The cross and the garden

Contents

PAGE

I THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN ..... 9

II THE FUNDAMENTAL SACRIFICE 1 9

II

TEXT : Revelation 13 :8. The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

IN those few words, infinity seems to be flung into a phrase. It is a strange book, this book called the Revelation of St. John. In our time one has a feeling that it is scarcely worth while to try and explain in detail its symbolism, it is so oriental, so highly coloured, so remote from our ordinary western thinking.

The experience of commentators through long centuries has shown how impossible it is to reach unanimity in our interpretations of this book. So much that was poignantly present or imminently impending to the writer has passed into the distance for us and it is only with difficulty that we may re-discover it. Opinions differ as to whether the meaning of the book is entirely in the past or whether it is not even yet mainly in the future. Amidst these contending views, choleric argumentative people continually quarrel about the book, and lethargic people consistently neglect it and so both become losers, for it is a great and wonderful book with a singular faculty as I have said for flinging infinity into a mere phrase.

Nobody can read it through, even though they feel they do not understand it but they will carry away with them sentences they will never forget ; great sentences which are like searchlights throwing light upon some of earth's most intricate problems. Here in this passage before us is one of those phrases : —

"The Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. ,,

Nobody can forget that, nobody has forgotten. For all these centuries it has laid hold upon the imagination of Christian men. It is of course possible, and it is only right that I should point out to you that there are two ways of rendering this passage; it is largely a matter of punctuation. You may read it as though that phrase, "from the foundation of the world" belonged to the book in which the names of the elect were written or you may read it so that it belongs to the Lamb that was slain. But after all, to hesitate seems mere pedantry. We know that the Christian imagination laid hold of that thought of a fundamental sacrifice in the first generation. You remember how Peter says: —

"The precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you."

You can recall many passages in the Epistles of St. Paul which carry the thought concerning Jesus the

Christ back, back to the very beginning of things, back to the very heart and will of the Eternal. You cannot doubt that in the first generation the Christian mind seized upon this thought concerning the Christ, and in all the generations which have succeeded, the experience of men has been responding to it.

When you come to consider the life of Jesus of Nazareth as you consider most other people's lives, you wonder what there can have been about it which so took hold of men and so fastened itself upon the imagination of the world. If you have been to the East and have yourself trodden over those sacred spots, or if you have merely gazed at pictures of Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, and perceived the comparative insignificance of these localities, the crudity of so many things that still persist in that locality, you find the thought coming into your mind, "How did it happen that a life lived amid such mean surroundings, in such a remote corner of the earth, at such a far distant time should have so taken hold of mankind as to become the central thing in history, in thought, in morals and in religion? Do you realise that there were probably not so many people who saw Jesus of Nazareth in the flesh as there were who saw the boat-race yesterday? It was only a brief life, very simple in its habits, very unostentatious in its methods, very clear and true ill its character, a brief life blotted out suddenly in shame. How was it? Let history tell us, for it is a problem which falls to it to explain.

Surely it must be, as the Christian imagination saw almost from the first, that there were implications in that life and in that death that go right back to the foundation of the world. That is what men of inspired intuition saw in the first generation, that is what men have been working out for nineteen centuries at least, and I venture to say will continue to work out so long as man endures.

Here in the heart of it is this comparison of Jesus Christ with the Lamb. Why, there is something that goes back to the foundation of things. There has always been something in the world which corresponded to the lamb, just as there has always been something in the world which found its appropriate symbol in the lion or the tiger. You cannot go out and look about you in this wonderful world of God's but you feel those two powers continually present, the power of the lion and the power of the lamb. When Nature smiles upon you and the sun shines, when the gentle rain falls bringing forth the harvest, when the great sea hushes itself and becomes like glass, you think of that marvellous gentleness that pulses through the world of which the lamb might seem to be the symbol. Ay, but to-morrow there will be not sunshine but storm, there will be not the green fertile meadows but the drought and the famine and the hurricane. You will marvel then at the power there is in the world which is ruthless, fierce and cruel as a lion or a tiger.

