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The Dilemmas of 
 
 Jesus 
 
 / By 
 JAMES BLACK, D.D. 
 
 Minister, St. George’s United Free 
 Church, Edinburgh 
 
 Author of “‘The Mystery of Preaching,” 
 “The Pilgrim Ship,” etc. 
 
 New York CHICAGO 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 ‘LoNDON AND EDINBURGH 
 
 
 
Copyright, 1925, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 
 
To 
 The Morning Congregation 
 of 
 St. George’s United Free Church, 
 Edinburgh. 
 
Ui\y 
 bAb 
 i] 
 iG} 
 
 (: 
 
 ee 
 
 
 
TO THE READER 
 
 My only Foreword may be perfectly summed up 
 in the great sentence and prayer, 
 “ Sir, we would see Jesus.” 
 JAMES BLACK. 
 St. George’s United Free 
 Church, Edinburgh 
 
i Nes 4 
 i a 4 
 
 ¥) { 
 6 
 re. 
 7s bry . 
 Sie rai: 
 Hires 
 
 
 
. Tur DILEMMA OF THE CROSS-ROADS 
 . Tue DinEMMA OF AUTHORITY 
 
 . THE DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 
 
 . Tue DILEMMA OF SILENCE 
 
 . THE DILEMMA WITH JuDAS . 
 
 . THE Last DILEMMA. 
 
 Contents 
 
 . Toe DILEMMA AT JORDAN 
 
 . Tun DmEMMA IN THE DEsSERT— 
 
 (A) THE ANGUISH 
 
 . THE DILEMMA IN THE DkESERT— 
 
 (B) THE Vicrory . 
 
 . Ture DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 
 . Tur DILEMMA OF PoLirics 
 
 . Tur DILEMMA oF Nationa, LAw 
 
 11 
 
 fis 
 
 45 
 62 
 
 78 
 95 
 
 “LEE 
 ay, 
 . 144 
 . 161 
 aye Wee, 
 serene 
 
SS; 
 
 i Att i eo 
 
 
 
I 
 
 THE DILEMMA AT JORDAN 
 
 5 time was now ripe. 
 
 After the long years of quiet prepa- 
 
 if ae ration,—a gracious boyhood and a 
 
 PESEAY clean stretch of working manhood, 
 with many long thoughts and wonderings that 
 must remain a sealed book to us—the soul of the 
 Redeemer was stirring in the life of the Man. The 
 mysterious bidding of God was working in Jesus to | 
 a clear issue and a great adventure. 
 
 Personally, I rejoice that we know next to 
 nothing of His early days. It would be no gain 
 for me to have a string of precocious incidents 
 and sayings such as fond parents store in their 
 memory regarding the budding genius of their 
 children. [I like that strong note of reticence, so 
 unusual with us, where St. Luke remarks that 
 His mother “ kept all these sayings in her heart.” 
 Wise mother! 
 
 All that need be said about the grotesque accounts 
 of His boyhood given so lavishly in the uncanon- 
 ical writings is that they are as foolish as they are 
 spurious. They were written no doubt to honour 
 Him, according to the ideas of the age, but some of 
 our attempts to honour Jesus may only defame 
 
 11 
 
 
 
12 THE DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 
 
 Him. They certainly defame Him when they are 
 inventions. 
 
 As things are—and I for one am grateful—our 
 Lord steps clear on to the stage of His ministry, as 
 if He had just come straight from the presence of 
 God. It is a spiritual gain to us that He has no 
 past. Let us leave these thirty years to Himself, 
 for they belong only to Him and to God. It is 
 enough for us to know that the period of His youth 
 and manhood was a dawning shaping time of won- 
 der and resolve. Surely the world has more than it 
 can ever grasp or understand in the three rich years 
 of His active ministry. In an ideal sense, it is not 
 
 “Jesus the Boy, or Jesus the Workman, but Jesus 
 the Christ with whom we are concerned. We know 
 all that we need know. 
 
 The time was now ripe. 
 
 The long slow processes had at last fully gath- 
 ered to a head, and Jesus felt definitely the urge of 
 God. Unlike other gifted men, conscious of big 
 possibilities within them, He had not been impatient 
 at the prolonged delay, nor had He betrayed petu- 
 lance regarding God’s postponements. ‘Though the 
 Winter may have seemed unduly long, He had 
 quietly stayed the coming of the Spring-time. Now 
 that it had come, stretching Himself as a rested 
 man awaking from sleep, He walked slowly out 
 from the home and the carpenter’s bench to the 
 
 » new adventure. 
 Perhaps that waiting was God’s final test. 
 
THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN We, 
 
 At this moment, He feels the thrill of His new- 
 found gifts. God’s whisper, so long deferred, has 
 roused Him to a knowledge of two things—His 
 work and Himself. Of the two it may well be that 
 the discovery of Himself is the greater, for by it 
 the other was conditioned. 
 
 We cannot know how or when it came, though 
 we may well hazard the suggestion that John’s clear 
 message of the Kingdom served as one of the 
 prongs of awakening. But we do know that the 
 call has come,—at last. A sense of His own great- 
 ness stirs in Him,—a unique conception of His 
 mission based on a unique conception of Himself. 
 
 Why need we wonder at this, even on a human 
 level? I have met young men, poor triflers com- 
 pared with Jesus, who with some little hot splutter- 
 ing message in their heart, have felt themselves 
 strangely aloof from the world. If we do not 
 think it remarkable to see some young reformer 
 thus exalted, why need we doubt that Jesus, with 
 the full burden of God in His heart, should feel 
 Himself at this moment strangely unique and 
 supreme? 
 
 I emphasise this, and dwell on it, because of what 
 follows. For it is Christ’s uniqueness, majestically 
 felt in His own heart, which creates this dilemma 
 at Jordan. 
 
 I 
 For out there at the river, clothed like a hermit 
 
14 THE DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 
 
 and with the gaunt face of an ascetic, there was a 
 young prophet, John the Baptist, working wonders, 
 a man with a flaming message who feared no one 
 but God. 
 
 The fierce preaching of this man had been por- 
 tentous. He had stirred the Israel of his day, as 
 few at any time had ever done. Men of all orders 
 and ranks,—Pharisees and soldiers, taxgatherers 
 and priests,—had flocked to him in fascinated won- 
 der. He was a magnificent survival, a prophet 
 after the days of the prophets, but with more than 
 a prophet’s motley crowd. 
 
 This diversity of his appeal is one of the proofs 
 of his greatness. A stronger proof lies in the fact 
 that he compelled his audience to come to him in 
 the desert instead of his seeking them in the cities. 
 But the clearest proof of all lies in this,—that 
 though he was as elemental and characteristic as 
 any man who ever preached, yet his personality was 
 drowned in his message. St. Mark calls him “ the 
 voice of one crying in the wilderness.” That is the 
 finest tribute to a preacher ever recorded. 
 
 He was a great “ voice” calling the world from 
 its sin, and preaching the vehemence of God. The 
 one note of his doctrine was sin—sin national and 
 private, sin that cried to Heaven. The one demand 
 of his preaching was repentance. “Ye are all a 
 generation of vipers.” This is the roll of muffled 
 thunder. “ Bring forth fruits meet for repentance.” 
 
 At this moment, he was at the height and crest 
 
THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN i 
 
 of his mission of cleansing. Though the mighty 
 and the great came to his feet, he truckled to no 
 man; but from them all, priest and publican alike, 
 he demanded this one thing, repentance. They were 
 all of them God’s apostate people: and before he 
 would baptise even the best of them, they must first 
 baptise themselves in their own purifying tears. 
 
 “ Repent!” “ Repent!” 
 
 It was a Baptism of Repentance,—that only. 
 
 II 
 
 How would Jesus, unique in His own soul and 
 conscious of no need such as John exacted, relate 
 Himself to a message like this? 
 
 It is easy to understand the difficulty as it touched 
 our Lord. 
 
 If this crusade of John was purely a Baptism of 
 Repentance, Jesus, whom no person could convict, 
 could not accept. He acknowledged sin to no man. 
 Whether we admit this or not, it is at least a clear 
 note of His own consciousness. He is the only man 
 in history who never acknowledged sin without be- 
 ing called a hypocrite or a self-deceiver. “ Which 
 of you convicteth me of sin?” 
 
 How then would a pure soul like Jesus treat the 
 Baptism of John? 
 
 Even although God was evidently working His 
 own wonders through this man in His own way, 
 yet the gate through which the prophet called the 
 nation to God was the narrow gate of repentance. 
 
16 THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 
 
 With no consciousness of need in His own heart, 
 could Jesus stoop to enter in? 
 
 There were one or two courses open to Him 
 which might have agreed with His uniqueness, 
 and in human eyes might even have seemed to - 
 enhance it. 
 
 (a) So far as He Himself was concerned, He 
 might have said, “ This ministry of repentance is 
 salvation for these needy people, but of course, it 
 cannot in any way apply to me. By God’s love, I 
 come to my great work with a stainless heart. 
 Having nothing to confess, I need no cleansing 
 tears.” 
 
 Thus, in His own feeling of purity, He might 
 easily have neglected this ministry of John. In no 
 sense had it any concern with Him or any bearing 
 on His own fortunes. We can easily picture Him 
 standing aloof, no doubt with a sincere benediction, 
 but yet regarding it as something that had no imag- 
 inable relation to Him. In every good sense, He 
 might have felt Himself “ above’’ it. 
 
