2443. The Determination Of Christ To Suffer For His People

No. 2443-41:589. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Evening, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.

A Sermon Intended For Reading On Lord’s Day, December 15, 1895.

And they gave him wine mingled with myrrh to drink: but he did not accept it. {Mr 15:23}

1. Our Saviour, before he was nailed to the cross, and on the cross, several times had drinks of different kinds offered to him. While they were nailing him to the cross, they endeavoured to make him drink wine, or vinegar as it is called, mingled with gall; and when he had tasted it, — he did taste it, — he would not drink it. When he was on the cross, the soldiers, mocking him, offered him vinegar, or their weak drink of which they ordinarily partook, toasting him in their cups with scorn. And once more, when he said, “I thirst,” they took a sponge filled with vinegar, dipped it in hyssop, and put it to his lips.

2. This occasion of offering the wine mingled with myrrh is, I believe, different from all the rest. This wine mingled with myrrh was given to him as an act of mercy. Matthew Henry seems to think that it was prepared by those holy women who were accustomed to attend to the needs of our Lord. They had followed him in all his footsteps wherever he went; it was by their bounty that the bag which Judas kept was generally as full as it was required to be, so that out of that bag they could go and buy food for their Master and for his disciples. It was these holy women who prepared the spices to embalm him at his burial; and Matthew Henry thinks that these women, prompted by their compassion for him, got ready this cup of wine mingled with myrrh, so that he might be strengthened for his miseries, and that those miseries might in some degree be alleviated by the partial sedation which a strong draught of wine and myrrh would give to him.

3. This time, our Saviour positively declined the cup: “he did not accept it.” The wormwood he tasted, but this he did not receive at all; he would have nothing to do with it. Why? The answer is not to be found in our Saviour’s abstinence, for he was not an abstainer; he was never self-indulgent, but he certainly was never an abstainer. He was “the Son of man” who “came eating and drinking”; he felt no repugnance to wine; he himself made it, he himself drank it; he even earned for himself the name, “a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber”; not deservedly, but because, in contrast to John, who strictly refrained from ordinary food, Jesus Christ sat down with tax collectors and sinners, feasted with the feasters, and ate and drank like other men. Nor do I think the reason is to be found in any love of pain that Christ had, nor in any heartless bravado, which would lead him to say, “I will suffer, and I will put the cup away from me.” Far be that from Christ; he never thrust himself in the way of suffering when it was unnecessary; he did not go to give himself up into the hands of his enemies before his hour was come; he avoided persecution when the avoidance of the persecution would not be an injury to his cause; he withdrew from Judea, and would not walk in that land, because of Herod, who tried to kill him. I believe that, if our Saviour had not been the atoning sacrifice, if his sufferings had been merely those of a martyr, he would have quaffed to the very dregs the cup that was offered him, and would not have left any of it. The reason why he refused the cup, I think, is to be found in another thing altogether.

4. There is a glorious idea couched in the fact that the Saviour put the myrrhed-wine cup entirely away from his lips. On the heights of heaven the Son of God stood of old, and he looked down and measured how far it was to the utmost depths of misery; he calculated the sum total of all the agonies which a man must endure to descend to the utmost depths of pain and misery. He determined that, to be a faithful High Priest, and also to be a suffering one, he would go the whole way, from the highest to the lowest, “from the highest throne in glory to the cross of deepest woe.” This myrrhed cup would just have stopped him within a little of the utmost limit of misery; therefore, he said, “I will not stop halfway, but I will go all the way; and if this cup can mitigate my sorrow, that is just the reason why I will not drink it, for I have determined that to the utmost lengths of misery I will go, that I will do, and bear, and suffer all that Incarnate God can bear for my people, in my own mortal body.”

