First, it tore away the veil that hid Peter's sin from himself. He
had not thought that he was doing anything wrong when he denied. He
had not thought about anything but saving his own skin. If he had
reflected for a moment no doubt he would have found excuses, as we
all can do. But when Christ stood there, what had become of the
excuses? As by a flash he saw the ugliness of the deed that he
himself had done. And there came, no doubt, into his mind in
aggravation of the denial, all that had passed from that very first
day when he had come to Christ's presence, all the confidences that
had been given to him, how his wife's mother had been healed, how he
himself had been cared for and educated, how he had been honoured
and distinguished, how he had boasted and vowed and hectored the day
before. And so he 'went out and wept bitterly.'
Now _our_ sin captures us by lying to us, by blinding our
consciences. You cannot hear the shouts of the men on the bank
warning you of your danger when you are in the midst of the rapids,
and so our sin deafens us to the still small voice of conscience.
But nothing so surely reveals to us the true moral character of any
of our actions, be they right or wrong, as bringing them under
Christ's eye, and thinking to ourselves. 'Durst I do that if He
stood there beside me and saw it?' Peter could deny Him when He was
at the far end of the hall. He could not have denied Him if he had
had Him by his side. And if we will take our actions, especially any
of them about which we are in doubt, into His presence, then it will
be wonderful how conscience will be enlightened and quickened, how
the fiend will start up in his own shape, and how poor and small the
motives which tempted so strongly to do wrong will come to look,
when we think of adducing them to Jesus. What did a maid-servant's
flippant tongue matter to Peter then? And how wretchedly inadequate
the reason for his denial looked when Christ's eye fell upon him.
The most recent surgical method of treating skin diseases is to
bring an electric light, ten times as strong as the brightest street
lights, to bear upon the diseased patch, and fifty minutes of that
search-light clears away the disease. Bring the beam from Christ's
eye to bear on your lives, and you will see a great deal of leprosy,
and scurf, and lupus, and all that you see will be cleared away. The
look tore down the veil.
What more did it do? It melted the denier's heart into sorrow. I can
quite understand a conscience being so enlightened as to be
convinced of the evil of a certain course, and yet there being none
of that melting into sorrow, which, as I believe, is absolutely
necessary for any permanent victory over sins. No man will ever
conquer his evil as long as he only shudderingly recoils from it. He
has to be broken down into the penitential mood before he will
secure the victory over his sin. You remember the profound words in
our Lord's pregnant parable of the seeds, how one class which
transitorily was Christian, had for its characteristic that
immediately with joy they received the word. Yes; a Christianity
that puts repentance into a parenthesis, and talks about faith only,
will never underlie a permanent and thorough moral reformation.
There is nothing that brings 'godly sorrow,' so surely as a glimpse
of Christ's love; and nothing that reveals the love so certainly as
the 'look.' You may hammer at a man's heart with law, principle, and
moral duty, and all the rest of it, and you may get him to feel that
he is a very poor creature, but unless the sunshine of Christ's love
shines down upon him, there will be no melting, and if there is no
melting there will be no permanent bettering.
And there was another thing that the look did. It tore away the veil
from the sin; it made rivers of water flow from the melted heart in
sorrow of true repentance; and it kept the sorrow from turning into
despair. Judas 'went out and hanged himself.' Peter 'went out and
wept bitterly.' What made the one the victim of remorse, and the
other the glad child of repentance? How was it that the one was
stiffened into despair that had no tears, and the other was saved
because he could weep? Because the one saw his sin in the lurid
light of an awakened conscience, and the other saw his sin in the
loving look of a pardoning Lord. And that is how you and I ought to
see our sins. Be sure, dear friend, that the same long-suffering,
patient love is looking down upon each of us, and that if we will,
like Peter, let the look melt us into penitent self-distrust and
heart-sorrow for our clinging sins, then Jesus will do for us, as He
did for that penitent denier on the Resurrection morning. He will
take us apart by ourselves and speak healing words of forgiveness
and reconciliation, so that we, like him, will dare in spite of our
faithlessness, to fall at His feet and say, 'Lord, Thou knowest all
things; Thou knowest that I, erst faithless and treacherous, love
Thee; and all the more because Thou hast forgiven the denial and
restored the denier.'
'THE RULERS TAKE COUNSEL TOGETHER'
'And the whole multitude of them arose, and led Him
unto Pilate. 2. And they began to accuse Him, saying,
We found this fellow perverting the nation, and
forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that He
Himself is Christ a King. 3. And Pilate asked Him,
saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And He answered
him and said, Thou sayest it. 4. Then said Pilate to
the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault
in this man. 5. And they were the more fierce, saying,
He stirreth up the people teaching throughout all
Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place. 6. When
Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were
a Galilean. 7. And as soon as he knew that He belonged
unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent Him to Herod, who
himself also was at Jerusalem at that time. 8. And
when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he
was desirous to see Him of a long season, because he
had heard many things of Him; and he hoped to have
seen some miracle done by Him. 9. Then he questioned
with Him in many words; but He answered him nothing.
