The Shadows of Jerusalem

Jesus has formed a great resolve; a new hour has struck in His experience. I believe that hour to have struck while He wandered along the shores of Phoenicia. It is to this period I refer the beginning of this fresh mental attitude. It is described in St. Luke ix. 51: ‘When the days of His Assumption were being fulfilled, He set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem.’ You will observe the expression ‘the days of His Assumption’ That is not a synonym for ’ the days preparatory to His death’ The 1 Assumption ’ is the ‘Ascension.’ The act of death is still in the background. Jesus is still thinking only of the expediency of His departure, of the power which He will exert in absence. What, then, is the thought which turns His face towards Jerusalem? I have said that the vision of death was still in the background. It was not the idea of Calvary that suggested the journey to Jerusalem; it was the contemplation of the journey to Jerusalem that suggested the idea of Calvary. Calvary, when first it loomed in sight, was not an object of attraction. For a reason I shall state in the sequel of this chapter, it appeared rather as an interference with His sacrifice than as the climax of His sacrifice; it threatened to neutralise the surrender of that life which He was offering as an expiation to the Father. The vision of such a barrier to His atoning work could never have been the magnet that drew Him to the capital. That magnet, as St. Luke says, was not death but ascension; it was the prospect of exercising the power of an invisible spirit. Is there any way in which a journey to Jerusalem could minister to such a power?

I think there was. For what Jesus says to Himself is this:’ If I am to impress men by my absence I must first impress them by my presence; ere they can remember, they must see.

Have they yet seen me in the full light — the light of the metropolis? What has Jerusalem seen of me? She has had only a few scattered glimpses at Passover times. I have poured forth my soul in the hill-country of Galilee; I have given the burden of my message to the land of my youth. But Jerusalem — the centre and seat of the nation’s glory — has had only fragments of my teaching! This must not be. I must not wish to be taken up into heaven until I have left an impress on this spot of earth. My life would be incomplete, my ministry would be incomplete, if I did not go to Jerusalem.’

But look deeper. The words imply more than a resolve; they indicate a struggle. ‘He set His face steadfastly* — the expression suggests resistance. Something must have been opposing His resolve. Where did the opposition come from? From within His own soul. I am coming to a very important point. Standing in the great gallery before the Portrait of Jesus, I am confronted to-day by an expression of peculiar sadness. His eyes are bent towards the capital; a new and a wider sphere is opening before Him. And yet, His countenance wears an aspect of inexpressible pain. I stand with uncovered head and ask ‘Why? ‘With deep reverence I should like to inquire into the secret of that sorrow. I gaze into the troubled Face to catch some hint of that which lines the brow with care. Of one thing I am sure beforehand — it is no personal grief. He who said at a later hour, ‘Let not your heart be troubled,’ knew only the trouble of the heart — the cares of love. I am quite sure that, whatever this trouble may be, love alone enters into it. There is no wounded pride; there is no fleshly fear; there is no individual cloud — this is a vicarious sorrow. Let me draw nearer to the Picture and try to pierce the veil.

There is no difficulty, indeed, in seeing what was to Jesus the deterring element in the journey to Jerusalem. He tells us Himself — it was the prospect of death. The difficulty lies in two questions — first, where lay the legal offence in the teaching of Jesus which made

VOL. II. C

Him liable to death? and, second, conceding His liability to a capital charge, why was death to Jesus so deterrent a thing?

