Part 19 (2/2)
Pilate was now more than ever set on His deliverance. ”He sought to release Him.” And then the Jews brought out their last crus.h.i.+ng and conclusive argument, ”If thou release this Man, thou art not Caesar's friend; every one that maketh himself a king, speaketh against Caesar.”
Pilate knew what that meant, and that if he did not let them have their way, they would lodge an accusation against him for complicity with treason before his imperial master. Already strong representations had been made in the same quarter against his maladministration of his province, and he positively dare not risk another. ”When, therefore, he heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down in the judgment-seat at a place called the Pavement, and it was about the sixth hour.”
With ill-concealed irritation, and adopting the recent phraseology of the priests, he said, ”Behold your King!” At which they cried, ”We have no king but Caesar. Away with Him; away with Him; crucify Him.”
It gave Pilate savage pleasure to put the cup of humiliation to their lips, and make them drain it to its dregs. ”What!” said he; ”shall I crucify your King?” Then they touched the lowest depth of degradation, as, abandoning all their Messianic hopes, and trampling under foot their national pride, they answered, ”We have no king but Caesar.”
At last, therefore, he delivered Jesus to them to be crucified, signed the usual doc.u.ments, gave the customary order, and retired into his palace, as one who had heard his own sentence p.r.o.nounced, and carried in his soul the presage of his doom.
Long years after, when, stripped of his Procurators.h.i.+p, which he had sacrificed Christ to save, worn out by his misfortunes, and universally execrated, he was an exile in a foreign land, with his faithful wife, how often must they have spoken together of the events of that morning, which had so strangely affected their lives!
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The Seven Sayings of the Cross
”Then delivered he Him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus and led Him away.”--JOHN xix. 16.
Driven from one position after another by the Jewish notables and rabble, Pilate at last, much against his will, gave directions for the Lord's crucifixion. The purple robe flung over His shoulders was replaced by His own simple clothes, though the crown of thorns was not improbably left upon His head.
Two others were led out to suffer with Him--highwaymen lately captured in some red-handed deed. Barabbas, their chief, for whom the central cross had been designed, had escaped it by a miracle; but they were to suffer the just reward of their deeds. A detachment of soldiers was told off under a centurion, to see to the execution of the sentence, and the heavy crosses were placed upon the shoulders of the sufferers, that they might bear them to the place of execution.
It was probably about ten A. M. when the sad procession started on its way. Two incidents took place as it pa.s.sed through the crowded streets, which surely had never witnessed such a spectacle: no, not even in the days when David traversed them in flight from Absalom.
The beams laid on our Lord proved too heavy in the steeper ascents for His exhausted strength, and His slow advance so delayed the procession that the guard became impatient. Here comes a foreigner! A Jew of Cyrene! Harmless and inoffensive, gladly would he make way for the crowd. Why should he not bear this burden under which Jesus of Nazareth is falling to the ground? The insolent soldiers, with oath and jest, constrain him, and he dares not resist. Probably Simon had no previous knowledge of Him for whom he bore this load, and loathed the service he was compelled to render; but that compulsory companions.h.i.+p with Jesus carried him to Calvary. He beheld the wondrous tragedy, heard the words which we are to recite; from that day became, with his family, a humble follower of Jesus. We at least infer this from Mark's emphatic mention of the fact that he was father of Alexander and Rufus; whilst the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, tenderly refers to Rufus and his mother. This is not the only instance in the history of Christianity, when the compulsion of an apparent accident has led a man to Christ. Many a time has compulsory cross-carrying led men to the Crucified.
Of the vast mult.i.tude who followed Jesus, a large contingent consisted of women. From the men, in that moving crowd, He does not appear to have received one word of sympathy. Timidity, or questioning with their own hearts, or inveterate hatred closed their lips. But the women expressed their sorrow with all the outcry of Oriental grief, rending the air with piercing cries. ”Weep not for Me,” the Saviour said, ever more thoughtful for others than Himself; ”but for yourselves and your children.” And He who had been mocked because of His claim to be a King, and who would shortly from the cross begin to minister as a Priest, then as Prophet foretold the approaching fate of that fair city, asking significantly, since the Romans dealt thus with Himself an innocent sufferer, what would they not do when exasperated by the pertinacious resistance of the Jewish people in the protracted siege.
Just outside the city gates, by the side of the main road, was a little conical eminence which, from its likeness to the shape of a skull, was called in the Aramaic _Golgotha_, in the Greek _Cranion_, in the Latin _Calvary_. As we speak of the _brow_ of a hill, they called the bald eminence a _skull_. There the procession stayed, and what transpired may be best followed as we touch on the seven sentences our Lord uttered on the Cross, as we collate them and set them in order from the four Gospels.
