release Him." And then the Jews brought out their last crushing and
conclusive argument, "If thou release this Man, thou art not Caesar's
friend; every one that maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar."
Pilate knew what that meant, and that if he did not let them have their
way, they would lodge an accusation against him for complicity with
treason before his imperial master. Already strong representations had
been made in the same quarter against his maladministration of his
province, and he positively dare not risk another. "When, therefore,
he heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down in the
judgment-seat at a place called the Pavement, and it was about the
sixth hour."
With ill-concealed irritation, and adopting the recent phraseology of
the priests, he said, "Behold your King!" At which they cried, "We
have no king but Caesar. Away with Him; away with Him; crucify Him."
It gave Pilate savage pleasure to put the cup of humiliation to their
lips, and make them drain it to its dregs. "What!" said he; "shall I
crucify your King?" Then they touched the lowest depth of degradation,
as, abandoning all their Messianic hopes, and trampling under foot
their national pride, they answered, "We have no king but Caesar."
At last, therefore, he delivered Jesus to them to be crucified, signed
the usual documents, gave the customary order, and retired into his
palace, as one who had heard his own sentence pronounced, and carried
in his soul the presage of his doom.
Long years after, when, stripped of his Procuratorship, which he had
sacrificed Christ to save, worn out by his misfortunes, and universally
execrated, he was an exile in a foreign land, with his faithful wife,
how often must they have spoken together of the events of that morning,
which had so strangely affected their lives!
XXXI
The Seven Sayings of the Cross
"Then delivered he Him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they
took Jesus and led Him away."--JOHN xix. 16.
Driven from one position after another by the Jewish notables and
rabble, Pilate at last, much against his will, gave directions for the
Lord's crucifixion. The purple robe flung over His shoulders was
replaced by His own simple clothes, though the crown of thorns was not
improbably left upon His head.
Two others were led out to suffer with Him--highwaymen lately captured
in some red-handed deed. Barabbas, their chief, for whom the central
cross had been designed, had escaped it by a miracle; but they were to
suffer the just reward of their deeds. A detachment of soldiers was
told off under a centurion, to see to the execution of the sentence,
and the heavy crosses were placed upon the shoulders of the sufferers,
that they might bear them to the place of execution.
It was probably about ten A. M. when the sad procession started on its
way. Two incidents took place as it passed through the crowded
streets, which surely had never witnessed such a spectacle: no, not
even in the days when David traversed them in flight from Absalom.
The beams laid on our Lord proved too heavy in the steeper ascents for
His exhausted strength, and His slow advance so delayed the procession
that the guard became impatient. Here comes a foreigner! A Jew of
Cyrene! Harmless and inoffensive, gladly would he make way for the
crowd. Why should he not bear this burden under which Jesus of
Nazareth is falling to the ground? The insolent soldiers, with oath
and jest, constrain him, and he dares not resist. Probably Simon had
no previous knowledge of Him for whom he bore this load, and loathed
the service he was compelled to render; but that compulsory
companionship with Jesus carried him to Calvary. He beheld the
wondrous tragedy, heard the words which we are to recite; from that day
became, with his family, a humble follower of Jesus. We at least infer
this from Mark's emphatic mention of the fact that he was father of
Alexander and Rufus; whilst the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the
Romans, tenderly refers to Rufus and his mother. This is not the only
instance in the history of Christianity, when the compulsion of an
apparent accident has led a man to Christ. Many a time has compulsory
cross-carrying led men to the Crucified.
Of the vast multitude who followed Jesus, a large contingent consisted
of women. From the men, in that moving crowd, He does not appear to
have received one word of sympathy. Timidity, or questioning with
their own hearts, or inveterate hatred closed their lips. But the
women expressed their sorrow with all the outcry of Oriental grief,
rending the air with piercing cries. "Weep not for Me," the Saviour
said, ever more thoughtful for others than Himself; "but for yourselves
and your children." And He who had been mocked because of His claim to
be a King, and who would shortly from the cross begin to minister as a
Priest, then as Prophet foretold the approaching fate of that fair
city, asking significantly, since the Romans dealt thus with Himself an
innocent sufferer, what would they not do when exasperated by the
pertinacious resistance of the Jewish people in the protracted siege.
