I SHALL SUFFER MANY THINGS

I SHALL SUFFER MANY THINGS

 

Jesus had known that He must soon die a shameful death. It was the reward for which he was waiting and no one could have defrauded Him of it. He who saves others is ready to lose Himself; He who rescues others necessarily pays with His person (that is, with the only value which is really His and which surpasses and includes all other values); it is fitting that He who loves his enemies should be hated even by his friends; he who brings salvation to all nations must necessarily be killed by His own people; it suits human ideas of the fitness of things that He who offers His life should be put to death. Every aid is such an offense to the native ingratitude of men that it can be paid for only by the heaviest penalty. (Matt. 16:24-28) We lend ears only to voices which cry out from the tombs, and reserve our scanty capacity for reverence for those whom we have assassinated. The only truths which remain in the fleet­ing memory of the human race are the truths written in blood.

Jesus knew what was awaiting Him at Jerusalem, and as later was said by one worthy to portray Him, His every thought was colored by the thought of death. Three times they had already tried to kill Him; the first time at Nazareth when they took Him up on the summit of the mountain where the city was built and attempted to cast Him down; the second time in the Temple, the Jews, offended by His talk, laid their hands on stones to stone Him; and a third time at the feast of the Dedication in winter-time, they took up the stones of the street to silence Him. But for these three times he es­caped because His hour was not yet come.

He kept His certainty of death in His own heart for Himself alone until His last hours. For He did not wish to sadden His disciples who would have shrunk from following a condemned man, a man who in His own heart knew Himself at the point of death. But after the triple consecration as Messiah—Peter's cry, the light of Hermon, the anointing of Bethany—He could no longer keep silence. He knew too well the ingenu­ous complacency of the Twelve. He knew that when the rare moments of enthusiasm and illumination were gone, their thoughts were often the common thoughts of common people, human even in their highest dreams. He knew that the Mes­siah for whom they were waiting was a victorious restorer of the Age of Money and not the Man of Sorrows. They thought of Him as a king on his throne and not as a criminal on the gal­lows; triumphant, receiving homage and tribute, not spat upon, beaten, and insulted; come to raise the dead and not to be executed like an assassin.

Lest the Disciples should lose this new certainty of Christ's Messiahship on the day of His humiliation, Christ knew that He must warn them. They must learn from His own mouth that the Messiah would be condemned, that the Victorious One would disappear in a dreadful downfall, that the King of all kings would be insulted by Caesar's servants, that the Son of God would be crucified by the ignorant, blind servants of God. (Matt. 17:22-23)

Three times they had tried to put Him to death; three times after Peter's recognition He announced to the Twelve His im­minent death. And there were to be three kinds of men who were to bring about His death: the Elders, the High Priests and the Scribes. (Matt. 16:21; 26:3; 27:41) The Elders were the Patricians, the aristo­crats, the lay delegates of the Hebrew middle-classes, they represented authority and wealth, and Christ had come to trans­form authority into service and to condemn the rich and their treasures. The High Priests represented the Temple, and He had come to destroy the Temple. The Scribes were the doctors of law, of theology, the interpreters of the Book, the mas­ters of the Scriptures, and represented the authority of word and of tradition; and He had come to transform the Word and to regenerate the tradition. These three orders of men never could forgive Him even after they had sent Him to Golgotha.

And there were to be three accomplices to His death: Judas who betrayed Him, Caiaphas who sentenced Him, and Pilate who permitted the execution of the sentence. And there were to be three sorts of men to execute the penalty: the guards who arrested Him, the Hebrews who cried "Crucify Him!" before the procurator's house, the Roman soldiers who nailed Him on the cross.

There were to be three degrees of His afflictions, as He Him­self told the disciples. First He was to be spurned and out­raged, then spit upon and beaten, and finally killed. But they were not to fear nor to weep. As life has its reward in death, death is the promise of a second life. After three days, He was to rise from the tomb, never more to die. Christ was to be vic­torious not over earthly kingdoms, but over death. He does not bring golden treasures, nor abundance of grain, but im­mortality to all those who obey Him, and the cancelation of all sins committed by men. He was to buy this immortality and this liberation by imprisonment and death. The price was hard and bitter, but without those few days of His Passion and burial He could not have secured centuries and centuries of life and freedom for men.

The Disciples were troubled at this revelation and unwilling to believe. But Jesus had already begun His Passion, fore­seeing those terrible last days of His life and describing them. From now on the heirs of His work knew all, and He could go on His way towards Jerusalem in order that His words should be fulfilled to the very last.