 In one view—a good view—that course of con- 
 duct might have established and indeed enhanced 
 His uniqueness in our eyes. Some of us might 
 have praised God that Jesus felt Himself divinely 
 superior to such a message as this Baptism. 
 
 (6) Again, He might have advanced further and 
 argued, on the positive side, that though John’s 
 
THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN Py 
 
 ministry had served its own day superbly, yet since 
 He Himself had now appeared, its day was done. 
 
 John’s preaching was a beautiful relic of the 
 past,—the past that was now swallowed up for 
 ever in the glorious present. The Baptist had 
 only foretold that the Kingdom was coming: 
 Jesus announced that at last the Kingdom had 
 come. Thus in a quiet but assured way, He might 
 have brushed John’s baptism aside, as an obsolete 
 thing, good in itself, no doubt, but now finally 
 superseded. The Prince’s herald retires when the 
 Prince appears. 
 
 To some minds also, such an attitude might have 
 been fully consistent with His uniqueness and 
 might even have seemed to enhance it. 
 
 (c) Yet again, with His own soul hot with God’s 
 full vision, He might not only have slurred and 
 neglected John’s Baptism, but might easily have 
 opposed and decried it. 
 
 In His eyes, admittedly, that ministry of John 
 was an imperfect thing. It was a great half-truth. 
 It proclaimed only aspects of God and aspects of 
 sin. Is it not our duty to smash imperfect things, 
 lest they lure simple souls from the biggest and 
 the best? 
 
 Moreover, for some time to come, John was cer- 
 tain to be a faint rival of Jesus, and might draw 
 some seeking souls from His sway. For the sake 
 of His own unique work, it might be better there- 
 
18 THE DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 
 
 fore to trample John’s ministry in the dust and 
 break his influence. This is a common way with 
 the big men of history: they prove their own power 
 by breaking their rivals. 
 
 Some of us might well think that this was the 
 perfect way for Christ to prove His uniqueness. 
 
 iil 
 
 That was what He might have done, as we see it 
 in our pitiful worldly wisdom. 
 
 What did He do? 
 
 Bidding His mother and brethren farewell, He 
 walked out of Nazareth one summer morning along 
 the dusty ways and through the scrubby hills, 
 making for the pools of Jordan. He joined the 
 throng of troubled seekers whose anxious feet had 
 beaten paths like sheep-tracks through the rough 
 country. He mingled humbly with this pilgrim 
 mob until they brought Him to the motley con- 
 course at the river. There He stayed all day, 
 watching with His loving eyes this great sacrament 
 of a people’s awakening and cleansing. Then, as 
 twilight gathered and the weary people trudged 
 homewards,—some, praise God, with lighter hearts, 
 —Jesus, “ when all the people were baptised,”’ went 
 up to John. 
 
 Quietly and yet with a note of authority He 
 asked to be baptised.. There, alone with the silent 
 stars, He faced the weary preacher. 
 
 Sir, | would be baptised of thee. 
 
 
 

 
 THE DILEMMA AT F¥ORDAN 19 
 
 What took place thereafter was a subtle tribute 
 to Jesus and John. 
 
 It was a tribute to Jesus in that it shows how, 
 then and always, men came under the magic sway 
 of His personality. They might hate Him: they 
 might love Him. They might fear Him: they 
 might trust Him. But one and all, then as now, 
 were forced to admit the majesty and compulsion 
 of His character. Whatever John may have known 
 about Him, he felt this constraining power. 
 
 It was a tribute to John also in that he, an 
 approved man on the crest of the wave, recog- 
 nised in this humble: relative of his the final 
 messenger of God. I think this is John’s biggest 
 moment. ‘There are no blinkers for the eyes so 
 deadly as a near kinship! We are so ready to 
 acknowledge great qualities in some stranger, while 
 we only smile indulgently at our own brother! 
 One may be too near to things to see them in their 
 true focus. 
 
 IV 
 
 To John’s shamed protest that he should presume 
 to baptise Jesus, our Lord made a reply that is now 
 one of the great sentences of literature. “Jt be- 
 cometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” 
 
 In undergoing this Baptism of John, needless to 
 say, Jesus did not confess sin. It was not with 
 tears but a solemn and assured joy that He went 
 through the service, But in that great sentence of 
 
20 THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 
 
 explanation He gave us the compelling reason that 
 led Him to take this step—how He, though con- 
 scious of no need, should undergo a Baptism of 
 Repentance. 
 