The former question has been virtually answered by me in the first volume of this book and in another connection. Without dwelling on the point, let me briefly re-state it. The common answer would be, ‘The capital offence of Jesus was His claim to be the Christ or Messiah.’ I have shown that in Jewish law this was no crime. A Messianic claim was no heresy. It might be proved to be false, and if proved to be false, it would need to be abandoned; but to make the claim was, in itself, no sign of impiety, no trespass against patriotism. When Jesus said, (I am the Christ, He did not take one step towards the cross of Calvary. If he had stopped there, He never could have been crucified. The heresy began, not where He said, * I am the Christ,’ but where He asked, ‘What think ye of Christ? whose son is He? ‘The violation of national law lay, not in saying He was the Messiah, but in claiming for the Messiah a power which had never been conceded to that office — a power which had always been ascribed to God alone. The forgiveness of sin, as I have pointed out, was not an act which had ever been attributed to the Messiah; it had always been regarded as a distinctively Divine prerogative. When Jesus said in Capernaum, ‘The Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins,’ He said something which ran directly counter to the Jewish faith — a faith which placed the judgment of the sinner in the hands of God alone. He had escaped prosecution simply because He had uttered the words in Capernaum. Had He spoken them in Jerusalem — in the vicinity of the priests and the temple — He would certainly have had an earlier experience of the visible cross. It was to Jerusalem He now proposed to go — to go with the same message of pardon. Could He fail to see the result! The prediction of His death is not one of His miracles; it would have been a miracle had He not foreseen it. Had He been simply a Jewish reformer, nay, had He been simply the Jewish Messiah, His prediction would have been a wonder; but He was claiming for the Messiah a Divine prerogative, and therefore from His country’s point of view He was guilty of blasphemy.

All this I readily understand. But the real difficulty comes with the second question. Conceding that the journey to Jerusalem on such a mission involved death, why should the prospect of death have been fraught with such horror in the soul of Jesus?1 On any view of His person you may adopt, it seems a strange thing. Do you say He had the memory of a life antecedent to His earthly life? Then death should for Him have had no terrors. Do you say He emptied Himself of that memory when He came to earth? Then there remained for Him another refuge — His deep trust in the Father. Do you refuse to look beyond the veil of His humanity? Even then, how was death for Him any worse than for you! There have been men for

1 I am here purposely anticipating what I shall treat more fully when I come to Gethsemane; Gethsemane was not the sudden emergence of an unexpected sorrow.

whom enthusiasm has made death painless — martyrs at the stake, soldiers on the battle field. Had Jesus less enthusiasm than these! Had He not come to make an expiation to His Father, to offer His life as a compensation for the myriad lives coffered! Was not death in the line of that offering! He had elected to surrender His will to the Father wherever He might lead. Ought not the spot most distasteful to be the spot most coveted! If Jesus is to atone by a sacrificial life for the self-indulgence of a united world, why should not the most sacrificial hour — the death hour — be the one which by Him is most eagerly welcomed?

I answer: Because that hour could only be purchased by the culmination of the world’s sin. If it was the hour in which Jesus could give the highest glory, it was also the hour in which the world must reach the deepest shame. When you look at the crucifixion of Christ you will need to view it from opposite sides of the gallery. Viewed from each side, its aspect is very different. On the one side it is the completed surrender of a spotless soul; on the other it is the completed stage of human sin. On the one side it is love abounding; on the other it is selfishness rampant. On the one side it is something to attract the Father toward the earth; on the other it is something to repel the Father from the souls of men.

Can you wonder that in anticipation Jesus shrank from the ordeal! We speak of ’ the offence of the cross.’ There was something in the cross which offended fesus. His ground of offence was the pain it would inflict on the Father. Let me again try reverently to paraphrase the thought of Jesus. It was somewhat like this: ‘I am going to Jerusalem for the sake of my Father’s kingdom. I know that my message to Jerusalem will involve death; yet, for the sake of the kingdom, I am willing to go. I know that this willingness must be dear to the Father; so far, the cup I have to drink will be easy. Yet it will have a bitter ingredient. There will be something in it which may well mar the Father’s joy. He may be glad that I am willing to brave the pestilence; but can He be glad that the pestilence is there! It may rejoice Him to know that a human soul has carried His message into the deadly air; but will that make Him more reconciled to the deadly air! Will not my coming catastrophe interfere with my work of compensation! Will He be more reconciled to the pestilential atmosphere after it has slain His messenger! He may say to me, “Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased “; but will He not say to the world, “Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity “! I should not be satisfied with a personal acceptance; I want the Father for my sake to accept the world. I could not live without companionship in the glory of the Father. I would have the world to behold that glory, to share that glory. I would have all to be one with Him as / am one with Him. It would be a pain for me to know that the house of the Father was prepared for none but me. The bitterness of this cup of Jerusalem is the sense that my glory will be reached on the highest step of the world’s infamy.