5. Now, beloved, it is this fact that I wish to bring out before you — the fact that Jesus Christ came into the world to suffer, and that because the myrrhed cup would have prevented him from reaching the lowest step of misery, “he did not accept it.” I shall have to show you, first, that this was very frequently the case throughout his life, that he would not take a step which would have diminished his miseries, because he was determined to go the whole length of suffering. Secondly, I shall try to show you the reason for this determination. Then, thirdly, I shall close by speaking of the lesson that we may learn from it.

6. I. OUR SAVIOUR WOULD GO THE WHOLE LENGTH OF MISERY; he would suffer in every respect just as we suffer; he would bear all the tortures of atonement, without even the slightest shadow of mitigation or alleviation.

7. Now, I think I can show you that, on many occasions in Christ’s life, he determined to be tempted in every point in which men are tempted, and to be tempted to the utmost limit of the power of temptation; nor would he even accept anything which would have limited the force of the temptation on man. I will give you some proofs of this.

8. First, Christ knew that you and I would be exposed to peril; he therefore determined that he would be exposed to peril, too, and that he would not by any means, when it was in his power, escape from the peril. Let me show him to you high up there, on the pinnacle of the temple; there stands our Master, and a fiend by his side, on a giddy eminence, with very little beneath his feet; he stands poised aloft, he looks down the hill on which the temple is built, into the depths below; and the enemy says, “Throw yourself down, commit yourself to the care of the angels.” It was like this myrrhed cup — “Do not stand in this peril; cast yourself on that promise, and risk yourself on the angels’ wings, for they shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” But just as he would not receive this cup, so neither would he receive this deliverance from his peril; but there he stood erect, confident in his God, not using the means of deliverance which the tempter wished him to exercise, even as he would not drink this cup.

9. Take another case: Jesus Christ knew that many of his people would have to suffer bodily needs, and poverty, and woe. He therefore hungered; after forty days’ fast, when he might have delivered himself from his hunger by turning stones into bread, one would have said, “It would have been a very innocent act to turn stones into bread, and feed himself”; but, “No,” says Christ to the gnawing pangs of hunger, “I will let you go as far as you can; I will not turn these stones into bread; I will let hunger exercise all its power on me; I will let my body be gnawed by its fierce teeth; I will not mitigate its misery.” He would not receive that wine mingled with myrrh that the devil offered him in the wilderness, when he tempted him to make the stones into bread; he would not take the mitigation of his misery.

10. I will tell you another case. Many men have attempted to have their lives cut short because they have so much misery, and no more hope of being happy, therefore they have wished for death; they have wished that they might be as the untimely birth, that they might be confined in the bowels of the earth for ever. They have longed for death, and desired it; and if an opportunity had occurred in which they might have died with honour, without having even the disgrace of suicide, how many would have accepted the alternative of death! Here is our Saviour in the same condition; for he is dragged to the brow of the hill of Nazareth. Oh Son of man, your wisest choice is to be dashed down the sides of the hill on which the city is built! If you are wise, you will let them hurl you headlong; that would be an end of all your misery, for there are years before you through which you will be roasted at the slow fire of persecution, and afterwards you will have to pass through floods of deepest misery. Do you not think the temptation occurred to him, “Let yourself be cast down?” He knew all about it. Had he been cast down, he would have died an honourable death, like the death of a prophet slain in his own country; but no, “passing through the midst of them, he went his way,” because, just as he refused the wine cup, so he refused a hasty death, which would have delivered him from his miseries.

11. Do you not observe that I have only just given you examples? You will find that all through the Saviour’s life it was just the same. You will not find him in one case working a miracle to lessen his own bodily fatigue, or to alleviate his own bodily needs and necessities, but always letting the ills of this life wreak themselves on him with all their fury. He hushed the winds once, but it was for his disciples, not for himself; he lay in the ship asleep, and let the waves toss him up and down as much as they pleased. He multiplied the loaves and fishes but it was for the multitude, not for himself. He could find money in a fish’s mouth: but it was to pay the tribute, not for himself. He could scatter mercies wherever he went, — open men’s eyes, and deliver many of them from pains: he never exercised any of his skill on himself. If the wind blew, he let it spend itself on his cheeks, and crack them; if the cold was bitter, he let the cold come around him, as it did in the garden of Gethsemane; if journeying was troublesome, he journeyed where he might have travelled as his Father did; as old Thomas Sternhold says in his fine translation of the Psalms —

    The Lord descended from above,
       And bow’d the heavens most high,
    And underneath his feet he cast
       The darkness of the sky.
    On cherub and on cherubim
       Full royally he rode,
    And on the wings of mighty winds
       Came flying all abroad.

