2. Stones crying out. — The stones of Christ and the Gospels form a suggestive subject. There are sermons in these stones, we might say, for they have lessons to impart to us regarding Christ's history, His teaching, and His Person as the Messiah.
(1) His history. — (a) Whether or not we accept the ancient tradition that Jesus was bprn in one of the limestone caves of Bethlehem, it is very likely that His manger would be a manger of stone — built with stones and mortar if not hollowed out of the solid rock (see Thomson, LB [ed. 1878] p. 413). If so, the first bed on which the Lord was laid, like the last one to which He was carried by Nicodenius and Joseph of Arimatha;a (Jn 19^**'^-), was a bed of stone.
(b) In Christ's spiritual struggles on the very threshold of His public life. He had to do with the stones. It is a curious fact that they play a part in two out of the three acts that make up the drama of the Temptation in the Wilderness. In the one ca.se, Jesus is tempted to use His miracu- lous jjowers to turn the stones that lie about Him on the rough mountain-.side into loaves of bread wherewith to satisfy His hunger (Mt 4^-\ Lk 4-"''). In the other. He is tempted to leap from a pin- nacle of the Temi^le by the reminder that it is written (Ps 91"- ^^) that God's child shall be upheld by angels, and so preserved from dashing his foot against a stone (Mt 4^"', Lk 4^'^-). In the one case, the stones were to nourish His life ; but contrary to God's law of sowing and reaping. In the other, they Avere to refuse to dash Him to death ; but contrary to the Divinely fixed laAV of gravitation. Satan meant the stones to be stones of stumbling to Jesus, on that difficult path of obedience and self-renunciation to Avhich in His baptism He had just consecrated Himself. But Jesus by His faith and patience turned them into stepping-stones to higher things.
((•) At Cana of Galilee Jesus 'manifested his glory ' ; and there, we might say, He was again beholden to the stones ; for the six waterpots by whose aid He Avrought His first miracle were Avaterjwts of stone (Jn 2®).
{d) But not always were the stones His servants and ministers. Twice in Jn.'s Gospel (8^^ 10^\ cf. 11^) we read how the enemies of Jesus took up
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STONING
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.stones to cast them at Hiiu, because He claimed that He \vas the Son of God.
((') Against the cave which was Lazarus' tomb there lay a stone (Jn IP^) — rolled there to shut in the dead during the awful process of decay (v.^"), as well as to shut out the ravening wild beasts. ' Take ya away the stone,' Jesus said (v."") ; and when they had done so, another word of command turned that gravestone at Bethany into a par<able to all the ages of the rolling away from human hearts of the crushing bondage of death (He 2i^'-) by Him who is the Resurrection and the Life (Jn
1125).
(/) It was not long after, when tiie Lord's own body was carried to another tomb ' hewn in stone ' (Lk 25^^), and laid on one of the stone shelves pre- pared for sucii a purpose. Against tlie door of His sepulchre also 'a great stone' was rolled (Mt 27* I!), and a seal was set upon the guardian stone. And that great stone, which the Jewish rulers would fain have made the incontrovertible proof that the world had seen the last of Jesus of Naza- reth (v.*"-^-), has become the shining and j^eren- nial monument of His victory over death — pro claiming, in St. Peter's words, that ' it was not possible that he should be holden of it' (Ac 22^). For whenever Christian men think of the Lord's sepulchre, they always see that gr-eat stone rolled back from the door, and the angel of the Resur- rection sitting upon it (Mt 28^ ||).
(2) His tenchinfj. — One of the most self-evident proofs that Jesus ever gave of the Heavenly Fatlier's love and the reality of prayer, lay in the question, ' What man is there of you, who, if his son sliall ask him for a loaf, Avill give him a stone ? ' (Mt 1^). One of the most memorable examples of His heart-searching irony was when He said to the accusers of a sinful woman, ' He that is with- out sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her ' ( Jn 8f'J). One of the most striking assertions of His claim to Messianic dignity lay in His answer to the Pharisees when they appealed to Him to rebuke the enthusiastic shouts of His disciples : ' I tell you that if these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out ' (Lk 19*). One of His clearest and most emphatic predictions of the coming fate of Jerusalem was when He said of the Temple, adorned with goodly stones, ' There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down (Mk 13-^ il).
In the Ep. to the Church in Pergamum the author of the Apocalypse represents Jesus Christ as promising a ' white stone ' to the victor in the good fight of faith (Rev 2"). Numerous explana- tions of this white stone have been suggested, but the one that seems best to satisfy all the require- ments is that which takes it to be the tessara fjladiatoria, bestowed on the victorious young gladiator wiien he exchanged the name of tiro for tliat of spertntiis {see ExpT '\. [1889] p. 2, viii. [1897] p. 291 ; Hastings' DB iv. 618'^).