The Representative Crowds

[ee Cross was the outworking in history of the redemptive purposes of God. In it the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, was slain in view of those for whom His passion

and death provided redemption and life. It would seem as though

all the facts and forces of human life appeared in the presence of the passion of the Son of God. What the Cross was to those composing this assembly, depended upon the attitude of mind and heart in which they gathered around it. To some it was the evangel of hope.

To others it was a sentence of doom. In the present study we shall

attempt to look at those gathered to the Cross, and to enquire what

the Cross meant to them.

In an examination of the records of the crucifixion preserved for us by the four evangelists, we shall be able to fill in for ourselves a picture of that Cross with the persons surrounding it. As we have been intent upon the vision of the suffering Saviour, we now turn to look at those who are round about Him, and at once are arrested by the strange mixture, and representative character of the multitude gathered to the mount called Calvary.

Let us first state without reference to classification, the persons mentioned in the Gospels, and then proceed to separate them into groups, and consider the suggestiveness in each case.

I. All the writers in some way refer to the presence of the women. Matthew speaks of the women from Galilee, and of these he names “Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.“1 Mark mentions these same three women, “Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome,”’2 the wife of Zebedee, and therefore the mother of James and of John, the sons of Zebedee. Luke gives no names, but he declares the fact of the presence of the

*Matt. 27. 56. *Mark 15. 40 women in the words, “there followed Him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented Him.”? John names the three referred to by Matthew and Mark, but adds another. It is he who declares the presence of the mother of the Lord. There has been some difference of opinion concerning John’s account of the women present, which reads, “But there were standing by the Cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.”* Some interpret that verse as referring to three women. In that case it is understood that His mother’s sister was the wife of Clopas. My own conviction is that John mentions four women, that Mary of Clopas was not the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus. To tabulate the statement of John, you would write:

“His mother.”

“His mother’s sister.”

“Mary the wife of Clopas.”
“Mary Magdalene.”

The only difference between this account, and those of Matthew and Mark, is the addition of the mention of Mary the mother of the Lord. In that case her sister was Salome, the wife of Zebedee, and mother of James and John. It is interesting to note in passing, the effect that this understanding of the passage has upon certain facts in the Gospel history. The woman who came to the Lord, and asked that her sons might sit, one on His right hand and one on His left hand, was according to the flesh, related to Him, being His mother’s sister, and these men for whom the boon was asked were His own cousins. This gives some clue to what otherwise appears as a very strange request. If it be granted that Salome was His mother’s sister, we have at any rate some explanation of her request in the fact that she suggested to Him that when He came into the place of power He should find preferment for His family relations.

We take it for granted that four women are mentioned as being present at the crucifixion of the Lord. In John we see two pairs, the unnamed women, the mother of the Lord and her sister; and the two women who are named, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. As Luke records, there were many other women, but these stand

*Luke 23. 27. “John 19. 25.

prominently out, as having been most closely associated with Him.

All the evangelists speak of the presence of the soldiers, and of the two malefactors crucified one on either side of Jesus. Matthew, Mark and Luke draw special attention to the centurion in charge of the carrying out of the crucifixion, and they give some account of how he was impressed in the presence of the Crucified. According to Matthew he said, “Truly this was a Son of God” ;! according to Mark, “Truly this Man was a Son of God” ;2 according to Luke, “Certainly this was a righteous Man.”3 Let me at once say that there is no contradiction between Matthew and Mark on the one hand, and Luke on the other. It is almost certain that the centurion said both of these things. It is certainly conceivable that as this man watched Jesus on the Cross, he gave utterance to more than one sentence, and we believe therefore that while Matthew and Mark chronicle the statement which impressed them, Luke chronicled what appealed to him, and was in perfect harmony with his whole scheme of teaching. The accounts are rather complementary than contradictory.

The presence of the chief priests is recorded by Matthew, Mark, and John, Luke making no reference to them. Matthew, Mark, and Luke refer to the scribes, elders, or rulers, comprising the Sanhedrim, while John ignores their presence.

Luke, the burden of whose Gospel is that of the universality of the work and relation of Jesus, declares the presence of great multitudes of the people.

