Pilate.
“And straightway in the morning the chief priests with the elders
and scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, and bound
Jesus, and carried Him away, and delivered Him up to Pilate.”
“... And they lead Him out to crucify Him.”—MARK xv. 1-20 (R.V.).
With morning came the formal assembly, which St. Mark dismisses in a
single verse. It was indeed a disgraceful mockery. Before the trial began
its members had prejudged the case, passed sentence by anticipation, and
abandoned Jesus, as one condemned, to the brutality of their servants. And
now the spectacle of a prisoner outraged and maltreated moves no
indignation in their hearts.
Let us, for whom His sufferings were endured, reflect upon the strain and
anguish of all these repeated examinations, these foregone conclusions
gravely adopted in the name of justice, these exhibitions of greed for
blood. Among the “unknown sufferings” by which the Eastern Church invokes
her Lord, surely not the least was His outraged moral sense.
As the issue of it all, they led Him away to Pilate, meaning, by the
weight of such an accusing array, to overpower any possible scruples of
the governor, but in fact fulfilling His words, “they shall deliver Him
unto the Gentiles.” And the first question recorded by St. Mark expresses
the intense surprise of Pilate. “Thou,” so meek, so unlike the numberless
conspirators that I have tried,—or perhaps, “Thou,” Whom no sympathising
multitude sustains, and for Whose death the disloyal priesthood thirsts,
“Art _Thou_ the King of the Jews?” We know how carefully Jesus
disentangled His claim from the political associations which the high
priests intended that it should suggest, how the King of Truth would not
exaggerate any more than understate the case, and explained that His
kingdom was not of this world, that His servants did not fight, that His
royal function was to uphold the truth, not to expel conquerors. The eyes
of a practised Roman governor saw through the accusation very clearly.
Before him, Jesus was accused of sedition, but that was a transparent
pretext; Jews did not hate Him for enmity to Rome: He was a rival teacher
and a successful one, and for envy they had delivered Him. So far all was
well. Pilate investigated the charge, arrived at the correct judgment, and
it only remained that he should release the innocent man. In reaching this
conclusion Jesus had given him the most prudent and skilful help, but as
soon as the facts became clear, He resumed His impressive and mysterious
silence. Thus, before each of his judges in turn, Jesus avowed Himself the
Messiah and then held His peace. It was an awful silence, which would not
give that which was holy to the dogs, nor profane the truth by unavailing
protests or controversies. It was, however, a silence only possible to an
exalted nature full of self-control, since the words actually spoken
redeem it from any suspicion or stain of sullenness. It is the conscience
of Pilate which must henceforth speak. The Romans were the lawgivers of
the ancient world, and a few years earlier their greatest poet had boasted
that their mission was to spare the helpless and to crush the proud. In no
man was an act of deliberate injustice, of complaisance to the powerful at
the cost of the good, more unpardonable than in a leader of that splendid
race, whose laws are still the favourite study of those who frame and
administer our own. And the conscience of Pilate struggled hard, aided by
superstitious fear. The very silence of Jesus amid many charges, by none
of which His accusers would stand or fall, excited the wonder of His
judge. His wife’s dream aided the effect. And he was still more afraid
when he heard that this strange and elevated Personage, so unlike any
other prisoner whom he had ever tried, laid claim to be Divine. Thus even
in his desire to save Jesus, his motive was not pure, it was rather an
instinct of self-preservation than a sense of justice. But there was
danger on the other side as well; since he had already incurred the
imperial censure, he could not without grave apprehensions contemplate a
fresh complaint, and would certainly be ruined if he were accused of
releasing a conspirator against Cæsar. And accordingly he stooped to mean
and crooked ways, he lost hold of the only clue in the perplexing
labyrinth of expediencies, which is principle, and his name in the creed
of Christendom is spoken with a shudder—“crucified under Pontius Pilate!”