So might Jesus, if he pleased, but he journeyed on in weariness. He might have made the water leap out of the well into his hand, but there he sat and thirsted, while he had power to make fountains gush even from the stone on which he sat. On the cross, “I thirst,” was his cry; and yet, if he pleased, he might have opened in himself rivers of living water; he had them for others, but he had nothing for himself. You will observe this fact that, in all the history of Christ, never once did he take anything which could have lessened his miseries, but he went the whole length; and as on this occasion he refused the wine drugged with myrrh, so never did he receive anything that had a tendency to prevent him from going to the required lengths of suffering.

12. II. Now let me show you THE REASON FOR THIS.

13. Was it out of any love for suffering that he refused the wine cup? Ah, no; Christ had no love for suffering. He had a love for souls, but like us he turned away from suffering, he never loved it. We see he did not, for even in the garden he said, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” It was his human nature struggling against suffering, as human nature rightfully does. God has made us so that we do not naturally love suffering, and it is not wrong for us to feel some repugnance to it, for God has implanted that repugnance in us. Christ did not suffer because he loved suffering. Why, then, did he suffer? For two reasons: because this suffering to the utmost was necessary for the completion of the atonement, which saves to the utmost; and because this suffering to the utmost was necessary to perfect his character as “a merciful High Priest” who has to show compassion on souls that have gone to the utmost of miseries themselves; so that he might know how to help those who are tempted.

14. First, I say it was necessary to make the atonement complete. I do think that, if our Saviour had drunk this myrrhed cup, the atonement would not have been valid. It strikes me that, if he had drunk this wine mingled with myrrh, he could not have suffered to the extent that was absolutely necessary. We believe Christ did, on the cross, suffer just enough, and not one particle more than was necessary for the redemption of his people. If, then, this wine cup had taken away a part of his sufferings, the ransom price would not have been fully complete, it would not have been fully paid. And if it had only taken away so much as a grain, the atonement would not have been sufficiently satisfactory. If a man’s ransom is to be paid, it must be all paid; for though only one single farthing is left unpaid, the man is not fully redeemed, and he is not yet totally free. If, then, this drinking of the wine cup had taken out the smallest amount from that fearful price of agony which our Saviour paid, the atonement would have been insufficient — insufficient only to a degree, but even insufficiency to a degree, however small, would have been enough to have caused perpetual despair, yes, enough to have shut the gates of heaven against all believers. The utmost farthing must be paid; inexorable justice never did yet omit so much as a fraction of its claim. Nor would it in this case have exonerated in any measure; Christ must pay it all. The wine cup would have prevented his doing that, therefore he would suffer and go the whole length of suffering; he would not stop, but would go through it all.

