I have written in vain if I have not shown that the events of our Saviour's life on earth and of His death--it may be true, also, of our meaner lives--were symbols of greater things beyond. His last journey, from Galilee to Jerusalem, was not direct by way of Samaria, through which He passed three years earlier on His way from Jerusalem to Galilee. He walked beyond Jordan eastward, and so approached the city where He was to die by way of Joshua's ford over the river; and passing through the city of Jericho, on which Joshua laid a curse, He ascended by that very road where lay the certain man who, in the parable, was assisted by the Good Samaritan.
At Jacob's well He would have united the schisms of Israel--the two tribes against the ten tribes, by merging all the denominations in one spiritual and truthful worship of the one Father. But in Decapolis and the regions beyond Jordan, He ministered unto those two and a half tribes, who had preferred an immediate and material blessing to the Promised Land beyond the river--the people who are too indifferent to be unorthodox, who merely lapse from religion; who have no remedy for a man possessed by a devil, except to chain him, and leave him in the tombs, in the restraint of the prison, the madhouse, the casual ward. That was the region where they valued swine more highly than souls--the swine typifying the illicit wealth which God's law condemns. When they lost their swine, they did not seek to stone Jesus or crucify Him; they merely besought Him to leave their coats. They excluded Him from their community--it was most politely done--and from that day to this, their country has not counted in the history of mankind. Grievous as were the sins of Jerusalem, it was in Jerusalem, the place of faith and of worship, that man's salvation was to be wan. It was in Jerusalem, as He expressed it in terrible irony, that the Prophet of prophets needs must die. On our battlefields, in our music-halls, in our theaters, He may be neglected, but it is in our churches and chapels that He is crucified afresh to-day.
Joshua and Jesus
Jesus and Joshua were namesakes: they are two forms of one word, and the meaning is " Jehovah is Saviour. " Joshua set himself to save the people by conquest, by statesmanship, by the arm of flesh. It was God's will that this method should be tried, and Nature was bidden to assist. Jordan, in flood, afforded a dry passage for the invaders. The walls of the city fell down at the blast of the trumpet. The lot fell unerring upon Achan--the Judas Iscariot of the Old Testament--the man to whom war resolves itself into hidden profits. But the last progress of Jesus was marked by no such miracles. He, like the rest, had to wade through Jordan. What He destroyed was not the walls of Jericho, but the walls of prejudice which ostracized Zacchæus, and the walls of darkness that enclosed blind Bartimæus. And it was no lot or dice that detected Judas, but His all-seeing eye. Our Saviour, unlike Joshua, did not need to be told--He knew who should betray Him. And the traitor did not need to be stoned. Craving no further mercy than he had received by Christ's companionship, he went out and hanged himself. It is the only case of suicide in the Gospels, and it has destroyed for ever the glamour of hari-kiri, as practiced in Japan, or that death of Socrates which the Stoics admired and imitated. By enduring to the end, our Saviour answered the question, to all who ask it, is life worth living? In Him, all life becomes worth-while.
On the Mount of Olives--that place from which the scene is surveyed in perspective, as God surveys it--where one sees life whole, instead of piecemeal, He paused, the multitudes around Him. There, across the valley, rose the Temple, girt about with the dwellings of men, the houses of the home-dwellers, the tents and tabernacles of the ingathered colonists. The mother country and her dominions beyond the sea were to keep Passover together, and to all alike He offered Himself. On other occasions He had attended the feast privately, worshiping without advertisement Him who seeth in secret; to-day, His entry must be in state. Men must realize, not His love only, not His power only--these they had seen in His wonderful works--but His claim. They must be brought to the point of deciding whether they will grant allegiance to Him, or refuse it.
As His heralds, He sent into the city two disciples. His instructions to them were precise, but, within those orders, they were plenipotentiaries. To Herod the king, to Pilate the general, to Annas and Caiaphas the prelates, they were to make no appeal. The world was to learn once for all that the Redeemer has no need of patronage by the State, of protection by the Army, or of authorization by the Church. Any man who obeys, is all that He wants. It was to " any man " that He dispatched His embassy. It was an embassy illustrious only because He made it so.
An Ass with a Colt
They were to find a place where two ways met--a place of choice, of controversy, of decision. At that place, political parties might encounter one another and contend; legions and battalions might engage in bloody conflict; sects might plunge into dialectics; rival processions might flaunt diverse flags. There the disciples would find an ass, with a colt tied. Over the ownership of those animals there might be doubt and controversy. All He said was that He had need of them. Above all treaties and title-deeds and opinions rose unchallengeable His supreme claim. He wants us, not for service only, though in Him we do serve. He wants us for Himself--to be "Christophers"--to be Christ-bearers. The two ways meet, but we take neither, for the third way is His.
