The Attempt to Antedate Calvary

Meantime the storm was deepening in the City of David. From the Feast of Tabernacles to the Feast of Dedication it raged ever increasingly. Precisely as the teaching of Jesus became more transcendental, it struck nearer home. We have seen that a Messiah with an origin above the earth was for the Jew a political heresy. We have seen that to hold such a creed was to deny the exclusive privilege of the line of David — that it was to open another line, accessible indeed to Israel, but accessible also to all besides. From the Jewish point of view I do not wonder at the storm. The nearest parallel I can imagine to the circumstances of the nation is the first announcement to the modern world of the doctrine of evolution. Man, particularly religious man, was alarmed for his own dignity. His dignity had, to him, always lain in his speci ality — in the belief that he had been separately created. The sting of evolution was not that it denied his Divine origin; it was that it denied his special Divine origin — that, so far as origin is concerned, it gave him no advantage over the beast of the field. Change the names of the actors, and the problem was the same. Jesus proclaimed the unity of species between the Jew and the Gentile. The Gentile had always been looked upon as the beast of the field. The Jew stormed at the imputation of a common origin. It was no compensation to be told that it involved a common salvation. He did not want a common salvation. I believe he would have greatly preferred an uncommon retribution, provided it had marked him out as a scion of the original stock. Christianity was to him what Darwinism is to us — the assertion of a unity of species between two streams of life which were flowing in different directions and which had hitherto been thought to have come from separate sources.

From Feast to Feast swelled the storm. At last, on Dedication Day, it burst into a roar. The adversaries of Jesus, who had passed from murmurs to arguments and from arguments to invectives, now went a step beyond. They had kept their best wine to the last. The force of reason had failed, the force of obloquy had failed; physical force remained. They began to gather stones from the causeway. They said: ‘Let this man have the fate we proposed for the unchaste woman! It is the legal punishment for unchastity; and has not he also been guilty of unchastity! Have not the prophets called God the husband of Israel! Here is the would-be Messiah of Israel professing to annul the union, claiming for every land a like participation in the nuptial torch of God! Is not this the teaching of un chastity! Shall the Messiah of our race tell His country to break its marriage vows, to deny its marriage vows! If He give such a message to His country, shall He be allowed to escape with impunity! We see now the reason of this man’s laxness with the woman of sin. This man is all round unfaithful to the hymeneal altar of his nation. He has tried to deprive that nation of her marriage ring — the ring which selected her from all others to be the Bride of God. What shall be the penalty of this infidelity, this unchastity, this incitation to religious apostasy? Shall it be any other than the adulterer’s doom, the doom of those who rend the nuptial veil! ’

And now in the great gallery there is exhibited a tragic spectacle, a spectacle which only once or twice has met the gaze of history: pure spirit meets face to face with brute force, and conquers it. In the centre of an infuriated crowd, with bitter hatred in their heart and with deadly missiles in their hand, stands a single, unarmed, defenceless man. Mind and matter were never so completely poised against each other. Not even in the storm on the Sea of Galilee were they so poised. There, the physical forces were unconscious of their antagonist; here, they were directed right against the breast of Jesus. It was a duel between materialism and spiritualism, in which both recognised the issue, in which neither borrowed a weapon from his adversary. And spirit conquered. Why did the crowd not throw the stones they had gathered? They had physically everything in their favour. They were a hundred to one. They had no outward opposition. They were backed by the government. The missiles were actually in their hands. Why did they not throw? Why did they not there and then anticipate the Cross of Calvary? I answer, because they were here asked to do what the Cross of Calvary never asked them to do — to kill Jesus face to face. The Jew had never been able to do that — not in the courts of the temple, not on the brow of the Capernaum hill; nor was he now able. There must have been a matchless power, a mesmeric power, even in the dumb presence of Jesus — a power which paralysed the opposing arm, arrested the uplifted hand, broke the sword before it fell. For a few minutes pure spirit and brute force faced one another. The crowd swung their arms aloft to cast the fatal missiles; suddenly the missiles dropped, the arms dropped, the menacing throng fell back, the concourse seemed to vanish into air, and on the bloodless field Jesus stood victor, alone.

What did Jesus think about this? It may seem a wild question, and yet in the event that follows I think we have the materials for answering it. Of course Jesus knew that the averted issue was a mere postponement. Yet I am convinced by what follows that He was glad of the postponement. I am not alluding to that sting which death still had for Him personally, the sting of the world’s sin; that would have led Him to seek, did lead Him to seek, not postponement, but the passing of the cup altogether. If death were to come to Him at all, I believe that personally He would have preferred it early; it would leave Him free to begin His resurrection kingdom. But it was not for His own sake Jesus desired postponement; it was for the sake of His disciples. They too felt His death to be a sting. It is true, their sting was not His. Jesus feared one thing from death, His disciples feared another. His dread was moral, theirs was physical. But just on that account Jesus could help His disciples. He was strong precisely where they were weak — in the hope of resurrection. And they were very weak there. I believe, if the Day of Dedication had fore stalled the tragedy of the Passover, every fragment of Christ’s first kingdom would have melted like the snow; the boldest of the original band would have fled, to return no more. It was for their sakes Jesus desired more time. He wanted to show them the brightness of death where He saw it — the brightness beyond death. Here at least was a patch of blue, on which He might teach them to gaze. They could not meet His cross, but He could meet theirs. He had still His own darkness; but where they were dark, He was clear. It was a blessed division of pain; it left Him free to be the Helper of Man.

