The palace of Herod at Jerusalem has vanished, and only lives in history because, during the Saviour's trial, it was visited once, for a few minutes, by the Lord of lords. It was the first and last time that He who preached the Gospel to the poor attended an earthly court; and though He was summoned as a Prisoner, it was He, and not Herod, who by silence granted "an audience" to the other. Here were Sovereigns, both of whom had reigned in Galilee; but how great the contrast--for He was the true King, who went about doing good; and it was because he followed "pomp and circumstance" that Herod missed the greater miracles of the Omnipotent. For so it has ever been. The powerful are too busy to take note of that Gospel which alone saves men. Indeed, the very gladness of this prince was blasphemy, for redemption is not offered to us as an amusement for the curious. A year or two earlier, the Baptist had said many things to Herod, and because these warnings were unheeded, therefore not one word was added unto them by the Lord Jesus. In an entourage which rejected the Servant, there was no room for the Master's wisdom. And the only miracle that He granted was the sight of the Redeemer speechless in the dock, while a murderer sat talking on the throne. That, indeed, has aroused the reverent wonder of the ages.
Before Herod and Pilate
Undesigned by man but predestined by God, Herod's very mockery was fraught with a meaning. Frivolously stepping from that throne, with its solemn responsibilities, he plunged into ribaldry, which act was in itself an abdication of his royal office, as what followed with the virtual accession of the Redeemer. With his guilty hands, Herod arrayed the King of Love in royal purple, that color which blends the blue of the sky, for Divinity, with red, as of blood, for humanity, and so shows forth His incarnate majesty. Thus robed, Herod sent Him back to Pilate, whose soldiers platted a crown, not of gold, as of wealth, nor of iron, as of force, but of thorns--the common thorn that torments all mankind--and they set it on His brow. There shone forth the glory of suffering as He bore it, and as we may bear it if we suffer with Him. They struck Him with a reed, as authority strikes Him to-day, yet they also put the reed in His hand. He did not seize it; He did not refuse it; and thus they foretold the end of things when all power will return to Him. They bowed the knee, as every knee will yet bow, and cried, as every voice will yet cry, "Hail, King of the Jews." Thus He was crowned, robed, sceptered--the Divine right of kingship conferred irrevocably on Him alone. Was ever ceremony, unrehearsed, so full of significance?
Pilate continued the pageant. Here was a man who had seen Emperors in their glory, but no Emperor inspired within him the dread with which he regarded the unarmed and unresisting Son of God. On that devil's day, Jesus surrendered all command, except over Himself; but His rule over the Kingdom of God within Him was so absolute that, even as bound, He was proved Almighty. The Proconsul of Rome could only stand aside, like the Forerunner, and exclaim, "Behold the Man!" Crown and robe and scepter faded away in the nobler splendor of His personal kingliness.
Pilate only thought of saving the body of Jesus from death; Jesus would have rescued Pilate's soul. Lest there should be any mistake as to words, the Master explained precisely what was meant by His Kingdom--what the Jews knew that He meant; and Pilate, the man of force, was offered the Truth. Amid the turmoil, Jesus spoke as calmly as He did in the quiet of the night to Nicodemus. He betrayed no trace of excitement; and if, in humility, Pilate had asked, "What is truth?" he would have seen in Jesus the living Truth, and Rome would have worshiped. But the Governor had no allegiance to render to the Man whom, as he twice declared, he found faultless. In Pilate is revealed the deadly sin of cynicism, which recognizes good, and knows it to be good, but despises it. When next he appealed to the people, Pilate said not, "Behold our King," but "Behold your King," which meant that he deliberately. refused his own allegiance, as many a statesman does to-day, holding that the Christ is a suitable Friend for the poor and ignorant, but that great ones on the earth can afford to look down on Him. Hence the only epitaph that Pilate would write was: "Jesus of Nazareth--the King of the Jews," not of Romans, not of Greeks. By using the Latin and Greek languages as well as Hebrew, Pilate admitted the wider claim, only he would not bow to it. The Jews were logical in protesting that Pilate should say less or more. Either Jesus was an impostor or He was universal King, and of these alternatives they insisted on the first. Pilate did not change a syllable. What he wrote remained Rome's final judgment, and with it Rome fell. It had to be so. No Empire can assert a spiritual claim and then insult it without sowing the seeds of decay.