15. Again, I say it was that he might be made a compassionate High Priest. Someone might have said, “When my Master died, he did not suffer much. He suffered somewhat, but the wine cup prevented much suffering. I dare not touch the wine cup; at least, I dare not take it so as to alleviate my sufferings at all; then I must suffer more than he, for I must not drink that drugged wine. Surely, then, my Master cannot sympathize with me, if I for conscientious motives bear suffering without accepting alleviations which some think are wrong.” “No,” said the Master, “no, you shall never say that. If you have to suffer without a comfort, I will let you know that I suffered without a comfort, too.” You say, “Oh, if I had some myrrh given me which could mitigate my woe, it would be good!” “Ah!” says the Saviour, “but I have had it offered to me, and I will not drink it, in order that you may see that I suffered woe without the comfort, without the cordial, without the consolation, which you think would enable you to endure it.” Oh blessed Lord Jesus, you were “tempted in all points like we are!” Blessed be your name! This myrrh cup could have put a plate of steel on your breast, it would have blunted many arrows of suffering; therefore you put it aside so that you might, naked, allow every shaft to find its target in your heart. This myrrh cup would have steeled your feelings, so that you could not be torn by the whips of anguish; therefore you would not take its steeling influence, its hardening qualities. You, who stooped to become a poor, weak worm, “a worm and no man,” bore the agony, without making the agony less, or strengthening your own body to bear it. Oh blessed High Priest! Go to him, you tried and tempted ones; go to him, and cast your burdens on him; he can bear them, he has borne burdens heavier than yours before. Cast your burden on the Lord, because his shoulders can sustain it; and his shoulders, that have borne trouble without comfort, can bear your troubles, though they are comfortless ones, too. Only tell them to your Master, and you shall never find a lack of sympathy in him.

16. III. And now, what have we to say by way of A LESSON for this short discourse?

17. When Christ was offered this cup, he would not receive it. Sometimes, beloved, it is in your power to escape from sufferings for Christ’s sake; and you may rightly do so, if you can escape from them without injuring the mission on which your Father has sent you; for just as he sent his Son into the world, even so he has sent you into the world. You have your mission; and there are times when the acceptance of a cordial, or the reception of an escape from peril, would be a degradation to your high dignity, an injury to your office; and therefore there are times when you should decline even the cup of consolation itself. You and I are called to hold fellowship with Christ in his sufferings; perhaps our business places us where we have to hold fellowship with Christ in the suffering of contempt. The finger is pointed at us; the lip is sometimes protruded in derision; sometimes an expression is used towards us, calling us a hypocrite, a fanatic, a formalist. You may be apt to think, “Oh, that I could avoid all this! I wish I could escape.” Can you avoid it, and serve your Master as well? If you can, then drink the myrrh cup, and avoid the misery; but if you cannot, and if it is proven that your position is one of duty, and one in which you can honour your Master, it is at your peril that you exchange your situation for an easier one, if you exchange it for one less useful.

18. “Oh!” one says, “I work among wicked men, and I have to bear a testimony for truth in their midst; may I not leave the place at once? I feel that I am doing good there; but the jeers and taunts are so hard to bear, that the good I do seems to be always counterbalanced by the misery I suffer.” Take care, take care, lest you let the flesh prevail over the spirit. It would be like a myrrh cup to you, for you to leave your job, and go to another; it would be the removal of your pain; ponder a long time before you do it, weigh it well. If your Maker has put you there, to suffer for his name’s sake, do not come down from the cross to which he has nailed you by a daily crucifixion, until you have suffered all; and do not take the myrrh cup of an escape until you have borne all for Christ. I think it was holy Polycarp who, when the soldiers came to him to take him to prison, made his escape; but when he found afterwards that his doing so had dispirited some Christians, and had been attributed to his cowardice, when next the soldiers presented themselves, and he had an opportunity to escape, “No,” he said, “let me die.” It would have been foolhardy for him, if he had run into the teeth of men the first time, in order to be put to death; but when he saw that he would serve his Master better by his death than by his life, it would have been an unrighteous thing if he had drunk of the wine cup, if he had made his escape, and not died for his Master’s sake.

