IN ALL GOD’S CREATURES, including the animal and the vegetable-kingdoms, there lies a glorious symbolism, the rich significance of which Scripture only rarely discloses.
A symbolism in the grain of wheat, that falls into the earth and dies, and in the Vine, that bears fruit upon its branches. And so likewise a symbolism in the Dove, coming down upon its wings, and in the Lamb, that bleats plaintively as it is led to pasture, and is dumb before him who shears or slaughters it.
Holy is this symbolism to us, because it cleaves to the Person and appearance of Him, Who has bought us with His blood. He is the Grain of wheat, that must die lest it remain alone; He, the Vine, that communicates its life-sap to all its branches; upon Him the Dove descended, that He might be filled with the Holy Ghost without measure; and so above all else, He, our Jesus, is the Lamb, that goes to the slaughter, the Lamb that taketh away the sin of the world, the Lamb that is dumb before the face of its shearers.
So was the suffering of the Man of sorrows.
Not in the literal sense, as though during all the hours of His passion He spake no word. Judas learned this in the garden, when the Lord cut him through his evil soul with His dreadful word. Caiaphas found this otherwise, when Jesus prophesied to him of the Son of man, Who would come upon the clouds. This affected Pilate deeply when Jesus showed him the hollowness and emptiness of his sceptical sense of truth.
No, in this sense, Jesus in His suffering was not dumb. Rather He spake relatively much. Even on the cross seven times. Just before He died: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”
The voicelessness of the Lamb lies in holding back the cry of opposition to suffering.
In the outcry with which the sensitive creature rebels against suffering, there is a means of defence. So the child in the cradle cries when he has pain. So the child in the street screams when he suffers injury. So, there is a cry of resistance in the lips of every one, when he is violently attacked or confused by fright. So cries and moans and howls the animal when it is beaten or feels pain. And when presently to the cry there is added the opposition of resistance and the frenzied animal turns on his tormentor, then the cry and the anger are one. It is the instinctive sense not to will to suffer, but to resist pain and injury.
And without insisting that a lamb never moans and never resists, yet, more than any other animal, the lamb makes the impression upon us of surrendering itself helplessly and defencelessly to its fate. This animal is altogether created for this effect. Defencelessness is its expression. Especially when it goes to death, the lamb arouses your commiseration. To slaughter a lamb requires more mastery over your feeling than the slaughter of a bullock or ox.
And in this general sense the figurative language of the Lamb in its application to Jesus must be understood.
He did not resist. When He was reviled, He reviled not again. When He is taunted and mocked, He prays for His enemies. He drinks the cup which the Father has given Him, with perfect self-control, with the will to drink it to the last drop.
And this is the deep discernment of the mystery of suffering.
There is also a suffering that is intended to stimulate our adaptability. The thorns and thistles of the earth spur Adam on to seek his bread in the sweat of his brow. The roaring lion that attacks a man, puts him on his mettle manfully to struggle to save his life. The storm that breaks loose upon the waters, impels the seaman with heroic courage to battle the hurricane. All sorts of diseases and ailments force human ingenuity to draw healing from the herbs of the ground. In brief, there are all sorts of harm and danger on every hand, which are not intended, to have us behave under them as the lamb, but which with heroic courage and power of will we must combat.
But this is merely the bark and not the kernel, not the heart, of the mystery of suffering.
Beyond the suffering that comes upon us by nature, there is also a suffering which man brings upon man; and in human wickedness we detect the venom, that Satan spews out upon us.
There is carping vexation that must be battled through, cruel disappointment under which the human heart has to toil; dreadful homesickness of heart, under which the weary soul must give way. And then there is all that multitudinous host of intentional vexation in slander, scorn and insult; presently in spitting upon one’s face, and in putting hands upon one’s body with all sorts of scourgings and woundings to the death, yea, to the death of the cross. And as though this were not enough, all this is made still worse by putting slander and cross together; by pronouncing sentence of guilt upon the poor innocent man; and then guiltless yet doomed to abandon him to the hatred and scornful affrontery of all.
This is real, this is altogether soul-agonizing suffering. A suffering that goads us, but in this incitement poisons the soul, and does not rouse us to manly courage and exercise of will-power, but to revenge, bitterness and hate.
And here is the test.
When suffering brings this urge upon you, and you allow this urge to work itself out to its last instance, it brings you utter defeat.
But likewise, when you learn to resist this urge of Satan’s venom and defenceless as the lamb, suffer such suffering to come upon you, then you triumph.
The inmost kernel of this suffering Jesus alone has tasted in all its bitterness.
Not because there are no people who have been more cruelly tortured. Many martyrs, men and women, have suffered far more terrible barbarities.
For consider well, the bitterness of this suffering increases, not so much in proportion to severer torture, but in proportion to the vexation of soul. It is the innocent suffering, which here makes the anguish more keen. And therefore Jesus alone could fathom this suffering in all its terrible depth.
We never suffer guiltless. In the sin of all our own sin lies inwoven. The wickedness that breaks loose against us is our own wickedness, spying us and laying snares from the heart of others. It is the common hatred, which has its rise from sin, in which we all are implicated.
But here it was the pure, the holy, the sinless, the guiltless. He Who had no part in anything unholy, Who did not lie entangled in a single root-fibre of sin with the fibres of His own heart. He Who never knew hatred other than that against Satan. Incarnate Love itself.
Herein alone the incomparable depth of the suffering of the Lord must be sought. Every other comparison falls short of the purpose. Only thus stands His suffering unique among all suffering in all the passion-histories of mankind.
So alone is He the Man of sorrows, because He alone was truly the Servant of God.
And see, the urge of His human perception, to oppose this deepest of all suffering with His good right, with His spotless conscience, with all the excellency of His cause, this urge He has extinguished, He has dulled, He has smothered in His inmost soul.
So is He become the Lamb of God.
He did not look at the stone, but at Him who cast that stone. He withdrew His eye from the saw, and looked alone on Him, Whose hand drew the saw. A Judas, a Caiaphas, a Pilate, they were altogether instruments, nothing more. He, from Whom this nameless suffering came upon Him, was His own Father, His Father in the heavens. No, Pilate, no, Caiaphas, no, Judas, you would have no power against Me, were it not given you from above!
Because God willed that He should suffer, therefore He willed to suffer.
Whether this cost Him no conflict, ask the shadow of Gethsemane’s olives.
That urge to resist it, and that knowledge: God wills it! clashed so cruelly in His human heart.
But when it became altogether clear again to Him and so heavenly transparent: God wills this suffering, there was no more hesitation for one moment.
See, then He went out from Gethsemane to Golgotha, He, the Lamb of God, that took away the sin of the world.
← 23. Weep Not for Me (II.) · Contents · 25. A Worm and No Man →