_Palm Sunday_
Nothing in ancient or modern tragedy is so sublime and touching as
the simple account given by the Evangelists of the last week of our
Lord's earthly life.
The church has since his ascension so devoutly looked upon him as
God that we are in danger of losing the pathos and the power which
come from a consideration of his humanity. The Apostle tells us
that, in order that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest,
he was made in all respects like unto his brethren. He was a Jew.
His national and patriotic feeling was intense. To him the sacred
nation, the temple service, with all its hymns and prayers and
ancient poetic recollections, were more dear than to any other man
of his nation. The nation was his own, his peculiar, chosen people;
he was their head and flower, for whom the whole gorgeous ritual had
been appointed, for whom the nation had been for centuries waiting.
Apart from his general tenderness and love for humanity was this
special love of country and countrymen. Then there was the love of
his very own--the little church of tried, true, tested friends who
had devoted themselves to him; and, still within that, his family
circle, for whom his love was strong as a father's, tender and
thoughtful as a mother's. And yet Jesus went through life bearing
in his bosom the bitter thought that his nation would reject him
and instigate one of his own friends to betray him, and that all
seeming success and glory was to end in a cruel and shameful death.
He foresaw how every heart that loved him would be overwhelmed and
crushed with a misery beyond all human precedent.
It is affecting to read in the Evangelists how often and how
earnestly Jesus tried to make his disciples realize what was coming.
"Let this saying sink down into your ears," he would say: "the Son
of man shall be delivered into the hands of men;" and then would
recount, item by item, the overthrow, the agonies, the insults, the
torture, that were to be the end of his loving and gentle mission.
At various times and in various forms he took them aside and
repeated this prophecy. And it is said that they "understood not his
word;" that "they were astonished;" that they "feared to ask him;"
that they "questioned one with another what this should mean." It
seems probable that, warmed with the flush of present and increasing
prosperity and popularity, witnessing his victorious miracles, they
had thrown this dark prophecy by, as something inexplicable and
never literally to be accomplished. What it could mean they knew
not, but that it could have a literal fulfillment they seem none of
them to have even dreamed. Perhaps they were like many of us, in our
religion, in the habit of looking only on the bright, hopeful, and
easily comprehensible side of things, and letting all that is dark
and mysterious slide from the mind.
Up to the very week before his crucifixion the power and popularity
of Jesus seemed constantly increasing. His miracles were more
open, more impressive, more effective. The raising of Lazarus from
the dead had set the final crown on the glorious work. It would
appear that Lazarus was a member of a well-known, influential
family, moving in the higher circles of Jerusalem. It was a miracle
wrought in the very heart and centre of knowledge and influence,
and it raised the fame of the new prophet to the summit of glory.
It is an affecting comment on the worth of popular favor that
the very flood-tide of the fame and glory of Jesus was just five
days before he was crucified. On Monday--the day now celebrated
in the Christian Church as Palm Sunday--he entered Jerusalem in
triumph, with palms waving, and garlands thrown at his feet, and the
multitudes going before and after, shouting Hosanna to the Son of
David; and on Friday of the same week the whole multitude shouted,
"Away with him! Crucify him! Release unto us Barabbas! His blood be
upon us and upon our children!" and he was led through those same
streets to Calvary. On these six days before the death of Jesus the
historians have expended a wealth of detail, so that the record of
what is said and done is more than that of all the other portions of
that short life.
There are many touches of singular tenderness conveyed in very brief
words. Speaking of his final journey from Galilee to Judæa, says
one: "When the time came that he should be received up he set his
face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem." Another narrates that when
he was going up to Jerusalem he walked before his disciples, and
as they followed him they were afraid. Evidently he was wrapped
in an electric cloud of emotion; he was swept along by a mighty
influence--tides of feeling deeper than they could comprehend were
rolling in his soul, and there was that atmosphere of silence and
mystery about him by which the inward power of great souls casts an
outward sphere of awe about them. Still, as they walked behind, they
had their political dreams of a coming reign of power and splendor,
when the Judæan nation should rule the world, and they, as nearest
to the Master, should administer the government of the nation--for
it is said, by the way they "disputed who should be the greatest."