19. Oh my brethren, I think that there are many cordials which the world, too, has to offer to the Christian which he must not drink at all, because if his Master wishes him to have fellowship with him in his suffering, it is his to suffer so far as his Master wills. You are perhaps a man or a woman of a sorrowful spirit; you are given to solitude and loneliness. There are certain amusements, which some men say are harmless; they tell you that they are meant for you, and ask you to go and enjoy them. You think, “Well, in my low state, surely I might enjoy these things. If I were happy and joyful, I should not need them; but surely, my Father, ‘Just as a father pities his children,’ will pity me; and if I do these things, and do them merely for temporary comfort, my heart seems as though it would break if I did not have this little temporary excitement.” Take care, take care, that it is not the wine cup that prevents you, my friends. If your Master gives you the wine cup, the golden wine cup filled with the precious wine of the covenant, the strong promises, and sweet fellowship in Christ, drink it without a moment’s hesitation. Drink it and be glad, for God has said, “Give strong drink to him who is ready to perish”; and this is the strong drink he gives to you in the golden wine cup of the Saviour’s fellowship. Drink it, and be happy. But if men would offer it to you, look many a time before you drink it. It may be, you may be right in drinking it, it may not be a wrong thing; but it may be, too, that even a thing that is innocent to others, may be wrong for you; and the taking of that amusement and pleasure into your hand, might be like our Saviour’s taking the myrrh cup and drinking it. It would be foolish for you by preventing you from learning all the lessons of your misery, from going in all the steps of your Redeemer, who wishes us to follow him through all the miseries which he has ordained for us, so that they may be the means of fellowship with him in his suffering.

20. This is the only lesson I desire to give you at this time. If the Lord impresses it on our minds, it may be of use to us. Only let me say, how many there are who would have drunk this wine cup, if it had been offered to them! Your Saviour has taken from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke; he has robbed you of one who is dear and near to you. Say, Christian, if you had had the myrrh cup put before you, if it had been said, “If you like, that loved one of yours shall live,” if it had been offered to you that the life that has been taken away should be spared, could you with fortitude have said, “Not my will, but yours, be done?” Could you have put it away, and said, “No, my Master, if this cup may not pass from me unless I drink it, your will be done. And what is more, if it may pass from me, if I do not need suffering, yet if I can honour you more by suffering, and if the loss of my beloved one will serve you and please you, then let it be so, I refuse the comfort, when it comes in the way of your honour; I reject the favoured mercy if it comes in the teeth of your glory. I am willing to suffer; I do not care for your consolations; if I can honour you better without them, I will do without them?”

21. There are some among you in mourning attire. Let me just, in conclusion, note a very beautiful thought of a good man on a passage of Scripture. Jesus says in his prayer, “Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am.” Do you know why good men die? Do you know why the righteous die? Shall I tell you what it is that kills them? It is Christ’s prayer — “Father, I will that they be with me.” It is that prayer that takes them up to heaven. They would stay here, if Christ did not pray them to death. Every time a believer mounts from this earth to heaven, it is caused by Christ’s prayer. “Now,” says this good old divine, “many times Christ and his people pull against each other in prayer. You bend your knee in prayer, and say, ‘Father, I will that those whom you has given me be with me where I am’; Christ bends his knee, and says, ‘Father, I will that those whom you have given me be with me where I am.’ ” So, you see, one gets hold of him, and the other, too. He cannot be in both places; the beloved one cannot be with Christ and with you, too. Now, what shall be the answer? Put the prayers side by side; you are praying, “Father, I will that those whom you have given me be with me where I am”; and there is your Saviour, praying that they may be with him where he is. Now, if you had your choice; if the King should step from his throne, and say, “Here are two supplicants; they are praying opposite to each other; their prayers are clearly contrary to each other; I cannot answer them both”; oh, I am sure, though it were agony, you would spring from your feet, and say, “Jesus, not my will, but yours, be done.” You would give up your prayer for your sick husband’s life, for your sick wife’s life, for your dying child’s life, if you could understand the thought that Christ was praying in the opposite direction, “Father, I will that those whom you have given me be with me where I am.”

22. And now we come to the supper of our Master; oh, may the Master give us fellowship with him! Poor sinners who do not know Christ, I have hardly a moment in which to address you; but remember, the separation which will be made between you and the church tonight is only a picture of an awful separation which shall be made between you and the church at the last great day. You will sit upstairs, some of you, to look down on the solemnity: remember, you may look on it here, but you will not look on it in heaven, unless your hearts are made new by Christ, and unless you are washed in his precious blood.

