_Tuesday in Passion Week_
The thought may arise to many minds, if Jesus was so lovely, so
attractive, and so beloved, how could it have been possible that he
should be put to so cruel a death in the very midst of a people whom
he loved and for whom he labored?
The sacred record shows us why. It was this very attractiveness,
this very power over men's hearts, that was the cause and reason
of the conspiracy against Jesus. We have a brief and very dramatic
account of the meeting of the Sanhedrim in which the death of Christ
was finally resolved upon, and we find that very popularity urged
as a reason why he cannot be permitted to live. In John xi. 47, we
are told that after the raising of Lazarus the chief priests and
Pharisees gathered a council and said, "What do we? this man doeth
many miracles. If we let him thus alone all men will believe on him,
and the Romans will come and take away our place and nation."
There is the case stated plainly, and we see that these men talked
then just as men in our days talk. Do they ever resolve on an act
of oppression or cruelty, calling it by its right name? Never. It
is a "sacrifice" to some virtue; and the virtue in this case was
patriotism.
Here is the Jewish nation, a proud and once powerful people,
crushed and writhing under the heel of the conquering Romans. They
are burning with hatred of their oppressors and with a desire of
revenge, longing for the Messiah that shall lead them to conquest
and make their nation the head of the world.
And now, here comes this Jesus and professes to be the
long-promised leader; and what does he teach? Love and forgiveness
of enemies; patient endurance of oppression and wrong; and supreme
devotion to the pure inner life of the soul. If Roman tax-gatherers
distrain upon their property and force them to carry it from place
to place, they are to meet it only by free good will, that is,
willingness to go two miles when one is asked. If the extortionate
officer seizes their coat, they are to show only a kindliness that
is willing to give even more than that.
They are to love their bitterest enemies, pity and pray for them,
and continue in unbroken kindness, even as God's sunshine falls in
unmoved benignity on the just and the unjust!
It must have inflamed these haughty, ambitious leaders to fury to
see all their brilliant visions of war and conquest and national
independence melting away in a mist of what seemed to them the mere
impossible sentimentalism of love. And yet this illusion gains
ground daily; Christ is received in triumph at Jerusalem, and the
rulers say to each other, "Perceive ye how we prevail nothing?
behold the whole world is gone out after him."
Now, in the Jewish Sanhedrim Christ had friends and followers.
We are told of Joseph of Arimathea, who would not consent to the
deeds of the council. We are told of Nicodemus, who before now had
spoken boldly in the council, demanding justice and a fair hearing
for Jesus. We may well believe that so extreme a course as was now
proposed met at first strong opposition. There seems to have been
some warm discussion. We may imagine what it was: that Jesus was a
just and noble man, a prophet, a man all of whose deeds and words
had been pure and beneficent, was doubtless earnestly urged. The
advocates, it is true, were not men who had left all to follow
him, or enrolled themselves openly as his disciples, but yet they
could not consent to so monstrous an injustice as this. That the
discussion produced strong feeling is evident from the excited
manner in which Caiaphas sums up: "Ye know nothing at all, nor
consider that it is better that one man should die than that the
whole nation should perish." That was the case as he viewed it,
and he talked precisely as men in our days have often talked when
consenting to an injustice or oppression: Say what you will of this
Jesus; I will not dispute you. Admit, if you please, his virtues and
good works; still, he is a wrong-headed man, that will be the ruin
of our nation. Either he must perish or the nation be destroyed.
And so, on the altar of patriotism this murder was laid as a
sacrifice. And it was this same burning, impatient national spirit
of independence that slew Christ which afterwards provoked the Roman
government beyond endurance, and brought upon Jerusalem wrath to the
uttermost.
The very children and grandchildren of Caiaphas died in untold
miseries in that day of wrath and doom. The decision to reject
Christ was the decision which destroyed Jerusalem with a destruction
more awful than any other recorded in history.
We are apt to consider the actors in this great tragedy as sinners
above all others. But every day and every hour in our times just
such deeds are being reënacted.
There were all sorts of sinners in that tragedy: Caiaphas, who
sacrificed one whom he knew to be a noble and good man to political
ambition; Pilate, who consented to an acknowledged wrong from dread
of personal inconvenience; Judas, who made the best of his time in
selling out a falling cause to the newcomers; Peter, the impetuous
friend suddenly frightened into denial; the twelve, forsaking
and fleeing in a moment of weakness; the multitude of careless
spectators, those tide-waiters who turn as the flood turns, who
shouted for Jesus yesterday because others were shouting, and turn
against him to-day because he is unpopular. All these were there.
On the other hand, there were the faithful company of true-hearted
women that went with Jesus weeping on his way to the cross; that
beloved disciple and the Mother that stood by him to the last; all
these, both friends and foes, represent classes of people who still
live and still act their part in this our day.
"For, when under fierce oppression,
Goodness suffers like transgression,
Christ again is crucified;
But if love be there true-hearted,
By no pain or terror parted,
Mary stands the cross beside!"