It was the time for him to release a prisoner to them, according to an
obscure custom, which some suppose to have sprung from the release of one
of the two sacrificial goats, and others from the fact that they now
celebrated their own deliverance from Egypt. At this moment the people
began to demand their usual indulgence, and an evil hope arose in the
heart of Pilate. They would surely welcome One who was in danger as a
patriot: he would himself make the offer, and he would put it in this
tempting form, “Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?”
Thus would the enmity of the priests be gratified, since Jesus would
henceforth be a condemned culprit, and owe His life to their intercession
with the foreigner. But the proposal was a surrender. The life of Jesus
had not been forfeited; and when it was placed at their discretion, it was
already lawlessly taken away. Moreover, when the offer was rejected, Jesus
was in the place of a culprit who should not be released. To the priests,
nevertheless, it was a dangerous proposal, and they needed to stir up the
people, or perhaps Barabbas would not have been preferred.
Instigated by their natural guides, their religious teachers, the Jews
made the tremendous choice, which has ever since been heavy on their heads
and on their children’s. Yet if ever an error could be excused by the plea
of authority, and the duty of submission to constituted leaders, it was
this error. They followed men who sat in Moses’ seat, and who were thus
entitled, according to Jesus Himself, to be obeyed. Yet that authority has
not relieved the Hebrew nation from the wrath which came upon them to the
uttermost. The salvation they desired was not moral elevation or spiritual
life, and so Jesus had nothing to bestow upon them; they refused the Holy
One and the Just. What they wanted was the world, the place which Rome
held, and which they fondly hoped was yet to be their own. Even to have
failed in the pursuit of this was better than to have the words of
everlasting life, and so the name of Barabbas was enough to secure the
rejection of Christ. It would almost seem that Pilate was ready to release
both, if that would satisfy them, for he asks, in hesitation and
perplexity, “What shall I do then with Him Whom ye call the King of the
Jews?” Surely in their excitement for an insurgent, that title, given by
themselves, will awake their pity. But again and again, like the howl of
wolves, resounds their ferocious cry, Crucify Him, crucify Him.
The irony of Providence is known to every student of history, but it never
was so manifest as here. Under the pressure of circumstances upon men whom
principle has not made firm, we find a Roman governor striving to kindle
every disloyal passion of his subjects, on behalf of the King of the
Jews,—appealing to men whom he hated and despised, and whose charges have
proved empty as chaff, to say, What evil has He done? and even to tell
him, on his judgment throne, what he shall do with their King; we find the
men who accused Jesus of stirring up the people to sedition, now
shamelessly agitating for the release of a red-handed insurgent; forced
moreover to accept the responsibility which they would fain have devolved
on Pilate, and themselves to pronounce the hateful sentence of
crucifixion, unknown to their law, but for which they had secretly
intrigued; and we find the multitude fiercely clamouring for a defeated
champion of brute force, whose weapon has snapped in his hands, who has
led his followers to the cross, and from whom there is no more to hope.
What satire upon their hope of a temporal Messiah could be more bitter
than their own cry, “We have no king but Cæsar”? And what satire upon this
profession more destructive than their choice of Barabbas and refusal of
Christ? And all the while, Jesus looks on in silence, carrying out His
mournful but effectual plan, the true Master of the movements which design
to crush Him, and which He has foretold. As He ever receives gifts for the
rebellious, and is the Saviour of all men, though especially of them that
believe, so now His passion, which retrieved the erring soul of Peter, and
won the penitent thief, rescues Barabbas from the cross. His suffering was
made visibly vicarious.
One is tempted to pity the feeble judge, the only person who is known to
have attempted to rescue Jesus, beset by his old faults, which will make
an impeachment fatal, wishing better than he dares to act, hesitating,
sinking inch by inch, and like a bird with broken wing. No accomplice in
this frightful crime is so suggestive of warning to hearts not entirely
hardened.
But pity is lost in sterner emotion as we remember that this wicked
governor, having borne witness to the perfect innocence of Jesus, was
content, in order to save himself from danger, to watch the Blessed One
enduring all the horrors of a Roman scourging, and then to yield Him up to
die.