10. And the chief priests and scribes stood and
vehemently accused Him. 11. And Herod with his men of
war set Him at nought, and mocked Him, and arrayed Him
in a gorgeous robe, and sent Him again to Pilate.
12. And the same day Pilate and Herod were made
friends together: for before they were at enmity
between themselves.'--LUKE xxiii. 1-12.
Luke's canvas is all but filled by the persecutors, and gives only
glimpses of the silent Sufferer. But the silence of Jesus is
eloquent, and the prominence of the accusers and judges heightens
the impression of His passive endurance. We have in this passage the
Jewish rulers with their murderous hate; Pilate contemptuously
indifferent, but perplexed and wishing to shirk responsibility; and
Herod with his frivolous curiosity. They present three types of
unworthy relations to Jesus Christ.
I. We see first the haters of Jesus. So fierce is their hatred that
they swallow the bitter pill of going to Pilate for the execution of
their sentence. John tells us that they began by trying to get
Pilate to decree the crucifixion without knowing Jesus' crime; but
that was too flagrant injustice, and too blind confidence in them,
for Pilate to grant. So they have to manufacture a capital charge on
the spot, and they are equal to the occasion. By the help of two
lies, and one truth so twisted as to be a lie, they get up an
indictment, which they think will be grave enough to compel the
procurator to do as they wish.
Their accusation, if it had been ever so true, would have been
ludicrous on their lips; and we may be sure that, if it had been
true, they would have been Jesus' partisans, not His denouncers.'
The Gracchi complaining of sedition' are nothing to the Sanhedrim
accusing a Jew of rebellion against Rome. Every man in that crowd
was a rebel at heart, and would have liked nothing better than to
see the standard of revolt lifted in a strong hand. Pilate was not
so simple as to be taken in by such an accusation from such
accusers, and it fails. They return to the charge, and the 'more
urgent' character of the second attempt is found in its statement of
the widespread extent of Christ's teaching, but chiefly in the
cunning introduction of Galilee, notoriously a disaffected and
troublesome district.
What a hideous and tragic picture we have here of the ferocity of
the hatred, which turned the very fountains of justice and guardians
of a nation into lying plotters against innocence, and sent these
Jewish rulers cringing before Pilate, pretending loyalty and
acknowledging his authority! They were ready for any falsehood and
any humiliation, if only they could get Jesus crucified. And what
had excited their hatred? Chiefly His teachings, which brushed aside
the rubbish both of ceremonial observance and of Rabbinical
casuistry, and placed religion in love to God and consequent love to
man; then His attitude of opposition to them as an order; and
finally His claim, which they never deigned to examine, to be the
Son of God. That, they said, was blasphemy, as it was, unless it
were true,--an alternative which they did not look at. So blinded
may men be by prejudice, and so mastered by causeless hatred of Him
who loves them all!
These Jewish rulers were men like ourselves. Instead of shuddering
at their crime, as if it were something far outside of anything
possible for us, we do better if we learn from it the terrible
depths of hostility to Jesus, the tragic blindness to His character
and love, and the degradation of submission to usurpers, which must
accompany denial of His right to rule over us. 'They hated Me
without a cause,' said Christ; but He pointed to that hatred as sure
to be continued towards Him and His servants as long as 'the world'
continues the world.
II. We have Pilate, indifferent and perplexed. Luke's very brief
account should be supplemented by John's, which shows us how
important the conversation, so much abbreviated by Luke, was. Of
course Pilate knew the priests and rulers too well to believe for a
moment that the reason they gave for bringing Jesus to him was the
real one, and his taking Jesus apart to speak with Him shows a wish
to get at the bottom of the case. So far he was doing his duty, but
then come the faults. These may easily be exaggerated, and we should
remember that Pilate was the most ignorant, and therefore the least
guilty, of all the persons mentioned in this passage. He had
probably never heard the name of Jesus till that day, and saw
nothing but an ordinary Jewish peasant, whom his countrymen, like
the incomprehensible and troublesome people they were, wished, for
some fantastic reason, to get killed.
But that dialogue with his Prisoner should have sunk deeper into his
mind and heart. He was in long and close enough contact with Jesus
to have seen glimpses of the light, which, if followed, would have
led to clear recognition. His first sin was indifference, not
unmingled with scorn, and it blinded him. Christ's lofty and
wonderful explanation of the nature of His kingdom and His mission
to bear witness to the truth fell on entirely preoccupied ears,
which were quick enough to catch the faintest whispers of treason,
but dull towards 'truth.' When Jesus tried to reach his conscience
by telling him that every lover of truth would listen to His voice,
he only answered by the question, to which he waited not for an
answer, 'What is truth?'
That was not the question of a theoretical sceptic, but simply of a
man who prided himself on being 'practical,' and left all talk about
such abstractions to dreamers. The limitations of the Roman
intellect and its characteristic over-estimate of deeds and contempt
for pure thought, as well as the spirit of the governor, who would
let men think what they chose, as long as they did not rebel, spoke
in the question. Pilate is an instance of a man blinded to all lofty
truth and to the beauty and solemn significance of Christ's words,
by his absorption in outward life. He thinks of Jesus as a harmless
fanatic. Little did he know that the truth, which he thought
moonshine, would shatter the Empire, which he thought the one solid
reality. So called practical men commit the same mistake in every
generation. 'All flesh is as grass;... the word of the Lord endureth
for ever.'