 By the message of this sentence He gloriously 
 solved His own dilemma. ‘“ What relation shall I 
 have to John? What attitude shall I take to his 
 crusade of repentance?” With this sentence on 
 His lips, “it becometh us to fulfil all righteous- 
 ness, He stepped into the low water of the pool. 
 
 sir, [ would be baptised of thee. 
 
 V 
 
 Why did He do it? 
 
 Even if our words be but broken guesses at 
 truth, it may help us if we express them. We need 
 not profess to understand the motives that moved » 
 a pure soul like Jesus, but in that sentence of His 
 He left the door of His heart a little ajar. 
 
 Did He hope perhaps that some of us might 
 peep within? 
 
 1. At the outset, with serious purpose, He 
 thereby aligned Himself with everything He knew 
 ‘ to be good. He greeted God whenever He saw His 
 shadow. 
 
 For Him, without doubt, this Baptism of John 
 had serious faults: it was far from perfect. But, 
 on the other hand, it was the one thing in that age 
 that stood out unmistakably for God and good. So 
 He quietly overlooked the defects in it that were 
 
THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 21 
 
 personal to Him, and publicly identified Himself 
 with this crusade for righteousness. He seemed to 
 reason that even if He did not need this baptism of 
 repentance, there were millions who did! 
 
 I find in this a gracious guidance for myself in 
 countless things. 
 
 I look, for instance, at the modern Church. As 
 I examine this institution, I become pitifully aware 
 of its faults. It is a broken thing, so broken that 
 many a passer-by reviles it openly. It may have 
 gold in it—no doubt it has—but sometimes I see 
 only a mighty mass of dross. I question if any one 
 can criticise the faults of the Church, as a serious- 
 minded minister can. The shortcomings, the fail- 
 ures, the open contradictions, the meagreness of our 
 love and life, the wretched contrast between pro- 
 fession and practice,—sometimes, as I look at the 
 Church, I see only its ghastly shortcomings. 
 
 What shail I do with it then? 
 
 Stand outside and shake its dust from my feet? 
 Neglect it because I do not need it? Denounce it 
 because it is so imperfect? Judge it not by its 
 attainments but by its failures? 
 
 Or shall I steal up like Jesus, and line up like 
 Jesus, knowing all its imperfections but knowing 
 also that it is the one clear thing in this bleak world 
 of ours that stands for God and goodness? Like 
 Him, shall I take my part in it even though I could 
 criticise it? Yes, I could criticise it, none better! 
 But may it not be the big thing, and the Christian 
 
22 THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 
 
 thing, simply to enter in and take my saving share 
 in its work? 
 
 I feel the same with every scheme of reform that 
 is pressed on my notice. How inadequate they all 
 are! Any child can see their faults and blemishes. 
 
 Here, for instance, is some temperance reform. 
 But ah! have you noticed how inadequate it is, and 
 how open it is to criticism? If I set my mind to it, 
 I could tear a thousand gaping holes in its side. 
 
 Here again is some social reform. But the in- 
 justices that are wrapped up with it! The inade- 
 quacies of its provisions! The loopholes through 
 which a hundred scoundrels may work their evil 
 will! How can a man, with any self-respect, take 
 part in these schemes that are so full of patent 
 shortcomings ? 
 
 In all these things, I love the way my Mas- 
 ter did. 
 
 No one could have criticised this inadequate Bap- 
 tism of John more than He. No one indeed had 
 less need of it than He. But He stepped into the 
 water of Jordan, and said, “ Sir, I would be bap- 
 tised of thee.” For He saw a little bit of God in 
 ~ this crusade of the preacher, and taking His lance 
 in His hand, He marched with the crusaders. 
 
 2. I said that He aligned Himself with every- 
 thing that was good and worthy. In as serious a 
 sense, He now aligned Himself with everything 
 that was evil and worthless. 
 
 
 

 
 TEH DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 23 
 
 The evil of the world—especially in that thing 
 we call sinm—is gathered up in us. When Jesus 
 stepped into Jordan, He ranged Himself by our 
 side: for He joined Himself to the great company 
 of the afflicted people of His day. He entered into 
 a glorious community, a solidarity, with such 
 broken and defeated souls as we are. 
 
 This is one aspect of the baptism which no wise 
 man will dare forget. It shows us in a wonderful 
 symbolism the quality of the Lord we serve. He 
 did not need this Baptism. But I do! And He is 
 standing now where I stood. 
 
 What shall I call this gracious act? 
 
 I dare not call it “condescension.” That sug- 
 gests a picture of some superior person conscious 
 of the praiseworthiness of his act. I call it rather 
 the identity of sympathy. The genius of true sym- 
 pathy is that it stands, humbly and fully, where its 
 object stands. 
 
 Our Lord did this. Do we? 
 