Any man who sneers at Truth must fail in Justice. Acquittal was our Redeemer's right. Pilate acknowledged it; but instead of granting it as a matter of course, he hesitated, spoke of it as a favor, and appealed to the pity of the mob, as if at any time there can be pity without righteousness. Terrible as was the scourging which Pilate inflicted, the crowds did not relent; and we see in them what reserves of cruelty lie hidden within man--how futile would be a Gospel based merely on sentiment. Indeed, after centuries of experience, there are women, nay, men also, who follow Him, not bravely, not in real sacrifice, but weeping, as if that were His will. "Weep not for Me," He said, "but for yourselves"; and this is still His message. He suffered when faith was green and living. An age comes when faith is dry and dead. The cruelty of the fanatic is terrible; but far more terrible is the cruelty of the skeptic. And when that cold, calculating ferocity bursts on the mothers and their children, they cry in vain for the hills to cover them. Their cry rings in our ears to-day, and He heard it first.
Son of Abbas, Son of God
The very fact that Pilate asked Him whether He was the Son of God, meant, as Jesus answered, that he "said it." The Governor, seeing Him as Man and as Monarch, trembled at witnessing also His Divinity. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the dream of Pilate's wife furthered that most wholesome terror. But fear is not, in itself, enough. The Devil also can invoke that weapon; and when he was warned by the multitude that he could not release Jesus and remain Cæsar's friend, Pilate again hesitated. He had to decide between the Christ and the governing classes, and the exacting claims of public life gripped his soul. For, as the Jews instinctively realized, Pilate could not be just to the Christ without himself belonging to the Christ. It must be one thing or the other. Not that there is any real opposition of the Saviour and the State. On the contrary, our Master had declared that there is no conflict between the worship of God and the true service of Cæsar, and history has shown that Christ alone can establish Cæsar's empire in equity and peace.
The choice thus lay between Barabbas--son of Abbas--and Jesus, Son of God. Barabbas robbed the people and murdered them; but they preferred him, because it is easier to love what is lower than oneself, than to reach up to an example. To let loose the plunderer is a simpler affair than to bind him again; and since that day of decision, Barabbas has ever been abroad in the world. Between his getting and Christ's giving there can be no compromise; democracy may have the release of Jesus or of Barabbas, not of both. It was the populace that chose. The State merely ratified the choice. And the nation received precisely what it deserved-Mammon, instead of God.
Life out of Death
The Jews pronounced their own doom. To this day they have had, as they desired, no king but Cæsar. To this day His blood has been on them and their children. To this day the verdict, "Crucify Him," stands. Pilate handed Him over to the soldiers, and from that terrible moment His blessed Person has been broken for all mankind. They clad Him again in His own robe, which was still seamless and unrent, as if to remind us that after the final test of that morning His righteousness was perfect--His character was whole and consistent. Then they led Him forth. He was to suffer as criminals suffer, beyond the pale of society, outside the city walls, like the scapegoat driven from the camp into the wilderness--unclean, disgraced, ostracized. He was to die on Golgotha, the place of a skull, that grinning negation to the eye of a future life, where death glowered on Him with all its menaces, defying His resolution, challenging Him to withdraw before it was too late. This was the charnel-field where He won His victory, and what was to Him Golgotha is to us a place of Life, of Pardon, of Joy, of Power.
And He carried His cross. It was a brother-carpenter that had made it. When the weight bore Him down--it was His only display of physical exhaustion --it was not Simon Peter who came forward to bear the burden, but another Simon, of Cyrene, a stranger coming in from the country, who was compelled to assist Him. That service seems to have changed Simon's life. We read that he was father of Alexander and Rufus--a man afterwards well known to the Church. Great was Simon's privilege, but accidental--Providential. But Peter--the absent Simon --was not forgotten. Not many days passed before he also was promised that he should not only carry his cross, but suffer on it, being crucified thus with Christ. And Peter was not so compelled. It was love and gratitude that alone constrained him.