 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Spirit of the Psalms — Psalm 22” 22 @@ "(Part 2)"}
 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Sufferings and Death — The Attraction Of The Cross” 280}
 {See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Sufferings and Death — Weeping At The Cross” 279}

Expositions By C. H. Spurgeon {Mr 15:15-39 Lu 23:27-49}

We will read two short passages from the Gospels this evening. May the blessed Spirit, who taught the Evangelists to record the sad story of our Lord’s sufferings and death, give us fully to enter into blessed its meaning while we read it! First turn to Mark 15.

15, 16. And so Pilate, willing to satisfy the people, released Barabbas to them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away into the hall, called Praetorium;

The guard-room of Herod’s palace, where the Praetorian guards were accustomed to gather.

16-20. And they call together the whole band. And they clothed him with purple, and twisted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and began to greet him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they struck him on the head with a reed, and spat on him, and bowing their knees worshipped him. And when they had mocked him,

To the utmost, and gone the full length of their cruel scorn,

20-23. They took off the purple robe from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him. And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. And they bring him to the place called Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, “The place of a skull.” And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he did not accept it.

They did for him what they did for others who were crucified, they gave him myrrhed wine, as a stupefying draught; “but he did not accept it.” He came to suffer, and he would bear even to the end the full amount of his suffering.

24-27. And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots on them, what every man should take. And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. And the superscription of his accusation was written above, THE KING OF THE JEWS. And they crucify two thieves with him; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left.

They gave him the place of eminence, as if he were a greater offender than either of the two thieves.

28. And the Scripture was fulfilled, which says, “And he was numbered with the transgressors.”

Sinners to the right of him, sinners to the left of him, sinners all around him, surrounded with those who sinned in the very highest degree by putting him to death: “He was numbered with the transgressors.” Oh, that sweet word! It is the hope of transgressors now that he was counted with them, and for his sake all the blessings of heaven now descend on transgressors who accept him as their Substitute and Saviour.

29. And those who passed by railed on him,

Not only those who sat down to gloat their cruel eyes on his miseries, but even the passers-by, “Those who passed by, railed on him,” —

29, 30. Wagging their heads, and saying, “Ah, you who destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross.”

He never said he would destroy the literal temple. He did, however, say concerning the temple of his body, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” and he did raise it up in three days after they had destroyed it.

31. Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.

What they said in bitter scorn was true; for mighty love had bound his hands for self-salvation. Infinite in love, found guilty of excess of love for men, “He saved others; he could not save himself.”

32, 33. Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” And those who were crucified with him reviled him. And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

A supernatural darkness, which could not have occurred according to the laws of nature. It did, as it were, “set a tabernacle for the sun,” — the Sun of Righteousness was canopied for a while in darkness, so that those horrible eyes might no longer gaze on his terrible anguish.

34. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is, being interpreted, my “God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

There was a denser darkness over his spirit than was over all the land, and out of that darkness came this cry of agony.

35. And some of those who stood by, when they heard it, said, “Behold, he calls Elijah.”

Ah, me! This was either a cruel jest on our Saviour’s prayer, or an utter misunderstanding of it.

36. And one ran and filled a sponge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, “Let him alone; let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.”

Jesus received this vinegar, and so fulfilled Ps 69:21: “In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

37, 38. And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom.

Even as the flesh of Christ, which is the veil of the Incarnate God, was torn, so now the veil of mystery was taken away. The temple in her sorrow tore her veil. The old ceremonial law passed away with this sign of grief by the tearing of the veil. It was a strong, I might say, a massive veil; it could not have been torn by any ordinary means; but when the hand of God takes hold on the veil of Jewish types, it readily tears, and into the innermost mystery of the holy of holies we may gaze, yes, and through it we may enter.