 With us, a sense of uniqueness always separates. 
 We stand apart in our lordly greatness. But 
 Christ’s greatness only led Him to identify Himself 
 with us. It is true that He entered into our experi- 
 ences in all ways: but this deed at the river is His 
 greatest act of identity. 
 
 See Him now, standing in the low water, just 
 where all the needy folk had confessed their sins. 
 
 Our Lord did this. Do we? 
 
 I observe that as soon as any one of us feels a 
 
24 THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 
 
 note of distinctness we stand off in mental isolation. 
 Superiority with us means aloofness. A little 
 learning—and we feel strangers with the ignorant! 
 A touch of birth—and one would think we were of 
 another order of clay! Some wealth—and we feel 
 as if we could buy souls like bricks! Human great- 
 ness is human pride. 
 
 There He is standing in the water of Jordan. 
 
 An hour before, I saw a crowd of needy souls 
 standing in the same place. 
 
 One with God. One with us. 
 
 3. Again, in this act, I consider that Jesus linked 
 Himself definitely with all the honourable past. 
 
 John was the last of the prophets, a pathetic sur- 
 vival of great days. He was of the order of Elijah 
 and Amos, and in message and methods alike, he 
 was of their breed. 
 
 With new light in our hearts, it is so easy, so 
 tempting, sometimes so cheap, to condemn the past. 
 In our modern literature, every young, callow 
 Georgian discourses with a sneer of the age of 
 Queen Victoria. In fact, we all speak patronisingly 
 of the past,—until it is sufficiently past! Then 
 when it becomes decrepitly ancient, we fall on our 
 knees and worship it. 
 
 Jesus had a better right than any to say, “ ‘The 
 best things in the past are now swept out. I begin a 
 new era. Men formerly groped blindly for God: 
 I bring them God Himself. Every truth in the past 
 
 ee 
 
THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 25 
 
 is now grandly superseded. Perhaps, in order to 
 show how new and searching my message is, I 
 should treat John as if he were an anachronism.” 
 
 He might have said that. 
 
 Instead, He definitely linked Himself, publicly, 
 with this last of the prophets. In asking for the 
 benediction of John’s Baptism, He linked Himself 
 with every good thing that men had struggled for 
 through days of sorrow and blunder. 
 
 I would learn irom my Master this beautiful 
 secret. 
 
 Our age, except in certain churchy circles which 
 live in undiluted medievalism, is in grave danger of 
 despising the past and trying to cut itself adrift 
 from its influence. I do not know much of 
 Bolshevism. Who does? ‘The fault is not ours, 
 for the Bolshevists have left us to judge their creed 
 by their actions: and these, I fear, are not savoury. 
 But so far as I understand it, I have one quarrel 
 with this creed. It believes that it can only remedy 
 the present and save the future by cutting itself 
 wholly adrift from the past. It seems to believe 
 that everything in the past has been worthless and 
 rotten. Therefore let the past go; for it has no 
 experience or lesson that can help a modern man! 
 The one way to build a new society is to raze 
 everything to the ground and start afresh. 
 
 I believe in progress. In spite of all the muddle 
 of life, I believe in progress. But I do not believe 
 in disconnected progress. I believe in new things. 
 
26 THE DILEMMA AT FORDAN 
 
 But I do not know of any new thing that has not 
 sprung from older things, as a flower evolves from 
 seed. If the creed of the Bolshevist advocate repre- 
 sents a universal smash of everything, social or 
 religious, that has its roots in the past, his ideal 
 action is to put a revolver to his own head. For the 
 Bolshevist, like every one of us, is the greatest em- 
 bodiment of the accumulated heredities of ageless 
 strivings. 
 
 The only future worth having is a future that 
 honours the past, and indeed grows out of it. I like 
 my Master’s way in this. -He set out, more than 
 any one ever did, to revolutionise life and religion. 
 But I praise God that His first great act was to step 
 into Jordan and link Himself with John, the last 
 of the prophets. In acknowledging the Baptist, He 
 acknowledged the long processes of which he was 
 the crown. 
 
 4, Still further, our Lord’s act is a gracious 
 benediction on every good convention, and a 
 recognition of all customs or rites that exhibit a 
 bit of God. 
 
 We think that the more original a man is, the 
 more should he be expected to despise ordinary 
 ways and strike out on lines of his own. Indeed 
 we regard it as a mark of “bigness” that a man 
 should be unconventional. I admit that the fresh 
 eye of genius often sees how hollow and empty 
 conventional ways may be. We become so used to 
 
 
 
QGCGCrerreY——————————————————— 
 
 THE DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 27 
 
 our fashions of life that we do not notice how hoi- 
 low they ring. 
 