It is now the unmitigated cruelty of ancient paganism which has closed its
hand upon our Lord. When the soldiers led Him away within the court, He
was lost to His nation, which had renounced Him. It is upon this utter
alienation, even more than the locality where the cross was fixed, that
the Epistle to the Hebrews turns our attention, when it reminds us that
“the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the holy place by
the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned without the camp.
Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own
blood, suffered without the gate.” The physical exclusion, the material
parallel points to something deeper, for the inference is that of
estrangement. Those who serve the tabernacle cannot eat of our altar. Let
us go forth unto Him, bearing His reproach. (Heb. xii. 10-13).
Renounced by Israel, and about to become a curse under the law, He has now
to suffer the cruelty of wantonness, as He has already endured the cruelty
of hatred and fear. Now, more than ever perhaps, He looks for pity and
there is no man. None responded to the deep appeal of the eyes which had
never seen misery without relieving it. The contempt of the strong for the
weak and suffering, of coarse natures for sensitive ones, of Romans for
Jews, all these were blended with bitter scorn of the Jewish expectation
that some day Rome shall bow before a Hebrew conqueror, in the mockery
which Jesus now underwent, when they clad Him in such cast-off purple as
the Palace yielded, thrust a reed into His pinioned hand, crowned Him with
thorns, beat these into His holy head with the sceptre they had offered
Him, and then proceeded to render the homage of their nation to the
Messiah of Jewish hopes. It may have been this mockery which suggested to
Pilate the inscription for the cross. But where is the mockery now? In
crowning Him King of sufferings, and Royal among those who weep, they
secured to Him the adherence of all hearts. Christ was made perfect by the
things which He suffered; and it was not only in spite of insult and
anguish but by means of them that He drew all men unto Him.
Christ Crucified.
“And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the
country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to _go with them_,
that he might bear His cross. And they bring Him unto the place
Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. And
they offered Him wine mingled with myrrh: but He received it not.
And they crucify Him, and part His garments among them, casting
lots upon them, what each should take. And it was the third hour,
and they crucified Him. And the superscription of His accusation
was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. And with Him they crucify
two robbers; one on His right hand, and one on His left. And they
that passed by railed on Him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ha!
Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days,
save Thyself, and come down from the cross. In like manner also
the chief priests mocking _Him_ among themselves with the scribes
said, He saved others; Himself He cannot save. Let the Christ, the
King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and
believe. And they that were crucified with Him reproached
Him.”—MARK xv. 21-32 (R.V.).
At last the preparations were complete and the interval of mental agony
was over. They led Him away to crucify Him. And upon the road an event of
mournful interest took place. It was the custom to lay the two arms of the
cross upon the doomed man, fastening them together at such an angle as to
pass behind His neck, while his hands were bound to the ends in front. And
thus it was that Jesus went forth bearing His cross. Did He think of this
when He bade us take His yoke upon us? Did He wait for events to explain
the words, by making it visibly one and the same to take His yoke and to
take up our cross and follow Him?
On the road, however, they forced a reluctant stranger to go with them
that he might bear the cross. The traditional reason is that our
Redeemer’s strength gave way, and it became physically impossible for Him
to proceed; but this is challenged upon the ground that to fail would have
been unworthy of our Lord, and would mar the perfection of His example.
How so, when the failure was a real one? Is there no fitness in the belief
that He who was tempted in all points like as we are, endured this
hardness also, of struggling with the impossible demands of human cruelty,
the spirit indeed willing but the flesh weak? It is not easy to believe
that any other reason than manifest inability, would have induced his
persecutors to spare Him one drop of bitterness, one throb of pain. The
noblest and most delicately balanced frame, like all other exquisite
machines, is not capable of the rudest strain; and we know that Jesus had
once sat wearied by the well, while the hardy fishers went into the town,
and returned with bread. And this night our gentle Master had endured what
no common victim knew. Long before the scourging, or even the buffeting
began, His spiritual exhaustion had needed that an angel from heaven
should strengthen Him. And the utmost possibility of exertion was now
reached: the spot where they met Simon of Cyrene marks this melancholy
limit; and suffering henceforth must be purely passive.