Such is my view of the apparent contradiction involved in the Crucifixion narrative. I believe nothing will explain it but the admission that the prospect of death exerted on Jesus two opposite influences — the one attractive, the other repellent. On the one hand, the surrender to death was for Him the final step of obedience. On the other hand, it was a step that never would have been possible unless the world had made up its mind to crucify Divine purity. I have often asked myself why it is that Jesus, seeking as He did the deepest means of expiation, should, in looking forward, have shrunk from death. And the answer must be: He shrank from death precisely because it seemed to impede His expiation — because His crucifixion would multiply the world’s sin. Calvary might be on His side an act of devotion; it was on the world’s side an act of unrighteousness. Might not the one counterbalance the other in the sight of the Father? To the Father the devotion might be sweet, but the unrighteousness must be sad. Jesus and the world were both to be engaged in the same deed; but to one it was to be a deed of glory, to the other a deed of shame. Who could say that the eye of the Father would rest only on the glory and ignore the shame! Who could say that the manifestation of one human love would outweigh the manifestation of a united world’s selfishness! None could say it until the Father should say it. No wonder Jesus shrank from death. It was from the world’s side what the writer to the Hebrews calls ‘a contradiction against Himself — a contradiction to His work of atonement. The vision of Jerusalem could bring nothing but pain to Jesus.

And yet, to Jerusalem He was resolved to go. Do not think He solved the problem before He made His resolution. Do not think he waited to receive light from His Father. What He did receive was a pointing of the Father’s hand. The Father’s hand pointed through the darkness, and His voice said, ‘Go.’ There was no clearing of the air. There was no light seen in the valley. There was no cessation of struggle in the soul of

Jesus. There was simply the imperative call of duty. His mission demanded that He should preach at Jerusalem; His message made it likely that he would die at Jerusalem; His dying at Jerusalem seemed to threaten the success of His reconciling work. These were the facts — each equally present to His mind. The duty and the darkness appeared to pull opposite ways; and both drew by a cord of unselfishness. If He sought the scene of death it was for love; if He recoiled from the scene of death it was also for love. He saw no solution of the problem; but He did not therefore suspend His action. When duty and darkness speak on opposite sides there is no question which should be obeyed. Jesus did not hesitate a moment. He heard duty calling in the night, and He declined to wait for the dawn. The call of circumstances was to Him the will of the Father; and He had promised to follow that Will wherever it might lead. He would keep His face steadfastly towards the night blast; He would go to Jerusalem.

rne, too, O Christ, there are hours like Thine. There are hours when duty says ‘Go, and when darkness seems to cry ‘Stay.’ At such times I often pray that I may have light before I go. I sit by the warm fire waiting for the dawn; I say, ‘When morning comes, I will obey.’ And while I am waiting the gate is shut, the opportunity gone. Let me take my steps from Thee Let me be all ear, no eye! Let me disregard the night; let me consider only the call! If I hear the voice of the Lord God in the garden, let it be enough for me! Though I see no flower of Paradise, though I view no Tree of Life, though I behold on the way to Jerusalem no river of Thy pleasures, let Thy voice be enough for me! Let me arise without sight of the flower; let me depart without vision of the Tree; let me take my journey through a dry, parched land — if only the Voice calls me! Let it be enough for me that the Lord is my Shepherd! Though I start not from pastures green, though I journey not by waters quiet, though I see the valley of the shadow of death before me — I shall refuse to turn back if I hear the Shepherd’s call.