The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 2 — Section 247

\" er. 35.-.A sad spectacle and tlie supreme vision. "And the people slood beholdin"'." "Sitting down they watched him there" (Matt. xxvii. 36). Shall we envy th~se spectators the scene they then witnessed? Shall we wish that we had lived when, witli our mortal eyes, we could have seen the Saviour crucifiecl on our behalf? I think not. With this distance of time and space between us, wo have a better, truer standpoint where we are. No doubt we lose much by that distance; but we gain at least as much as we lose, To those who "stood beholding," or who "sat and watched," there was- I. .AN EXCEEDINGLY BAD SPECTACLE. They saw: 1. A human being suffering the last extremity of pain and shame. Somo among that company could look upon that, scene with positive enjoyment, some with stolid indifference; but those of whom we think, the disciples, would witness it with intense, heo.rt-piercing sympathy, with utmost agitation of spirit. His suffering must, in a large degree, have been theirs also -theirs in proportion to the love they bore him. 2. A Prophet who had failed to be appreciated, and was now a martyr nobly dying in attestation of the truth. 3. A sacred cause losing its Chief and Champion ; a cause being wounded and almost certainly slain in the person of its Founder and Exponent-. For who could hope that there would be found amongst his disciples any that would take the standard from his hands, and bear it on to victory? For Christ to die was for Christianity to perish. Such was the spectacle on which hie disciples looked as they gathered about bis cross. The scene was more vivid, more impressive, more powerfully affecting, as thus enacted before their eyes ; but we see in reality more than they did. We have before us- lL 'l'HE SUPREME VISION on which we can gaze on earth. We see: L One who once 1ujfered and died, but whose agony is over; whose pain and sorrow are not now to him sources of evil, but, on the other hand, the ground and the occasion of purest joy and highest honour (see homily on vers. 27-31). Had we been present then, we must have shrunk lrom the spectacle before us as too painful for sensitiveness to endure. Now we can bear to dwell on his dying and bis death, because the element of overwhelming and blinding sympathy is happily withdrawn. 2. .A grand spiritual victory. We do not see in the crucified prophet One that was defeated; we see One that told us all that he came to tell, communicating to us all the knowledge we need irl order to live our higher life <in earth, and to prepare for the heavenly life beyond; that was not prevented from delivering any part of Lis Divine message; that completed all he came to do· that was amply entitled to say, as he did before he died, "lt is jinished /" 3. i Divine Redeemer ensuring, by his death, the triumph of his cause. Had be not died as he did, had he saved himself as he w.is taunted and challenged to <lo, had he not gone on to that bitter end and drunk that bitter cup even to t~e dregs, then he would have failed. But because he suffered unto death, he tnumphed gloriously, and became " the Author of eternal salvation to all them that b11lieve," cm. xxrn. 1-58.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKE. 257