431. Suffering
Suffering
Luk_24:46 : ’93It behoved Christ to suffer.’94
There have been scholars who have ventured the assertion that the pains of our Lord were unnecessary. Indeed, it was a shocking waste of tears and blood and agony unless some great end were to be reached. If men can prove that no good result comes of it, then the character of God is impeached, and the universe must stand abhorrent and denunciatory at the fact that the Father allowed the butchery of his only-begotten Son. We all admire the brave six hundred men described by Tennyson as dashing into the conflict, when they knew they must die, and knew at the same time that ’93some one had blundered’94; but we are abhorrent of the man who made the blunder and who caused the sacrifice of those brave men for no use. But I shall show you, if the Lord will help me, this morning, that for good reasons Christ went through the torture. In other words, ’93it behoved Christ to suffer.’94
In the first place I remark, that Christ’92s lacerations were necessary, because man’92s rescue was an impossibility, except at the payment of some great sacrifice. Outraged law had denounced iniquity. Man must die unless a substitute can intercept that death. Let Gabriel step forth. He refuses. Let Michael, the Archangel, step forth. He refuses. No Roman citizen, no Athenian, no Corinthian, no. reformer, no angel volunteered. Christ then bared his heart to the pang. He paid for our redemption in tears and blood and wounded feet and scourged shoulders and torn brow. ’93It is done.’94 Heaven and earth heard. the snap of the prison bar. Sinai ceased to quake with wrath the moment that Calvary began to rock in crucifixion. Christ had suffered.
’93Oh!’94 says some man, ’93I don’92t like that doctrine of substitution; let every man bear his own burdens and weep his own tears and fight his own battles.’94 Why, my brother, there is vicarious suffering all over the world. Did not your parents suffer for you? Do you not suffer sometimes for your children? Does not the patriot suffer for his country? Did not Grace Darling suffer for the drowning sailors? Vicarious suffering on all sides! But how insignificant compared with this scene of vicarious suffering!
Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity, grace unknown,
And love beyond degree.
Christ must suffer to pay the price of our redemption.
But I remark again, the sufferings of Christ were necessary in order that the world’92s sympathies might be aroused. Men are won to the right and good through their sympathies. The world must feel aright before it can act aright. So the cross was allowed to be lifted that the world’92s sympathies might be aroused. Men who have been obdurate by the cruelties they have enacted, by the massacres they have inflicted, by the horrors of which they have been guilty, have become little children in the presence of this dying Saviour. What the sword could not do, what Juggernauts could not subdue, the wounded hand of Christ has accomplished. There are this moment millions of people held under the spell of that one sacrifice. The hammers that struck the spikes into the cross have broken the rocky heart of the world. Nothing but the agonies of a Saviour’92s death-throe could rouse the world’92s sympathies.
I remark again: ’93It behoved Christ to suffer,’94 that the strength and persistence of the divine love might be demonstrated. Was it the applause of the world that induced Christ to embark on that crusade from heaven? Why, ail the universe was at his feet. Could the conquest of this insignificant planet have paid him for his career of pain, if it had been a mere matter of applause? All the honors of Heaven surging at his feet. Would Queen Victoria give up her throne that she might rule a miserable tribe in Africa? Would the Lord Jesus Christ, on the throne of the universe, come down to our planet if it were a mere matter of applause and acclamation? Nor was it an expedition undertaken for the accumulation of vast wealth. What could all the harvests and the diamonds of our little world do for him whose are the glories of infinitude and eternity? Nor was it an experiment’97an attempt to show what he could do with the hard-hearted race. He who wheels the stars in their courses and holds the pillars of the universe on the tips of his fingers needed to make no experiment to find what he could do. I will tell you, my friends, what it was. It was undisguised, unlimited, all-conquering, all-consuming, infinite, eternal, omnipotent love, that opened the gate, that started the star in the East, with finger of light pouring down to the manger, that arrayed the Christmas choir above Bethlehem, that opened the stable-door where Christ was born, that lifted him on the cross. Love thirsty at the well. Love at the sick man’92s couch. Love at the cripple’92s crutch. Love sweating in the garden. Love dying on the cross. Love wrapped in the grave. You cannot mistake it. The blindest eye must see it. The hardest heart must feel it The deafest ear must hear it. Parable and miracle, wayside talk and seaside interview, all the scenes of his life, all the sufferings of his death, proving beyond controversy that for our ingrate earth God has yearned with stupendous and inextinguishable love.
