The Saddest Cry From the Cross
(No. 2803)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1902.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
JANUARY 7, 1877.
"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli,
Eli, lama Sabachthaani? That is to say, My God, My God, why have You
forsaken Me." Matthew 27:46.
DURING the time that "Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his
father-in-law," he, "came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb," and
there he saw a strange sight–a bush that burned with fire and yet was
not consumed! Then Moses, apparently overtaken by curiosity, was
drawing near in order to examine this phenomenon when he heard God's
voice say to him, "Draw not near here: take off your shoes from your
feet, for the place where on you stand is holy ground." We also may
well feel, as we think of our Lord Jesus in His agony, that the voice
of God speaks to us from the Cross and says, "Curiosity–bold, daring,
prying intellect–draw not near here! Take off your shoes from your
feet, for the place where on you stand is the very Holy of Holies unto
which no man may come except as the Spirit of God shall conduct him."
I think I can understand the words, "My God, my God, why have You
forsaken me?" as they are written by David in the 22nd Psalm, but the
same words, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" when uttered by
Jesus on the Cross, I cannot comprehend, so I shall not pretend to be
able to explain them. There is no plummet that can fathom this deep!
There is no eagle's eye that can penetrate the mystery that surrounds
this strange question! I have read that once upon a time Martin Luther
sat down in his study to consider this text. Hour after hour, that
mighty man of God sat still–and those who waited on him came into the
room, again and again, and he was so absorbed in his meditation that
they almost thought he was a corpse. He moved neither hand nor foot,
and neither ate nor drank, but sat with his eyes wide open, like one in
a trance, thinking over these wondrous words, "My God, My God, why have
You forsaken Me?" And when, after many long hours, in which he seemed
to be utterly lost to everything that went on around him, he rose from
his chair, someone heard him say, "God forsaking God! No man can
understand that!" And so he went his way. Though that is hardly the
correct expression to use–I should hesitate to endorse it–yet I do
not marvel that our text presented itself to the mind of Luther in that
light. It is said that he looked like a man who had been down a deep
mine and who had come up again to the light. I feel more like one who
has not been down the mine, but who has looked into it–or like one who
has been part of the way down and shuddered as he passed through the
murky darkness but who would not dare to go much lower, for this cry,
"Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani?" is a tremendous deep; no man will ever be
able to fathom it.
So I am not going to try to explain it, but, first, to utter some
thoughts about it And then, secondly, to draw some lessons from it We
may find many practical uses for things which are beyond the grasp of
our minds–and this saying of our Lord may be of great service to us
even though we cannot comprehend it.
I. First, then, let me utter SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS STRANGE
QUESTION–"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
Jesus was accustomed to address God as His Father. If you turn to His
many prayers, you will find Him almost invariably–if not
invariably–speaking to God as His Father. And, truly, He stands in
that relationship both as God and as Man. Yet, in this instance, He
does not say, "Father," but, "My God, My God." Was it that He had any
doubt about His Sonship? Assuredly not! Satan had assailed Him in the
wilderness with the insinuation, "If You are the Son of God," but
Christ had put him to the rout–and I feel persuaded that Satan had not
gained any advantage over Him, even on the Cross, which could have made
Him doubt whether He was the Son of God or not.
I think that our Savior was then speaking as Man and that this is the
reason why He cried, "My God, My God," rather than, "My Father." I
think He must have been speaking as Man, as I can scarcely bring my
mind to the point of conceiving that God the Son could say to God the
Father, "My God, My God." There is such a wonderful blending of the
Human and the Divine in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ that,
though it may not be absolutely accurate to ascribe to the Deity some
things in the life of Christ, yet is He so completely God and Man that,
often, Scripture does speak of things that must belong to the Humanity
only as if they belonged to the Godhead. For instance, in his charge to
the Ephesian elders, the Apostle Paul said, "Feed the Church of God,
which He has purchased with His own blood"–an incorrect expression, if
judged according to the rule of the logician–but accurate enough
according to the Scriptural method of using words in their proper
sense. Yet I do think that we must draw a distinction between the
Divinity and the Humanity here. As the Lord Jesus said, "My God, My
God," it was because it was His Humanity that was mainly to be
considered just then.