Just outside the city gates, by the side of the main road, was a little
conical eminence which, from its likeness to the shape of a skull, was
called in the Aramaic _Golgotha_, in the Greek _Cranion_, in the Latin
_Calvary_. As we speak of the _brow_ of a hill, they called the bald
eminence a _skull_. There the procession stayed, and what transpired
may be best followed as we touch on the seven sentences our Lord
uttered on the Cross, as we collate them and set them in order from the
four Gospels.
I. "_Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do._"--Arrived
at the place of execution, Jesus would be stripped once more, a linen
cloth at most being left about His loins. He would then be laid upon
the cross, as it rested on the ground, His arms stretched along the
crossbeams, His body resting on a projecting piece of rough wood,
misnamed a seat. Huge nails would then be driven through the tender
palm of each hand, and the shrinking centre of each foot. The cross
would then be lifted up and planted in a hole previously dug to receive
it, with a rude shock causing indescribable anguish. "So they
crucified Him, and two others with Him, on either side one, and Jesus
in the midst."
Pilate had written a title to be nailed to the head-piece of the cross,
according to the usual custom, with the name and designation of the
crucified, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." It was written in
Greek, the language of science; Latin, the language of government; and
Hebrew, the language of religion. It is this fact that accounts for
the differences in the Gospels. One evangelist translates from one
language, another from another. The inscription was meant to insult
the Jews. It was equivalent to saying, "This nation cannot produce a
better monarch than this; and this is the fate which will be meted out
to all such pretenders." The authorities were indignant, and did their
utmost to induce Pilate to alter it. But in vain. He would be master
this time, and dismissed them with the curt reply, "What I have written
I have written." Each man is writing his conception of the nature and
claims of Christ by the way in which he treats Him, either
acknowledging His Divine glory as he enthrones Him, or repudiating His
claims as he tramples Him under foot, and turns away to his sin.
The criminal's clothes fell as a perquisite to the soldiers specially
charged with the execution of the sentence. With our Lord's outer
clothes they had no difficulty; they were too poor to be worth keeping
entire, so they tore them up into equal pieces. But the inner tunic
was of unusual texture; perhaps it had been woven for Him by His
mother's hands, or by one of the women who so carefully administered to
Him. In any case it was too good to tear. The dice were ready in the
pocket, one of the helmets would serve as dice-box; and so "they parted
His raiment among them, and for His vesture they did cast lots. These
things therefore the soldiers did."
It was probably during this byplay that our Lord uttered the first cry
of the cross, and entered on that work of intercession, which He ever
lives to perpetuate and crown. He thinks, not of Himself, but of
others; is occupied, not with His own pains, but with their sins. Not
a threat, nor a menace; but the purest, tenderest accents of pleading
intercession.
When was that prayer answered? Seven weeks after this, on the day of
Pentecost, three thousand of these people, whom Peter described as the
murderers of Christ, repented and believed, and in the days that
followed thousands more, and a great company of the priests. That was
the answer to this intercession. When we see our brethren sinning a
sin not unto death, without realizing its full significance and
enormity, if we ask God, as Jesus did, He will give us life for those
that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death, and concerning
that we are not encouraged to pray. "I obtained mercy," said the great
apostle, "because I did it ignorantly in unbelief."
II. "_Woman, behold thy Son; son behold thy mother._"--The second
saying was about His mother. His cross was the centre of bitter
mockery. The chief priests, and scribes, and elders challenged Him to
descend from the cross, pledging themselves to believe if He did. The
crowd caught their spirit with contemptible servility, and repeated
their words, "Son of God, come down from the cross, that we may
believe." A passer-by called out derisively, "Where is now the boast
that He could raise the temple in three days? Let Him do it if He
can." The soldiers even caught up the abuse, and vented their coarse
jokes on one whose innocence and gentleness appeared to exasperate
them. And the malefactors who were hanged cast the same in His teeth.