And here I think Jesus made an inward resolve, that henceforth His teaching should be more of heaven than of earth. He said, ‘From this time forth I will tell my disciples of the life beyond’ Do you ask, ‘Why so late in the revealing of a truth so precious?’ I answer, it is to me no wonder. I would not have any teacher of religion begin with the Doctrine of Immortality. Before you tell your pupil to hope for an indefinite prolongation of life, be sure you find out what he is now living for. It is not good to hope for the prolonging of a bad ideal; I should say that the sooner a Mohammedan gets rid of his hope of immortality the better. Jesus came to men who had a bad ideal; therefore He did not begin by telling them of immortality. He wanted them, first of all, to desire the things in life which are beautiful, glorious. And so He taught them, at first, to love that which was lovely — lovely now, lovely here. He took them up to the mount and showed them, not the Promised Land, but the present land — its features of beauty, its possibilities of blessing. But now the time had come in which they ought to learn that the present beauty is an eternal beauty. As long as they loved ugliness, Jesus would not teach them immortality. But they had come to love Himself; they had fixed their eyes on His Divinely human glory. Would not the vision of immortality have a meaning now! Would it not mean the immortality of goodness, the deathlessness of purity, the eternity of love! Jesus said, ‘I will point them beyond.’ But where point from? Not from Jerusalem, not from the scene where the implements of death were visible. No, Jesus felt that here the minds of His followers were in trepidation; and trepidation is the foe to revelation. He felt that for the moment, and for their sake, He wanted a change of environment. He resolved to withdraw their eyes from the winding-sheet which the metropolis was preparing. He would still make Jerusalem His headquarters; but, using it as a base, He would go forth on circuit. He would lead His trembling followers into scenes more lively and more free. He would tell them of immortality, but not under the dome of death; He would point them to a life beyond, but not within the shadow of the grave. His revelation of the future should be made to marching music, not on the field of carnage.

And here it is that I place the final circuit of Jesus — not a few weeks earlier, as many harmonists do. Here it is that He breaks up His camp at Jerusalem and again takes the field. He leads His disciples into Peraea. He passes with them into Galilee, the scene of His former ministry. His tour seems to have been planned on the idea of mental retrospect. Each step of the journey carries Him farther back — nearer to the beginning. From Galilee He revisits Samaria. You will remember how Samaria had preceded Galilee — how He woke to human wants by the thirsting at the well. Farther back still He travels on the line of retrospect. He comes to the very beginning of His public life — to the east coast of Jordan. He stands in the scene of the Baptist’s ministry — where the heavens had opened, where the dove had descended, where the approbation of the Father had gleamed. He stands in the spot immediately antecedent to the scene of His own temptation, and through whose influence He had vanquished it. Who says that His motive for seeking that seclusion was flight! One desirous of flight would not have gone there. The spot was not secluded to Him. It was full of memories, full of resolves, full of determinations not to flee. He may have gone to brace Himself; He never went to hide Himself. If the idea of security entered, it was for the sake of His disciples. He wanted them to feel secure. He wanted to lift their thoughts beyond the earth; and such cannot be done while the cerements of the grave are visible. He felt that the souls of that little band, which to Him represented united humanity, could only be made to soar by being first made to lie down in green pastures; therefore He chose for them the seclusion of Bethania.

And, indeed, all through this journey the teaching of Jesus is the teaching of immortality. Through all His parables of this time there runs one refrain, ‘Earth not sufficient without heaven.’ The prodigal has spent all his substance in riotous living. Earth can do no more for him; his only hope is a home beyond. The unjust steward in the very midst of his gains has a sense of accountability which makes him feel insecure, which causes him to cry out for ‘everlasting habitations.’ The labourers in the vineyard who are hired at the eleventh hour have no time to finish their work; they must look for another life to complete it. The beggar at the rich man’s gate has had nothing but want below; his life would not be rounded without a rest in the Paradise of God. These are the echoes of the time — the only echoes that will suit the time. Jesus is bent on revealing to His disciples a hope beyond. Every step of His after-course is guided by that design; if you do not keep this in mind, much of what follows will seem strange. Especially strange will seem the attitude of Jesus towards an event which was even now at the door, and whose entrance has gilded with a unique glory the sunset of Christ’s work on earth. The nature of this scene in the great gallery will be considered in the next chapter.

TV /T EANTIME, O Lord, I thank Thee for -L*-*- postponing my hope of immortality. I thank Thee that when I was living for selfishness, Thou didst not suffer me to think that selfishness was eternal. I thank Thee that, ere I could hope for endless life, I first had something worth living for — the vision of Thy self. It would be no glory to believe in the immortality of sin; the saint would be the man who wished it were not true. But now that I have seen Tkee, it becomes saintly to believe in immortality. It is saintly to wish that I may enjoy Thee for ever. Men say it is my selfishness that makes me wish to be immortal. Nay, it is my selfishness. It is because I want eternally to love that which is lovely — eternally to love Thee. Why is it that the tidings of Olivet, the tidings of Thy rising, have been so dear to me? It is because Thou art love, and Thine immortality is the immortality of love. It is because Thy deathlessness is the deathlessness of all beauty, the permanence of all purity, the fadelessness of all true flowers. There is no joy in mere everlastingness. It would not make me glad to know that the bit of rag at my foot would be a rag for ever. But to know that love is everlasting, that peace is everlasting, that friendship is everlasting, that sacrifice is everlasting, that Thou art everlasting — this is the saint’s immortality, this is the saint’s rest!

VOL. ir.