3. 'Woman, behold thy son . . . behold thy mother.' — Christ from His cross has interceded for the sinful Avorld, He has proclaimed the gospel of forgiveness to the penitent robber ; but He has yet, in the jirogressive stages of His ministry of love, another blessing to bestow. In this Avord our Lord comes near His oAvn. His first Avord Avas for His enemies ; His second for one who had been His enemy, but Avas no longer one ; His third Avas for those Avho had never been His enemies — for His mother and the disciple Avhom He loved. ' There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother ' ( Jn 19-'). For this the aged Simeon had prepared her, Avhen, taking the infant Jesus in his arms, he had told her that a SAvord should pierce through her oAvn soul (Lk 2''^) ; and noAV these Avords Avere being ful- filled. Jesus from His cross beholds His mother, and is mindful of the years Avhich He had spent under her tender care in the quiet home of Nazareth. He had told her, both Avhen she found Him in the Temple and also at the marriage feast in Cana (Lk 2*^, Jn 2^), that there Avas a higher duty than that Avhich He OAved to her, a higher relation- ship than that between mother and son, — He Avas not only her son, He Avas also her Lord, — yet the earthly relationship is not forgotten. He Avill not depart before He has provided a home for her ; Avith His parting breath He commits her to the care of the disciple whom He loved : ' Woman, behold tliy son . . . behold thy mother.'
4. ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' — A long space of time intervenes betAveen the third and fourth words. ' From the sixth hour there Avas darkness OA^er all the land unto the ninth hour' (Mt 2V^). The first three Avords Avere spoken before the darkness, but noAv a change has come — darkness reigns on Calvary, as if God had draAvn a A^eil over the scene. Three hours of silence and darkness. It is the climax of the sufferings of our Lord, the hour and poAver of darkness ; Avhat
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takes place we know not ; He trod the winepress alone (Is 63^). He is alone in His conflict with the powers of evil, dark without, dark within, — how dark we may gather from the awful cry that escaped from His lips at the end of those long hours, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'
What did it mean? It did not mean that He was forsaken by His Father. Had not the Father said, 'This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased' (Mt S^'') ? Had not He Hmiself said, ' Behold the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone : ancl yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me ' ( Jn 16^-) ? But there was a connexion between the death of Christ and sin ; it was an atonement for sin : ' The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all '(Is 53"). And the misery of sin is that it hides the face of God. It is the loss of God's presence ; and Christ, as our representative, in bearing our sins, entered into our condition, involving the consciousness of the loss of God's presence. He felt as though God had hidden His face. He descended with us into the depth of our degradation, made like unto us in all things, yet without sin. But the mystery of this bitter cry we, with our finite understandings, can never fathom : ' I and the Father are one,' and yet 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' Tills the early Christians fully realized, for in their oft-repeated litanies they used to say, ' By Thy sufferings known and unknown, good Lord deliver us.' See also art. Dkreliction.
5. 'I thirst.' — 'The last word,' it has been said, ' was the cry of the human soul in separation ; this is the cry of the human body in its weakness.' The darkness is now passing away, and as, at the Temptation, He suffered hunger when the crisis was over, so now He gives expression to the thirst that is parching Him. Intense thirst was usually the most intolerable part of the suffering of those who were crucihed, and He had been hanging there for six long hours, His open wounds scorched by the blazing sun. Two draughts were offered to our Lord : the one He refused, the other He ac- cepted ; the one which He refused was the ' vinegar mingled with gall' (Mt 27^'*) or the 'wine mingled with myrrh' (Mk 15-''). It was a cup of wine drugged with bitter herbs of a narcotic tendency, and it was given in kindness to condemned male- factors to deaden pain. Our Lord refused the soporific ; He would not meet death with His senses stupehed ; but the undrugged wine which was ottered to Him when He said ' I thirst,' He accepted. He would not add to His sufferings by refusing the cooling draught.