The last supper. Leonardo's great picture. Betrayal. With a
rope around his neck, the Savior of mankind is dragged
before a Roman Judge. The scene at Pilate's palace. Pilate's
wife warns him. The awful murder and the End.
One evening He and His disciples sat together at their evening
meal--it was to be their last on earth. It is doubtful if the
disciples really believed all was to be finished so soon. Yet He had
most earnestly told them of His coming death. It was now in the
Passover week--and the Master and His nearest ones proposed
celebrating one of its festivals in private and alone. "But where?"
asked his disciples. "Well," He had said, "go into Jerusalem, and the
first man you meet carrying a pitcher of water, follow him to the
house where he goes; there tell the owner I am coming, and he will
show you an upper room, all prepared for us." Two of them went as
told, followed the man with the pitcher, and found all in readiness
for the little supper. That evening the Master and His disciples took
a walk together from little Bethany, over the Mount of Olives, to
Jerusalem. It was their last walk together on earth. At this supper
where they now are, the Galilean once more tells His disciples the
fate awaiting Him. He even points out the betrayer; but they do not
seem to know His meaning.
Quietly, and aside, He whispers to Judas to "Do that which you are
going to do quickly." It seems that Judas at once slipped away from
the eleven and went out to hunt up the enemies of one he called
Master. For a trifling sum of silver he had sold his own soul.
This scene, like that of the Transfiguration, has been celebrated by
one of the great pictures of the world. Leonardo da Vinci's picture of
the "Last Supper," in an old church at Milan, Italy, is in itself a
miracle of art. Perhaps no painting on earth has attracted so many
believing pilgrims to see and to sigh over the sorrow of the Master.
That very night when the moon rose over the towers and walls of the
city, Jesus and His disciples left the supper room and secretly went
out across the little brook Cedron and entered an olive orchard,
to-day known as the Garden of Gethsemane. It is close to the city
walls. There in the moonlight the disciples, tired and afraid, and
probably hiding from their enemies, lay down on the grass and slept.
The Master Himself stepped a little into the shade of the olive trees
to pray. He knew the hour had come.
In a little while, it was the midnight hour now, he heard men coming,
with stones and swords and lanterns. Fearlessly He stepped out into
the light of the full moon and asked them whom they were looking for.
They answered, "Jesus, of Nazareth." He said quietly, "I am He." At
the same moment Judas, the betrayer, walked up and kissed Him. This
had been a sign agreed upon between Judas and the priests, as to which
one to capture.
The little handful of friends with the Lord now tried to give battle,
but He would not permit them. He was at once bound, and carried back
into the city. It is past midnight. He is first conducted before
Annas, the church tyrant, who sends Him to Caiaphas, the high priest.
There He is questioned and tortured. By the time it is daylight He is
sent to the judgment hall of Pilate and accused. Pilate is a Roman.
Under the Roman law there still must be some pretense of a charge
against a human being before he can be put to death--some charge of
wrong.
It is now seven in the morning. Priests, scribes, Pharisees, all come
before Pilate in a howling mob, leading the Savior of mankind with a
rope around His neck. They had tortured Him half the night--they have
decided He shall die; they only want permission to kill Him, or have
Him killed by Pilate.
As it is the holy festival time, custom does not permit the mob to
enter the heathen palace of Pilate. So they stand out in the street,
on a place called the "pavement," and howl.
"What is the charge against Him? What has this man done?" demands the
Roman governor, with a show of justice as he steps out to the front of
his palace and looks at the mob. "He says he is Christ, the King,"
some of the accusers answer. Pilate goes back into the great hall,
with the marble floor and the gilded ceilings. He himself has no love
for the Jews. They have no love for Pilate. He knows the Jerusalemites
to be a seditious lot of zealots, quarreling forever among themselves,
and fanatical in their adherence to the laws of Moses. The Jews know
Pilate to be a hater of their creeds and customs. They regard him,
too, a brutal governor; but now they would use this brutality against
one of whom they were a little afraid, for in the villages this
Galilean, whom they were persecuting, had many friends. Would not the
people rise, moved by His wonderful miracles, and at last put an end
to all their religious pretenses? It was the temple-people, the
Sanhedrins, and the Pharisaic priests who stood in front of this mob,
gathered at Pilate's palace on that early morning. They had already
decided their victim must die, and they were inciting all the ignorant
to violence.