Away in Australia once, far away in the remoter parts where the drought sometimes comes and stays for months and even years, a minister of the Gospel came to the home of a settler and said to him as he met him on the verandah, "I have come to offer prayer with you for the breaking* of the drought." And the man said, — "Listen" — and as they listened they heard the poor sheep pitifully bleating, and the cattle gasping in the heat, and the man said, "If that prayer is not reaching Heaven do you think yours would?" Have we not looked upon Nature when she seemed the crudest thing conceivable?

You remember those words of William Blake, who chose not the lion as the symbol of the more cruel aspect of nature but the tiger. The tiger was not known to the writers of the Bible or doubtless they would have fixed upon him rather than the lion as the emblem of the fierceness which is in things. In this strange chapter from which I have quoted you get the apocalyptic vision of evil as coming out of the sea in the form of a beast part leopard, part lion, part bear: — "The beast which I saw was like unto a leopard" (swift springing force) "and his feet were as the feet of a bear," (dull brutal force) "and his mouth as the mouth of a lion" (strong, indomitable, fierce). William Blake has the same vision as he writes these words : —

"Tiger, tiger burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

"In what distant deep or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

"And what shoulders and what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hands and what dread feet;

"What the hammer, what the chain ?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

"When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

"Tiger, tiger burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry ?"

Expound it how you will, they go back to the foundation of things, the tiger and the lamb. No wonder that religious thought chose as the symbol for the expression of its deepest feeling, the lamb; no wonder that in the Old Testament literature you meet again and again, the lamb. You remember how central a place it occupied in the ritual of the Jewish people, how familiar a sight it was to see a lamb being taken away to the Temple to be offered as a sacrifice for the sins of the people. Religious thought was instinctively right. You could not imagine it choosing the lion or the tiger as the symbol of its worship. That lowly feeling of dependence upon the infinite; that tender searching of the conscience, of repentance and prayer could find no more appropriate symbol wherewith to express itself than the symbol «of the lamb. You remember when John the Baptist in a moment of inspiration looked upon Jesus of Nazareth, he said, — "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." No one can think of the. life that He lived, of the death that He died without feeling that the lamb was the true expression of His character, of His attitude towards God and man.

Right down the Christian centuries you know what a great place in its symbolism and its imagery the lamb has played It is a symbol of weakness, of dependence, of sacrifice.

But I think we have over-stressed the passivity of the sacrifice of the lamb. When I read this wonderful book we call the Revelation, I notice that the lamb is spoken of twenty-seven times. But when I have finished reading the book the impression that is left upon my mind is not the passive sacrifice, but the strength of the lamb. It is stronger than the lion. It is the conqueror of the leopard and the bear. The lamb as it had been slain is seen in the centre, and the voice that cries that none is worthy to open the book save the lamb. The victorious saints "overcame by the blood of the lamb." It is the victory of the lamb that the book proclaims, it is with the marriage of the lamb that the book closes.

Have we not misunderstood our Lord very largely when we have considered that His contribution was the contribution of sacrifice only? Did Christ lift the world simply because He lay down to be trampled upon? No! He lifted the world because about His gentleness there was a strength that was greater than the strength of the lion. When He hung upon that Cross with drooping head, with the blood trickling from His thorn-crowned brow He was not the weakest in that multitude, He was the strongest. The very Roman soldiers at the foot of the cross bowed before Him; they who had spat in His face went away smiting their breasts, confessing their sin. There is a strength about gentleness which is greater than the strength of the lion. Right does not conquer wrong merely by lying down to be trodden upon. Right wins over wrong by refusing to take the same weapons that wrong uses, because you cannot beat the beast in the beast's own way without becoming a beast. You will not conquer the lion upon his own ground, except as you become fiercer than the lion. If you would outdo the tiger in fierceness you must become worse than the tiger. That is what we have been proving these t last few years. How did we overcome the ruthless nation which sprang upon the world with the suddenness of the leopard, the dull brutality of the bear, the remorselessness of the lion? Alas in those unprepared moments we had no other means than to outbeast the beast. So we won what we call the victory, but we are beginning to discover that it was not the victory, it was only a tilt upward of the see-saw. The victory has still to be won, and we shall not win it until we win in the spirit of the lamb.