And O my Brothers and Sisters, does it not show us what a real Man the
Christ of God was, that He could be forsaken of His God We might have
supposed that Christ being Emmanuel–God With Us–the Godhead and the
Manhood being indissolubly united in one Person, it would have been
impossible for Him to be forsaken of God. We might also have inferred,
for the same reason, that it would have been impossible for Him to have
been scourged, spit upon and especially that it would not have been
possible for Him to die! Yet all these things were made not only
possible, but also sacredly certain! In order to complete the
redemption of His chosen people, it was necessary for Him to be both
God's well-beloved Son and to be forsaken of His Father. He could truly
say, as His saints also have sometimes had to say, "My God, My God, why
have You forsaken Me?" Persecuted and forsaken Believer, behold your
Brother in adversity! Behold the One who has gone wherever you may have
to go, who has suffered more than you can ever suffer and who has taken
His part in the direst calamity that ever happened to human nature so
that He had to cry out, in the agony of His soul, "My God, My God, why
have You forsaken Me?"
What was this forsaking? We are trying to come a little closer to this
burning yet unconsumed bush–with our shoes off our feet, I hope, all
the while–and in this spirit we ask, "What was this forsaking?" A
devout writer says that it was horror at the sight of human misery. He
affirms what is quite true, that our Lord Jesus Christ saw all that man
had to suffer because of sin–that He perceived the total sum of the
miseries brought by sin upon all the past, present and future
generations of the human race–and that He must have had a holy horror
as He thought of all the woes of man, caused by sin, in this life and
in that which is to come–and being completely one with man, He spoke
in the name of man and said, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken
Me?" That is all true, yet that explanation will not suffice, my
Brothers and Sisters because our Savior did not say, "My God, My God,
why have You forsaken MAN?" but, "Why have You forsaken Me?" This
forsaking was something personalto Himself.
Others have said that it was a dreadful shrinking in His soul on
account of human sin. I have read of a child who had done wrong and
whose father had faithfully rebuked and punished him. But the boy
remained callous and sullen. He sat in the same room with his father,
yet he refused to confess that he had done wrong. At last the father,
under a sense of his child's great wickedness, burst into tears and
sobbed and sighed. Then the boy came to his father and asked him why he
sorrowed so, and he answered, "Because of my child's hardness of
heart." It is true that our Lord Jesus Christ did feel as that father
felt–only far more acutely–but our text cannot be fully explained by
any such illustration as that. That would be only explaining it away,
for Christ did not say, "My God, My God, why has man forsaken You, and
why have You so completely left men in their sin?" No, His cry was,
"Why have You forsaken Me?" It was not so much the God of man to whom
He appealed, but, "My God, MyGod." It was a personal grief that wrung
from Him the personal cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
For this forsaking, by His Father in whom He trusted, related
peculiarly to Himself.
What was this forsaking? Was it physical weakness Some of you may know
that when the body is in a low condition, the soul also sinks. Quite
involuntarily, unhappiness of mind, depression of spirit and sorrow of
heart will come upon you. You may be without any real reason for grief
and yet may be among the most unhappy of men because, for the time,
your body has conquered your soul. But, my Brothers and Sisters, this
explanation is not supposable in the case of Christ,
for it was not many moments after this that He shouted, "with a loud
voice," His conquering cry, "It is finished," and so passed from the
conflict to His coronation! His brave spirit overcame His physical
weakness and though He was brought into the dust of death," and plunged
into the deepest depths of depression of spirit, yet, still, the cry,
"My God, My God," which also was uttered, "with a loud voice," proves
that there was still a considerable amount of mental strength,
notwithstanding His physical weakness, so that mere depression of
spirit caused by physical reasons could not account for this agonizing
cry.
And, certainly, my Brothers and Sisters, this cry was not occasioned by
unbelief You know that, sometimes, a child of God in sore trial and
with many inward struggles, cries out, "My God, my God, why have You
forsaken me?" when, all the while, the Lord has been remembering the
tried soul and dealing graciously with it. As long ago as Isaiah's day,
"Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me."
But the Lord's reply was, "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that
she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may
forget, yet will I not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you upon the
palms of My hand." Unbelief often makes us talk about God forgetting us
when He does nothing of the kind, but our Lord Jesus Christ was a
stranger to unbelief. It was impossible for Him to cherish any doubt
about the faithfulness and loving kindness of His Father–so His cry
did not arise from that cause.