But I remark again: ’93It behoved Christ to suffer,’94 that the nature of human guilt might be demonstrated. There is not a common-sense man who will not admit that the machinery of society is out of gear, that the human mind and the human heart are disorganized, that something ought to be done, and done right away, for its repair and readjustment. But the height and depth and length and breadth and hate and recklessness and infernal energy of the human heart for sin would not have been demonstrated if against the holy and innocent One of the cross it had not been hurled in one bolt of fire. Christ was not the first man that had been put to death. There had been many before him slain; but they had their whims, their follies, their sins, their inconsistencies. But when the mob outside of Jerusalem howled at the Son of God, it was hate against goodness, it was blasphemy against virtue, it was earth against heaven. What was it in that innocent and loving face of Christ that excited the vituperation and the contumely and scorn of men? If he had bantered them to come on, if he had laughed them into derision, if he had denounced them as the vagabonds that they were, we could understand their ferocity; but it was against in-offensiveness that they brandished their spears and shook their fists and ground their teeth and howled and scoffed and jeered and mocked. What evil had he done? Whose eyesight had he put out? None; but he had given vision to the blind. Whose child had he slain? None; but he restored the dead damsel to her mother. What law had he broken? None; but he had inculcated obedience to the government. What foul plot had he enacted against the happiness of the race? None; but he had come to save a world. The only cruelty he ever enacted was to heal the sick. The only ostentation he ever displayed was to sit with publicans and sinners, and wash the disciples’92 feet. The only selfishness he ever exhibited was to give his life for his enemies. And yet, all the wrath of the world surged against his holy heart. Hear the red-hot scorn of the world hissing in the pools of a Saviour’92s blood! And standing there today, let us see what an unreasonable, loathsome hateful, blasting, damning thing is the iniquity of the human heart.
Unloosed, what will not sin do? It will scale any height, it will fathom the very depth of hell, it will revel in all lasciviousness. There is no blasphemy it will not utter, there are no cruelties on which it will not gorge itself. It will wallow in filth, it will breathe the air of charnel-houses of corruption, and call them aroma; it will quaff the blood of immortal souls and call it nectar. When sin murdered Christ on the cross, it showed what it would do with the Lord God Almighty, if it could get at him. Jeremiah had declared the truth centuries before, but not until sin shot out its forked tongue at the crucifixion and tossed its sting into the soul of a martyred Jesus was it illustrated, that ’93the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.’94
Again: ’93It behoved Christ to suffer,’94 that our affections might be excited Christward. Why, sirs, the behavior of our Lord has stirred the affections of all those who have ever heard of it. It has hung the galleries, the art-galleries of the world, with such pictures as Ghirlandajo’92s ’93Worship of the Magi,’94 Giotto’92s ’93Baptism of Christ,’94 Holman Hunt’92s ’93Christ in the Temple,’94 Tintoretto’92s ’93Agony in the Garden,’94 Angelo’92s ’93Crucifixion,’94 and it has called out Handel’92s ’93Messiah,’94 and rung sweetest chimes in Young’92s ’93Night Thoughts,’94 and filled the psalmody of the world with the penitential notes of sorrow and the hosannas of Christian triumph.
