STRONG ENOUGH TO BE WEAK ENOUGH
Here let us observe the sinners
double mistake; first their literal blunder; and secondly, their spiritual
blunder.
As to their literal blunder, let us for the moment forget all that we
know spiritually of the significance of these words of our text. It is a little
difficult to get away from the ultimate spiritual interpretation, even at the
beginning of our meditation. They said, "He
saved others," a great admission—"Himself
He cannot save," a strong declaration. They were wrong, and first they
were entirely wrong, even in the sense in which they meant the thing they
said. Jesus, during those twenty four hours could easily have saved Himself.
His being upon the Cross was not the result of their victory over Him. They had
not caught Him, trapped Him, shut Him up, imprisoned Him, crucified Him, and so
beaten Him. His being on the Cross was not their victory. All that is not the
deepest truth. Jesus could have escaped the Cross in three ways.
1. He could have escaped the Cross by
diplomacy with Pilate. Pilate earnestly sought some loophole of escape, wrought
with strange and weird persistence to discover some way by which he could deliver
Him; and a word from Jesus would have been enough. Some word of diplomacy, of
policy, of arrangement; and all the priests would have been powerless to persuade
Pilate to the thing he ultimately did. It was the silence, the heroic silence
of Jesus that compelled Pilate to do what he finally did. If for the moment
that is not convincing, then hear the words of Jesus spoken to Pilate as
recorded by another evangelist: "Thou
wouldest have no power against Me, except it were given thee from above."
He could have escaped.
2. But there was another way in
which He might have escaped, and in proportion as we really get into me atmosphere
of this wonderful scene we shall realize it. He could have escaped by popular
appeal. The cry of the crowd, presently hissed between shut teeth, "Crucify, crucify!" was but a parrot cry. They were only repeating
what they had been told to say. The high priests persuaded them to it. If one
catches a mob anywhere at the psychic moment, it will shout anything under
God's heaven! Individually, that mob may go home to repent of what it shouted,
but under the influence of excitement they will do it. The crowd was driven by
the high priests because they appealed to it first. Supposing Jesus had reached
them first with an appeal! The attempt of the rulers to avoid the feast time as
the hour of His arrest, was based on their knowledge that this was so. They
said: "Not during the feast, lest a
tumult arise among the people." They knew perfectly well that He had
but to stand erect for one moment, and say something to that crowd, and the
whole mob would have swept the priests out of the way, and delivered Him. But
He did not do it. He did not save Himself.
3. I cannot consider this matter
without going further; for He is not wholly a man as I am. If not by diplomacy
with Pilate, if not by popular appeal, then He could have escaped by Divine
wrath and destruction of His enemies. Listen to Him as He said, but a little
while before to one of His own disciples: "Thinkest
thou that I cannot beseech My Father, and He shall even now send Me more than
twelve legions of angels?" Knowing full well the danger, or at least
the inadequacy of imagination, yet as I look upon that scene, being no
Sadducee, believing as I do in angels as well as spirits, it seems as though
the very hosts of heaven could hardly be restrained from delivering Him. One
glance of His eye, one word of power, and Pilate and priests and mob would have
been swept away. He could have delivered Himself. That was their literal
blunder.
Involved within it, is that which
is the deeper thing; their spiritual
blunder. He could not save Himself! But His inability was born of His
ability; His weakness was the outcome of His strength. He was strong enough
not to save Himself, strong enough to
decline diplomacy with the Procurator, strong enough to be silent when one word
would have turned the mob into an army of His friends, strong enough to
restrain His own omnipotence, and to bow, bend, stoop, submit. He could not
save Himself.
Whence came that strength which
manifested itself in weakness? What were the secrets of that ability which had
its most eloquent expression in disability? I shall attempt to answer the
question, by putting the actual facts concerning the Lord Jesus, in contrast
with the ways already suggested, that were open to Him for escape.
Instead of employing diplomacy, we
see Him cooperating with God; that is, acting in conformity with truth, moving
along the line of the essential and the eternal; setting His face resolutely,
in spite of all that such setting of His face involved, in the direction of
holiness and light. Here we pass into the mists. Here we come into the presence
of the mystery. Yet, through the mists, out of which the light breaks; and the
mystery, through the darkness of which the revelation has proceeded, He was
striving against sin, and He was resisting unto blood! Because that was the
Divine pathway—why it was, is not now under discussion,—because in the Divine
economy He could only slay death by dying, only end sin by being made sin in an
appalling mystery, He would have no conference with any suggestion of escape
from that pathway. In that cooperation with God, in conformity to the
underlying and essential truth, however dark the way and mysterious the hour, He
was strong enough to be weak enough to die.