Because of the Roman occupation, Pilate's approval was a necessity
before they could quite kill a man. They reckoned, however, that he
would want to please them some, and so lessen his own unpopularity.
In a little time the governor called Jesus into the judgment hall.
Looking at the wronged, the suffering, the persecuted being who stood
before him, the blood falling from His poor body to the floor Pilate
asked Him plainly if He were the king of the Jews? "Do you ask that of
yourself," said the persecuted but heroic prisoner, "or did others
tell it of me?"
Pilate was in fact greatly impressed by the face, serene, even in
suffering, and the mild words of one falsely accused. The Savior
explained that if He was a king it was not of this world. His kingdom
was of the spirit. Pilate did not quite understand that. He himself
was not very spiritual. Jesus added, "I am a witness to the Truth."
"Then what is Truth?" said Pilate. We can only guess the answer given
him. It may have greatly moved the Roman, for he at once went out to
the mob assembled on the pavement and said, "I find no fault in this
man." Some one in the crowd spoke up and accused Jesus of stirring up
the peasants in Galilee.
"If he is a Galilean," said Pilate to himself, "he must be tried by
Antipas, the Galilean governor." Reliable tradition says that they
also shouted at him that this was the very Child Jesus, whom Herod
tried to kill when he massacred the children of Bethlehem. Pilate had
never heard of the flight to Egypt nor of the return. He supposed the
Child Christ dead. Now he is astounded, and alarmed, for where had
Jesus been all these years? Had His origin, His identity been kept a
secret? Does not this tradition and Pilate's alarm add strength to the
supposition that years of His life had passed in the secret of the
desert?
Pilate gladly sent him to Antipas, who that very day happened to be in
Jerusalem at the festival. The Galilean ruler had heard of Christ a
thousand times, and often had longed to see him and talk with him, but
most he was curious to see a miracle performed. Again the Master is
accused, but to the many questions of Antipater He makes no answer
whatever. Neither does He perform some miracle for the curiosity and
sport of the Galilean court. Offended at His silence, and greatly
disappointed, the king mocks Him, and arraying Him in ridiculous
garments sends Him back to Pilate. But he has found no fault in
Him--no act against the laws of Galilee for which he dare punish Him.
Again He is before Pilate, the Roman, again full of pain, and
bleeding, He answers mildly as before, or else is silent, submitting
to outrageous injury. Three times Pilate goes out before the crowd and
tells them that Christ has done nothing worthy of death. "Again I
tell you I find no fault in Him. I sent Him over to Antipas, the king
of Galilee. He also finds no fault worthy of death. Let me chastise
Him and set Him free."
But the crowd yelled the louder for His blood. Once the wife of Pilate
comes and whispers to him to "have nothing to do with that good man, I
have been forewarned in a dream." Again Pilate earnestly strives to
save Him. Again he addresses the mob, "You know it is our custom to
release a prisoner at this festival. I have Barabbas, the robber, here
and Jesus. Let me set Jesus free and hang the robber." "No, no," cry a
hundred voices; "free Barabbas and crucify the heretic." The Roman,
accomplished in killing men, practiced in cruelty as he is, shudders
at the fearful injustice. He knows the Galilean has done no wrong. The
bruised and bleeding body of the Master waits in silence and prayer
there in the hall of the palace. The cries for His murder reach His
ears--they grow louder and louder. Pilate, confused as to the law, as
to his duty, and perhaps alarmed, weakened, in a contemptible moment
of cowardice, yields.
But first he steps to the front, and in a loud voice exclaims, "Look
you, I wash my hands of the blood of this good man." He could do
nothing more.
In a moment the robber is set free, and the Christ, followed by a
multitude, some deriding and some weeping for pity, starts for the
awful place of execution. Once as He goes along the thorny way, He
hears pitying women bewailing and weeping. Turning His face to them,
He cries, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me; but weep for
yourselves and your children."
