The Suffering Savior 44:
By F.W. Krummacher
Our visit to the horrible darkness which reigns on Calvary has this time reference only to the ray of compassion which flashes through it, than which, one more beatifying never shone upon the sinful earth. This ray displays its effulgence in the intercession of him who hangs bleeding on the cross. In it, the divine sufferer throws down from his cross the first-fruit of his passion into the lap of the human race, whom he came to redeem.
Horrible is the tumult on Calvary. A choir from the pit of hell precedes the chorus of angels. The powers of darkness exhaust themselves in vomiting forth rage and blasphemy; and alas! the very men whose vocation it is to be keepers of the sanctuary, yield themselves up to be the most zealous instruments of hell. Without being aware of it, these men of Belial entirely fail of their object. Their intention is to degrade the man on the cross, and yet they are obliged to glorify him. They are anxious to tear from his head the last remnant of his crown, but they only lift the veil from off his majesty. Listen to the taunts which they pour forth upon the Holy One; but remark, at the same time how these outbreaks, viewed in the light, only contain the most honorable confessions respecting him. "He saved others," say they, "himself he cannot save." Truly, this plain confession on the part of his adversaries is of high importance, since it confirms anew the historical account of the saving and delivering acts of Jesus recorded by the evangelists.
"He trusted in God," they continue. Infer from hence, my readers, how evidently his heavenly and devotional frame must have impressed itself on his entire outward deportment, so that it did not remain concealed even from such worthless characters as these.
"He said, 'I am the Son of God;' let him deliver him now if he will have him!" Can it be otherwise than extremely welcome to us, to hear it confirmed, even by his most furious opponents, that the Lord had declared himself to be the Son of God, and had therefore made no secret of his heavenly descent?
"You that destroy the temple," they exclaim further, "and build it up in three days, save yourself!" Observe how they confirm what he had so decidedly announced concerning his resurrection from the dead. In the same manner, by their taunting words, "Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross," they establish the fact, that the Savior had repeatedly applied this significant title to himself. What do these wicked men therefore effect? In their fury they break a diamond in pieces, by which they only cause it to show its genuineness by its sparkling splinters. In their wrath they pluck to pieces a divine rose, but by so doing only display the brilliance and enamel of every petal.
The Savior hears the envenomed taunts of the crowd below. He knows from whence they proceed, and to whom the blasphemers serve as instruments, without their being aware of it. In their infuriated language, he hears only a ruder echo of those temptations with which the prince of darkness once assailed him in the wilderness. But now, as then, he is conscious of being on the path pointed out to him by his Heavenly Father; and this serves him as an impenetrable shield, with which he quenches all the fiery darts of the adversary. O that we could now cast a look into the Redeemer's soul! But profound silence conceals it from us like the veil in the temple. If, in such moments, when the measure of the opprobrium vented on him overflowed, the glow of a holy indignation had flushed him, or the thunder of the apostle's "Anathema Maranatha" had rolled through his soul--if his heart had turned to him who calls himself an avenger of the evil, with a prayer to reward the wicked according to their deeds--or if, in his own mind, a judicial woe had been pronounced upon these accursed sons of Belial, his holiness would have been fully preserved, and even hell itself must have justified him in forever renouncing the redemption of such a race as the descendants of Adam.