John alone tells us that the disciples were also there, and he only, moreover, refers to the fact of his own presence, and this in order that he may record Christ’s committal of His mother to his care. Standing back and gazing out upon that mixed multitude, we notice the women, the soldiers, the malefactors, the centurion, the chief priests, the members of the Sanhedrim, the group of His own disciples, and in addition to these, the vast multitudes of people from the whole surrounding country. All sorts and conditions of men are gathered to the Cross, representative crowds, the whole scene being a picture and a prophecy of how, through all the centuries, every sort and condition would be gathered to the uplifted Cross of the Son of Man.

*Matt. 27. 54 (margin *Mark 15. 39 (margin). *Luke 23 47,

Il. Let us look at these crowds in another way. We will attempt an analysis of the multitude, not so much with reference to the persons as to the conditions represented at the Cross, illustrating the fact by an examination of the people.

Sorrow was supremely represented by the presence of the women. Worldly government by the centurion, the soldiers, and the malefactors. Religious failure by the chief priests and the Sanhedrim. The great shepherdless crowd over which Christ had so often mourned, and in the presence of which His heart had ever been moved with compassion, was largely represented in the great multitude of which Luke speaks. Familiarity with Jesus had its representation in the presence before the Cross of His kinsfolk and acquaintance. Discipleship was there, in the person of His own, and particularly of John.

See, first, human sorrow as represented in the women, noticing the groups as we have them in John, taking first the women who are named, and then the women known but unnamed.

Of the former, the principal figure attracting attention is that of Mary Magdalene, for we know very little concerning Mary of Clopas, save that she was the mother of James the less and of Joses. The sorrow of Mary Magdalene must have been very profound. I would that it were in my power to redeem this woman from a popular and terrible misconception concerning her. For some reason almost without explanation the term Magdalene has become a synonym for impurity. There is absolutely no warrant in Scripture for the idea. Mary Magdalene simply means Mary of Magdala. That was her city, and the title is used undoubtedly by the evangelists, simply to distinguish her from other women who bore the name of Mary. She had been delivered from seven demons. This phrase was certainly sometimes used by Jewish writers as descriptive of some terrible form of sin, such as drunkenness or impurity, but it was as often used to describe different forms of disease, such as epilepsy. Attempts have been made to link her with the woman that was a sinner, but the case has never been proven, and in the absence of positive proof we have no right for ever to link her memory with the sin of unchastity. We prefer to believe that the demons possessing her had afflicted her as they did the son of the man who met Jesus at the foot of the mount of transfigura-

244 THER CRISES (OP 4THE “CHRISTtion, seeing that we have no positive proof of impurity. This woman was present at His Cross, watching the cruel crucifixion and fearful death of the One Who had for ever endeared Himself to her, and proved His power, by that marvellous deliverance He had wrought. By the way of that Cross she had lost her Deliverer. How her heart must have been wrung with anguish.

Yet in the clearer understanding of the Cross which has come to us, we see how in it she recovered her Leader, and by it He gained possession of her for ever, as the One Who in the mystery of its darkness, conquered and dispossessed the devil and all demons of their power over human lives. So that while hers was the sorrow

of a lost Leader, a dead Deliverer, it was in process of time trans- -

formed into the joy of a Leader that cannot be lost nor will suffer those He loves to be lost, of a Deliverer Who has conquered death and will deliver those who trust Him, even from death itself. Thus for Mary of Magdala the Cross was the process by which her greatest sorrow was transmuted into her highest joy.

Notice next the second pair of women, Salome the mother of James and John, and the Lord’s own mother, Mary.

Concerning Salome may it not be said that she stood before the Cross disappointed in the emotions of motherhood: Her sons had left their fishing, and had gone to follow Jesus. With the true instinct of motherhood she had been anxious that they should succeed. One can imagine that she did not feel perfectly in harmony with their action. If I may use an expression of the present day in application to her attitude, I should say that she had questioned the wisdom of their giving up a certainty for an uncertainty. When, however, they had left their nets and followed Him, she endeavoured to use her influence with Him on their behalf. Expecting the possibility of His at last coming into power, she had asked that in that event her sons, His cousins, James and John, might sit one on His right hand, and one on His left. And now the folly of their action is revealed in His evident failure. I see in this woman the sorrow of disappointed motherhood. It may be objected that this is placing her sorrow on a low level. Is it not true that most human sorrow is sorrow on a level that is certainly not high: I do not question for a moment that this woman sorrowed in sympathy with Him in His defeat and awful pain, but her previous action makes it more than probable that she thought of her own sons in the presence of the crucified Jesus. And yet what did that Cross do for this woman? It was by it that James and John found their thrones of power. They passed out into the ages crowned men, seeing that He permitted them to drink of His cup, and to be baptised with His baptism, as He said that He would. And so by the way of that Cross her motherhood was crowned with gladness, and she found her joy just where she had seemed to lose it.

