The Crimson Coat
“Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments fromBozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength?” — Isaiah lxiii., 1.
EDOM and Bozrali having been the scene of fierce battle, when those words are used here or in any other part of the Bible they are figures of speech setting forth scenes of severe conflict. As now we often use the word Waterloo to describe a decisive contest of any kind, so the words Bozrah and Edom in this text are figures of speech descriptive of a scene of great slaughter. Whatever else the prophet may have meant to describe, he most certainly meant to depict the Lord Jesus Christ, saying, “Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, traveling in the greatness of his strength?”
When a general is about to go out to the wars, a flag and a sword are” publicly presented to him, and the maidens bring flowers, and the young men load the cannon, and the train starts amidst a huzza that drowns the thunder of the wheels and the shriek of the whistle. But all this will give no idea of the excitement that there must .have been in heaven when Christ started out on the campaign of the world’s conquest. If they could have foreseen the siege that would be laid to him, and the maltreatment he would suffer, and the burdens he would have to carry, and the battles he would have to fight, I think there would have been a million volunteers in heaven who would have insisted on coming along with him; but no, they only accompanied him to the gate, their last shout heard clear down to the earth, the space between the two worlds bridged with a great hosanna. You know there is a wide difference between a man’s going off to battle and comingback again. When he goes off, it is with epaulets untangled, with banner unspecked, with horses sleek and shining from the groom. All that there is of struggle and pain is to come yet. So it was with Christ. He had not yet fought a battle. He was starting out, and though this world did not give him a warm-hearted greeting, there was a gentle mother who folded him in her arms; and a babe finds no difference between a stable and a palace, between courtiers and camel-drivers. As Jesus stepped on the stage of this world, it was amidst angelic shouts in the galleries and amidst the kindest maternal ministrations. But soon hostile forces began to gather. They deployed from the Sanhedrim. They were detailed from the standing They came out from the Cesarean castles. The vagabonds in the street joined the gentlemen of the mansion. Spirits rode up from hell, and in long array there came a force together that threatened to put to rout this newly arrived one from heaven. Jesus now seeing the battle gathering, lifted his own standard; but who gathered about it? How feeble the recruits! A few shoremen, a blind beggar, a woman with an alabaster box, another woman with two mites, and a group of friendless, moneyless, and positionless people came to his standard. What chance was there for him? Nazareth against him. Bethlehem ag:ainst him. Capernaum against him. Jerusalem against him. Galilee against him. The courts against him. The army against him. The throne against him. The world against him.
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All hell against him. No wonder they asked him to surrender. But he could not surrender, he could not apologize, he could not take any back steps. He had come to strike for the deliverance of an enslaved race, and he must do the work. Then they sent out their pickets to watch him. They saw in what house he went, and when he came out. They watched what he ate, and who with; what he drank, and how much. They did not dare to make their final assault, for they knew not but that behind him there might be reinforcement that was not seen. But at last the battle came. It was to be more fierce than Bozrah, more bloody than Gettysburg, involving more than Austerlitz, more combatants employed than at Chalons, a ghastlier conflict than all the battles of the earth put together, though Edmund Burke’s estimate of thirty-five thousand millions of the slain be accurate. The day was Friday. The hour was between twelve and three o’clock. The field wlas a slight hillock north-west of Jerusalem. The forces engaged were earth and hell, joined as allies on one side, and heaven, represented by a solitary inhabitant, on the other.
The hour came. Oh, what a time it was! I think that that day the universe looked on. The spirits that could be spared from the heavenly temple, and could get conveyance of wing or chariot, came down from above, and spirits getting furlough from furnaces beneath came up; and they listened, and they looked, and they watched. Oh, what an uneven battle! Two worlds armed on one side; an unarmed man on the other. The German regiment of the Roman army at that time stationed at Jerusalem began the attack. They knew how to fight, for they belonged to the most thoroughly drilled army of
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air the workl. With spears glittering in the sun, they charged up the hill. The horses prance and rear amidst the excitement of the populace — the heels of the riders, plunged in the flanks, urging them on. The weapons begin to tell on Christ. See how faint he looks! There the blood starts, and there, and there, and there. If he is to have reinforcements, let him call them up now. No; he must do this work alone — alone. He is dying. Feel for yourself of the wrist; the pulse is feebler. Feel under the arm; the warmth is less. He is dying. Ay, they pronounce him dead. And just at that moment that they pronounced him dead he rallied, and from his wounds he unsheathed a weapon which staggered the Roman legions down the hill, and hurled the Satanic battalions into the pit. It was a weapon of love — infinite love, all-conquering love. Mightier than javelin or spear, it triumphed over all. Put back, ye armies of earth and hell! The tide of battle turns. Jesus hath overcome. Let the people stand apart and make a line, that he may pass down from Calvary to Jerusalem, and thence on and out all around the world. The battle is fought. The victory is achieved. The triumphal march is begun. Hark to the hoofs of the warrior’s steed, and the tramping of a great multitude! for he has many friends now. The Hero of earth and heaven advances. Cheer! cheer! “Who is this that Cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, traveling in the greatness of his strength?”
We behold here a new revelation of a blessed and startling fact. People talk of Christ as though he were going to do something grand for us after a while. He has done it. People talk as though, ten or twenty years from now, in the closing hours of our life, or in some terrible pass of
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life, Jesus will help us. He has done the work already. He did it eighteen hundred and forty-two years ago. You might as well talk of Washington as though he were going to achieve our national independence in 1950, as to speak of Christ as though he were going to achieve our salvation in the future. He did it in the year of our Lord 33, eighteen hundred and forty-two years ago, on the field of Bozrah, the Captain of our salvation fighting unto death for your and my emancipation. All we have to do is to accept that fact in our heart of hearts, and we are free for this world, and we are free for the world to come. But, lest we might not accept, Christ comes through here to-night, “traveling in the greatness of his strength,” not to tell you that he is going to fight for you some battle in the future, but to tell you that the battle is already fought, and the victory already won.
