IF UNTIL DEATH, and still more in dying, you expect comfort for your heart from Golgotha’s cross, you may well embrace that wondrous cross with both hands.
The power by which the world tries to draw you away from that cross has become incredibly great; and what in our earlier life, still drove at least the piously disposed soul to Golgotha, has more and more lost almost all influence.
Time was, not very long ago, when the very name of Golgotha was held in common esteem as the name of the most sacred spot on earth. The simple mention of that name stirred the innermost perception of our heart in holy motion. In whatever quarter the scorner would cool his malice, he left Golgotha to itself. That was too impressive. Had he attacked Golgotha, it would not have been well with him.
Among more seriously-minded people, this vague impression was not all. Even unconsciously you were brought under the influence of that holy name. In all such circles the cross was the “sign of life”, the symbol of our confession, the central point, from which all higher emotion came to us, and towards which every nobler outbreathing of our soul returned. That cross was highly exalted in preaching and address, in prayer, in song, in image, and in writing. Yea, one did not merely hear about the cross, but the soul dwelt at that cross. There was no intimate association with almost any one, but you soon observed that at times he too could not refrain from forgetting everything else, to think of Golgotha alone.
So was the cross of Golgotha dominant in thought, in conviction of soul, in life.
Though even then there was no lack of sinful influences, to draw you away from the man of sorrows, there was much in your daily surroundings that drew you to Golgotha and pointed you to that cross.
HOW different all this has become!
By taking the fathomless deep mystery out of Golgotha, and by speaking of the Martyr who sealed his conviction with his blood, unfaithful preachers of the Gospel have committed treason against the Holiest, and have even extinguished the halo of light in which these many centuries the thorn-crowned Head of your Savior has been lustrous before all eyes.
It was said, that by so doing they made Jesus more human; that they brought Him within a nearer range to your intelligence; that so He would gain immensely in the admiration of all hearts.
But the outcome has proved otherwise.
Every people, every religion, every idolatry, has furnished martyrs for their conviction, and no system has been thought out, so hellish, so devilish, all the way to Anarchism and Nihilism, but was able to inspire men and women to the martyr-death.
In the mystery of Atonement, Jesus stood unique. He alone, and no one with Him. But when treacherous preaching in His own church had reduced Him to a martyr, He was one of many; there were even those that had undergone a far more awful death than He.
And of course, when in His own church this treason had been committed against the Man of sorrows, with unholy fervor the world has followed after.
“Jesus the martyr” has become the magic watchword to deliver her from the urge of the cross.
So it became as a melting of snow before the rising sun, and presently … a running down as of very rapid waters.
Soon men boldly named the blessed name of your Savior with that of Mahomed, Confucius and Buddha. All these were mighty figures. Benefactors of mankind.
That was it: Jesus also had done well, and with Him heroes of thought like a Kant and a Hegel.
So the holy form of the Lamb of God was brought down to the ordinary proportions of celebrated men. Terrible!
And to this it was bound to come. For, men had no more knowledge of guilt, they no longer believed in a doom. And what sensible man would now speak of the blood of Golgotha as the ransom for our sins?
SO in the end it has proved true, that faith, by which the soul that thirsts after redemption embraces the cross of Golgotha, is no common good, does not proceed from our nature, but is a gift of the grace of God.
For, truly, there are still thousands upon thousands, who, undismayed by this treason against Jesus and unmoved by this general apostacy, quietly and childlike continue to glory in that cross of Jesus as in the mystery into which angels desire to look; but in the heart of all these this faith owes its origin to a special grace, and has always been maintained by this special grace alone.
Self-exaltation therefore by reason of this faith is highly unbecoming.
You do not have it of yourself. As far as you are concerned, you would have put it from you as well as the others. You are no better than they. It would be a new sin to you, a sin which as a worm would gnaw on your faith, if instead of offering unto God unfeigned thanks, you were to ascribe honor to yourself; as though your faithfulness, your courage, your enthusiasm maintained the remembrance of, and the attachment to Golgotha.
On the contrary, where in the selfsame shipwreck you were threatened to perish with the others, deeper self-effacement becomes you, and a more ardent and full acknowledgement of forfeited grace; and in case your near and dear ones hold fast to that cross with you, you do not realize, how vastly rich you are in the mercy you have been granted.
Not that therefore by much arguing you should try to unveil the mystery of Golgotha.
A mystery can not be dissected, and when you undertake to do this, it dies away under your hand.
Not with cool argumentative thinking, but in worship, with the warmth of your heart you must turn to that mystery of Atonement, or else the grace which hides in it withholds from you its blessing.
It will not avail you even, that you feel yourself lost, and, that you may be saved you kneel down at the cross; for wanting to be saved is always yet selfishness, so long as that desire to be saved has no higher end in view.
To be saved for whom? For what? Why?
Merely not to go down eternally into never-ending woe? Merely, if it were possible, to taste an existence full of high enjoyment? But what is this else, save to desire everything, even the cross of Golgotha, for your own self’s sake!
No, this, without more, is not yet religion, is not yet fruit of godliness.
See, when the hero in the field of battle on horseback plunges forward toward victory, and suddenly his steed is shot, and grievously wounded, this brave animal, if it could speak, would express its desire to be healed of its wound, not that it itself might graze in pasture again, but that it might again carry its rider and render victory possible for him.
And so likewise thirst after salvation all holy and humble men of heart.
For God’s sake, not for ours, salvation must come. Not we, but God has been robbed by sin. And, therefore, not to ourselves but to God must we be given back.
So operates not selfishness, but love.
And it is this consuming love alone, which harnessed in holy passion, drives out to Golgotha; offers worship at Golgotha; gives thanks for Golgotha; and carries away the full divine blessing of Reconciliation from Golgotha.
And though for him who thinks and lives at all intensely there remain a thousand perplexing problems which storm the heart; of riddles insolvable; of questions to which comes no answer; of contradictions which make your spirit reel; here in the mystery of Golgotha your battle-worn soul finds rest.
Not, because it enables you to give “a wise answer” to all those questions, but because it embraces all these questions in this one fact, in this one impenetrable wondrous event, that He, Who came from God and Himself was God, has poured out His soul unto death.
Deeper thought there is none. You can not join together in simpler language the mightiest antitheses of heaven and of earth.
Every other question that held your attention pales in significance by the side of that Son of God, Who is Himself God, and Who has poured out His soul unto death.
And to believe this fact, to confess this event without equal; to enter into it with your whole soul; and then blessedly to experience, that it does not offend you; that, on the contrary, your soul loses itself in it; that from it rest breathes out towards you; that from it holy peace takes possession of you; and that at that cross you have reached the zenith, from whence with free outlook you gaze upon eternity,—that is the Amen, which is spoken in your human heart in response to the mystery of Golgotha; and against which no scorn and no doubt can avail a thing.
But thus spiritually the worship of this mystery must conduct itself in you.
From afar, at a distance, to admire that cross can make no blessed feeling to course through the heart.
The blessing of that cross flows for him alone who has lost himself in that cross.
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