That weeping, that sorrow, has continued two thousand years. Humanity
will weep forever over the awfulness of what happened. It is hard to
think that God ordained any of this suffering of Jesus. More likely
the Master, in the extremity of His zeal for humanity, believed His
very blood on the cross a needed sacrifice to awaken the world. He
was human. His road from Pilate's palace to the cross has been
followed in tears by millions of people. The awful picture of what
happened there is too dreadful to describe. John, the Evangelist,
himself was present--the only eye witness who has written of it, yet
not even he has the courage to tell the story beyond a dozen verses in
the Testament. The disciples had deserted the Lord, and were in
hiding. They were in fear. They could not drink the cup the Master had
to drink. A few women, including the mother of the Redeemer and her
sister, were present to the very end. To make the anguish as
disgraceful as possible, the Master was nailed to a cross between two
thieves. It was the most agonizing kind of execution known to the
cruel Roman law. Some Roman soldiers put Him to death, as ordered by
their governor, but the blood of it all was on the hands of fanatics
and priests.
Pilate, in mockery of the Jews, whom he despised for this murder,
forced on him, put an inscription over the cross saying, "The King of
the Jews." The mob of murderers wanted him to amend the phrase, and
have it read, "He said He was King of the Jews." Pilate declined, for
Jesus had never said that. Besides, Pilate had had enough of the
horror that, like an earthquake, was to shock the world. He had washed
his hands of it.
The deed done, the anguish over, Joseph, a secret Christian convert,
though a rich member of the Sanhedrin, asked Pilate for the body of
Jesus, and put it in a new tomb of his own, hewn in the solid rock, as
was a custom of the land.
On what is now known as Easter morning, just as the dawn was breaking
over the hills of Jerusalem, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of the
dead Master. It had been opened by angels, as she believed, for, on
looking within, she saw two figures sitting there dressed in white.
Very quickly two of the disciples, whom Mary saw and told, came and
looked into the cave also and saw nothing but the linen clothes of the
Master, and went away. The body was not there. Mary waited a little
yet by herself, when one of the angels asked her why she was weeping.
She answered, "They have taken away my Lord." At that moment she
turned her face a little and saw a spirit standing by her. Thinking at
first it was the gardener, she asked it where the body had been taken
to. To her amazement the spirit spoke and sadly said, "Mary."
Instantly she knew it was the Lord. She would have thrown herself at
His feet, but He bade her not to touch Him, but rather to hasten to
the disciples and tell them He was about to ascend to Heaven.
That day, on a country road, outside Jerusalem, He overtook two of His
disciples, and walked and talked with them all the way to Emmaus,
telling them the great story of the Scriptures, while they walked and
wondered, not knowing it was the spirit of the dead Master. That same
evening, too, that same Spirit of Jesus appeared to the disciples in a
closed room where they were hiding for fear of the Jews. In a little
while the word went round among the followers that the Lord was
risen. For forty days that Spirit, risen from the tomb, was to be seen
by the faithful in Jerusalem and in Galilee.
To His apostles His appearance in the spirit could not have been
surprising, for He had repeatedly told them that He would be
crucified, and would rise again in three days. As to a possibility of
life after death--there was little or no question among the Jews. The
Sadducees only argued against it. The belief of that time and of ages
before was in a resurrection. Even Daniel had told the people
distinctly that the time would come "when many that sleep in the dust
of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame
and contempt."
Indeed, Jews at this very moment were expecting Elias and other
prophets to rise from their graves and rule the world from Palestine.
Whether Christ's physical body also appeared to Mary Magdalene that
morning in the garden we may never know. Lyman Abbott has rightly said
that it is "not even important that we should know." It is sufficient
that the Spirit that never dies was there. His appearance was the
perfect proof of an after life. Pilate and the murderers had killed
only the body, not the soul.
Quite possibly spirits have been momentarily seen in our later times,
but His, seen by thousands, walked about the earth for forty days.
That event was to establish a religion that would reform the world and
live forever. The world now knew there was a second life to strive
for--and the road to that life was in being good to one another.
Millions have walked it, and died in peace. They died, not to an
eternal sleep but to waken with the light of Heaven bursting around
them.
THE END
* * * * *
Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics
(_italics_).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained
except in obvious cases of typographical error.
The transcriber has changed the preface signature "H. S. M. B." to
"S. H. M. B."
End of Project Gutenberg's A Layman's Life of Jesus, by Samuel H. M. Byers