To the priests it appeared ludicrous to suppose that a King of
Israel should, by Israel, be nailed upon the cross. 'Let Him come
down, and we will believe Him.' They saw the two facts, they
misconceived their relation. There was a relation between them, and
it is not difficult for us to apprehend it.
The Cross is Christ's throne. There are two ways in which the
tragedy of His crucifixion is looked at in the Gospels, one that
prevails in the three first, another that prevails in the fourth.
These two seem superficially to be opposite; they are complementary.
It depends upon your station whether a point in the sky is your
_zenith_ or your _nadir_. Here it is your zenith; at the antipodes
it is the nadir. In the first three gospels the aspect of humiliation,
degradation, inanition, suffering, is prominent in the references to
the Crucifixion. In the _fourth_ gospel the aspect of glory and
triumph is uppermost. 'Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up'; 'I,
if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me'; 'Now the hour is come
that the Son of Man should be glorified.' And it _is_ His glory, for
on that Cross Jesus Christ manifests, in transcendent and superlative
form, at once power and love that are boundless and divine. The Cross
is the foundation of His kingdom. In his great passage in Philippians
the Apostle brings together, in the closest causal connection, His
obedience unto death, the death of the Cross, and His exaltation and
reception of 'the name that is above every name, that at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow.' The title over the Cross was meant for
a gibe. It was a prophecy. By the Cross He becomes the 'King,' and not
only the 'King of the Jews.' The sceptre that was put in His hand,
though it was meant for a sneer, was a forecast of a truth, for He
rules, not with a rod of iron, but with the reed of gentleness; and
the crown of thorns, that was pressed down on His wounded and
bleeding head, foretold for our faith the great truth that suffering is
the foundation of dominion, and that men will bow as to their King
and Lord before Him who died for them, with a prostration of spirit, a
loyalty of allegiance, and an alertness of service, which none
other, monarch or superior, may even dream of attaining. The Cross
establishes, not destroys, Christ's dominion over men.
Yes; and that Cross wins their faith as nothing else can. The blind
priests said, 'Let Him come down, and we will believe Him.'
Precisely because He did not come down, do sad and sorrowful and
sinful hearts turn to Him from the ends of the earth, and from the
distances of the ages pour the treasures of their trust and their
love at His feet. Did you ever think how strange it is, except with
one explanation, that the gibes of the priests did not turn out to
be true? Why is it that Christ's shameful death did not burst the
bubble, as they thought it had done? Why is it that in His case--and
I was going to say, and it would have been no exaggeration, in His
case only--the death of the leader did not result in the dispersion
of the led? Why is it that His fate and future were the opposite of
that of multitudes of other pseudo-Messiahs, of whom it is true that
when they were slain their followers came to nought? Why? There is
only one explanation, I think, and that is that the death was not
the end, but that He rose again from the dead. My brother, you will
either have to accept the Resurrection, with all that comes from it,
or else you will have to join the ranks of the priests, and consider
that Christ's death blew to atoms Christ's pretensions. If we know
anything about Him, we know that He asserted miraculous power,
Messiahship, and a filial relation to God. These things are facts.
Did He rise or did He not? If He did not, He was an enthusiast. If
He did, He is the King to whom our hearts can cleave, and to whom
our loyalty is due.