1 W. E. Biederwolf. s The Spirit of Father Fdber (1914), 39.
456 CONTRITION
no hesitation in applying the prophecy to the piercing of the Saviour on Calvary's cross.
^| Many years ago there was a striking picture to be seen in one of the galleries of Paris. It was the picture of the dead Christ. On the left side was a child holding in its two tiny hands the pale, worn, strained Hand of the Saviour. The child had been gazing on the dark, blood-stained wound in the centre of the Palm, and the eyes were brimful of tears, the brows were knit, the face was grieved with anguish, and the lips quivered ! x
T| You all remember the action of Michael Angelo's Christ, — the right hand raised as if in violence of reprobation ; and the left closed across His breast, as refusing all mercy. The action is one which appeals to persons of very ordinary sensations, and is very naturally adopted by the Eenaissance painter, both for its popular effect, and its capabilities for the exhibition of his surgical science. But the old painter-theologian [Orcagna], though indeed he showed the right hand of Christ lifted, and the left hand laid across His breast, had another meaning in the actions. The fingers of the left hand are folded, in both the figures ; but' in Michael Angelo's as if putting aside an appeal ; in Orcagna's, the fingers are bent to draw back the drapery from the right side. The right hand is raised by Michael Angelo as in anger ; by Orcagna, only to show the wounded palm. And as, to the believing disciples, He showed them His hands and His side, so that they were glad, — so, to the unbelievers, at their judgment, He shows the wounds in hand and side. They shall look on Him whom they pierced.2
(1) The cross reveals our sin. — The vileness of an object is revealed by contrast with some other of perfect purity. The shadows of the mountains are best realized when we can contrast them with their lights ; dark caves are appreciated properly only in the day, as they defy the sunbeams of heaven. So is it with these vile souls of ours ; they never seem so vile as when they are brought alongside the pure heart of Christ, and are seen in their natural relations to Him.
(2) The cross condemns our sin. — It is apparently easy to shuffle off responsibility by affirming that we were not partakers in the blood of the prophets, that we were not parties to the cruci- fixion of Christ; we may even subscribe, as the Jews did, to build monuments for the martyrs, and condemn their murderers, yet
1 F. Harper, Echoes from the Old Evangel, 44.
5 Ruskin, Vol (TArno, x. § 256 ( Works, xxiii. 149).
ZECHARIAH xn. 10 457
our spirits may be all the while such as to make us responsible for the past. We cannot cut ourselves adrift from our ante- cedents or our ancestry, as sailors slip a cable in the night. Christ indeed affirmed a principle in His day about descending and accumulating responsibility which we must recognize. He told His contemporaries that their treatment of Himself demonstrated that they were the persecuting children of those persecuting sires who had shed the blood of the prophets, and that all that blood would be required of them since they were about to murder Him. Their repudiation of the murder of the prophets, their subscrip- tions to build their tombs, their effort to sever themselves from the responsibilities of the past, would not avail them so long as they cherished vindictive feelings towards the incarnate God.
(3) The cross is the instrument of true repentance. — We cannot intelligently contemplate the crucifixion without feeling that our spiritual attitude is naturally such towards Christ as to involve us in the crime of His death. Sin we see clearly is Deicide, and deserves death and exile from God for ever. We come, in fact, through the cross into a state of apprehension lest the just judg- ment of God overtake us on account of sin.
But once the love of the cross is felt aa a regenerating power, we come to feel very differently regarding our sins. That is to say, we do not so much fear the punishment they deserve, we do not sorrow over them as those that have no hope, but we come to sorrow over them as wrongs done to our nearest and dearest friend, and we turn from them and from ourselves with deepest loathing. In a word, we come to " sympathize with the law that condemns us ; we take God's side against ourselves, and hate the sin more than we fear the punishment."
(4) This repentance is of a most tlwroughgoing kind. — The grief for sin itself is overborne and compassed about by the greater grief occasioned by the sad results of sin upon the person of the pierced One. Sin is grieved over as it is against the Lord : even as David cries, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned." The mourning of a penitent is not because of hell ; if there were no hell he would mourn just as much. His grief is not for what sin
' might cost himself, but for what it has cost the Substitute. He bemoans himself thus : " Oh, how could I have pierced Him ? How could I have wounded the Beloved ? Lover of my soul, how could