We have not yet begun or have scarcely begun to discover the strength of character. It has only just begun to dawn upon us that there are resources of power in the spirit of the lamb which are infinitely mightier than the spirit of the lion. We have scarcely as yet begun to attempt to solve our problems by justice, and reason and law. We have said that the swiftness of the leopard or the deadly brutality of the bear, or the ruthless strength of the lion were symbols of a nation's greatness, yet all the time history proclaims with manifold voices that the nations which grow in power are after all the nations that serve, the nations that manifest patience and generosity. It is the victory of the lamb that is the only victory over the beast. It has taken us a long while to learn it, but we shall have to learn it in time or our children will have to learn it after us. The only way upward is the way of character, character that is strong within itself but gentle in its expression, which finds its ideal in service rather than in domination. The "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" has taken hold of the world for that very reason, because of His power to go down to the roots of things. You cannot dislodge Jesus Christ from His central place in the history of the world because all the time He is bearing witness to those great and holy truths which as yet mankind has only seen dimly and afar ofr*.

This is but one facet of that marvellous flashing jewel, the Cross. One feels ashamed to have spoken of the Cross and have said so little. You cannot exhaust its meaning. The Cross is like a great cut diamond with a myriad of facets upon which the light flashes from every angle. Let us try and catch this one beam of light this morning, that true strength is lamb-like in character. The tiger is only overcome in the end by that superior strength which looks into its eyes and quells its savageness. Sin, injustice, social tangles, international quarrels are not solved in the end by the swift springing of the leopard, the slow brutality of the bear, or the relentless ferocity of the lion, but by the meekness which is anything but weakness and the capacity to receive and interpret that divine lamb-like spirit which endures from the foundation of the world and was manifested in Him whom we gladly own as Lord.

Ill

WHAT IS TRUTH?

TEXT: John 18:37. Pilate therefore said unto Him, Art Thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth My voice ! Pilate saith unto Him, What is truth ?

THE men who wrote the Gospel stories did not write as dramatists would have written. They scarcely seemed conscious of their audience ; there is no perceptible striving after effect; there is no massing of events to reach a great climax; there is little or no use of emotional words.

About this strange reticence there is doubtless a divine wisdom, for nothing palls upon us more than a stereotyped scene or dramatised emotion. Every man must paint his own picture and try to see these great things that happened so long ago. And this is how it seems to me it came to pass that Jesus said to Pilate :

"Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice/' and "Pilate said unto Him, 'What is truth?' "

Pontius Pilate had been wakened up in the early hours of the morning, just about cock-crow, and had gone reluctantly out to deal with the angry mob which surged about his palace steps, for they were led by

SO THE CROSS AND THE GARDEN

men whose hostility he knew and whose power he feared.

He was in a sullen and angry mood. He disliked this Jewish people, over whom Caesar had sent him to rule. They were the most turbulent race of which he had any experience. There was something about them which baffled and irritated him. The most ambitious, the most restless of all the nations with which he had come in contact in his campaigns, they were yet the most religious.

Pilate had a Roman soldier's contempt for religion. It is true he was superstitious ; some unexpected event, some omen, a dream, the pronouncement of some oracle., could cause him to tremble, but as for religion — had he not seen hundreds of them? He had been in Egypt and Persia, through Asia Minor and in the Balkans — had seen hundreds of different forms of religion, and all seemed much alike. With all their prayers and mystic rites, none of these peoples had been able to stand up against the Roman legions. As for him, give him a legion of hardy veterans, shining armour, flashing spears, trusty swords, and a fig for all the religions in the world!

Yet these Jewish people baffled him, irritated him. He had tried putting them down by force, he had ridden rough-shod over their prejudices, but, so surely as he touched their religion, they rose against him, defenceless as sheep, but angry as wolves. It was all so illogical and absurd.