Who shall speak of the sorrow of His own mother? Let us describe it by the words in which it was foretold in those early days in which her heart was glad at the birth of Jesus. The sword had pierced through her own soul. What anguish of spirit, what heart-break Mary passed through, perhaps only motherhood can ever perfectly comprehend. And yet she also found her salvation there, and is known to-day as most highly favoured among women, because she was the mother of Him Who was crucified for the redemption of man. Blessed virgin in very deed. It is absolutely certain that we of the Protestant faith have in our rebound from the worship of this. woman gone to another extreme, utterly unwarranted by Scripture. We have relegated Mary into the improper position of obscurity. We need to remember that an angel addressed her, saying, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured,”! and this we should all be prepared to say of her, as a recognition of her exalted position, having in it not the slightest suspicion of worship rendered. In Mary all womanhood was crowned and elevated, and yet she found her way into heaven, not because of the honour bestowed upon her, but by the way of that Cross and passion, which for the moment was a sword piercing her soul also.

Thus sorrow is seen at the Cross where sorrow is always seen at its deepest, in the wounded, stricken, smitten heart of womanhood; and yet in each case by the Cross the sorrow was turned into joy. Upon the dark cloud there flashed the great light, until the very cloud became a sea of glory. Oh, rough and rugged Cross of Calvary! We gather round thy stern sublimity of suffering with our own hearts’ agony, and find heart’s-ease. We come to thee with faces stained with tears, and in the strength of His victory our tears are wiped away, our sorrow is turned into joy.

‘Luke 1. 28,

But now turn abruptly to another group, the representatives of wordly government, the centurion, the soldiers, and the crucified malefactors. Look at each of them for a moment, for the Cross is to the fact of worldly government, just what the fact of worldly government is to the Cross.

The centurion was a representative of discipline and duty. It is worthy of passing notice that every centurion mentioned in the New Testament was a good man. It was a centurion who said to Jesus: “I also am a man set under authority, having under myself soldiers: and I say to this one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh.”* In that statement there is contained a. remarkable philosophy of authority and discipline. I am under authority, I obey; therefore I have authority, I command others to obey. The true philosophy of human government lies within that statement. The man who has a right to rule is the man who knows how to be ruled. The only man fit to issue orders is the man accustomed to obey orders. “I am under authority, I have authority.” This centurion in the presence of the Cross was a man of authority, and he had soldiers under him. He was a man of law, of order, of discipline, of duty, and from that standpoint of life he had watched the dying man until at last he said, “Truly this was a Son of God.”* To appreciate properly this statement we must understand the Roman thought rather than the Hebrew in the phrase “‘a Son of God.” I believe the centurion meant that He was one of the sons of the gods. The Roman idea of God was that of heroic, courageous manhood, magnified in all its powers, and looking upon this man in His suffering, the heroism, the courage and. the discipline manifested in submission, appealed to him as being Godlike.

And yet he said another thing, “Certainly this was a righteous Man.”* This was the conviction of one who was himself a man of duty. To this Roman soldier the one governing principle of life was that of duty. He lived in the midst of a system. He marched in rhythm and time. He obeyed and insisted upon obedience with inflexible regularity. Rightness was the one word of value to him, at least in the sphere of his soldierhood. He saw in the Man upon the Cross One evidently acting in the realm of order, submissive

“Luke 7. 8. *Matt. 27. 54. “Luke 23. 47.

to authority, and therefore authoritative, keeping time with eternal principles in the quiet majesty of His submission, “a righteous Man.” ‘The centurion as a man of duty discovered order in the Cross, and as a man who worshipped high ideals, saw the Son of God crucified,

What did the Cross for the Centurion: We have no record of his after life, but this much at least is certain, that it commanded the respect and the confession of that which was highest in human government. And if we may follow the story along imaginative lines, it is more than probable that the King upon Whose brow the centurion placed the diadem of his loyalty, crowned him with the realisation of his own ideals of life.