The ass and the colt were to be set at liberty. Among those who obey Him, there may be inexperience and stupidity, but there must be freedom. If we ask why His followers have struggled against despotism--why they have in every country "loosed the colt"--why they have liberated slave and serf and peasant--the answer is not that they institute license or abolish duty; the only liberty they should ever desire is the liberty to work with Him--the full right to do His good. Read the annals of reformation and martyrdom, and you will find that what brought His witnesses into conflict with authority was always their determination, not to acquire possessions or privilege, but to carry out His wishes. The colt, the foal of an ass, on which He rode, was one on which man had never sat. It was a simple, untrained beast, but it had this particular virtue--no one had drilled it into unreasoning acceptance of the conventions. Without that drill, no ordinary man could have ridden the colt. But the guidance of His hand, with its touch of utter understanding, was at once supreme.
The Triumphant Christ
To His commandeering no exception was taken, While the great ones of the earth were plotting against Him, this nameless owner of asses was ready, without fee or reward, to give whatever was required. He did not question our Lord's authority, as did the Sanhedrin an hour or two later; and he therefore takes his place, though nameless--for there was no subscription list--among the few, the very few, who freely helped our Lord. To this considerable extent let us honor him. He was a man who would have presented a lectern to his parish church for the glory of God, without adding, "and in memory of So-and-so." His daughter would have tended the wounded, quite unphotographed.
But to this I must add a word. He who in silence assists a nobly-winning cause does well, but there follows a severer test. Multitudes were ready to strew their garments in the way of the triumphant Christ, to sing hymns in His praise, to wave palm branches where He rode--to act as we do where a mission is successful, where a congregation is large, where the preacher is popular and the music attractive. But when He walks alone and in disgrace, such shallow and momentary devotion, however loyal, however anonymous, often fades away. There comes inevitably a time when He calls for those who will faithfully confess Him even when He seems to have failed. This man, who lent his animals so willingly when things went well, was among those who, in calamity, forsook Him and fled.
Not that our Lord's life, even at that perilous hour, looked like "the failure" which suddenly overwhelmed His followers. Here were men, women, and children who, in His presence, could spontaneously sing His birthday anthem--"Hosanna, Glory to God in the Highest; among men, peace and goodwill." They had really caught the first syllables of the Gospel--and the song of heaven became through them the song of earth. Simple as was their homage, He accepted it. He would not have these enthusiastic salvationists rebuked. Forbid them, said He, and the stones will cry out. And this actually happened. The Jews were forbidden thus to praise Him, and it is the Gentiles who now extol the Messiah.
Would that their service had been as willing as their praise! Ready enough to worship, they would not help Him to cleanse the Temple. There and then they would have crowned Him; but to turn out the money-changers--no, they would not lift a finger. Yet it was just the work that was suited to their enthusiastic mood. It needed His zeal to accomplish it--the zeal that was consuming Him--and it would have consecrated their zeal. Unlike healing the sick and cleansing the lepers, it required no special grace. It was the kind of reform that right-minded politicians constantly undertake and carry through. His retinue merely looked on. He left the city that evening without a cheer. Passing a fig-tree, He sought fruit on it, but found nothing but leaves. At His word, the tree withered in a night--so demonstrating that all things are judged in the end by their usefulness to Him. And we have that unforgettable picture of Him, looking on the city, with its Temple and walls and pinnacles, and weeping over the place. For His was no cold and remorseless system of creeds. He shared our patriotism. Not one of us has loved his country so loyally as He loved Judea. Nor did He once give way to the bitterness of justified resentment. Whatever hard things He said, were the faithful wounds of a Friend.
"His Last Few Nights"
With crisis impending, there is a strange irony in the arguments that were forced upon Him by men who should have fallen on their knees and craved His pardon for their sins. The ethics of taxation, the basis of divorce, the nature of life after death--He dealt with them all, and His judgments on these matters are immortal. But we realize what a contrast there is between these wrangles, so wickedly provoked, and His message at a previous feast: "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." Even His sermons or discourses were limited, as it were, by the heart-readiness of those who listened, and the time was near at hand when He would be reduced to absolute silence.
The main body of His final teaching was committed to a very few, not at Jerusalem, but at Bethany, where He spent His evenings and slept His last nights. It was a village without history, without architecture, without social or strategic importance--the kind of hamlet that disappears under the hammering of artillery--but although nobody prophesied about Bethany, and nobody goes there on pilgrimage, it has this distinction--there alone did Jesus feel at ease. Bethlehem and Nazareth and Jerusalem all rejected Him; in Bethany, He could speak or remain silent, as He wished; He was never weary, without resting; He was never hungry, without receiving meat. There, in Bethany, one really sees what He meant by God's kingdom coming upon earth.