 It may be equal to a revelation, sometimes, to 
 shake ourselves out of ancient and accepted modes. 
 Otherwise, life would be dominated, and cursed, by 
 convention. 
 
 Yet I cannot but think that every good man 
 should seriously consider his relation to all estab- 
 lished practices and canons of conduct. It is so 
 easy, and so foolish, to despise them. But it may 
 be a bigger and finer thing to honour good ob- 
 servances than to imagine ourselves beyond them. 
 It was a mark of greatness even for such an origi- 
 nal soul as Jesus to say “ It becometh us to fulfil all 
 righteousness.” 
 
 We soon learn that life runs, and must run, in 
 conventions: and if a convention lives at all, it is 
 because it has some real contribution of goodness 
 hidden in its heart. In mock superiority, shall we 
 kick these things aside? We do not need them, 
 | perhaps,—but do others? All strong men show the 
 quality of their strength by remembering those who 
 are lame. 
 | I may say, for instance, that the formal and con- 
 - ventional methods of Sabbath observance need not 
 apply to me, for I try to observe the day of God in 
 spirit. Why should I be bound by this hoary 
 convention ? 
 
 I may do one of two things—go my own way, 
 as Jesus might have done, had He cared; or go the 
 
 
 

 
 28 THE DILEMMA AT ¥ORDAN 
 
 way that helps others, and so fulfil all righteousness. 
 I cannot help comparing the petty little ways of 
 some human soul in revolt with the way of my 
 Lord. Though He was as original as the very 
 breath of God, He said so simply, “Jt becometh us 
 to fulfil all righteousness.” 
 
 Thus He settled His dilemma at Jordan. 
 
 He considered that the least in the Kingdom of 
 God was greater than John. But He ranged Him- 
 self by the side of the prophet. 
 
 Sir, I would be baptised of thee. 
 
 Such a Lord! 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ii 
 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT— 
 (A) THE ANGUISH 
 
 iN that notable decision at Jordan, 
 Jesus had both humbled and conse- 
 crated Himself,—perhaps the one a 
 means and condition of the other. 
 
 Thereafter, as an electric current may thrill silent 
 machinery into throbbing motion, He became con- 
 scious of the invasion of God’s power in new ways 
 and new measures. The great engine of His soul 
 began to move! 
 
 That power flooded Him like the opening of a 
 sluice-gate, as soon as He answered God’s call fully 
 and unreservedly. Indeed it seems to us as if the 
 experience of the Baptism awoke Him to new 
 issues almost as one is roused from sleep. So 
 large a part does the consecration of this service 
 play in His life, that it is not too much to say 
 that He entered the water of Jordan as Jesus the 
 carpenter, and left it as Jesus the Christ. In His 
 own heart, if we may judge from what followed 
 so startlingly, the one thing of which He was 
 supremely conscious as the outcome of this ex- 
 perience was power. 
 
 
 
 29 
 
30 | THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 This fact brought Him face to face with His 
 second dilemma. 
 
 For in its very nature, this strange power which 
 now invaded His soul was like a two-edged sword. 
 It gave Him at once a sense of quiet assurance and 
 a suggestion of danger,—peace and questioning. — 
 All true revelation acts like this. On the one hand, — 
 it thrills us and brings its own drive and passion- _ 
 ate energy. But with the elation, a wise man is 
 equally conscious of danger, the danger of excess 
 and misuse. . . . In regard to Christ’s special 
 danger, I question if any single thing in human life 
 has been so frequently and ruinously misapplied as 
 power. 
 
 Having this gift of power, as yet untried and un- 
 mastered, He has now to face the question how He 
 will use it for His high purpose. For instance, 
 could the end justify the means, any means, so long 
 as the end itself was secured? Could He establish 
 His Kingdom by any expression of this power 
 other than the highest? 
 
 This strong confidence within him came immedi- 
 ately from God: that was undoubted. But a God- 
 like gift may be misused and perverted, even when 
 it is apparently used for God’s ends. Indeed, it is 
 this “perversion of the best” that is always the 
 worst. Consider, for instance, what it is that re- 
 volts us in all religious persecution. I think our 
 disgust lies here,—that this persecuting zeal is a 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 THE ANGUISH 31 
 
 sincere passion for God and God’s truth, ruinously 
 misused! It represents power and passion com- 
 pletely perverted. 
 
 Thus our Lord has now to settle how He will 
 apply this divine power, that has come to Him like 
 a sudden dawn. 
 
 We read that the agony and conflict of this 
 question drove Him distracted into the desert. He 
 felt that He must be with Himself and God to 
 think it all out. This flight to the wilderness is one 
 of the most natural touches of our Lord’s human- 
 ity. Every great soul, before or since, has fled 
 there. Perhaps, every great soul has found itself 
 there. 
 
