The Attraction of the Cross

The story of the Cross has been told by its Author. The Scriptures uniformly teach us to look upon his death in a light totally different from that of any other person. They never mention it without emphasis, nor without admiration. When the great Ruler of the world was pleased to accomplish his purposes of mercy toward sinful man, he saw fit to do it in a way that expressed the mysterious fullness of his own eternal nature. God is one in nature, and three in persons. A fundamental article of the Christian religion is, that one of these three divine persons became incarnate. “The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

When “the fullness of time” was come, “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law, that they might receive the adoption of sons.” His birth was humble, away from home, and in a manger; but it was announced by angelic voices, “Behold I bring yen glad tidings of great joy, for unto you is born this day, in the City of David, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord!” Behold the wonder! — the immortal Deity clothed with the nature of mortal man — the Everlasting One born in time — the God Omnipotent swathed in the bands of infancy, and lying in a manger! This was the beginning of the Saviour’s sorrows. Had he any sense of loftiness to be subdued, any honest pride of character to be wounded, any inbred sentiments of virtuous exaltation to be mortified, it would be in view of such mysterious humiliation as this. No pomp of earth was there; no show of worldly magnificence; no regal splendor; though there slept on that pallet of straw One “who hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.” Judah’s crown and sceptre might have belonged to his honored parents; and he should of right have been born in the palace of David. But this were ill fitting one who came to pour contempt upon the pride of man; whose “kingdom is not of this world,” and who, before he assumed this low attire, foresaw that he should put it off only on the Cross.

The tears that flowed in Bethlehem often flowed. In his infancy, he was sought as the victim of Herod’s sword; in his youth, he was often obliged to retire from the observation of men, that he might not provoke their rage. But while for thirty years he avoided the scenes of active and public life, his great work of suffering and redemption, in all its parts and consequences, was always present to his thoughts. Wherever he went, and whatever he did and said, he conducted himself like one who felt that he had a great work to perform, and was assiduously hastening it onward to its final catastrophe. He knew what others did not know — that the hand of violence would cut him off in the midst of his days; and in view of his coming sorrows, could often say, “I have a baptism to he baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!” In this respect, as well indeed as in every other, he differed from all other men. Socrates, though he addressed himself to his fate with great calmness, and spake of it with wonderful tranquillity, and drank the hemlock with unshrinking firmness, did not anticipate his destiny from the beginning of his career, nor even many days before its close. Those there. have been who have undertaken enterprises of great toil and peril; but the suffering was doubtful, and many a gladdening though perhaps deceptive hope was immingled with their fears. But the Saviour was ascertained of his miserable career of suffering, as well as its close of agony, from the hour he oxuitted his Father’s bosom. In the eternal “council of peace” he “gave his life a ransom for many.” All his arrangements were directed to this one end; his eye and his course were single; and the farther he went in it, the more “steadfastly did he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Nothing could divert his steps from that melancholy way of tears and blood. To every solicitation his reply was, u The Son of Man must go up to Jerusalem, and suffer many things, and be killed.”

Judea, the ancient country possessed by the Hebrew race, lay in the centre of the then inhabited globe, and was once the glory of all lands. It was the great thoroughfare between the commercial countries of the west and south-west, and Babylon and Persia on the east, and the trading towns skirting the Black and Caspian Seas. Scenes of exciting interest in Judea, and especially in Jerusalem, were thus a spectacle to all the nations of the earth. Jerusalem was the glory of Judea, as Judea was of the world. It was the seat of science and the arts, the seat of wealth, power and royal magnificence, such as the world has never excelled. At the time the Saviour u drew near and wept ever it,” it had lost not a little of its ancient splendor. It had been the object of contention among surrounding- nations, and had long suffered all the vicissitudes common to war and a warlike age. It had been pillaged; its inhabitants had been slain, or led into captivity, and the conquerors had erected statues of their own divinities in its temple. Its walls had been alternately demolished and rebuilt, and now it was the servile tributary to a foreign power, and a mere Roman province. Long since has it fulfilled the prediction of the Prophet, and been “trodden down by the Gentiles.” The proud Moslem and the turbaned Turk encamp in the “stronghold of Zion,” and the mosque of Omar towers on the mount where once stood the Ark of God. u How cloth the city sit solitary that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things. How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from Heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!”

It added interest to the scenes of the crucifixion, that it took place during the annual feast of the Jewish Passover. Not only did this selected period call to mind the striking correspondence between the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb and the offering up of the “Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world;” but was of special importance, since, by divine appointment, it called together all the males of the Jewish nation to the national altar at Jerusalem. From all parts of the nation they were here assembled in vast and solemn concourse to this sacred festival, filling “the guest chambers” of the city, and occupying the thousand tents erected on its

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