Were there no sympathizers in all that crowd to exchange glances of
love and faith? Yes, there was one little group. When Peter left the
Hall of Caiaphas John probably lingered there still, followed to the
bar of Pilate, waited long enough to know how the matter would fall,
and then hastened to the humble lodgings where Mary and a few other
women, in awful suspense, were awaiting tidings. As soon as the mother
knew all, she resolved to see her beloved Son once more. "It is no
place for women," John would say. But she answered, "I must see Him
yet again." Then said John, "If you will indeed go, I will take you."
"I too will go," sadly said Mary, her sister, the wife of Cleophas;
"and I also," said Mary of Magdala. What a sight for those loving
hearts, when they saw the crosses in the distance, and knew that on one
of them was hanging the dearest to them of all on earth! But the love
that makes the timid deer turn to fight valiantly for its young made
them oblivious to everything except to get near Him. But how little
had the young mother realized that Simeon meant this, when he told her
that a sword would one day pierce her soul!
Jesus knew how much she was suffering, and how lonely she would be when
He was gone. He had neither silver nor gold to leave, but would at
least provide a home and tender care as long as she required them.
Elevated but very little above the ground, He could easily speak to the
little group. "Woman," He said, not calling her "mother," lest
identification with Himself might expose her to insult, "behold thy
Son." Then, looking tenderly toward John, He consigned her to his care.
Did He give a further look, which John interpreted to mean that he
should lead her away? It may have been so, for from that hour he took
her to his home; and so she passes from the page of Scripture, except
for the one glimpse we have of her, in the upper room, awaiting the
baptism of the Holy Spirit.
III. "_To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise._"--We cannot explore
all the causes which brought about so great a change in this man, and
produced so lofty an ideal of his Fellow-sufferer. We have to deal
rather with the response of Jesus. Lost by the first Adam, Paradise
was being regained by the last; and it is now not far away. A dying
man may see the sun leave the zenith, but ere it set in the western
wave he may be in the land of Paradise. Absent from the body, present
with the Lord. There is no State of unconsciousness between the two.
We close our eyes on the dimming spectacles of this world at one
moment, to behold the King in His beauty the next.
Men may strip Jesus of everything, but they cannot touch His power to
save. In a moment of His greatest weakness He was able to rescue a man
from the very brink of perdition, and take him as a trophy of His power
to Heaven. What will He not be able to do now that the mortal weakness
is passed, and that He is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour!
IV. "_My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?_"--It would be between
eleven o'clock and noon that these incidents took place; but from noon
till three in the afternoon a pall of darkness hung over the cross and
city. We know not how it came, but it appears to have silenced all the
uproar which had surged around the cross, and to have filled the minds
of all with awe. Men might have gazed rudely on His dying agony;
Nature refused to behold it. Men had stripped Him, but an unseen hand
drew drapery about Him. For three hours it lasted, and was a befitting
emblem of the darkness that enveloped His soul, when He who knew no sin
was made to be sin for us, "that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him."
Do you wonder that He felt thus, and question how such a forsaking had
been possible at such an hour? There is but one explanation. This was
not a normal human experience. Only once in the history of the race
has all iniquity been laid on one head; only once has the curse of the
sin of the world been borne by one heart; only once has it been
possible, in drinking the cup of death, to taste death for every man.
"He who knew no sin was made sin for us. He was wounded for our
transgressions, bruised for our iniquities." On no other hypothesis
than that Jesus was the Lamb of God, bearing away the sin of the world,
can you account for the darkness of that midday midnight which obscured
His soul. I cannot tell what transpired; I have no philosophy of the
Atonement to offer; I only believe that the whole nature of God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself; and that, in virtue of what
was done there, we may apply for forgiveness to the faithfulness and
justice of God.
V. "_I thirst._"--During the hours of spiritual anguish, our Lord was
largely oblivious to His physical needs; now, as the long hours passed,
these latter began to assert themselves. Inflammation, spreading from
hands and feet, had resulted in a fever of thirst. He had refused the
medicated drink offered at the beginning of His sufferings, because He
had no desire to avoid one throb of anguish which lay in His path; but
there was no reason why He should not drink of the sour wine which
stood hard by the cross, now that He had drunk the cup which God had
placed to His lips.
