Why and how can the sins of a group fall on one?
Third Day: A Contemporary Prophet
And as these went their way, Jesus began to say unto the mult.i.tudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to behold? a reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out to see? a man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft raiment are in kings" houses. But wherefore went ye out? to see a prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. This is he, of whom it is written,
Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, Who shall prepare thy way before thee....
But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the marketplaces, who call unto their fellows and say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we wailed, and ye did not mourn.
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a demon. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! And wisdom is justified by her works.-Matt. 11:7-10; 16-19.
To Jesus prophetism was not merely an historic fact, but a living reality.
He believed in present-day inspiration. He and his contemporaries had seen one great prophet, fearless, heroic, with all the marks of the type, a messenger of G.o.d inaugurating a new era of spiritual ferment (vs. 12, 13).
But John had to bear the prophet"s lot. He was then in prison for the crime of telling a king the truth, and was soon to die to please a vindictive woman. The people, too, had wagged their heads over him. Like pouting children on the public square, who "won"t play," whether the game proposed is a wedding or a funeral, the people had criticized John for being a gloomy ascetic, and found fault with Jesus for his shocking cheerfulness. There was no way of suiting them, and no way of making them take the call of G.o.d to heart. Long before electricity was invented, human nature knew all about interposing nonconductors between itself and the truth.
_Have we ever noticed students interposing a general criticism between themselves and a particular obligation?_
Can it be that one of the uses of a higher education is to furnish greater facility in fuddling inconvenient truth?
Fourth Day: Looking Forward to the Cross
And it came to pa.s.s, when the days were well-nigh come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.-Luke 9:51.
In that very hour there came certain Pharisees, saying to him, Get thee out, and go hence: for Herod would fain kill thee. And he said unto them, Go and say to that fox, Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I am perfected. Nevertheless I must go on my way to-day and to-morrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her own brood under her wings, and ye would not!-Luke 13:31-34.
Jesus early knew that the decision was going against him. He saw the cross on the horizon of his life long before others saw it. Painters have pictured him in his father"s carpenter shop, with tools on his shoulder, gazing down at his shadow shaped like a cross. He accepted death consciously and "stedfastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem," though he knew what was awaiting him. Jerusalem had acquired a sad preeminence as the place where the struggles between the prophets and the heads of the nation were settled. He saw his own death as part of the prophetic succession. He went to it, not as a driven slave, but as a free spirit.
That jackal of a king, Herod, could not scare him out of Galilee. His time was in his Father"s hand. Today, tomorrow, and the day following, he would work, and then he would be perfected.
Fifth Day: New Prophets to Follow
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of them that slew the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of h.e.l.l? Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.-Matt. 23:29-36.
This is the climax of the great invective against the religious leaders of the nation. The last count in the indictment is that they were about to complete the record of their fathers by rejecting and persecuting the prophets of their generation. The fact had sunk into the public mind that former generations had been guilty of this. "If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets." Jesus promises to make a test of this and foretells that they will go the old way and so declare their spiritual solidarity with the sins of the past. We see here that he thought of his disciples as moving in the prophetic succession.
"Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against the land?"
"Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath pa.s.sed by."
Sixth Day: The Cross for All
From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples, that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto me: for thou mindest not the things of G.o.d, but the things of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.-Matt. 16:21-25.
When the tide was turning against Jesus, he tested the att.i.tude of the inner circles of his disciples, and drew from Peter on behalf of all a ringing declaration of faith and loyalty (vs. 13-16). "From that time"
Jesus began to share with them his outlook toward death. Peter expressed the shock which all felt and protested against the possibility. The vehemence with which Jesus repelled Peter"s suggestion gives us a glimpse of the inner struggles in his mind, of which we get a fuller revelation in his prayer in Gethsemane. But instead of receding from his prediction of the cross, he expanded it by laying the obligation of prophetic suffering on all his disciples. Their adjustment toward that destiny would at the same time be the settlement of their own salvation. When the Kingdom of G.o.d is at stake, a man saves his life by losing it and loses his life by saving it, and the loss of his higher self can not be offset by any amount of external gain.
_Looking ahead to the profession which we expect to enter, where do we foresee the possibility of losing our lives by trying to save them, or of saving our lives by apparently losing them?_
Seventh Day: The Consolations of the Prophet
Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you; yea and before governors and kings shall ye be brought for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up be not anxious how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.-Matt. 10:16-20.
Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read the scriptures,
The stone which the builders rejected, The same was made the head of the corner; This was from the Lord, And it is marvellous in our eyes?-Matt. 21:42.
Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness"
sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you.-Matt. 5:10-12.
These three pa.s.sages express three great consolations for those who share prophetic opposition with Christ. They will have to face great odds; numbers and weight will be against them. But there will be a quiet voice within to prompt them and sustain them: "It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you."
The second consolation is that the higher court will reverse the verdict of the lower. The stonemasons may look a stone over and conclude that it will not fit into the building; but the architect may have reserved that stone for the head of the corner. The prophet rarely lives to see his own historical vindication, but faith knows it is inevitable.
The third consolation is contained in the last of the Beat.i.tudes. Those who are persecuted for righteousness" sake may well rejoice for the company they are in, for the Leader whose name they bear, and for the Kingdom of G.o.d which is now and ever shall be their heritage.
Imagine two cla.s.smates in the same profession, reaching the end of their career. The one has attained success, wealth, eminence, together with a reputation of never having done a courageous and self-sacrificing action, and with the consciousness that his soul has grown small as he has grown old. The other has been a fighter for the right, a conspicuous man, but has kept out of office, tasting poverty and opposition with his family, yet with the consciousness that he has had the salt of the earth for his friends and that he has put in some mighty good licks for righteousness.
_Which would we rather be?_
Study for the Week
Christian men have differed widely in interpreting the significance of Christ"s suffering and death, but all have agreed that the cross was the effective culmination of his work and the key which unlocks the meaning of his whole life. The Church has always felt that the death of Christ was an event of eternal importance for the salvation of mankind, unique and without a parallel. It has an almost inexhaustible many-sidedness. We are examining here but one aspect. We have seen in the pa.s.sages studied this week that Jesus himself linked his own suffering and rejection with the fate of the prophets who were before him and with the fate of his disciples who would come after him. He saw a red line running through history, and his own life and death were part of it. He himself generalized the social value of his peculiar experience, and taught us to see the cross as a great social principle of the Kingdom of G.o.d. He saw his death as the highest demonstration of a permanent law of human life.
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