We cannot assert with confidence that Simon and his family were saved by
this event. The coercion put upon him, the fact that he was seized and
“impressed” into the service, already seems to indicate sympathy with
Jesus. And we are fain to believe that he who received the honour, so
strange and sad and sacred, the unique privilege of lifting some little of
the crushing burden of the Saviour, was not utterly ignorant of what he
did. We know at least that the names of his children, Alexander and Rufus,
were familiar in the Church for which St. Mark was writing, and that in
Rome a Rufus was chosen in the Lord, and his mother was like a mother to
St. Paul (Rom. xvi. 13). With what feelings may they have recalled the
story, “him they compelled to bear His cross.”
They led Him to a place where the rounded summit of a knoll had its grim
name from some resemblance to a human skull, and prepared the crosses
there.
It was the custom of the daughters of Jerusalem, who lamented Him as He
went, to provide a stupefying draught for the sufferers of this atrocious
cruelty. “And they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He received it
not,” although that dreadful thirst, which was part of the suffering of
crucifixion, had already begun, for He only refused when He had tasted it.
In so doing He rebuked all who seek to drown sorrows or benumb the soul in
wine, all who degrade and dull their sensibilities by physical excess or
indulgence, all who would rather blind their intelligence than pay the
sharp cost of its exercise. He did not condemn the use of anodynes, but
the abuse of them. It is one thing to suspend the senses during an
operation, and quite another thing by one’s own choice to pass into
eternity without consciousness enough to commit the soul into its Father’s
hands.
“And they crucify Him.” Let the words remain as the Evangelist left them,
to tell their own story of human sin, and of Divine love which many waters
could not quench, neither could the depths drown it.
Only let us think in silence of all that those words convey.
In the first sharpness of mortal anguish, Jesus saw His executioners sit
down at ease, all unconscious of the dread meaning of what was passing by
their side, to part His garments among them, and cast lots for the raiment
which they had stripped from His sacred form. The Gospels are content thus
to abandon those relics about which so many legends have been woven. But
indeed all through these four wonderful narratives the self-restraint is
perfect. When the Epistles touch upon the subject of the crucifixion they
kindle into flame. When St. Peter soon afterwards referred to it, his
indignation is beyond question, and Stephen called the rulers betrayers
and murderers (Acts ii. 23, 24; iii. 13, 14; vii. 51-53) but not one
single syllable of complaint or comment mingles with the clear flow of
narrative in the four Gospels. The truth is that the subject was too
great, too fresh and vivid in their minds, to be adorned or enlarged upon.
What comment of St. Mark, what mortal comment, could add to the weight of
the words “they crucify Him”? Men use no figures of speech when telling
how their own beloved one died. But it was differently that the next age
wrote about the crucifixion; and perhaps the lofty self-restraint of the
Evangelists has never been attained again.
St. Mark tells us that He was crucified at the third hour, whereas we read
in St. John that it was “about the sixth hour” when Pilate ascended the
seat of judgment (xix. 14). It seems likely that St. John used the Roman
reckoning, and his computation does not pretend to be exact; while we must
remember that mental agitation conspired with the darkening of the sky, to
render such an estimate as he offers even more than usually vague.
It has been supposed that St. Mark’s “third hour” goes back to the
scourging, which, as being a regular part of Roman crucifixion, he
includes, although inflicted in this case before the sentence. But it will
prove quite as hard to reconcile this distribution of time with “the sixth
hour” in St. John, while it is at variance with the context in which St.
Mark asserts it.
The small and bitter heart of Pilate keenly resented his defeat and the
victory of the priests. Perhaps it was when his soldiers offered the
scornful homage of Rome to Israel and her monarch, that he saw the way to
a petty revenge. And all Jerusalem was scandalized by reading the
inscription over a crucified malefactor’s head, The King of the Jews.