39. And when the centurion, who stood opposite him, saw that he cried out like this, and gave up the ghost, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.”

Convinced by the cross. Oh, the triumphs of Christ! The last word he speaks won this testimony from the centurion in charge of the crucifixion.

Now we will read part of Luke’s narrative, chapter 23.

27-31. And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, who also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, when they shall say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts which never nursed.’ Then they shall begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”

Our Saviour, even amid the greatest sufferings, seemed almost to forget them in the deep sympathy that he had for the people around him. He pictured in his mind’s eye that awful siege of Jerusalem. Who can read it, as Josephus describes it, without feeling the deepest horror? Oh, the misery of the women and of the children in that dreadful day when the zealots turned against each other within the city, and fought to the death, and when the Roman soldiers, pitiless as wolves, at last stormed the place! Truly the Saviour said of it that there should be no day like it; neither was there. It was the concentration of human misery; and our Lord wept because he foresaw what it would be, and he told these poor women to reserve their tears for those awful sorrows.

32, 33 And there were also two others, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

Oh blessed Master they did not spare you any scorn! There was no mode of expressing their contempt, which their malignity did not invent. Truly, “he was numbered with the transgressors.” You could not count the three sufferers on Calvary without counting him; he was so completely numbered with the others that he must be counted as one of them.

34. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

It was all that he could say in their favour, and he did say that. If there is anything to be said in your favour, oh my fellow sinner, Christ will say it; and if there is nothing good in you that his eyes can find, he will pray on his own account, “Father, forgive them for my sake.”

34. And they parted his clothing, and cast lots.

His garments were the executioners’ bonuses; pitilessly they took them from him, and left him naked in his shameful sorrow.

35. And the people stood beholding.

There was no pity in their eyes. Not one of them turned away his face because he could not look on so disgraceful a deed.

35. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is Christ, the chosen by God.”

I have already reminded you that there was a deep truth hidden away in what these cruel mockers said, for Jesus must give himself up as a ransom if we were to be redeemed.

36-38. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, and saying, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” And also a superscription was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew,

For these were the three languages known to the throng, and Pilate invited them all to read in “Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew,” —

38, 39. THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. And one of the malefactors who were hung railed on him, saying, “If you are Christ, save yourself and us.”

Poor man; even though he is dying a felon’s death, he must be in the swim with the multitude, he must keep in with the fashion, so strong, so powerful, is the popular current with all mankind.

40-42. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man has done nothing amiss.” And he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

It was strange that Christ should find a friend dying on the cross by his side. No one else spoke to him about a kingdom. I am afraid that even his former followers began to think that it was all a delusion; but this dying thief cheers the heart of Jesus by the mention of a kingdom, and by making a request to him concerning that kingdom even when the King was in his death-agony.

43. And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, ‘Today you shall be with me in paradise.’ ”

The Master, you see, uses his old phraseology. In his preaching, he had been accustomed to say, “Truly, truly,” and here he is, even on the cross, the same Preacher still, for there was such assurance, such confidence, such truthfulness, in all his words, that he never had to alter his style of speaking. “Truly I say to you, ‘Today you shall be with me in paradise.’ ” Well does our poet put it, —

    He that distributes crowns and thrones,
    Hangs on a tree, and bleeds and groans.

He was distributing these crowns and thrones even while hanging on the tree. “Proclaim it among the nations that the Lord reigns from the tree,” may not be an exact translation of the Psalm, but it is true, Psalm or no Psalm.

44. And it was about the sixth hour,

About noon, when the sun was at its height.

44. And there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

Three o’clock in the afternoon.

45. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in the middle.

As if the great light of heaven and the pattern of heavenly things were both disturbed. The sun puts on mourning, and the temple tears her veil in horror at the awful deed enacted on the cross.

46. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, “Father,

Is it not sweet to see how Jesus begins and ends his prayers on the cross with “Father”?