You have noticed that, when soldiers come home from the wars, they carry on their flags the names of the battlefields where they were distinguished. The Englishman coming back has on his banner Inkermann and Balaklava; the Frenchman, Jena and Eylau; the German, Versailles and Sedan. And Christ has on the banner he carries as conqueror the names of ten thousand battle-fields he won for you and for me. He rides past all our homes of bereavement — by the door-bell swathed in sorrow, by the wardrobe black with woe, by the dismantled fortress of our strength. Come out and greet him to-night, O ye people! See the names of all the battle-passes on his flag. Ye who are poor, read on this ensign the story of Christ’s hard crusts and pillowless head. Ye who are persecuted, read here of the ruffians who chased him from his first breath to his last. Mighty to soothe your troubles, mighty to balk your calamities, mighty to tread down 3’our foes, “travelinsf in the 2;reatness of bis stren2;tb.” Thou2;b bis borse be brown with the dust of the march, and the fetlocks be wet W’itb the carnage, and the bit be red with the blood of your spiritual foes, be comes up to-nigbt, not exhausted from the battle, but fresh as when be went into it — coming up from Bozrab, “traveling in the greatness of bis strength.”’
You know that when Augustus, and Constantino, and Trnjan, and Titus came back from the wars, what a time there was. You know they came on horseback or in chariots, and there were trophies before and there were captives behind, and there were people shouting on all sides, and there were garlands flung from the window, and over the highway a triumphal arch was sprung. The solid masonry to-day at Beneventum, Eimini, and Rome still tell their admiration for those heroes. And shall we to-night let our Conqueror go by without lifting any acclaim? Have we not flowers red enough to depict the carnage, white enousjb to celebrate the victory, fragrant enough to breathe the joy? Those men of whom I just spoke dragged their victims at the chariot -wheels; but Christ, our Lord, takes those who once were captives and invites them into bis chariot to ride, wdiile be puts around them the arm of his strength, saying, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and the waters shall not drown it, and the fires shall not burn it, and eternity shall not exhaust it.”
If this be true, I can not see how any man can carry his sorrows a great while. If this Conqueror from Bozrab is going to beat back all j’our griefs, why not trust him? Oh! do you not feel, under this Gospel to-night, your griefs falling back, and 3’our tears drying up, as you hear the tramp of a thousand illustrious promises led on by the Conqueror from Bozrah, “traveling, traveling, in the greatness of his strength?”
On that Friday which the Episcopal Church rightly celebrates, calling it “Good-Friday,” your soul and mine were contended for. On that day Jesus proved himself mightier than earth and hell; and when the lances struck him, he gathered them up into a sheaf, as a reaper gathers the grain, and he stacked them. Mounting the horse of the Apocalypse, he rode down through the ages, “traveling in the greatness of his strength.” On that day your sin and mine perished, if we will only believe it.
There may be some one in the house who may say, “I don’t like the color of this Conqueror’s garments. You tell me that his garments were not only spattered with the blood of conflict, but also that they were soaked, that they were saturated, that they were dyed in it.” I admit it. You say you do not like that. Then I quote to you two passages of Scripture: Hebrews ix., 22, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission.” Leviticus xvii., 11, “In the blood is the atonement.” Bat it was not your blood. It was his own. Not only enough to redden his garments and to redden the horse, but enough to wash away the sins of the world. Oh, the blood on his brow, the blood on his hands, the blood on his feet, the blood on his side! It seems as if an artery must have been cut.
“There is a fount.iin filled with blood
Drawn from Emmanuers veins,
And sinners phinged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.”
Some of our modern theologians who want to give God lessons about the best way to save the world, tell us they do not want any blood in their redemption. They want to take this horse by the bit, and hurl him back on his haunches, and tell this rider from Bozrah to go around some other wa3 Look out, lest ye fall under the flying hoofs of this horse; lest ye go down under the sword of this Conqueror from Bozrah! What meant the blood of the pigeons in the old dispensation? the blood of the bullock? the blood of the heifer? the blood of the lamb? It meant to prophesy the cleansing blood, the pardoning blood, the healing blood of this Conqueror who comes uj) from Bozrah to-night, “traveling in the greatness of his strength.” No interest in that blood, and you die. It was shed for you, if you will accept it; it will plead trumpet-tongued against you, if you refuse it. I catch a handful of the red torrent that rushes out from the heart of the Lord, and I throw it over this audience, hoping that one drop of its cleansing power may come upon your soul. O Jesus! in that crimson tide wash my poor soul! AVe need it! We die! We die! We accept thy sacrifice! Conqueror of Bozrah, have mercy upon us! We throw our garments in the way! AVe fall into line! Ride on, Jesus, ride on! “Traveling, traveling in the greatness of thy strength.”
But after a while the returning Conqueror will reach the gate, and all the armies of the saved will be with him. I hope you will be there, and I will be there. As we go through the gate and around about the throne for the review, “a great multitude that no man can number” — all heaven can tell without asking, right away, which one is Jesus, not only .because of the brightness of his face, but because, while all the other inhabitants in glory are robed in white — saints in white, cherubim in white, seraphim in white — his robes shall be scarlet, even the dyed garments of Bozrah. I catch a glimpse of that triumphant joy, but the gate opens and shuts so quickly, I can hear only half a sentence, and it is this, “Unto him who hath washed us in his blood!”