And, another thing, it did not arise from a mistake. I have known
Believers, in sore trouble, make great blunders concerning what God was
doing with them. They have thought that He had forsaken them, for they
misinterpreted certain signs and dealings of God, and they said, "All
these things are against us. The hand of God has gone out against us to
destroy us." But Christ made no mistake about this matter, for God
hadforsaken Him. It was really so! When He said, "Why have You forsaken
Me?" He spoke Infallible Truth of God and His mind was under no cloud
whatever! He knew what He was saying and He was right in what He said,
for His Father had forsaken Him for the time.
What, then, can this expression mean? Does it mean that God did not
love His Sod? O Beloved, let us, with the utmost detestation, fling
away any suspicion of the kind that we may have harbored! God did
forsake His Son but He loved Him as much when He forsook Him as at any
other period. I even venture to say that if it had been possible for
God's love towards His Son to be increased, He would have delighted in
Him more when He was standing as the suffering Representative of His
chosen people than He had ever delighted in Him before. We do not
indulge, for a single moment, the thought that God was angry with Him
personally, or looked upon Him as unworthy of His love, or regarded Him
as one upon whom He could not smile because of anything displeasing in
Himself. Yet the fact remains that God had forsaken Him, for Christ was
under no mistake about that matter. He rightly felt that His Father had
withdrawn the comfortable Light of His Countenance, that He had, for
the time being, lost the sense of His Father's favor–not the favor,
itself, but the consciousness of that Divine aid and succor which He
had formerly enjoyed–so He felt Himself like a Man left all alone–and
He was not only left all alone by His friends, but also by His God.
Can we at all imagine the state of mind in which our Lord was when He
cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" No, that is not
possible, yet I will try to help you to understand it. Can you imagine
the misery of a lost soul in Hell–one who is forsaken of God and who
cries, in bitterest agony, "God will never look upon me in mercy, or
delight, or favor"–can you picture that sad state? Well, if you can,
you will not, even then, have got anywhere near the position of
Christ–because that soul in Hell does not want God's favor and does
not seek it, or ask for it. That lost soul is so hardened in sin that
it never troubles about whether God would receive it if it
repented–the truth is that it does not want to repent! The misery that
men will suffer in the world to come will be self-created misery
arising out of the fact that they loved sin so much that they brought
eternal sorrow upon themselves. It must be an awful thing for a soul,
in the next world, to be without God, but, as far as its own
consciousness is concerned, it will be so hardened that it will abide
without God, yet not realizing all that it has lost because it is,
itself, incapable of knowing the beauty of holiness and the perfection
of the God from whom it is separated forever. Yet how different was the
case of our Lord Jesus Christ when upon the Cross! He knew, as no mere
man could ever know, what separation from God meant!
Think of a case of another kind. King Saul, when the witch of Endor
brought up the spirit of Samuel, said to him, "God is departed from me,
and answers me no more." You recollect the state of mind that he was in
when the evil spirit was upon him and he needed David's harp to charm
it away. But at last, even thatfailed, and I know of no more unhappy
character than Saul when God had departed from him. But, somehow, there
was not the anguish in the soul of Saul that there would have been if
he had ever really known the Lord. I do not think that he ever really
did, in his inmost soul,
know the Lord. After Samuel anointed him, he was "turned into another
man," but He never became a newman and the sense of God's Presence that
he had was not, for a moment, comparable to that Presence of God which
a true saint enjoys and which Christ always enjoyed, except when He was
on the Cross. So, when Saul lost the consciousness of that Presence, he
did not suffer so great a loss and, consequently, so great an anguish
as afterwards happened to our Lord.
Coming nearer to our own circumstances, I remind you that there are
some of God's people who do really love Him and who have walked in the
Light of His Countenance, yet, for some reason or other, they have lost
the comfortable enjoyment of God's love. If any of you, dear Friends,
know what that sad experience is, you are getting a faint impression of
the meaning of this cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!"
Oh, what an anguish it is–what heart-break–to think that one is
forsaken of God! I have heard of people dying of broken hearts, but I
believe that the man who has been made to utter this cry has gone as
near to dying of a broken heart as anyone might well do without
actually dying. To be without God is to be without life. And we who
love Him, can say with Dr. Watts–
"My God, my Life, my Love,
To You, to You I call!