Or again; the second method of
escape that was certainly open to Him on the natural level was that He might
have escaped by popular appeal. He did not, because He was acting in separation
from man—that is by separation from sinners, uninfluenced by their advice, by
their votes, by their clamor—and with God for their sakes. Perhaps we can
understand this better if we allow our minds to travel away from the scene for
a moment, and remember that ever and anon in human history, as those have
appeared who have trod this self-same pathway—not in the same degree, but
obedient to the self-same principle—over and over again the men who have
fashioned the ages, and have made the conditions which have been brighter and
better and purer for the world, have had to stand alone, separating themselves
from humanity in the interest of humanity,
travelling up new Calvaries, Calvaries for which they gathered
inspiration here. So He withdrew from the crowd. He did not ask its aid. He
made no appeal to them; and that for their sakes. In the interest of their
condition, and in order that shortly He might win from them a truer judgment, a
more righteous vote, a sanctified assent, He asked nothing of them. He trod the
winepress alone, separate in His heroism from humanity, for the sake of
humanity.
Or again, if we really seek for the
secret of His strength, it is to be found finally, fundamentally, and inclusively
in that He, Who might that day have escaped the Cross by an act of Divine
destruction inspired by Divine wrath, accepted the Cross in order to an act of
salvation inspired by Divine love. He was still acting under the mastery of
the will of His God; here also, as surely as when He declined diplomacy, and
stood alone for truth, He was moving along the line of the essential and the
eternal; here, He was not in conflict with God, but in cooperation with Him. He
could not save Himself, because He was one with God in a double determination;
the determination to smite and blast and destroy sin; and the determination to
heal and lift and ennoble a sinning race. Not these things held Him; the
court, and the brutality of His enemies; but His overmastering, and over-whelming
love. He could not save Himself. Therefore He can save others.
So, finally, let us glance at the
issue of what they did not understand. Yet the whole truth of that was expressed
in what they themselves did say. What is the issue of that attitude of Jesus?
He saved others. Perhaps it would be better to change their statement a
little, not to interfere with its essential thought, but to change merely the
tenses of its verbs; so that from beneath the mistake, the essential truth
which they knew not may emerge. They said, "He
saved others," and the tense was past. They were looking back. "Himself He cannot save," and
the tense was present. They were looking at Him on the Cross. We look back at
this scene, and say: Himself He could not save. We look around today, and say:
He saves others. Though they did not understand it—even the disciples
themselves did not understand, but soon light came, and ever and anon these
men who wrote caviar records reveal in some passing phrase their past ignorance
and their new illumination - the truth is this, that all those whom He had
already saved, He had saved in the power of the fact that He could not, un that
final way, save Himself. He had opened blind eyes, He had healed palsied limbs,
He had driven fever away, He had restored physical conditions; but He always
did these things upon the basis of His passion and His atonement. The writers
came to know it, I repeat, and one memorable passage comes to mind, in which
Matthew tells the secret of a wonderful eventide by the side of the sea. They
brought unto Him from all the countryside the sick folk, and He healed them
all. If Matthew had written his record that night, he would have written with
wonder and amazement; but later on the publican saw things as he had never seen
them; and in the light of the resurrection, when he wrote his record afterwards,
this is what he said: He healed them all, "that
it might he fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying,
Himself took our infirmities, and bare our diseases." Behind all His
physical healing, was the spiritual passion of the Lord. I reverently declare
that the Man of Nazareth would never have healed a sick child, man or woman,
but in the power of that hour, when they mocked Him and scorned Him.
Turning from that past, to which
they looked, and considering that future toward which He was looking when He
could not save Himself because He would not save Himself, let us ask what the
issue of that great fact is. We will confine ourselves to the atmosphere of
this very story in considering this matter; measuring the strength by the weakness;
going again to the threefold door of escape that was open to Him in the
natural, and considering the threefold issue in the supernatural. He might
have escaped by diplomacy. He was bound by the simplicity of truth. He might
have escaped by popular appeal. He was bound by a separation from popular acclaim
in order to the redemption of the populace. He might have escaped by the
exercise of His Divine power in wrath. He was bound by the consideration of a
Divine love and mercy.