 He would not be bone of our bone in any true 
 sense did He not take with Him into that desert 
 a tortured soul. Possibilities, both of plan and 
 method, had risen before His mind like beckoning 
 ghosts. The clash and appeal of warring ideals 
 were a real agony in His soul. The scene itself is 
 a proof of this. 
 
 He had so many things to settle——His own self- 
 .discipline, His inward loyalties, and a line of direc- 
 tion for His work. For these powers within Him 
 carried their own danger. He might use them 
 selfishly, thoughtlessly, arrogantly, or mischiey- 
 ously. Or He might use them for the pure glory 
 of God and the need of man, even though He Him- 
 self might suffer in doing so. Power to light or 
 
ip THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 scorch: power to curse or bless! . . . It is the 
 eternal dilemma of all power. 
 
 It was a lonely struggle. To Him, as to us, 
 temptation is an experience of desperate loneliness. 
 Even when it is fought out amid thronging crowds, 
 it creates its own desert. 
 
 “The mind és its own place: and in itself 
 Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” 
 
 Before we watch Him in this lonely experience, 
 I should like to make some comments on the gen- 
 eral situation. I make them for two reasons,—to 
 clear away some defaming misconceptions of this 
 scene, and especially, to show how real this experi- 
 ence was in His own soul. 
 
 I 
 
 It was real. Otherwise it has no business in this 
 record. 
 
 The temptation-setting may suggest at first a 
 scene from a staged drama. It may even appear 
 artificial with its questioning Satan. But it is none 
 the less the drama of a soul and the picture of an 
 agony. We need not imagine anything either seen 
 or heard, but something felt: for it was not an out- 
 ward demonstration but an inward anguish. 
 
 However formal or fanciful the details of the 
 scene may appear, it was of pure necessity an in- 
 ward experience: for temptation must actually 
 

 
 THE ANGUISH 33 
 
 insert itself as an attractive thing into the tempted 
 mind, before it can be real in any sense. He Him- 
 self thought it so real, and remembered it after- 
 wards with so much poignancy, that He told it in 
 later days in this flashing way to His disciples. For 
 Him it was an unforgettable memory! 
 
 I shall speak of this more fittingly in the fol- 
 lowing chapter. Meanwhile our duty is to observe 
 that He was genuinely tempted, torn as with devils, 
 as any one of us may be. Whatever it does, this 
 dramatic scene reveals the man Jesus battling for 
 His own soul, and battling as we do. Indeed, the 
 whole motif of the scene is to show that it was a 
 battle. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that any theory of this 
 struggle that makes Him more than a man in the 
 powers He employed, makes Him less than a man. 
 For such a view awards Him the victory through 
 unnatural means, supernatural devices of which 
 you and I in our conflicts can never make use. 
 Moreover, if He needed these unnatural means to 
 aid Him in His resistance, His victory was not 
 His own, and in its moral value was really less 
 than the victory of any boy who in his own 
 and God’s strength resists a theft and stands for 
 honour. 
 
 Either Jesus fought His own devil here as I do 
 mine—in His own strength and by communion with 
 God—or He is no saviour for me. His victory, if 
 
E an 
 
 34 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT *” 
 
 secured by means beyond my power and resources, é 
 would not help me, but would bea tragic mockery ~ 
 
 of my passion. The man who would help me by 
 his example must stand wholly where I stand and 
 fight as I fight. 
 
 That Christ did so is beyond all question. 
 
 I like these words in the record where it says that 
 after His victory the angels ministered unto Him. 
 After His victory, thank God! There is nothing 
 magical in that, for I find that these gracious angels 
 do the same for me,—after my victory! Also, 
 thank God! | 
 
 Could Jesus fall? 
 
 Why not? 
 
 Unless this temptation is a mere phantom of what 
 temptation may be, unless Christ’s contest is only a 
 make-belief and not a staggering reality, unless this 
 is a staged scene and so ultimately a farce, there is 
 no other conclusion. Any idea of His sinlessness 
 that excludes the possibility of His sin or the choos- 
 ing of alternatives, makes it an achievement of no 
 moral worth. If I am good simply because I can- 
 not be anything else, of what moral value is my 
 goodness? We dishonour Jesus and His victory by 
 some of our hesitant theories. He might have 
 denied God—but He didn’t. He might have denied 
 Himself—but He didn’t. 
 
 This is the majesty of His Sonship. 
 
 This is the ground of His Saviourhood. 
 
 eee 
 

 
 THE ANGUISH — 35 
 
 IT 
 
 Not only was Jesus genuinely tempted, but He 
 was always tempted. 
 