He hears their talk, as a dying mother, who knows that a few hours
will leave her children orphans, listens to the contentions of the
nursery. He turns to them and makes a last effort to enlighten
them--to let them know that not earthly glory and a kingdom are
before them, but cruelty, rejection, shame, and death. He recounts
the future, circumstantially, and with what deep energy and solemn
pathos of voice and manner may be imagined. They make no answer, but
shrink back, look one on another, and are afraid to ask more. It
would seem, however, that there was _one_ in the band on whom these
words made an impression. Judas evidently thought that, if this was
to be the end of all, he had been taken in and deceived: a sudden
feeling of irritation arises against One who having such evident
and splendid miraculous power is about to give up in this way and
lose his opportunity and suffer himself to be defeated. Judas is all
ready now to make the best terms for himself with the winning party.
The others follow in fear and trembling. The strife who shall be
greatest subsides into a sort of anxious questioning.
They arrive at a friendly house where they are to spend the Sabbath,
the last Sabbath of his earthly life. There was a feast made for
him, and we see him surrounded by grateful friends. By the fact
that Martha waited on the guests and that Lazarus sat at the table
it would appear that this feast was in the house of a relative of
that family. It is said to have occurred in the house of "Simon
the Leper"--perhaps the leper to whom Jesus said, "I will--be thou
clean."
Here Mary, with the abandon which marks her earnest and poetic
nature, breaks a costly vase of balm and sheds the perfume on the
head of her Lord. It was an action in which she offered up her
whole self--her heart and her life--to be spent for him, like that
fleeting perfume. Judas expostulates, "To what purpose is this
waste?" There is an answering flash from Jesus, like lightning from
a summer cloud. The value that our Lord sets upon love is nowhere
more energetically expressed. This trembling, sensitive heart has
offered itself up wholly to him, and he accepts and defends it.
There is a touch of human pathos in the words, "She is anointing me
for my burial." Her gift had all the sacredness in his eyes of a
death-bed act of tenderness, and he declares, "Wheresoever through
the world this gospel shall be preached, there also shall what this
woman hath done be told for a memorial of her."
Judas slinks back, sullen and silent. The gulf between him and his
Master grows hourly more palpable--as the nature that cannot love
and the nature to whom love is all come in close collision. Judas
and Christ cannot blend any more than oil and water, and the nearer
approach only makes the conflict of nature more evident.
On Monday morning, the day that we now celebrate as Palm Sunday,
Jesus enters Jerusalem. We are told that the great city, now full
of Jews come up from all parts of the world, was moved about him.
We have in the Book of Acts an enumeration of the varieties in
the throng that filled Jerusalem at this time: "Parthians, Medes,
Elamites, dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judæa and Cappadocia, in
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in the parts
of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and Proselytes,
Cretes and Arabians." When all these strangers heard the shouting,
it is said the "whole city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the
multitude said, This is Jesus, the Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee."
And what was He thinking of, as he came thus for the last time to
the chosen city? We are told "And when he drew near and beheld the
city, he wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou in
this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace! but now they
are hid from thine eyes." Then follows the prophetic vision of the
destruction of Jerusalem--scenes of horror and despair for which his
gentle spirit bled inwardly.
One feature of the picture is touching: the children in the temple
crying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" The love of Jesus for
children is something marked and touching. When he rested from his
labors at eventide, it was often, we are told, with a little child
in his arms--children were his favorite image for the heavenly
life, and he had bid the mothers to bring them to him as emblems
of the better world. The children were enthusiastic for him, they
broke forth into rapture at his coming as birds in the sunshine,
loud and noisily as children will, to the great discomfiture of
priests and Scribes. "Master! bid them hush," they said. He turned,
indignant--"If these should hold their peace the very stones would
cry out." These evidences of love from dear little children were the
last flower thrown at the feet of Jesus on his path to death. From
that day the way to the cross was darker every hour.