I cannot live, if You remove,
For You are my All-in-All."
But, my dear Brothers and Sisters, you have not got the whole truth
yet, for no saint knows the Presence of God as Christ knew it. No saint
has, to the fullest, enjoyed the love of God as Christ enjoyed it and,
consequently, if he does lose it, he only seems to lose the moonlight
whereas Christ lost the sunlight when, for a time, the face of His
Father was withdrawn from Him! Only think what must have been the
anguish of the Savior, especially as contrasted with His former
enjoyment. Never did any mere human being know so much and enjoy so
much of the love of God as Christ had done. He had lived in it, basked
in it–there had never been any interruption to it. "I do always those
things that please Him," He said, concerning His Father. And His Father
twice said, concerning Him, "This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased." Now, as our Lord Jesus Christ had enjoyed the love of God to
the very fullest, think what it must have been for Him to lose the
conscious enjoyment of it. You know that you may go into a room and
blow out the candle, but the blind people will not miss it. They miss
the light most who have enjoyed it most–and Christ missed the Light of
God's Countenance most because He had enjoyed it most! Then, reflect
upon His intense love to God. Jesus Christ–the Man Christ Jesus–loved
God with all His heart, mind, soul and strength, as you and I have
never yet been able to do. The love of Christ towards His Father was
boundless. Well, then, for a frown to be upon His Father's face, or for
the Light of that Father's face to be taken away from Him must have
made it correspondingly dark and terrible to Him.
Remember, too, the absolute purity of Christ's Nature. In Him there was
no taint of sin, nor anything approaching to it. Now, holiness delights
in God. God is the very sea in which holiness swims–the air which
holiness breathes! Only think, then, of the perfectly Holy One, fully
agreed with His Father in everything, finding out that the Father had,
for good and sufficient reasons, turned His face away from Him! O
Brothers and Sisters, in proportion as you are holy, the absence of the
Light of God's Countenance will be grief to you! And as Jesus was
perfectly holy, it was the utmost anguish to Him to have to cry to His
Father, "Why have You forsaken Me!"
After all, Beloved, the only solution of the mystery is this–Jesus
Christ was forsaken of God because we deserved to be forsaken of God.
He was there, on the Cross, in our place! And as the sinner, by reason
of his sin deserves not to enjoy the favor of God, so Jesus Christ,
standing in the place of the sinner and enduring that which would
vindicate the justice of God, had to come under the cloud–as the
sinner must have come if Christ had not taken his place. But, then,
since He has come under it, let us recollect that He was thus left of
God that you and I, who believe in Him, might never be left of God.
Since He, for a little while, was separated from His Father, we may
boldly cry, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" And, with
the Apostle Paul, we may confidently affirm that nothing in the whole
universe "shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Before I leave this point, let me say that the Doctrine of Substitution
is the key to all the sufferings of Christ. I do not know how many
theories have been invented to explain away the death of Christ. The
modern doctrine of the apostles of "culture" is that Jesus Christ did
something or other, which, in some way or other, was, in some degree or
other, connected with our salvation. But it is my firm belief that
every theory concerning the death of Christ which can only be
understood by the highly-cultured, must be false. "That is strong
language," says someone. Perhaps it is, but it is true. I am quite sure
that the religion of Jesus Christ was never intended only for the
highly-cultured, or even for them in particu-
lar. Christ's testimony concerning His own ministry was, "The poor have
the Gospel preached to them," so if you bring me a Gospel which can
only be understood by gentlemen who have passed through Oxford or
Cambridge University, I know that it cannot be the Gospel of Christ! He
meant the good news of salvation to be proclaimed to the poorest of the
poor. In fact, the Gospel is intended for humanity in general, so, if
you cannot make me understand it, or if, when I do understand it, it
does not tell me how to deliver its message in such plain language that
the poorest man can comprehend it, I tell you, Sirs, that your
newfangled gospel is a lie! I will stick to the old one, which a man,
only a little above an idiot in intellect, can understand! I cling to
the old Gospel for this, among many other reasons, that all the modern
gospels that leave out the great central Truth of Substitution, prevent
the message from being of any use to the great mass of mankind.