Show me any other king who has so many subjects. What is the most potent name today in the United States, in France, in England, in Scotland, in Ireland? Jesus. Other kings have had many subjects, but where is the king who has so many admiring subjects as Christ? Show me a regiment of a thousand men in their army, and I will show you a brigade of ten thousand men in Christ’92s army. Show me in history where one man has given his property and his life for any one else, and I will show you in history hundreds and thousands of men who have cheerfully died that Christ might reign. Ay, there are a hundred men in this house who, if need were, would step out and die for Jesus. Their faith may now seem to be faint, and sometimes they may be inconsistent; but let the fires of martyrdom be kindled, throw them into the pit, cover them with poisonous serpents, pound them, flail them, crush them, and I will tell you what their last cry would be: ’93Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.’94
Oh, yes! the Lord Jesus has won the affections of many of us. There are some of us who can say this morning, ’93Lord Jesus, my light and my song; my hope for time, my expectation for eternity.’94 Altogether lovely thou art. My soul is ravished with the vision. Thou art mine. Come, let me clasp thee. Come life, come death, come scorn and pain, come whirlwind and darkness, light and victory, Lord Jesus, I cannot give thee up. I have heard thy voice, I have seen thy bleeding side. Lord Jesus, if I had some garland plucked from heavenly gardens I would wreathe it for thy brow. If I had some gem worthy of the place, I would set it in thy crown. If I had seraphic harp, I would strike it in thy praise. But I come lost and ruined and undone, to throw myself at thy feet.
Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling.
’93Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee.’94
I remark again: ’93It behoved Christ to suffer’94 that the world might learn how to suffer. Sometimes people suffer because they cannot help themselves; but Christ had in his hand all the weapons to punish his enemies, and yet in quiescence he endured all outrage. He might have hurled the rocks of Golgotha upon his pursuers; he might have cleft the earth until it swallowed up his assailants; he might have called in re-enforcement or taken any thunderbolt from the armory of God Omnipotent, and hurled it seething and fiery among his foes; but he answered not again. No sarcasm, no retort, no curling of the lips in scorn, nor flashing of the eye in wrath.
Has there ever been in the history of the world such an example of enduring patience as we find in the Cross? Some of you suffer physical distresses, some of you have lifelong ailments, and they make you fretful. Sometimes you think that God has given you a cup too deep and too brimming. Sometimes you see the world laughing and romping on the highways of life, and you look out of the window while seated in invalid’92s chair. Oh! I want to show you One who had worse pains in the head than you have ever had, whose back was scourged, who was wounded in the hands and wounded in the feet, and suffered all over; and I want that example to make you more enduring in your suffering, and to make you say, ’93Father, not my will, but thine be done.’94 You never have had any bodily pain, and you never will have any bodily pain that equaled Christ’92s torture. ’93It behoved Christ to suffer,’94 that he might show you how physically to suffer.
Some of you are persecuted. There are those who hate you. They criticise you. They would be glad to see you stumble and fall. They would have done unaccountable meanness toward you. Sometimes you feel angry. You feel as if you would like to retort. Stop! Look at the closed lips, look at the still hand, look at the beautiful demeanor of your Lord. Struck, not striking back again. If you could only apppreciate what he endured in the way of persecution, you never would complain of persecution. The words of Christ would be your words: ’93Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; but if not, thy will be done.’94 ’93It behoved Christ to suffer’94 persecution, that he might show you how to endure persecution Some of you are bereft. It is no random remark, because there is hardly a family here that has not passed under the shadow. Your house is a different place from what it used to be. The same furniture, the same books, the same pictures, but there has been a voice hushed there. The face that used to light up the whole dwelling has vanished. The pattering of the other feet does not break up the loneliness. The wave has gone over your soul, and you have sometimes thought what you would tell him when he comes back; but then the thought has flashed upon you, he will never come back. Ah! my brother, my sister, Christ has sounded all that depth. Jesus of the bereft soul is here today. Behold him! He knows what it is to weep at the tomb. It seems to me as if all the storms of the world’92s sorrow were compressed into one sob, and that sob were uttered in two words: ’93Jesus wept.’94
Autor: T. De Witt Talmage