It needs some reflection to perceive how sharp the taunt was. A few years
ago they had a king, but the sceptre had departed from Judah; Rome had
abolished him. It was their hope that soon a native king would for ever
sweep away the foreigner from their fields. But here the Roman exhibited
the fate of such a claim, and professed to inflict its horrors not upon
one whom they disavowed, but upon their king indeed. We know how angrily
and vainly they protested; and again we seem to recognise the solemn irony
of Providence. For this was their true King, and they, who resented the
superscription, had fixed their Anointed there.
All the more they would disconnect themselves from Him, and wreak their
passion upon the helpless One whom they hated. The populace mocked Him
openly: the chief priests, too cultivated to insult avowedly a dying man,
mocked Him “among themselves,” speaking bitter words for Him to hear. The
multitude repeated the false charge which had probably done much to
inspire their sudden preference for Barabbas, “Thou that destroyest the
temple and buildest it again in three days, save Thyself and come down
from the cross.”
They little suspected that they were recalling words of consolation to His
memory, reminding Him that all this suffering was foreseen, and how it was
all to end. The chief priests spoke also a truth full of consolation, “He
saved others, Himself He cannot save,” although it was no physical bar
which forbade Him to accept their challenge. And when they flung at Him
His favourite demand for faith, saying “Let the Christ, the King of
Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe” surely
they reminded Him of the great multitude who should not see, and yet
should believe, when He came back through the gates of death.
Thus the words they spoke could not afflict Him. But what horror to the
pure soul to behold these yawning abysses of malignity, these gulfs of
pitiless hate. The affronts hurled at suffering and defeat by prosperous
and exultant malice are especially Satanic. Many diseases inflict more
physical pain than torturers ever invented, but they do not excite the
same horror, because gentle ministries are there to charm away the despair
which human hate and execration conjure up.
To add to the insult of His disgraceful death, the Romans had crucified
two robbers, doubtless from the band of Barabbas, one upon each side of
Jesus. We know how this outrage led to the salvation of one of them, and
refreshed the heavy laden soul of Jesus, oppressed by so much guilt and
vileness, with the visible firstfruit of His passion, giving Him to see of
the travail of His soul, by which He shall yet be satisfied.
But in their first agony and despair, when all voices were unanimous
against the Blessed One, and they too must needs find some outlet for
their frenzy, they both reproached Him. Thus the circle of human wrong was
rounded.
The traitor, the deserters, the forsworn apostle, the perjured witnesses,
the hypocritical pontiff professing horror at blasphemy while himself
abjuring his national hope, the accomplices in a sham trial, the murderer
of the Baptist and his men of war, the abject ruler who declared Him
innocent yet gave Him up to die, the servile throng who waited on the
priests, the soldiers of Herod and of Pilate, the pitiless crowd which
clamoured for His blood, and they who mocked Him in His agony,—not one of
them whom Jesus did not compassionate, whose cruelty had not power to
wring His heart. Disciple and foeman, Roman and Jew, priest and soldier
and judge, all had lifted up their voice against Him. And when the
comrades of His passion joined the cry, the last ingredient of human
cruelty was infused into the cup which James and John had once proposed to
drink with Him.
The Death Of Jesus.
“And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the
whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried
with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being
interpreted, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? And some
of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, He
calleth Elijah. And one ran, and filling a sponge full of vinegar,
put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink, saying, Let be; let us
see whether Elijah cometh to take Him down. And Jesus uttered a
loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was
rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And when the centurion,
which stood by over against Him, saw that He so gave up the ghost,
he said, Truly this man was the Son of God. And there were also
women beholding from afar: among whom _were_ both Mary Magdalene,
and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
who, when He was in Galilee, followed Him, and ministered unto
Him; and many other women which came up with Him unto
Jerusalem.”—MARK xv. 33-41 (R.V.).