We look at the soldiers with pity rather than anger. They were brutalised men, and yet brutalised by the system in the midst of which they found themselves. We watch them as gathered around the Cross upon which they have nailed the Son of God, they gambled for His garments and presently one of their number pierced His side with a spear. As we have seen in the former consideration, that spear thrust was the ultimate expression of man’s rebellion against God. So far as the man was concerned who thrust it in His side, I am never quite sure that the action was not prompted by pity. How brutalised and vulgarised these men were, is evident from the fact that they cast lots for His garments under the shadow of the Cross, and their only idea of help, granting that to have been the motive, was that of the thrust of the spear.

One wonders if these soldiers ever saw the true vision. Did they ever understand that the seamless robe of which they sought to gain possession by gambling, was the prophecy of the new robing being provided for men in the mystery of that Cross? Did they ever discover that the flowing blood which answered their spear thrust was for the putting away of sin? Ido not know. Personally I expect to meet some of those men in heaven. It is certain that the Master prayed for them, and I cannot forget that on the Day of Pentecost thousands were swept into the kingdom of God, and in all probability among the number some of the Roman soldiery, and, perchance, the men also who nailed Him to the Cross.

- Look for one moment at the malefactors, and there we have sin on the one side persisted in, and on the other, turned from. The crucified malefactors both express the uttermost that human government has ever been able to do with sin. It can but punish. Both these men are in the presence of the Cross. One in that presence persisted in his sin, and added to it. For him the Cross was the penalty which deepened into the darker death that lay beyond it. One turning from his sin, flung himself upon the tender notice of the King, Who was passing over the pathway of His exodus, and for Him the Cross was the gate of Paradise, and just beyond this darkness flamed the splendour of the light of the presence and companionship of the Lord, which makes unnecessary the light of sun, or moon, or stars, or candle. To these things no words need be — added. Sin in the presence of the.Cross, on the one hand, persisting in rebellion, goes down into the unutterable and awful and inexpressible darkness. Sin on the other hand, turning to Him, confessing, believing, passes triumphantly with Him through the darkness of the Cross to the light of Paradise.

Notice yet again earth’s religious failure as represented by the high priests and the Sanhedrim. What a terrible picture this is of priestcraft. These men were rejoicing in the Cross because it had secured power to them by destroying Jesus. Is this sufficiently realised 2 Do we always remember why the priests encompassed the death of Christ 2 Watch carefully the history, and notice that their trouble was that they were losing power, and their constant question was, What shall we do: The people were slipping away from their grip, but at last they have put an end to His influence, they have Him now nailed to a Cross, and by His destruction they secure their own power. O blind men, infatuated men! While they gloat over their fancied victory, God rends the veil of the temple in twain, and for ever more does away with the priest. Just as they thought they had ensured their dominance of humanity by crucifying Him, He by His dying spoiled their power, rent the veil, and by abolishing the priest, created the priesthood of all believers.

Turn for one moment and look at the Sanhedrim as represented by the scribes, the elders, the rulers. How are they occupied in the presence of the Cross? They are indulging in diabolical pleasantry. They are laughing at the dying Man. They say, “He saved others, Himself He cannot save.”! They are making merriment over the fact that the Cross is the evidence of His folly. He Who had been saving men, and calling men to the pathway of salvation, is unable to save Himself. How can any really save others who are not able to save themselves? Such is the wisdom of the world, and the world’s wisdom laughs at the folly of the Cross. It has never ceased laughing at the Cross! It is doing so still! In this new century the trouble is that not the world only makes mock of the Cross. The laughter has invaded the so-called Church of Jesus. I have heard a man, claiming to be in the ministry of Jesus, who objected to sing:

“There is a fountain filled with blood.”

What gain it would be for the Church and the world if these men would be honest and go outside the Church. The man who has lost his sense of the need of blood-cleansing from sin has no right to stand and call himself a messenger of Christ. The Sanhedrim laughed at the Cross. And yet in that Cross there is being shown forth before the gaze of heaven and in the presence of men, so sadly blinded that- they cannot understand, the wisdom of God. In the foolishness of Christ’s Cross there flames out the glory of the Eternal Wisdom, for what man has never been able to do will be done through that Cross. And the very people who have become brutalised, and degraded, and wrapped in the grave clothes of ritualism by the Sanhedrim and the priests, will cast aside their grave clothes and pass into nobler life by the way of that Cross of shame.