If those other gospels which are not really gospels, please your taste
and fancy, and suit the readers of Quarterly Reviews, and eloquent
orators and lecturers, there are still the poor people in our streets
and the millions of working men–the vast multitudes who cannot
comprehend anything that is highly metaphysical–and you cannot
convince me that our Lord Jesus Christ sent, as His message to the
whole world, a metaphysical mystery that would need volume upon volume
before it could even be stated! I am persuaded that He gave us a rough
and ready Gospel like this–"The Son of Man is come to seek and to save
that which was lost." Or this, "With His stripes we are healed." Or
this, "The chastisement of our peace was upon Him." Or this, "He died,
the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God." Do not try to go beyond
this Gospel, Brothers and Sisters–you will get into the mud if you do!
But it is safe standing here! And standing here, I can comprehend how
our Lord Jesus took the sinner's place and, passing under the sentence
which the sinner deserved, or under a sentence which was tantamount
thereto, could cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
II. Now, in closing, I am going to draw A FEW LESSONS FROM THIS
UTTERANCE OF CHRIST.
The first lesson is, Behold how He loved us! When Christ stood and wept
at the grave of Lazarus, the Jews said, "Behold how He loved him!" But
on the Cross He did not weep, He bled. And He not merely bled, He died
and, before He died, His spirit sank within Him, for He was forsaken of
His God. Was there ever any other love like this–that the Prince of
Life and Glory should condescend to this shame and death?
Then, next, Brothers and Sisters, as He suffered so much for us, let us
be ready to suffer anything for His sake. Let us be willing even to
lose all the joy of religion if that would glorify God. I do not know
that it would, but I think the Spirit of Christ ought to carry us even
as far as Moses went when he pleaded for the guilty nation of Israel
and was willing to have his own name blotted out of the Book of Life
rather than that God's name should be dishonored. We have never had to
go as far as that and we never shall–yet let us be willing to part
with our last penny, for Christ's name's sake, if He requires it. Let
us be willing to lose our reputation. Ah, it is a difficult timing to
give that up! Some of us, when we first came into public notice and
found our words picked to pieces–and our character slandered–felt it
rather difficult. We have got used to it, now, but it was very trying
at first. But, oh, if one had to be called a devil–if one had to go
through this world and to be spat upon by every passer-by–still, if it
were endured for Christ's sake, remembering how He was forsaken of God
for us, we ought to take up even that cross with thankfulness that we
were permitted to bear it!
Another lesson is that if ever you and I should feel that we are
forsaken of God–if we should get into this state in any way, remember
that we are only where Christ has been before us. If ever, in our
direst extremity, we should be compelled to cry, "My God, my God, why
have You forsaken me?" we shall have gone down no deeper than Christ
Himself went! He knows that feeling and that state of heart, for He has
felt the same. This fact should tend greatly to cheer you. Your deep
depression is not a proof of reprobation–that is evident, for Christ
Himself endured even more! A man may say, "I cannot be a child of God,
or else I should not feel as I do." Ah, you do not know what true
children of God may feel! Strange thoughts pass through their minds in
times of storm and doubt. A Puritan preacher was standing by the
deathbed of one of his members who had been for 30 years in gloom of
soul. The good old minister expected that the man would get peace at
last, for he had been an eminent Christian and had greatly rejoiced in
his Savior–but, for 30 years or more, he had fallen into deep gloom.
The minister was trying to speak a word of comfort to him, but the man
said, "Ah, Sir! What can you say to a man who is dying and yet who
feels that God has forsaken him?" The pastor replied, "But what became
of that Man who died, whom God really did forsake? Where is HE now?"
The dying man caught at that, and said, "He is in Glory and I shall be
with Him! I shall be with Him where He is!"
And so the Light of God came to the dying man who had been so long in
the dark! He saw that Christ had been just where he was and that he
should be where Christ was, even at the right hand of the Father! I
hope, Brothers and Sisters, that you will never get down so low as
that, but I beseech you, if you ever meet with any others who are
there, do not be rough with them. Some strong-minded people are very
apt to be hard upon nervous folk and to say, "They should not get into
that state." And we are liable to speak harshly to people who are very
depressed in spirit and say to them, "Really, you ought to rouse
yourself out of such a state." I hope none of you will ever have such
an experience of this depression of spirit as I have had–yet I have
learned from it to be very tender with all fellow sufferers. The Lord
have mercy on them and help them out of the Slough of Despond, for, if
He does not, they will sink in deep mire where there is no standing.