Now what has the issue been? He
established authority on the basis of truth, rather than on the shifting sand
of diplomacy. Jesus Christ is not ruling over men by diplomacy, by compromise.
Perhaps one of the most terrific things, one of the most frightening things,
and one of the most blessed things concerning Him is that He will not make a
compromise with men, that He will enter into no diplomatic relationship with
them by which, if they grant Him so much, He will grant them so much, He will
not meet men half-way. There is no diplomacy in the government of Jesus. The
day will dawn, which is not yet, but which must be, when delegated authority;—and
all authority is delegated to the Christian; in his understanding of the
universe, and his philosophy of the world, the final authority is God, and the
powers that be are all ordained by God for beneficent purposes;—shall be based,
not upon diplomacy but upon truth. I do not say that all diplomacy must be
untrue, but it is in terrible danger of being untrue. I will go so far as to
say that when in this country we have done with a good deal of our diplomacy,
and the whole truth of foreign conditions is before the people, we shall do
better than we have done; when we have simple, clear statements of the facts of
the case, and not half-veiled lies that deceive. That day is coming. We are
moving toward it slowly, through catastrophe and cataclysm and blood and fire
and vapor of smoke; and all the way He leads, the Man Who can save others, because
He would not save Himself.
Consequently therefore, by His
action He prepared for a popular vote which shall be inspired by wisdom and by
love. He prepared for a people ransomed, and a people emancipated, who
presently will bow to the authority of His truth, and acclaim Him Lord. Today
we may hold almost in contempt the opinion of the crowd. How soon a man is
forgotten. Let him drop out, and who thinks or cares for him? Let a prophet be
gone, and within a decade there will be a letter in the newspaper, drawing
attention to the fact that his grave is neglected! If a man is going to depend
upon the opinion of a crowd, God pity that map. Nevertheless, the day is coming
when all peoples and families and nations and tongues and temperaments will
forget their differences, and merge in one great song, and it will be the song
that proclaims Immanuel, King of kings, and Lord of lords. But that day would never have been reached
but by His pathway of loneliness.
Finally, therefore, He made
possible the saving of those very men who otherwise would have been destroyed.
What men? Those very men locally, for the universal will best be seen here in
the light of the local. The men who were round His Cross, the soldiers who
crucified Him, the mob that clamored against Him; the priests, those very men
could be saved because He did not save Himself. There is a little statement of
history, in the Acts of the Apostles, full of interest: "And the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples
multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly; and a great company of the priests were
obedient to the faith." These very men that mocked Him, that jeered at
Him, He made possible their saving! In that is the greatness of His victory.
This, blessed be God, is the
Gospel. He saves others; Himself He could not save. Or once again, to change
the reading: To save others, He did not save Himself. He could not save
Himself, because He was determined to save others.
If we name His name, if we wear
His sign, if we profess that we are Christ's men and Christ's women, then we
have to remember that this is not the Gospel only; it is the law. It is the
abiding principle of the propagation of the Gospel, and must be to the end of
stress and strain and conflict. Every Christian worker of whom it is true that
he or she is saving others, cannot save himself or herself. Or again to change
the method of the statement; the measure in which we are at the end of
attempting to save ourselves, is the measure in which we are moving out upon
the highway of being able to save
others. That is true in statesmanship. That is true in all the ministry of men
to the needs created by the tragedy of life. It is true of the pulpit.
It is true of statesmanship. If
statesmen are attempting to save themselves and their country, they will fail.
If statesmen are seeking the larger good, and are moving along the line of
giving themselves out in sacrifice in order to reach the larger goal, they will
save others.
In the case of those who minister
to human need, doctors and nurses, I need not argue it. It is always true of
such that they are not counting their own lives dear unto them, that they may
make this sacred service of ministry and sacrifice.
It is true of the pulpit. We can
make no contribution toward the victory of spiritual truth save at the point of
sacrifice. A young minister fresh from college, said to W. L. Watkinson, that
master of satire, upon one occasion, "You
know, Dr. Watkinson, preaching does not take anything out of me."
"No," said Dr. Watkinson, "and
therefore, it puts nothing into anyone else!" That is true, Biblically
true. If we are to save others, we cannot save ourselves. The only question
that we have to face is this: Are we strong enough to be weak,
mighty enough to submit, able for the gracious disability out of which the
forces that renew, spring for the blessing of humanity?
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