Part 7 (2/2)
Then each day He came to the city, and each night, homeless, slept out in the open, under the trees of Olivet, and the blue. Now, He rudely shocks them by clearing the temple areas of the market-place rabble and babble, and now He is healing the lame and maimed in the temple itself, amid the reverent praise of the mult.i.tude, the songs of the children, and the scowling, muttered protests of the chief priests. Calmly, day by day, He moves among them, while their itching fingers vainly clutch for a hold upon Him, and as surely are held back by some invisible force. By every subtle device known to cunning, crafty men, they lay question-traps, and lie in wait to catch His word. He foils them with His marvellous, simple answers, lashes them with His keen, cutting parables and finally Himself proposes a question about their own scriptures which they admit themselves unable to answer, and, utterly defeated, ask no more questions. Then follows that most terrific arraignment of these leaders, with its infinitely tender, sad, closing lament over Jerusalem. That is the final break.
Then occurs that pathetic Greek incident that seems to agitate Jesus so.
This group of earnest seekers, from the outside, non-Jewish world brings to Jesus a vision of the great hungry heart of the world, and of an open-mindedness to truth such as was to Him these days as a cool, refres.h.i.+ng drink to a dusty mouth on a dry hot day. But--no--the Father's will--simple obedience--only that was right. The harvest can come only through the grain giving out its life in the cold ground.
Before the final act in the tragedy Jesus retires from sight, probably for prayer. Some dear friends of Bethany in whose home He had rested many a time, where He ever found sweet-sympathy, arranged a little home-feast for Him where a few congenial friends might gather. While seated there in the quiet atmosphere of love and fellows.h.i.+p so grateful to Him after those Jerusalem days, one of the friends present, a woman, Mary, takes a box of exceeding costly ointment, and anoints His head. To the strange protests made, Jesus quietly explains her thought in the act. She alone understood what was coming. Alone of all others it was a woman, the simple-hearted Bethany Mary, who _understood_ Jesus. As none other did she perceive with her keen love-eyes the coming death, and--more--its meaning.
It is one of the disciples, Judas, who protests indignantly against such _waste_. This ointment would have brought at least seventy-five dollars, and how much such a sum would have done for the _poor_! Thoughtless, improvident woman! Strange the word didn't blister on his canting lips.
John keenly sees that his fingers are clutching the treasure bag as he speaks the word, and that his thoughts are far from the poor. Jesus gently rebukes Judas. But Judas is hot tempered, and sullenly watches for the first chance to withdraw and carry out the d.a.m.nable purpose that has been forming within. He hurries over the hill, through the city gate, up to the palace of the chief priest.
Within there was a company of the inner clique of the leaders, discussing how to get hold of Jesus most easily. They sit heavily in their seats, with shut fists, set jaws, and that peculiar yellow-green light spitting out from under their lowering, knit brows. These bothersome crowds had to be considered. The feast-day wouldn't do. The crowd would be greatest then, and hardest to handle. Back and forth they brew their scheme. Then a knock at the door. Startled, they look alertly up to know who this intruder may be. The door is opened. In steps a man with a hangdog, guilty, but determined look. It is one of the men they have seen with Jesus! What can this mean? He glances furtively from one to another.
Then he speaks: ”How much'll you give if I get Jesus into your hands?” Of all things this was probably the last they had thought might happen. Their eyes gleam. How much indeed--a good snug sum to get their fingers securely on his person. But they're shrewd bargainers. That's one of their specialties. How much did he _want_? Poor Judas! He made a bad bargain that day. Thirty pieces of silver! He could easily have gotten a thousand.
Judas did love money greedily, and doubtless was a good bargainer too, but anger was in the saddle now, and drove him hard. Without doubt it was in a hot fit of temper that he made this proposal. His descendants have been coining money out of Jesus right along: exchanging Him for gold.
Only a little later, and the Master is closeted with His inner circle in the upper room of a faithful friend's house in one of the Jerusalem streets, for the Pa.s.sover supper. A word from Him and Judas withdraws for his dark errand. Then those great heart-talks of Jesus, in the upper room, along the roadway, under the full moon, maybe pa.s.sing by the ma.s.sive temple structure, then under the olive trees. Then the hour grows late, the disciples are drowsy, the Master is off alone among those trees, then weird uncertain lights of torches, a rabble of soldiers and priests, a man using friends.h.i.+p's cloak, and friends.h.i.+p's greeting--then the King is in the hands of His enemies. An awful night, followed by a yet more awful day, and the plan of the kingdom is broken by the tragic killing of the King.
<u>Suffering the Birth-pains of a New Life.</u>
Why did Jesus die? It's a pretty old question. It's been threshed out no end of times. Yet every time one thinks of the gospel, or opens the Book, it looks out earnestly into his face. And nothing is better worth while than to have another serious prayerful go at it. The whole nub of the gospel is here. It clears the ground greatly not to have any theory about Jesus' death, but simply to try thoughtfully to gather up all the statements and group them, regardless of where it may lead, or how it may knock out previous ideas.
It can be said at once that His dying was not G.o.d's own plan. It was a plan conceived somewhere else, and yielded to by G.o.d. G.o.d had a plan of atonement by which men who were willing could be saved from sin and its effects. That plan is given in the old Hebrew code. To the tabernacle, or temple, under prescribed regulations, a man could bring some live animal which he owned. The man brought that which was his own. It represented him. Through his labor the beast or bird was his. He had transferred some of his life and strength into it. He identified himself with it further by close touch at the time of its being offered. He offered up its life. In his act he acknowledged that his own life was forfeited. In continuing to live he acknowledged the continued life as belonging to G.o.d. He was to live as belonging to another. He made, in effect, the statement made long after by Paul: ”I am offering up my life on this altar for my sin; nevertheless I am living: yet the life I live is no longer mine, but another's. Mine has been taken away by sin.” There was no malice or evil feeling in the man's act, but only penitence, and an earnest, n.o.ble purpose.