Oh, how foolish and pitiable is the mockery of the Cross by the wisdom of the world!

Look for one moment upon the multitudes around, the great shepherdless crowd. That was Christ’s picture of them, sheep having no shepherd. How perplexed, how disappointed many of them must have been that day. For three years they had followed a Leader, a Deliverer, followed Him foolishly, it is true, not from high motive, and never able thoroughly to appreciate Him. Moved by the signs of His power, and drawn by the tenderness of His compassion, they have followed still, though imperfectly, and now the end of it is His crucifixion. They had hoped that “it was He Who should redeem Israel,”* and now He is nailed to the

“Luke 24. 21.

Roman, and the cursed, tree. Jesus had spoken of them as being without a shepherd, and many of them had come to hope that perhaps He was their Shepherd. Oh, could they but see, He was indeed the good Shepherd, and in the mystery of that awful Cross, He was laying down His life for them! Presently they will come back, by tens, by hundreds, and by thousands. Never tell me that Christ’s ministry was a failure. It has sometimes been said that He only gathered about one hundred and twenty disciples. But let it never be forgotten that the results of the preaching of Jesus were gathered upon the day ofPentecost, and gathered wherever those men afterwards proclaimed His death and resurrection. In the days of His public ministry He had done what He is now doing in the present day. He gathered a few in association with Himself, as He is now calling out the Church to Himself; but He prepared thousands of others to be gathered in, in the fullness of time, as He is now preparing the whole world for the preaching of the Gospel that shall succeed the present dispensation and economy. And of those multitudes around the Cross there can be no doubt that presently many came to know Him as the good Shepherd Who had laid down His life for the sheep.

Luke alone refers to the fact of the presence of His acquaintance at the Cross. The reference is undoubtedly to His kinsfolk and His neighbours from Nazareth, and their presence may be suggestive of a deepened interest. In all probability His own brothers, the sons of Mary, were among the number. It would seem as though James, the author of thé epistle, who was undoubtedly the Lord’s own brother, did not come into true sympathy with Him during the life of Jesus. May it not be that in the presence of that Cross and through the events following, he was led to a knowledge of the truth concerning the Master? In the attitude of these kinsfolk and acquaintance of Jesus, and if the foregoing supposition concerning His own brothers be correct, what a revelation there is for all time that familiarity may be most distant.

Discipleship was represented at the Cross especially by John. He seems to have been the only one who came very near the place of his Master’s suffering, and his nearness issued in the sacred charge of Mary, which was committed to him by his dying Lord.

Looking back at that whole scene, how truly remarkable it is.

The first impression is that of a Roman gibbet surrounded by a promiscuous mob, while one frail, weak Man finds relief from overwhelming agony in the act of death. But look again, and it is seen to be the place of a throne. The throne is occupied by One Who is at once King and Judge, finding verdicts and pronouncing sentences, and all in the neighbourhood of the Cross are judged by the Cross. His dying is the condemnation of evil in every form. His dying is the pathway of deliverance for those who at the Cross turn from the things the Cross condemns, to put their trust in Him. Such He leads by the way of the Cross to the broad life that stretches away on the other side.

“I take, O Cross, thy shadow,

For my abiding place;

I ask no other sunshine
Than the sunshine of thy face.

Content to let the world go by,
To know no shame nor loss.

My sinful self my only shame,
My glory all the Cross.”*

*E. C. Clephane.

“Crown Him with many crowns,

The Lamb upon His throne;

Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns
All music but its own.

Awake, my soul, and sing
Of Him Who died for thee,

And hail Him as thy chosen King
Through all eternity.

“Crown Him, the Lord of Love!

Behold His Hands and Side

Rich Wounds, yet visible above
In beauty glorified:

No angel in the sky
Can fully bear that sight,

But downward bends his burning eye
At mysteries so bright.

“Crown Him, the Lord of Peace:

Whose power a sceptre sways

From pole to pole — that wars may cease
Absorbed in prayer and praise:

His reign shall know no end,
And round His pierced Feet

Fair flowers of paradise extend
Their fragrance ever sweet.

“Crown Him, the Lord of Years,

The Potentate of time;

Creator of all rolling spheres,
Ineffably sublime:

All hail! Redeemer, hail!
For Thou hast died for me:

Thy praise shall never, never fail
Throughout eternity.” — M. Bripers