NATURE also has given signs, when the Savior of the world was cast out by the world, and on the cross gave up the ghost.
All sorts of signs are reported. At midday, suddenly a black darkness fell, which lasted hours together. The earth quaked, and the rocks rent. And as a result of this, the temple of Zion trembled on its foundations, so that the veil was rent, and graves were opened and appearances of the dead were seen.
And as a second result is stated, that the centurion who commanded the watch at the cross, at the sight of these signs was so greatly moved, that he exclaimed: Truly this was a son of God, the Son of a God, a superhuman Being!
We would almost say, that such an outburst in nature was bound to come.
He Who here died was the Mediator between God and men, and as such the eternal Word, through Whom all things in heaven and on earth have been created. The apostle John goes out from that creation of heaven and earth by the Word, to bring us directly from Creation to Bethlehem, from Bethlehem to Golgotha, and from Golgotha to His ascension into heaven.
And not alone that He Who here died was He, by Whom that earth, and those rocks had been created, but His dying was at the same time the great turning point in the history of the human race, in which the creation of this earth had reached its zenith.
On to the cross it goes the downward way. From that cross on, the way suddenly turns about and goes upward.
This mighty Savior of the world moreover is not exclusively a spiritualistic being, Who operates merely spiritually, but that Son of God has, with the human soul, also taken the flesh and blood of little children.
He has been seen bodily. He has been handled, seen, in external appearance, and to this coming of the Savior in the flesh the Scripture attaches a so far all-else-excelling significance, that the apostle calls you an antichrist when you do not open-heartedly and in all its far-reaching tendency acknowledge this coming of the Son of God in the flesh.
Hence, you see Him not alone saving sinners spiritually, but you also see Him do all sorts of material miracles in the realm of nature. He rebukes the storm, He walks upon the sea, He multiplies bread, He heals the sick, the dead He raises bodily.
Yea, more still, the cross of Golgotha is only perfected in the bodily resurrection. Already on the Mount His body and His raiment had been glorified in advance. And now His triumph completes itself in His flesh and blood.
And presently He ascends into heaven, not leaving here behind Him His earthly, material part of man, but takes it up with Him to heaven, and in our flesh is now seated at the right hand of God.
If now this flesh is related to all of nature, how could it be otherwise than that also in nature the dying of the Savior must have its afterthrill.
Must not His deathgroan become a deathgroan, which worked its after-effect in the nature that surrounded the cross?
Not that this so took place, surprises; but had it not so taken place, something would have been lacking.
You would no longer have understood the deep relation of life between nature and the eternal Word.
If you do not understand this sympathetic groaning and quaking of nature with the dying of the mighty Savior, you understand equally little the curse which for sin’s sake has come upon that nature, and of the awful natural signs that shall accompany Jesus’ return.
When for the sake of sin the curse comes upon the earth, what else is this than a sympathetic mourning of nature with fallen man; the laying aside of the raiment of Paradise; in the mourning raiment of the curse, to bemoan the sin of man.
Sin is also spiritual of nature; and can not have its seat in the flesh, for how else would Satan, who has no flesh, have been able to sin, and to become to us the inspirer of all sin?
And yet, this spiritual event of the fall into sin does not merely affect man’s bodily nature, and here bring us temporal death, but similarly affects all of nature, so that all her face is darkened, and thorns and thistles become the sign of her new appearance.
And this altogether selfsame effect is foretold in Scripture with respect to the future of the Lord Christ.
Then not only souls that are made blessed, but also bodies that are raised and glorified.
But not this alone. Revelation clearly teaches, that then there shall also be signs and dreadful happenings in sun and moon and stars, in the seas and rivers of the earth.
Yea, finally this whole earthly nature shall pass away in one terrible world-conflagration, that from this world-conflagration a new earth, a glorified nature, a nature more glorious than Paradise once was, shall come forth.
And do not say, that while nature truly undergoes all this, yet in nature itself there is no sympathetic responsive life.
Does not the apostle Paul (Romans 8) tell us that “nature with uplifted head groans, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God? For that nature is subjected to the curse, not willingly, but by the will of Him, Who has subjected her to the curse; in hope, that this nature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For, so he concludes, we know, that the whole nature groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”
How then could you say, that a nature, which with the advent of sin dons the garment of mourning, and still groaning ever waits for the revelation of glory which is to come, should not have quaked, when the great suit also regarding her future was decided, and the Mediator, Who was also her Creator, died away in the death on the cross.
Only let not this sympathetic quaking of the earth with the dying of Jesus become a reproach to you.
Though it be, that nature also has ties that bind her to Jesus, and sees her lot apportioned to her by Him, what is this tie compared with the mystical communion of soul, which is the possession of all mankind, but which communion with the Savior of the world is in a different sense the portion of His elect.
The world of men stands indeed much closer related to Jesus than unconscious nature. And when you see, that while nature groans and quakes in sympathy with His agony, the people who stand by the cross, taken en masse, feel nothing for Jesus, and rather make a mockery of Him; yea, that these people are human beings, who make Jesus die, how shameful then is here the exhibition of our human race as over against nature. A nature that sympathetically mourns with Christ, while a human race regales itself in His dying.
But such being the case, it was our sin, our self-stupification, our utter degeneracy, an impossibility into which we had brought ourselves, of sharing sympathy with nature for the holy Jesus; of suffering and dying with Him.
But now look abroad upon the confessors of the Lord, the redeemed of that Savior, those vast multitudes, which are baptized in His name, and call themselves after Christ, as with a name of honor.
They have heard of the cross of Golgotha. In holy Scripture they have seen that suffering and dying of Christ portrayed as before their eyes. In all manners of ways they have been urged to witness it. By preaching, by reading, by picture and reflection.
The world is full of the cross. As ornament and sign of honor, it is carried abroad in all the world.
And every year the six or seven weeks return, in which the Christian world is urged to meditate again on the suffering and dying of the Mediator.
And these confessors, these redeemed of Jesus, what do they feel in their heart as the suffering and dying of Christ is again brought to mind, again portrayed as before their eyes?
Can you say, that as once nature quaked with sympathy for Christ, so their heart and their soul groans and trembles with sympathy, as that cross is depicted before them?
Alas! how weak is this fellow-feeling; how almost imperceptible it is in His saints.
Even when His death is remembered at Holy Communion, how little holy emotion!
Standing before the temple at Jerusalem, Jesus said, that if the child of man should remain silent, the stones would immediately cry out (Luke 19:40).
And this has literally been fulfilled at Golgotha.
He who as man stood there remained silent, or did worse than remain silent, and blasphemed the Son of God. And yet the rocks have spoken, and the ground has quaked, and by it, that officer of the watch has been moved.
Do not deem therefore that nature is foreign to yourself. Have you not been taken from the earth? Does not your food come from that earth? Do not you once return again to the earth, by her to be dissolved and kept, till the future of the Lord?
In brief, is not your life allied with the life of nature? And does it not stand as a helpmeet by the side of you, or as a witness against you?
When her Spring returns again, she brings you with that Spring the return of Easter, and as a faithful watcher she comes to you every year to renew at the cross of Golgotha the dreadful suffering-scene that preceded the glory of Easter.
Oh, as the quaking of the earth at Jesus’ death on the cross brought to the officer of the watch a stirring in the soul, so let the voice of nature every year again bring you a like experience, as you commemorate the suffering of your Lord.
As once the earth under Golgotha has quaked, so let also your heart know that holy trembling, that quiet quaking, as you bring to mind again the terribleness of that entering of your Savior into eternal death.
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