I pray God specially to bless this inference from our text. There is
hope for you, Brother, or Sister, if you are in this condition. Christ
came through it and He will be with you in it! And, after all, you are
not forsaken as He was, you can be sure of that. With you, the
forsaking is only in the apprehension–that is bad enough–but it is
not a matter of fact, for, "the Lord will not forsake His people," nor
cast away even one of those whom He has chosen!
I will tell you what is a much more awful thing even than crying out,
"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" If you are afraid that God
has left you and the sweat stands on your brow in very terror–and if
your soul seems to long for death rather than life–even in such a
state as that, you are not in the worst possible condition! "Really,"
you ask, "is there anything worse than that?" Yes, I will tell you what
is much worse than that–that is to be without God and not to care
about it–to be living, like some whom I am now addressing, without God
and without hope, yet that never concerns them at all! I can pity the
agony of the man who cannot bear to be without his God, but, at the
same time, I can bless the Lord that he feels such agony as that, for
that proves to me that his soul will never perish!
But those, whom I look upon with fear and trembling are the men who
make a profession of religion, yet who never have any communion with
God and, all the while are quite happy about it. Or backsliders who
have gone away from God and yet seem perfectly at ease. You worldlings
who are quite satisfied with the things of this world and have no
longings for the world that is to come–I wish you had got as far as to
be unhappy. I wish you had got as far as to be in an agony, for that is
the road to heavenly joy! It was thus that Christ won it for us and it
is by such a path as this that many a soul is first led into the
experience of His saving power. Brothers and Sisters, weep not for
those of us who sometimes have to cry out in anguish of soul! Mourn not
for us who are cast down because we cannot live without Christ. You
see, our Lord has made us covet the highest blessings! Our heads have
been so often on His bosom that if they are not always there, we keep
on crying till we get back to that blessed position again! This is a
sweet sorrow–may we have more and more of it! But, oh, I pray you,
pity those who never ate the Bread of Heaven–never drank of the Water
of Life–never knew the sweetness of the kisses of Christ's mouth–and
never knew what it was to have a Heaven begun below in the enjoyment of
fellowship with Him! In such cases, your pity is indeed required.
I have finished when I have just said this–as you come to the Table of
your Lord, come, Brothers and Sisters, with this cry of Christ ringing
in your ears to make you love Him more than ever and, as you eat the
bread and drink the wine, do it all out of fervent love to Him! And the
Lord bless you, for His name's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW27:27-54.
Verses 27-30. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the
common hall and gathered unto Him the whole band of soldiers. And they
stripped Him, and put on Him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted
a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head, and a reed in His right
hand, and they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, Hail,
King of the Jews! And they spit upon Him, and took the reed, and smote
Him on the head. These soldiers were men to whom the taking of human
life was mere amusement, or, at best, a duty to be performed. If the
ordinary Roman citizen found his greatest delight in the amphitheater
where men fiercely fought with each other, and shed each other's blood,
or were devoured by wild beasts, you may imagine what Roman
soldiers–the roughest part of the whole population–would be like! And
now that One was given up into their hands, charged with making Himself
a king, you can conceive what a subject for jest it was to them and how
they determined to make all the mockery they could of this pre-
tended king! They were not touched by the gentleness of His demeanor,
nor by His sorrowful Countenance, but they proceeded to pour all
possible scorn and insult upon His devoted head. Surely the world never
saw a more horrible scene than this–the King of Kings derided and made
nothing of–treated as a mimic monarch by the very vilest and most
brutal of men!
31. And after that they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him and
put His own raiment on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him. Their
action, in restoring to Him His own seamless robe, was ordained by
God–whatever their motive may have been–so that nobody might say that
some other person had been substituted for the Savior. He went forth
wearing that well-known garment which was woven from the top
throughout, which He had always worn. And all who looked upon Him said,
"It is He–the Nazarene. We know His face, His dress, His Person."
There was no possibility of mistaking Him for anybody else.
32. And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name:
him they compelled to bear His Cross. It was too heavy for Him to carry
alone, so they bade Simon help Him and, truly, I think that Simon was
thereby highly honored. If this was Simon, who is called Niger, then
there may be some truth in the common belief that he was a black man
and, assuredly, the Black race has long had to carry a very heavy
Cross, yet there may be a great destiny before it. All Christ's
followers are called to be Cross-bearers–
"Shall Simon bear the Cross alone, And all the rest go free? No,
there's a cross for everyone, And there's a cross for me." If we belong
to Christ, we must be as willing to take up His Cross as He was to
carry ours and die upon it.