Three hours of raging human passion, endured with Godlike patience, were
succeeded by three hours of darkness, hushing mortal hatred into silence,
and perhaps contributing to the penitence of the reviler at His side. It
was a supernatural gloom, since an eclipse of the sun was impossible
during the full moon of Passover. Shall we say that, as it shall be in the
last days, nature sympathized with humanity, and the angel of the sun hid
his face from his suffering Lord?
Or was it the shadow of a still more dreadful eclipse, for now the eternal
Father veiled His countenance from the Son in whom He was well pleased?
In some true sense God forsook Him. And we have to seek for a meaning of
this awful statement—inadequate no doubt, for all our thoughts must come
short of such a reality, but free from prevarication and evasion.
It is wholly unsatisfactory to regard the verse as merely the heading of a
psalm, cheerful for the most part, which Jesus inaudibly recited. Why was
only this verse uttered aloud? How false an impression must have been
produced upon the multitude, upon St. John, upon the penitent thief, if
Jesus were suffering less than the extreme of spiritual anguish. Nay, we
feel that never before can the verse have attained its fullest meaning, a
meaning which no experience of David could more than dimly shadow forth,
since we ask in our sorrows, Why have we forsaken God? but Jesus said, Why
hast Thou forsaken Me?
And this unconsciousness of any reason for desertion disproves the old
notion that He felt Himself a sinner, and “suffered infinite remorse, as
being the chief sinner in the universe, all the sins of mankind being
His.” One who felt thus could neither have addressed God as “My God,” nor
asked why He was forsaken.
Still less does it allow us to believe that the Father perfectly
identified Jesus with sin, so as to be “wroth” with Him, and even “to hate
Him to the uttermost.” Such notions, the offspring of theories carried to
a wild and irreverent extreme, when carefully examined impute to the Deity
confusion of thought, a mistaking of the Holy One for a sinner or rather
for the aggregate of sinners. But it is very different when we pass from
the Divine consciousness to the bearing of God toward Christ our
representative, to the outshining or eclipse of His favour. That this was
overcast is manifest from the fact that Jesus everywhere else addresses
Him as My Father, here only as My God. Even in the garden it was Abba
Father, and the change indicates not indeed estrangement of heart, but
certainly remoteness. Thus we have the sense of desertion, combined with
the assurance which once breathed in the words, O God, Thou art my God.
Thus also it came to pass that He who never forfeited the most intimate
communion and sunny smile of heaven, should yet give us an example at the
last of that utmost struggle and sternest effort of the soul, which trusts
without experience, without emotion, in the dark, because God is God, not
because I am happy.
But they who would empty the death of Jesus of its sacrificial import, and
leave only the attraction and inspiration of a sublime life and death,
must answer the hard questions, How came God to forsake the Perfect One?
Or, how came He to charge God with such desertion? His follower, twice
using this very word, could boast that he was cast down yet not forsaken,
and that at his first trial all men forsook him, yet the Lord stood by him
(2 Cor. iv. 9; 2 Tim. iv. 16, 17). How came the disciple to be above his
Master?
The only explanation is in His own word, that His life is a ransom in
exchange for many (Mark x. 45). The chastisement of our peace, not the
remorse of our guiltiness, was upon Him. No wonder that St. Mark, who
turns aside from his narrative for no comment, no exposition, was yet
careful to preserve this alone among the dying words of Christ.
And the Father heard His Son. At that cry the mysterious darkness passed
away; and the soul of Jesus was relieved from its burden, so that He
became conscious of physical suffering; and the mockery of the multitude
was converted into awe. It seemed to them that His Eloi might indeed bring
Elias, and the great and notable day, and they were willing to relieve the
thirst which no stoical hardness forbade that gentlest of all sufferers to
confess. Thereupon the anguish that redeemed the world was over; a loud
voice told that exhaustion was not complete; and yet Jesus “gave up the
ghost.”(14)
Through the veil, that is to say His flesh, we have boldness to enter into
the holy place; and now that He had opened the way, the veil of the temple
was rent asunder by no mortal hand, but downward from the top. The way
into the holiest was visibly thrown open, when sin was expiated, which had
forfeited our right of access.