As He looked through the long line of predictions that bore on His
passion. He could see that they had all been fulfilled save one; and,
that this Scripture might be fulfilled, He said, "I thirst." Some, who
stood near the cross, and, in the growing light, began to regain their
confidence, tried to make ridicule of this plaintive ejaculation; but
one who noticed His pale and parched lips was touched with pity, and
took a stalk of hyssop, which was just long enough to reach the mouth
of the Sufferer, and elevating a sponge dipped in vinegar, fulfilled
thus unwittingly the ancient prediction, "They gave Me also gall for My
meat, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink."
VI. "_It is finished._"--As we compare the Gospels, we find that these
words were spoken with a loud voice. It was, in fact, the shout of a
conqueror. Finished the long list of prophecies, which closed, like
gates, behind Him. Finished the types and shadows of the Jewish
ritual. Finished the work which the Father had given Him to do.
Finished the matchless beauty of a perfect life. Finished the work of
man's redemption. Through the eternal Spirit, He had offered Himself
without spot to God; and by that one sacrifice for sin, once for all
and forever. He had perfected them that are being sanctified. He had
done all that was required to reconcile the world unto God, and to make
an end of sin.
Finished! Let the words roll in volumes of melody through all the
spheres! There is nothing now left for man to do but enter on the
results of Christ's finished work. As the Creator finished on the
evening of the sixth day all the work which He had made, so did the
Redeemer cease on the sixth day from the work of Atonement, and, lo! it
was very good.
VII. "_Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit._"--The words were
quoted from the Book of Psalms, which He so dearly loved. He only
prefixed the name of Father; for the cloud which had extorted the cry,
_My God, My God_, had broken, and under a blue heaven of conscious
fellowship He exchanged it for _Father_.
If the words, "It is finished," be taken as our Lord's farewell to the
world He was leaving, these words are surely His greeting to that on
whose confines He was standing. It seems as though the spirit of
Christ were poising itself before it departed to the Father, and it saw
before no dismal abyss, no gulf of darkness, no footless chaos, but
hands, even the hands of the Father, and to these He committed Himself.
The first martyr, who died after Christ, passed away with words of the
same import upon his lips, with a significant alteration, "_Lord
Jesus_, receive My spirit." We may use them as they have been used by
countless thousands in all ages; and we know Him whom we have believed,
and are persuaded that He is able to keep that which we have committed
unto Him.
And when Jesus had said these words, He bowed His head upon His breast,
and breathed out His spirit. No one took His life from Him: He laid it
down of Himself: He had power to lay it down.
So ended that marvellous scene. The expectation of all the ages was
more than realized. If it be true that on that day a tidal wave of
immense volume swept around the world, and rose high up in all rivers
and estuaries, this may be taken as an emblem of the much more
abounding grace, which on that day rose high above the mighty obstacles
of human sin, and is destined to lift the entire universe nearer God.
For by it God will reconcile all things to Himself, whether in heaven
or on earth.
Three items remain to be noticed.
At the moment that Jesus died there was a great earthquake, which made
the earth tremble and the rocks rend, so that the ancient graves were
opened, preparatory to the rising of the bodies of the saints on the
Resurrection morning, following the Lord from the power of Death. And
when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus,
charged to see the sentence executed, saw the earthquake and the things
that were done, they feared exceedingly, saying, "Truly this was the
Son of God."
The vail of the Temple, also, was rent in twain from the top to the
bottom, at the moment that the Great High Priest Jesus was entering the
Temple not made with hands, with the blood of His propitiation. Is it
to be wondered at that afterward many priests, who had been in close
contiguity to that marvellous type, became obedient to the faith?
Finally, from the pierced side of Christ came out blood and water, as
John solemnly attests. "He knoweth that he saith true." This was a
symptom that there had been heart-rupture, and that the Lord had
literally died of a broken heart. But it was also a symbol of "the
double cure" which Jesus has effected. Blood to atone; water to
cleanse. "This is He that came by water and blood, not with the water
only."