33. 34. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is
to say a place of a skull, they gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with
gall: and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink It was not
because of its bitterness that our Lord refused it, for He did not
decline to endure anything that would add to His grief. But this was a
stupefying draught, a death potion, which was given to those who were
executed, in order to somewhat mitigate their pains. But the Savior did
not intend that His senses should be beclouded by any such draught as
that, so, "when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink."
35. And they crucified Him. A short sentence, but what an awful depth
of meaning there is in it! "They crucified Him"–driving their iron
bolts through His hands and feet, and lifting Him up to hang upon the
gallows which was reserved for felons and for slaves. "They crucified
Him."
35. And parted His garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the Prophet, They parted My garments among them,
and upon My vesture did you cast lots. It was the executioners'
perquisite to have the garments of the man they put to death, so, in
order that no single portion of the shame of the Cross might be spared
to the Savior, these soldiers divided His garments among them and
raffled for His seamless robe. It must have taken a hard heart to
gamble at the foot of the Cross, but I suppose that, of all sins under
Heaven, there is none that does so harden the heart as gambling. Beware
of it!
36. And sitting down they watched Him there. Some to gloat, in their
fiendish malice, over His sufferings. Others to make sure that He did
really die and, possibly, some few to pity Him in His agony. "Sitting
down they watched Him there."
37-44. And set up over His head the accusation written against Him,
THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. Then were there two thieves
crucified with Him, one on the right hand, and another on the left And
they that passed by reviled Him, wagging their heads, and saying, You
that destroy the Temple, and build it in three days, save Yourself If
You are the Son of God, come down from the Cross. Likewise also the
chief priest's mocking Him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved
others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him
now come down from the Cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in
God: let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him: for He said, I am
the Son of God. The thieves also, which were crucified with Him, cast
the same in His teeth. So that, as He looked all around, He met with
nothing but ribaldry, jest and scorn. His disciples had all forsaken
Him. One or two of them afterwards rallied a little and came and stood
by the Cross, but, just then, He looked and there was none to pity, and
none to help Him, even as it had been foretold.
45. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto
the ninth hour From twelve o'clock at noon, according to the Roman and
Jewish time, till three in the afternoon, there was a thick
darkness–whether over all the world, or only over the land of
Palestine, we cannot very well say. It was not an eclipse of the sun,
it was a miracle especially worked by God. Some have supposed that
dense clouds came rolling up obscuring everything, but, whatever it
was, deep darkness came over all the land. Dore has, in his wonderful
imagination, given us a sketch of Jerusalem during that darkness. The
inhabitants are all trembling at what they had done and, as Judas goes
down the street, they point at him as the man who sold his Master and
brought all this evil upon the city. I should think that such darkness
at mid-day must have made them fear that the last day had come, or that
some great judgment would overtake them for their wicked slaughter of
the innocent Jesus of Nazareth. Even the sun could no longer look upon
its Maker surrounded by those who mocked Him–so it traveled on in
tenfold night, as if in very shame that the great Sun of Righteousness
should Himself be in such awful darkness.
46-48. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a load voice, saying,
Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani, that is to say, My God, My God, why have
You forsaken Me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that,
said, This Man calls for Elijah. And straightway one of them ran and
took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and
gave Him to drink For He had also said, "I thirst," which John records,
specially mentioning that He said this, "that the Scripture might be
fulfilled."
49-51. The rest said, Let Him be, let us see whether Elijah will come
to save Him. Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded
up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the Temple was rent in twain
from the top to the bottom. That rending of the great veil of the
Temple was intended to symbolize the end of Judaism. The horror of the
sanctuary that its Lord was put to death. The opening of the mysteries
of Heaven. The clearing of the way of access between man and God.
51. And the earth did quake, and the rocks rent. Well says our poet–
"Of feeling, all things show some sign But this unfeeling heart of
mine." 52-54. And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints
which slept, arose, and came out of the graves after His Resurrection,
and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the
centurion, and they that were with Him, watching Jesus, saw the
earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly,
saying, Truly this was the Son of God.