And the centurion, seeing that His death itself was abnormal and
miraculous, and accompanied with miraculous signs, said, Truly this was a
righteous man. But such a confession could not rest there: if He was this,
He was all He claimed to be; and the mockery of His enemies had betrayed
the secret of their hate; He was the Son of God.
“When the centurion saw” ... “There were also many women beholding.” Who
can overlook the connection? Their gentle hearts were not to be utterly
overwhelmed: as the centurion saw and drew his inference, so they beheld,
and felt, however dimly, amid sorrows that benumb the mind, that still,
even in such wreck and misery, God was not far from Jesus.
When the Lord said, It is finished, there was not only an end of conscious
anguish, but also of contempt and insult. His body was not to see
corruption, nor was a bone to be broken, nor should it remain in hostile
hands.
Respect for Jewish prejudice prevented the Romans from leaving it to
moulder on the cross, and the approaching Sabbath was not one to be
polluted. And knowing this, Joseph of Arimathæa boldly went in to Pilate
and asked for the body of Jesus. It was only secretly and in fear that he
had been a disciple, but the deadly crisis had developed what was hidden,
he had opposed the crime of his nation in their council, and in the hour
of seeming overthrow he chose the good part. Boldly the timid one “went
in,” braving the scowls of the priesthood, defiling himself moreover, and
forfeiting his share in the sacred feast, in hope to win the further
defilement of contact with the dead.
Pilate was careful to verify so rapid a death; but when he was certain of
the fact, “he granted the corpse to Joseph,” as a worthless thing. His
frivolity is expressed alike in the unusual verb(15) and substantive: he
“freely-bestowed,” he “gave away” not “the body” as when Joseph spoke of
it, but “the corpse,” the fallen thing, like a prostrated and uprooted
tree that shall revive no more. Wonderful it is to reflect that God had
entered into eternal union with what was thus given away to the only man
of rank who cared to ask for it. Wonderful to think what opportunities of
eternal gain men are content to lose; what priceless treasures are given
away, or thrown away as worthless. Wonderful to imagine the feelings of
Joseph in heaven to-day, as he gazes with gratitude and love upon the
glorious Body which once, for a little, was consigned to his reverent
care.
St. John tells us that Nicodemus brought a hundred pound weight of myrrh
and aloes, and they together wrapped Him in these, in the linen which had
been provided; and Joseph laid Him in his own new tomb, undesecrated by
mortality.
And there Jesus rested. His friends had no such hope as would prevent them
from closing the door with a great stone. His enemies set a watch, and
sealed the stone. The broad moon of Passover made the night as clear as
the day, and the multitude of strangers, who thronged the city and its
suburbs, rendered any attempt at robbery even more hopeless than at
another season.
What indeed could the trembling disciples of an executed pretender do with
such an object as a dead body? What could they hope from the possession of
it? But if they did not steal it, if the moral glories of Christianity are
not sprung from deliberate mendacity, why was the body not produced, to
abash the wild dreams of their fanaticism? It was fearfully easy to
identify. The scourging, the cross, and the spear, left no slight evidence
behind, and the broken bones of the malefactors completed the absolute
isolation of the sacred body of the Lord.
The providence of God left no precaution unsupplied to satisfy honest and
candid inquiry. It remained to be seen, would He leave Christ’s soul in
Hades, or suffer His Holy One (such is the epithet applied to the body of
Jesus) to see corruption?
Meantime, through what is called three days and nights—a space which
touched, but only touched, the confines of a first and third day, as well
as the Saturday which intervened, Jesus shared the humiliation of common
men, the divorce of soul and body. He slept as sleep the dead, but His
soul was where He promised that the penitent should come, refreshed in
Paradise.