He looked at them now. It was like their bigotry, that they would not so much as set foot within the palace, because, forsooth, they counted it unclean, as a court of the Gentiles, — they, the members of a subject race, were yet so arrogant as to regard Caesar's Pretorium as an unclean thing. Nothing would do but that he, their Governor, must go out to them, taking no notice of their insult, and speak to them from the marble pavement. Verily it would have pleased him better to have sent a file of soldiers to clear them away from the place, but experience had taught him that it was better to swallow a great deal of insult from the Jews than to stir up their passions.

Therefore Pontius Pilate had gone out to them, and one glance was enough to show him that all this commotion concentrated in one solitary Man, whom they had thrust forward. Pilate's first impression was that He was perfectly harmless. He looked at Him with the eyes of a trained soldier; he looked first for sign of weapons. There was none. He was dressed in a simple white robe, open at the neck, and somewhat dishevelled with rough handling. His hands were securely bound behind His back. He looked for confederates. There were none. Every face was distorted with passion and set against the prisoner. Pilate shrugged his shoulders. A mouse in the talons of an eagle was not more helpless than this Man.

Such things had happened before, and had nothing to do with him. "What accusation bring ye against this Man?" said he.

He knew that they did not like him. There was a secret hostility always in their hearts ready to be manifested against him; they would as soon have his life as anybody's, and their reply was like a snarl, as it came back, — "If He were not an evil-doer, we should not have delivered Him up unto thee."

Once more Pilate looked at the Man. An evil-doer ? He knew in an instant, for he was a trained observer of men, that this Prisoner would not have harmed a child, the honour of a woman would have been safe with Him, the wealth of the Indies would have passed through His hands undiminished. It was a pity to see Him in the clutches of this mob, — but then, — it had nothing to do with him.

"Take Him away," he said, turning to go back into the palace ; "take Him away and deal with Him according to your own law."

Their answer caused him to turn back again and face them. They said, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death."

Ah, so that was what they wanted. Their looks betokened it surely enough. The blood-lust was in their eyes; they seemed to show their fangs as wolves do. He knew now why they had troubled him, — not out of personal respect, but merely to save legal consequences. They would make a convenience of his rank and official position, but woe be to him if he thwarted their desires. It was known to some among them, as it was known to himself, that his favour with Caesar was very insecure. It was not easy to set this Man free.

Once more his eyes rested upon the Prisoner. His was the only calm face amid that seething sea of faces. And what a face it was. There was that about it which forbade Pilate to send Him to death, as he had sent many another in his time. He could not for the life of him act with his usual arrogance that day.

There came to Pilate an instinctive desire to get away from the madding crowd, and, unhampered by their prejudices and clamours, to be alone with this Man and speak with Him face to face.

He entered again into his palace and sat down upon the dais in the seat of authority. He gave command that the Prisoner should appear before him. Quietly and with stately mien, Jesus moved to a position in front of the powerful Roman, and turned His deep and beautiful eyes full upon him. Outside, the impatient murmuring of the cruel crowd continued, and the sound was wafted into the Judgment Hall.

Pontius Pilate sat in his richly gilded chair of office, looking moodily at the white-robed figure of the Man who stood before him.

Around him were the marks of luxury and refinement. Costly tapestries hung before the walls, statuary adorned the apartment, his feet rested upon a rich rug that lay upon the polished floor.

He rested his chin in the palm of his hand, and looked into the face of the Prophet of Galilee.

For a moment there was silence; then Pilate's involuntary question surprised even himself : —

"Art Thou the King of the Jews?"

A faint smile came over the face of Jesus, as He said : —

"Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee concerning Me ?"

It was the first time Pilate had heard His voice. Pilate was angry. The question seemed to him to suggest that he had lowered his dignity enough to exchange opinions with that crowd outside. It was the Prisoner's own deportment that had made him associate the thought of kingliness with Him.

<f Am I a Jew?" he asked contemptuously; "Thine own nation and the chief priests delivered Thee unto me: 'What hast Thou done?' "

There was a far-away look in the eyes of Christ, as if He were seeing into the far distances. At the base of His consciousness He heard the baying of the crowd that was thirsting for His blood, but His great soul was seeing "the joy that was set before Him," and His voice was musical and quiet as He said : —

"My kingdom is not of this world : if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews : but now is My kingdom not from hence."

