken a braver and more
sacrificial part than has ever fallen to our lot.
Those who are conscious of a prophetic mission have a redoubled motive for
a clean, sober, and sincere life. Especially in its initial stages an
ethical movement is identified with its leaders and tested by their
character. A good man can get a hearing for an unpopular cause by the
trust he inspires. His cause banks on his credit. The flawed private
character or dubious history of a leader is a drag. It is worse yet if a
man whose name has long been a guarantee for his message, backslides and
brings doubt upon all his previous professions. Cases could be mentioned
where noble movements were wrecked for years because a leader forfeited
his honor. Constant fighting against evil involves subtle temptations. To
stand alone, to set your own conviction against the majority, to challenge
what is supposed to be final, to disregard the conventional standards—this
may lead to dangerous habits of mind. If we propose to spread a lot of
canvas in a high wind, we need the more ballast in the hold. Through the
thin partitions of a summer hotel, a man heard Moody praying God to save
him from Moody. Imagine what it must be to lose standing and honor among
your fellow men by secret weakness. Imagine also the poignant pain if your
disgrace pulls down a cause which you have loved for years and which in
purer days you vowed to follow to its coronation.
Suggestions for Thought and Discussion
I. _Vicarious Suffering and Social Progress_
1. Does suffering benefit humanity? Titus crucified thousands of Jews
during the destruction of Jerusalem. Did their death have any saving
effect?
2. What is the connection between vicarious suffering and social
salvation?
II. _Prophetic Suffering_
1. What was the fate of the Old Testament prophets? What was their
influence in the life of Israel? To what extent is Mark 12:1-9 a fair
epitome of the treatment of the prophets by the Hebrew nation?
2. What is the significance of Isa. 53:4-8? Why and how can the sins of a
group fall on another?
3. Where did Jesus see the continuity of prophetic suffering in his own
times?
4. What place did he give to vicarious suffering in the life of his
followers and in the conquest of the Kingdom? How does the law of the
Cross connect with the fact of solidarity?
5. In what respects was Christ’s Cross unique? In what respects does it
express a general spiritual law?
III. _Vicarious Suffering Today_
1. Give instances of persons in public life today whose careers were
wrecked because they assailed socialized evil or graft. How does this
differ from the fate of the prophets?
2. Are the sacrifices of prophetic leaders ever useless and actually
ineffective? Do you feel an inward protest against that? On what ground?
3. To what extent is the call to be a Christian a challenge to vicarious
suffering? What social significance, then, would Christian baptism have?
4. Is there anything wrong with a Christian life which does not incur
suffering?
5. Would suffering be normal in the religious life of the young?
6. Why does this social principle apply especially to college men and
women?
IV. _For Special Discussion_
1. What qualities constitute a man a prophet?
2. Are there embryonic prophets? Or spent prophets? Is a prophet
necessarily a saint?
3. Do prophets arise where religion deals with private life only? What is
the social value of prophetic personalities?
4. Name men in secular history and literature who have the marks of the
prophet. Any in recent times?
5. Does learning create prophetic vision or blur it?
6. Does the ordinary religion today put a man in line for the Cross or for
a job as a bank director?
7. Can you think of anything that would bring the Cross back into the life
of the churches today?
8. Would vicarious suffering diminish if society became Christianized?