THERE is ever yet among us no name of so sublime, no name of so lovely, no name of so holy a sound, as the name of our precious Jesus.
However much a part of the church may have fallen away from Him, and tone-giving people have turned their back on Him, and society lives more and more without Him, the name of Jesus is still honored everywhere. As yet no one dares to abuse the Unique and Only One.
Many have wandered away from the real Mediator at ever farther distances, and the living Savior has been replaced by a “Rabbi of Nazareth”, who is honored merely as a religious genius, or as an example of gentleness. But however much the image of the Savior may be falsified, even under these incorrect aspects, homage is still paid Him. Also to the modernists, even to those, who stand back of the modernists, the name of Jesus is ever yet a name, that inspires something noble.
There are exceptions already, and when one has seen the caricatures, with which the Jews in Germany and the ringleaders in Belgium, dared to defame the glorious personality of our Lord, one trembles at the thought, that perchance already in the third generation, this general human respect also for Jesus shall turn into most shameful revilement;—but we are not so far along yet. In our better circles, even in the public market, the name of Jesus is still a celebrated name. Almost no one among us, who still has an ideal, but links it with the name of Jesus. And where even this tie is severed, cool silence is always still a tribute of respect, which holds back the invective of hatred.
ONCE this was different.
When Jesus was arrested in the garden of Olives and was led to the Jewish hall of judgment, and was made a spectacle of at Gabbatha, and at Golgotha hung upon the accursed wood—there was no honor for Jesus’ name.
Then to that glorious name, there cleaved disgrace and shame.
Such humiliating, offensive and galling revilement, which even the most warmly devoted of His most intimate disciples, dared not face; and when they asked him: “Art thou also one of them?”, he sought refuge in cursing and swearing, that he might evade the very appearance, lest that revilement and that despisal, which was heaped upon His Savior, should also extend to him.
And that revilement, that despisal, which was so offensive and grievous, that even a Peter shrank from it as from a poisonous serpent, that deep disgrace your Savior has borne. He Who felt that ignominy so much more deeply than Peter, has stood arrayed with it before the eyes of all, and has been crucified with it in common sight, openly before those staring eyes, so full of shameless hatred. And when His blood was being shed because of us; and His breath was shortening; a still more poisonous arrow, than pains of death, killed the honor of His Divine name to the sense of honor of His death-pang troubled heart.
Honor is better than life, and to the man of honor his name is more holy than the life-warmth of his own blood.
To have honor, honor above every name, was the glorious reward, that, because of the travail of His soul and for the deep despisal He endured, the Man of sorrows has received.
But to obtain this honor above all glory and this name above every name, our Jesus has not merely borne the cross, but He has also despised the shame, and bowed the head low, very low, under the dreadful scorn and revilement, that base envy spewed out upon Him.
It was a terrible turn at Jerusalem.
Thus far Jesus had avoided the circles in which they hated Him. Faithful-hearted disciples, admiring friends, kindly women surrounded Him. The multitude that hung upon His lips, the healed who gave Him thanks, the hopeless who touched the hem of His garment, could scarcely be repressed; they wanted to make Jesus king; and on Palm-Sunday they had strewn palm branches before His feet, and spread their garments in His way, and gladly and loudly had they sung in Jerusalem’s gates: “Hosanna to the Son of David.”
Thus far Jesus had drunk in love, had seen grateful looks around Him, had enjoyed the homage of many.
But now, in the garden of Olives, at once everything becomes different.
It is the hour of darkness.
The good turn aside, the evil appear in the foreground. John flees. Judas remains with Him. And now begins the deep, the terrible despisal, the grieving disdain and the insulting revilement.
That despisal also was a part of the cup which He must drink.
Ages before He had seen it in advance, and at the sight of it had complained at David’s lips: “I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying: He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, if he hath delight in him!” (Ps. 22:6-8).
And when at last the hour of darkness came, yea, that multitude has actually stood by; that wild mob, that hooted at Him and howled for His blood; then they have been there, those soldiers, who oblivious of all honor, have pursued their bent towards mockery at the expense of our dear Savior; and with their hellish faces they have stood before the dying Jesus raving and screaming, those inhuman priests and wise men of Israel, when they cried: “If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross!”
IN that deep despisal there was something of the curse, which, that He might redeem us from it, Jesus has borne for us.
Those men and women who poured out such deep hatred upon Him, did not do this of themselves. He who was back of it and spurred them on and poisoned their lips to revile Jesus, was the old enemy, who had truly left Him for a time, but who was always still the Prince of this world, and who had awaited his hour.
From hell that poisonous language of insulting revilement was inspired by Satan to those instruments of his unholy wrath. They knew not what they did. Only listen: Father! forgive them, for they know not what they do!
Not that therefore those men, those women, those priests are guiltless. Far from it. He, who, where or whenever, suffers himself to be used of Satan, commits dreadful sin, in that he serves Satan, where he should serve God.
But it implies this, that those persons who then on Golgotha maliciously reviled our Lord, were no worse, no more wicked. no more corrupt, than we, as often as we lend ourselves to Satan, to be employed in his accursed service.
This is what it declares to us, that all our kneeling at Jesus’ feet by no means clears us from fellow-guilt in the revilements that were then cast upon Jesus.
This your soul should learn, that henceforth you should no more think: Those shameful people reviled Jesus, but I, devout one, worship Him.
No, no, deep down in your evil heart you should feel: In that revilement my heart too has guilt, and that I do not rail at, but love my Savior, is pure grace, a thousand times forfeited grace of my God.
And when at times your own heart is afraid of reproach, and, so, shrinks back from the scorn and despisal of men, let your soul be mindful of two things.
First that to suffer reproach and shame with Jesus, and for His sake, is so blessed and glorious a share in the divine suffering of your dear, precious Savior, that far from complaining: “This is what makes life so bitter to me!” you should rather rejoice and say: “In this reproach and in this revilement a redeemed one of the Lord comes to life!”
Much more still.
Real abuse, actual revilement could be your portion only, if, in the great day of judgment, all your sins and all your evil thoughts were to be openly rehearsed before the world of men and before the world of angels, and you, to your deep shame, were to be held up to common view in all your nakedness.
My brother, that you escape this revilement, and this shame, you owe to Jesus, to Him Who was despised, that you should never succumb under despisal and shame.
Oh, let your soul say thanks for this, to the “Deliverer from shame”.
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