Further, Pilate sinned in prostituting his office by not setting
free the prisoner when he was convinced of His innocence. 'I find no
fault in this man,' should have been followed by immediate release.
Every moment afterwards, in which He was kept captive, was the
condemnation of the unjust judge. He was clearly anxious to keep his
troublesome subjects in good humour, and thought that the judicial
murder of one Jew was a small price to pay for popularity. Still he
would have been glad to have escaped from what his official training
had taught him to recoil from, and what some faint impression, made
by his patient prisoner, gave him a strange dread of. So he grasps
at the mention of Galilee, and tries to gain two good ends at once
by handing Jesus over to Herod.
The relations between Antipas and him were necessarily delicate,
like those between the English officials and the rajahs of native
states in India; and there had been some friction, perhaps about
'the Galileans, whose blood' he 'had mingled with their sacrifices.'
If there had been difficulties in connection with such a question of
jurisdiction, the despatch of Jesus to Herod would be a graceful way
of making the _amende honorable_, and would also shift an
unpleasant decision on to Herod's shoulders. Pilate would not be
displeased to get rid of embarrassment, and to let Herod be the tool
of the priests' hate.
How awful the thought is of the contrast between Pilate's
conceptions of what he was doing and the reality! How blind to
Christ's beauty it is possible to be, when engrossed with selfish
aims and outward things! How near a soul may be to the light, and
yet turn away from it and plunge into darkness! How patient that
silent prisoner, who lets Himself be bandied about from one tyrant
to another, not because they had power, but because He loved the
world, and would bear the sins of every one of us! How terrible the
change when these unjust judges and He will change places, and
Pilate and Herod stand at His judgment-seat!
III. We have the wretched, frivolous Herod. This is the murderer of
John Baptist--'that fox,' a debauchee, a coward, and as cruel as
sensuous. He had all the vices of his worthless race, and none of
the energy of its founder. He is by far the most contemptible of the
figures in this passage. Note his notion of, and his feeling to,
Jesus. He thought of our Lord as of a magician or juggler, who might
do some wonders to amuse the vacuous _ennui_ of his sated
nature. Time was when he had felt some twinge of conscience in
listening to the Baptist, and had almost been lifted to nobleness by
that strong arm. Time was, too, when he had trembled at hearing of
Jesus, and taken Him for his victim risen from a bloody grave. But
all that is past now. The sure way to stifle conscience is to
neglect it. Do that long and resolutely enough, and it will cease to
utter unheeded warnings. There will be a silence which may look like
peace, but is really death. Herod's gladness was more awful and
really sad than Herod's fear. Better to tremble at God's word than
to treat it as an occasion for mirth. He who hates a prophet because
he knows him to be a prophet and himself to be a sinner, is not so
hopeless as he who only expects to get sport out of the messenger of
God.
Then note the Lord's silence. Herod plies Jesus with a battery of
questions, and gets no answer. If there had been a grain of
earnestness in them all, Christ would have spoken. He never is
silent to a true seeker after truth. But it is fitting that
frivolous curiosity should be unanswered, and there is small
likelihood of truth being found at the goal when there is nothing
more noble than that temper at the starting-point. Christ's silence
is the penalty of previous neglect of Christ's and His forerunner's
words. Jesus guides His conduct by His own precept, 'Give not that
which is holy unto the dogs'; and He knows, as we never can, who
come into that terrible list of men to whom it would only add
condemnation to speak of even His love. The eager hatred of the
priests followed Jesus to Herod's palace, but no judicial action is
recorded as taking place there. Their fierce earnestness of hate
seems out of place in the frivolous atmosphere. The mockery, in
which Herod is not too dignified to join his soldiers, is more in
keeping. But how ghastly it sounds to us, knowing whom they
ignorantly mocked! Cruelty, inane laughter, hideous pleasure in an
innocent man's pain, disregard of law and justice--all these they
were guilty of; and Herod, at any rate, knew enough of Jesus to give
a yet darker colouring to his share in the coarse jest.
But how the loud laugh would have fallen silent if some flash had
told who Jesus was! Is there any of our mirth, perhaps at some of His
servants, or at some phase of His gospel, which would in like manner
stick in our throats if His judgment throne blazed above us? Ridicule
is a dangerous weapon. It does more harm to those who use it than to
those against whom it is directed. Herod thought it an exquisite jest
to dress up his prisoner as a king; but Herod has found out, by this
time, whether he or the Nazarene was the sham monarch, and who is the
real one. Christ was as silent under mockery as to His questioner. He
bears all, and He takes account of all. He bears it because He is the
world's Sacrifice and Saviour. He takes account of it, and will one
day recompense it, because He is the world's King, and will be its
Judge. Where shall we stand then--among the silenced mockers, or
among the happy trusters in His Passion and subjects of His dominion?