XXXII
Christ's Burial
"Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with
the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury."--JOHN xix. 40.
"Against the day of My burying hath she kept this!" so had Jesus spoken
when Mary anointed His feet with the very precious spikenard. I do not
suppose that any in the room save herself and her Lord understood His
reference; not one of them believed that He would really die, and His
body be carried to the tomb; but Mary knew better. She had sat at His
feet, and drunk in His very spirit. In the glow of the evening
twilight, when Martha was busy in the house, and Lazarus was away in
the field, they two had sat together, and Jesus, in words similar to
those He had so often used to His apostles, had told her of what was
coming upon Him. Mary believed it all. She knew that she would not be
present at that scene. She did not think that any would be able to
perform the last loving rites for that beloved form. She feared that
it might be utterly dishonored; but she did what she could, she came
beforehand to anoint the Lord's body for His burying.
It was a beautiful act of tender foresight. But in the sense of being
absolutely necessary, as the only act of care and love bestowed on the
Lord's dead body, it was not required; for He who at birth had prepared
the body for His Son, took care that in death it should receive due
honor. When Jesus expired, Luke tells us that many of His
acquaintances, and the women that had followed Him from Galilee were
standing afar off, beholding all that was done; John too was there, and
others who had loved Him and were the grateful monuments of His healing
power: they must have wondered greatly what would be done with that
loved form. Yet what could they do?--they were poor and unimportant;
they had no influence with the capricious and terrible Pilate; they
seemed helpless to do more than wait with choking sobs until some
possible chance should allow them to intervene.
Meanwhile God was preparing a solution of the difficulty. Amongst the
crowd around the cross there stood a very wealthy man named Joseph. He
was a native of the little town of Arimathea, that lay among the
fruitful hills of Ephraim; but was resident in Jerusalem, where he had
considerable property. Some of this lay in the close neighborhood of
the highway by which the cross of our Lord had been erected. He was
also a member of the Jewish Sanhedrim, but it is expressly stated that
he had not consented to the counsel or deed of them; if indeed he was
summoned to that secret midnight meeting in the palace of Caiaphas, he
certainly did not go; he was therefore innocent of any complicity in
our Lord's condemnation and death. He was a good man and a just; and
like Nathanael, and Simeon, and many more, he waited for the kingdom of
God. More than this, he was a disciple of Jesus, though secretly.
Whatever our judgment may be about his action during the lifetime of
our Lord, we have nothing but admiration for the way in which he acted
when He died. What he had seen had more than decided him. Christ's
meekness and majestic silence under all reproaches and indignities; the
veiled sky and trembling earth; the cry of the Forsaken which ended in
the trustful committal of the soul to the Father; the loud shriek and
the sudden death--all these had convinced him and awed his soul, and
lifted him far above the fear of man. He had been waiting for the
kingdom, he would now identify himself with the King.
By his side there would seem to have stood an old friend of ours,
Nicodemus. Our evangelist identifies him as having at the first come
to Jesus by night. The very opening of the Lord's ministry in
Jerusalem seems to have made a deep impression on his mind; but he was
very timid. He was an old man, a very rich man, a member of the
Sanhedrim, and he did not like to risk his position or prestige. It
was much therefore for him to come to Jesus at all, and especially to
come to Him in the spirit of deep respect and inquiry. There must have
been something very engaging in him; for our Lord, who did not commit
Himself to men in general, made very clear unfoldings of His great work
to this inquiring Rabbi. From that night, even if not a real disciple,
Nicodemus was strongly prejudiced in favor of Jesus; and on one
occasion, at least, brought on himself reproach for attempting
indirectly to shield Him. He had not dared, however, to go beyond his
first nervous question. Then, like Joseph, he was decided by what he
had seen: come what may, he will now avow the thoughts which have long
been in his heart.
The two men exchange a few hurried sentences. "What will be done with
His body?"
"At least it must not suffer the fate of common malefactors. Yet how
shall it be prevented?"