The act revealed the man's inner spirit. It acknowledged his sin, that life is forfeited by sin, his desire to have the sin difficulty straightened out, and to be at one again with G.o.d. He expressed his hatred of sin and his earnest desire to be free of it. I am not saying at all that this was true of every Hebrew coming with his sacrifice. I may not say it of all who approach G.o.d to day through Jesus. But clearly enough, all of this is in the old Hebrew _plan_ devised by G.o.d. It was the new choice that brought the man back to G.o.d, even as the first choice had separated him from G.o.d. And the explicit statement made over and over is this, ”and it shall make atonement.”
Clearly Jesus' dying does not in any way fit into the old Hebrew _form_ of sacrifice, nor into the spirit of the man who caused the death of the sacrifice, though in spirit, in requirement it far more than fills it out.
The Old Testament scheme is Jewish. The manner of Jesus' death is not Jewish, but Roman. As a priest He was not of the Jewish order, but of an order non-Jewish and antedating the other by hundreds of years. In no feature does He fit into the old custom. But every truth taught by the old is brilliantly exemplified and embodied in Him.
The epistle to the Hebrews was written to Jews who had become Christians, but through persecution and great suffering were sorely tempted to go back to the old Jewish faith. They seemed to be saying that Jesus filled out neither the kingdom plan, nor the Mosaic scheme of sacrifice. The writer of the epistle is showing with a masterly sweep and detail the immense superiority of what Jesus did over the old Mosaic plan. Read backward, these provisions are seen to be vivid ill.u.s.trations of what Jesus did do, not in form, not actually, but in fact, in spirit, in a way vastly ahead of the Hebrew ritual. The truth underneath the old was fully fulfilled in Jesus, though the form was not.
One needs always to keep sharply in mind the difference between G.o.d's _plan_ and that which He clearly saw ahead, and into which He determined to fit in carrying out His purpose. There is no clearer, stronger statement of this than that found in Peter's Pentecost sermon: ”Him being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of G.o.d, ye by the hands of men without law did crucify and slay.” G.o.d knew ahead what would come. There was a conference held. The whole matter talked over.
With full knowledge of the situation, the obstinate hatred of men, the terrific suffering involved, it was calmly, resolutely advised and decided upon that when the time came Jesus should yield Himself up pliantly into their hands. That is Peter's statement.
This in no way affects the fact that Jesus dying as He did is the one means of salvation. It does not at all disturb any of Paul's statements, in their plainest, first-flush meaning. It does explain the kingdom plan, and the necessity for Jesus finis.h.i.+ng up the kingdom plan some day. For though G.o.d's plan may be broken, and r.e.t.a.r.ded, it always is carried through in the end. It explains too that evil is never necessary to good.
Hatred, evil never helps G.o.d's plans. The good that G.o.d brought out of the cross is not through the bad, but in spite of the bad.
The preaching of the Acts is absorbed with the astounding, overshadowing, appalling fact of the killing of the nation's King. But through it all runs this strain of reasoning: the kingdom plan has been broken by the murder of the King. He has been raised from the dead in vindication of His claim. This marvellous power that is so evident to all eyes and ears is the Holy Spirit whom the killed King has sent down. It proves that He is now enthroned in glory at G.o.d's right hand. He is coming back to carry out the kingdom plan. Now the thing to do is to repent, and so there will come blessing now, and by and by the King again.
When the first church council is held to discuss the matter of letting non-Jewish outsiders into their circle, the clear-headed, judicial-tempered James, in the presiding chair, puts the thing straight.
He says: ”Peter has fully told us how G.o.d _first_ visited the outside nations to take out of them a people for Himself. And this fits into the prophetic plan as outlined by Amos, that _after_ that the kingdom will be set up and then _all_ men will come.”
This brings out in bold relief the fact that the _horrible_ features of Jesus' dying, the hatred and cruelty, were no part of the plan of salvation, and not necessary to the plan. The cross was the invention of hate. There is no cross in G.o.d's plan of atonement. It is the superlative degree of hate, brooded and born, and grown l.u.s.ty in h.e.l.l. It was G.o.d's master touch that, through yielding, it _becomes_ to all men for all time the superlative degree of love. The ages have softened all its sharp jagged edges with a halo of glory.
It is perfectly clear, too, that Jesus died of His own accord. He chose the _time_ of His death and the _manner_ of it. He had said it was purely voluntary on His part, and the record plainly shows that it was. All attempts to kill Him failed until He chose to yield. There are ten separate mentions of their effort, either to get hold of His person or to kill Him at once before they finally succeeded. He was killed _in intent_ at least three times, once by being dashed over a precipice, and twice by stoning, before He was actually killed by crucifixion. Each time surrounded by a hostile crowd, apparently quite capable of doing as they pleased, yet each time He pa.s.ses through their midst, and their hooked fingers are restrained against their will, and their gnas.h.i.+ng teeth bite only upon the spittle of their hate.
This makes Jesus' _motive_ in yielding explain His death. The cross means just what His purpose in dying puts into it. If we read the facts of the gospel stories apart from Jesus' words, the cross spells out just one word--in large, pot-black capitals--HATE.
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