I. ”_Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do._”--Arrived at the place of execution, Jesus would be stripped once more, a linen cloth at most being left about His loins. He would then be laid upon the cross, as it rested on the ground, His arms stretched along the crossbeams, His body resting on a projecting piece of rough wood, misnamed a seat. Huge nails would then be driven through the tender palm of each hand, and the shrinking centre of each foot. The cross would then be lifted up and planted in a hole previously dug to receive it, with a rude shock causing indescribable anguish. ”So they crucified Him, and two others with Him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.”
Pilate had written a t.i.tle to be nailed to the head-piece of the cross, according to the usual custom, with the name and designation of the crucified, ”This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” It was written in Greek, the language of science; Latin, the language of government; and Hebrew, the language of religion. It is this fact that accounts for the differences in the Gospels. One evangelist translates from one language, another from another. The inscription was meant to insult the Jews. It was equivalent to saying, ”This nation cannot produce a better monarch than this; and this is the fate which will be meted out to all such pretenders.” The authorities were indignant, and did their utmost to induce Pilate to alter it. But in vain. He would be master this time, and dismissed them with the curt reply, ”What I have written I have written.” Each man is writing his conception of the nature and claims of Christ by the way in which he treats Him, either acknowledging His Divine glory as he enthrones Him, or repudiating His claims as he tramples Him under foot, and turns away to his sin.
The criminal's clothes fell as a perquisite to the soldiers specially charged with the execution of the sentence. With our Lord's outer clothes they had no difficulty; they were too poor to be worth keeping entire, so they tore them up into equal pieces. But the inner tunic was of unusual texture; perhaps it had been woven for Him by His mother's hands, or by one of the women who so carefully administered to Him. In any case it was too good to tear. The dice were ready in the pocket, one of the helmets would serve as dice-box; and so ”they parted His raiment among them, and for His vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.”
It was probably during this byplay that our Lord uttered the first cry of the cross, and entered on that work of intercession, which He ever lives to perpetuate and crown. He thinks, not of Himself, but of others; is occupied, not with His own pains, but with their sins. Not a threat, nor a menace; but the purest, tenderest accents of pleading intercession.
When was that prayer answered? Seven weeks after this, on the day of Pentecost, three thousand of these people, whom Peter described as the murderers of Christ, repented and believed, and in the days that followed thousands more, and a great company of the priests. That was the answer to this intercession. When we see our brethren sinning a sin not unto death, without realizing its full significance and enormity, if we ask G.o.d, as Jesus did, He will give us life for those that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death, and concerning that we are not encouraged to pray. ”I obtained mercy,” said the great apostle, ”because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.”
II. ”_Woman, behold thy Son; son behold thy mother._”--The second saying was about His mother. His cross was the centre of bitter mockery. The chief priests, and scribes, and elders challenged Him to descend from the cross, pledging themselves to believe if He did. The crowd caught their spirit with contemptible servility, and repeated their words, ”Son of G.o.d, come down from the cross, that we may believe.” A pa.s.ser-by called out derisively, ”Where is now the boast that He could raise the temple in three days? Let Him do it if He can.” The soldiers even caught up the abuse, and vented their coa.r.s.e jokes on one whose innocence and gentleness appeared to exasperate them. And the malefactors who were hanged cast the same in His teeth.
Were there no sympathizers in all that crowd to exchange glances of love and faith? Yes, there was one little group. When Peter left the Hall of Caiaphas John probably lingered there still, followed to the bar of Pilate, waited long enough to know how the matter would fall, and then hastened to the humble lodgings where Mary and a few other women, in awful suspense, were awaiting tidings. As soon as the mother knew all, she resolved to see her beloved Son once more. ”It is no place for women,” John would say. But she answered, ”I must see Him yet again.” Then said John, ”If you will indeed go, I will take you.”
”I too will go,” sadly said Mary, her sister, the wife of Cleophas; ”and I also,” said Mary of Magdala. What a sight for those loving hearts, when they saw the crosses in the distance, and knew that on one of them was hanging the dearest to them of all on earth! But the love that makes the timid deer turn to fight valiantly for its young made them oblivious to everything except to get near Him. But how little had the young mother realized that Simeon meant this, when he told her that a sword would one day pierce her soul!
Jesus knew how much she was suffering, and how lonely she would be when He was gone. He had neither silver nor gold to leave, but would at least provide a home and tender care as long as she required them.
Elevated but very little above the ground, He could easily speak to the little group. ”Woman,” He said, not calling her ”mother,” lest identification with Himself might expose her to insult, ”behold thy Son.” Then, looking tenderly toward John, He consigned her to his care.
Did He give a further look, which John interpreted to mean that he should lead her away? It may have been so, for from that hour he took her to his home; and so she pa.s.ses from the page of Scripture, except for the one glimpse we have of her, in the upper room, awaiting the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
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