A strange feeling of awe came over Pontius Pilate. He felt as he had felt in the presence of Tiberius, save for that dishevelled robe, the bound hands of the Prisoner, and that angry murmur of voices outside. It would not have seemed unnatural to have made an obeisance ; then he said : —

"Art Thou a king then?"

And the deep eyes of Jesus rested upon him, as He answered in calm musical tones : —

"Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born and to this end came I into the world.

that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice."

Pontius Pilate was looking into the eyes of the Christ, in the hush of that room, with a strange feeling about his heart he had not been conscious of before. He could not see what Jesus saw, for he was of the earth earthy. All his life long his passion had been for temporal power, for military power, for all the pomp and circumstance of official might. A rich palace, a sumptuous table, the command of armies; these were the breath 'of life to him. That which was only subordinate in the consciousness of the Master was very real to him. That crowd outside, with its implacable leaders, with its secret knowledge concerning his past, and its scarcely veiled threats of revenge. That was truth to Pontius Pilate.

And yet he could not withhold the homage of his soul from the Man who stood before him. He was impressed with a sense of spiritual realities, as he looked upon Him. He felt vaguely that this Prisoner had the truth of things. He could feel the attraction of this Man's splendour of character; he was not dead to moral appeal. But there was an appeal that was more forceful, more loud, more terrible. It was the appeal that came murmuring through the closed doors. There was that crowd outside. The thing that was remote to Jesus at that moment was the uppermost thing with Pontius Pilate, — that angry blood-thirsty crowd, seething at the base of the palace steps. What is kingship, if these are its subjects? What is truth, high spiritual truth, if force thus gives it the blatant lie?

Pontius Pilate, torn between the two feelings, shrugged his shoulders and said, — "What is truth?"

Two things kindle my imagination in connection with this incident. The first is that Jesus and Pilate were alone. Pilate had yielded to an instinctive feeling he had not analysed, when, instead of sweeping away this Prisoner with one wave of the hand, he had felt he must bring Him away from that seething crowd into the silence of the Hall of Judgment.

It is the miracle of Jesus, that He is alone with people. It is the testimony of men all down the ages that, somehow, Jesus Christ has a way of coming in from the crowd, Himself unique, alone, and finding a man when he too is alone.

And now what is truth ? This is the question which has awakened the imagination of multitudes who have read this story. It chimes in with that restless seeking for that which corresponds with fact or reality, which seems to be life's keenest quest.

They had both used the word Truth. They were both truthseekers ; they were both what Carlyle would have called "Sons of Fact." Pontius Pilate was a son of fact. When he utters those words, "What is truth," they seem to me to be autobiographical. One wants to know more about this man; one would like to hear the story of his life. There is something wistful about this saying; its very cynicism arouses your sympathy. You wonder through what he had passed before he could say that word with that curl of the lip. You seem to see him again as he used to be when he was a boy, when ideals soared before his mind and charmed his vision, and his untried soul went out purely to wrestle with the world. Pontius Pilate's life had been passed in camps and in courts. He was a son of fact, keen, observant, critical. He had seen how things were done, how power and influence had triumphed over merit and truth ; he had seen it, he knew it was so ; and slowly he had surrendered to it, and now he was a son of fact. There was the crowd outside; there were the chief priests and other bitter implacable leaders. There were the subtle influences that would find their way to Caesar's throne; there was something that would pluck him from his place and fling him down; it was fact; he knew it was fact.

Yet he could feel the power of the truth that Christ represented, and, if I mistake not, Christ was sorry for him.

"I find no fault in Him." That was his spontaneous verdict.

Sad that his deepest conviction should be in such irrevocable conflict with that blatant fact outside. What was the use of the innocence of this Man, when cruel power was at the door ? Pilate shrugged his shoulders, therefore, and said, "I cannot help it; I am not responsible; I am sorry for the Man, but I must yield to the facts."

So he went out and faced the mob, and said these contradictory things : — *

" T find no fault in Him at all/ and (in hope of a weak compromise) 'Ye have a custom that I should release unto you one at the Passover; will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews ?' but they cried out, 'Not this Man, but Barabbas.' "