46-48. Into your hands I commend my spirit”: and having said this, he gave up the ghost. Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, “Certainly this was a righteous man.” And all the people who came together to that sight, seeing the things which were done, struck their breasts, and returned.

A strange ending to that day, was it not? The three hours’ darkness and the death-cry of the Christ had not converted them, but it had convicted them of sin. They felt that a great and heinous crime had been committed; and, though they had come together as for a mere show or sight, they went away from the spectacle impressed as they had never been before: “All the people who came together to that sight, seeing the things which were done, struck their breasts, and returned.”

49. And all his acquaintance, and the women who followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, seeing these things.

In these doings on Calvary you and I have a share, — in their guilt, or else in their merit. Oh, that we may not be condemned with those who were guilty of his death, but may we be cleansed by that precious blood which puts away the sin of all who believe in him!

Spirit of the Psalms
Psalm 22 (Part 1)
1 My God, my God, why leavest thou me
   When I with anguish faint?
   Oh, why so far from me removed,
   And from my sad complaint?
2 All day, but all the day unheard,
   To thee do I complain;
   With cries implore relief all night,
   But cry all night in vain.
3 Withdraw not, Lord, so far from me,
   When trouble is so nigh;
   Oh, send me help! thy help, on which
   I only can rely.
                     Tate and Brady, 1696.

Psalm 22 (Part 2)
1 Now let our mournful songs record
   The dying sorrows of our Lord,
   When he complain’d in tears and blood,
   As one forsaken of his God.
2 They wound his head, his hands, his feet,
   Till streams of blood each other meet;
   By lot his garments they divide,
   And mock the pangs in which he died.
3 But God, his Father, heard his cry;
   Raised from the dead, he reigns on high;
   The nations learn his righteousness,
   And humble sinners taste his grace.
                           Isaac Watts, 1719.

Psalm 22 (Part 3)
1 All ye that fear him, praise the Lord;
   His sacred mane adore;
   And ye his chosen Israel,
   Praise him for evermore.
2 Let all the glad converted world
   To him their homage pay,
   And scatter’d nations of the earth
   One sov’reign Lord obey.
3 With humble worship to his throne
   Let all for aid resort;
   That power which first their being gave,
   Alone can give support.
4 Let them, oh Lord, thy truth declare,
   And show thy righteousness;
   That children, yet unborn, may learn
   Thy glory to confess.
Compiled from Old & New Versions, 1562-1696.

Jesus Christ, Sufferings and Death
280 — The Attraction Of The Cross
1 Yonder — amazing sight! — I see
   Th’ incarnate Son of God
   Expiring on th’ accursed tree,
   And weltering in his blood.
2 Behold, a purple torrent run
   Down from his hands and head,
   The crimson tide puts out the sun;
   His groans awake the dead.
3 The trembling earth, the darken’d sky,
   Proclaim the truth aloud;
   And with th’ amazed centurion, cry,
   “This is the Son of God!”
4 So great, so vast a sacrifice
   May well my hope revive:
   If God’s own Son thus bleeds and dies,
   The sinner sure may live.
5 Oh that these cords of love divine
   Might draw me, Lord, to thee!
   Thou hast my heart, it shall be thine!
   Thine it shall ever be!
                        Samuel Stennett, 1787.

Jesus Christ, Sufferings and Death
279 — Weeping At The Cross
1 Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?
   And did my Saviour die?
   Would he devote that sacred head
   For such a worm as I?
2 Was it for crimes that I had done
   He groan’d upon the tree?
   Amazing pity! grace unknown!
   And love beyond degree.
3 Well might the sun in darkness hide,
   And shut his glories in,
   When God, the mighty Maker died
   For man, the creature’s sin.
4 Thus might I hide my blushing face,
   While his dear cross appears,
   Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
   And melt my eyes to tears.
5 But drops of grief can ne’er repay
   The debt of love I owe;
   Here, Lord, I give myself away;
   ‘Tis all that I can do.
                           Isaac Watts, 1709.