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However deeply personal misunderstanding wounded Him, there is no trace of scar in the Man as we behold Him ; it was when "the kingdom" was misunderstood, when the spiritual was exploited in interests political or legal, when human life was cheapened, when the Magdalen's gift or the publican's hospitality was misconstrued, it was then that the wound was inflicted, that the isolation became anguish. This is something so altogether beyond the experience of ordinary life that many men and women must live and die without so much as a glimpse of the lonely regions Jesus trod.1
3. But the real sorrow of Christ was "the travail of his soul" in bearing the burden of our sin. In some mysterious manner He became identified with the guiltiness and sinfulness of our poor human nature. He was "made to be sin for us, who knew no sin." The sting of death is sin; and it was necessary that He should receive that sting into His own bosom. In Gethsemane He trembled under the fearful oppression of the touch of sin ; but the trembling at length passed away, and He braced Himself to endure the cross, and be "made a curse for us." He reached the climax of His unspeakable anguish — the darkness, blacker than midnight, which for a space rested on His soul — when He cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" To be forsaken of God is the last con- sequence of sin — the very hell of hell. The Redeemer had to endure for a season the awful sense of Divine rejection and desertion, in order that we sinful men might be readily recon- ciled to God, and become partakers of eternal life.
The Son of God could not identify Himself absolutely with the human race without mysteriously realizing the last conse- quence of sin. From that even He shrank : but it was inevitable. He drank the bitter cup to the dregs, and it killed Him. As a distinguished physician has pointed out, all the physical symptoms indicated that Christ died literally of a broken heart. He did not die of crucifixion. In the ordinary course of nature He would have lingered for many hours. But when God mysteriously forsook Him, it was more than He could endure and live. It broke His heart literally and metaphorically. Body and soul alike were crushed by the awful experience, and, with a loud
1 T. J. Hardy, The Gospel of Pain.
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cry, He yielded up His spirit to God. He was a willing victim. No man took His life from Him. He laid it down of His own accord; and by so doing He paid such unparalleled homage to His own justice and His own righteousness that henceforward He could consistently be both " just and the justifier " of sinful man.
TJ St. John's record of the Passion is from the beginning to the end a revelation of majesty. No voice of suffering, no horror of thick darkness, find a place in it. Every indignity is so accepted by the Lord as to become part of a gracious and willing sacrifice. The words with which He goes forth to die are a declaration of a victory which has been already achieved : " I have overcome the world." The words which precede His voluntary death are the ratification of a work perfectly accomplished : " It is finished." The betrayal is fruitless till He places Himself in the hands of His enemies. He is Himself the Judge of His judges. Hanging upon the cross the Lord discharged with calm and tender authority the last offices of personal affection, the last require- ments of the Scripture which He came to fulfil. He gave up His Spirit ; and still He lived through death.1
4. Christ's sorrow was wholly vicarious, — that is, it was pure sympathy, as pure as the rain which drops from the clouds, before it has become defiled by contact with the earth. It was the faithful reflection of the Divine sorrow. It was the sorrow of one who Himself knew no sin, but who sorrowed for those who did. All the weight of sorrow which He bore was, strictly speaking, ours and not His. He had not known sorrow if He had not known us. It is a very common mistake to regard vicarious suffering as being an institution of religion and as such needing apology ; whereas, so far from being in conflict with our highest ideas of justice and morality, it is an inevitable part of all deep moral experience, and has operated throughout the history of the race as a powerful redemptive force. No one has ever tried to serve others without having had to face the necessity of suffering on their behalf. Suffering is the experience in which men feel their oneness with their kind. Christ, too, by suffering felt His oneness with men ; but largely in order to assert a singularity beyond. Through suffering He became like unto men, but only that He might effect through suffering a lonely and a singular service for them. We know from common human experience that
1 B. F. Westcott, The Victory of the Cross, 95.
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there is no real sympathy with suffering save in the breasts of those who have themselves suffered. In the school of pain men learn lessons that can be taught them nowhere else. And we can hardly conceive a Saviour who could be equal to our deepest need unless He were also one who was touched with the feeling of our infirmities. And when we take sin into account the same thing appears more clearly. We may dupe and deceive ourselves for a time, but it thrusts itself upon our attention, and the conscious- ness of it cannot be gainsaid. Because it is the burden of our life, therefore it was the burden of Christ's. He had to face it if ever He was to become the Redeemer of the world ; and it was no light and easy task. He can speak to the soul in the anguish of penitence as no other can, because He has Himself done battle with the enemy, has faced the worst that evil can do and come out in the end victorious. The cross of Jesus confronts us with the perfection of sorrow, which is the perfection of sympathy, and out of this assured sympathy spring redemption and reconciliation and pardon and peace and everlasting life.