 I protest against the constant use of the definite 
 article in describing this scene,—The Temptation— 
 as if this were the only one Christ ever endured, or 
 as if He dealt here so sweepingly with the issues of 
 His life and ministry, finally and for good, that He 
 was never tempted again. Were that the case, He 
 would, once more, be utterly different from us: 
 and being different, He would be no Saviour for 
 us. In our life, when we are tempted, we may with 
 agony settle some matter as He did, with signal 
 victory. But the victory is never complete or final, 
 for we are tempted again in the same point tomor- 
 row. Our decision is a series of decisions. 
 
 No doubt there is a forgotten but gracious truth 
 in the fact that one clear ringing answer makes the 
 next answer easier. There is such a thing as the 
 guarding peace of a strong decision. Without any 
 question, Christ’s unqualified answer settled His 
 temptation with the blow of a firm refusal. 
 
 But a stricken enemy rises again. That Jesus 
 won here does not alter the fact that He, like us, 
 was tempted again, and always tempted. Why! 
 almost at the end, in that grim scene of Geth- 
 semane, He faced one of these precise temptations 
 again,—if, by any chance, the cup might pass from 
 Him, and He might use His power to save Himself 
 from the shame of the cross. 
 
36 LAE SDILE MMA TNT PESOS tke 
 
 He was tempted till the day He died—tempted, 
 perhaps, most in dying: and like us, He had to 
 watch His own soul with unwinking vigilance and 
 ceaseless prayer. 
 
 Fe was in all points tempted like as we are. 
 
 Iil 
 
 It is of great spiritual profit to notice when Christ 
 was tempted. 
 
 Is it an accident that this scene is placed at this 
 precise point in the narrative? Might it equally, 
 for our profit, be placed anywhere else? I be- 
 lieve that it stands here in its true psychological 
 sequence. 
 
 Some people assert that the Temptation scene 
 represents later experience on the part of Jesus. Is 
 it likely that in the radiant opening of His ministry 
 He would be tempted in these gross ways? ‘This 
 surely is later experience, representing subsequent 
 temptation, but gathered here in this convenient and 
 telling fashion. 
 
 There are two fatal errors in this. One is an 
 error of interpretation. ‘The temptations in the 
 wilderness are not gross, but only spiritual. The 
 second is an error of judgment and insight. I be- 
 lieve that the Temptation stands here in its true 
 place, chronologically and psychologically. This is 
 the time when it happened, because this is the time 
 when it must have happened! 
 
 Recall what had taken place. 
 

 
 - THE. ANGUISH oes 
 
 He had felt the call and stir of God to enter on 
 His ministry. He had settled His first dilemma by 
 humbly undergoing the Baptism of John. With a 
 great and wonderful exaltation of soul, He had 
 realised that the long-awaited hour had come. It is 
 then, just then, after the uplift of His call and the 
 consecration of His Baptism, that Jesus is su- 
 premely tempted. This is true to the experience of 
 our life, and it links Him with all human nature. 
 
 What may that fact imply? 
 
 It means surely that He is tempted on two as- 
 pects of one great experience,—on the one hand, its 
 great exaltation, when He is lifted up on wings; or 
 on the other hand, in its reaction, when the soul 
 descends again and walks the dusty ways of the 
 world. 
 
 Surely we can understand this, and even link 
 ourselves with Him in.this experience. Personally, 
 I do not know any more dangerous moments for us 
 than these,—the moment of conscious thrill and 
 power, and the moment of natural rebound and 
 reaction. 
 
 Let us consider the first of the two. 
 
 I have heard people suggest that the hour of a 
 man’s greatest temptation is when he is “ down and 
 out,’ when he is broken on the wheel, when things 
 are against him, when he is fighting desperately 
 just to hold his own, fighting, it may be, even for 
 the food he needs. I do not minimise that danger. 
 Anyone who has been “ down ” like that knows that 
 
38 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 there are queer insinuating temptations that rap 
 imperiously at the gate of the soul. 
 
 But I hold—I think I am right—that there is 
 something in the average man that keeps him strong 
 in such a situationn—an element of tenacity, even 
 mere pugnacity, that makes him shut his teeth and 
 hold on. Like Job in his similar distress, he be- 
 lieves that the scheme of things is gravely wrong, 
 and he desires passionately to justify himself. His 
 very anger may be a moral protection. 
 
 But a man is more off his guard in his elation 
 than in his despair. In his despair, he constantly 
 thinks of himself, sometimes nothing but himself. 
 That is his safety. But in his elation, he forgets 
 himself. That is his danger. 
 
 If you ask any young man about this, he will put 
 you right. Or if you can, probe your half-forgotten 
 memories, and they will tell you. When is a young 
 man’s danger? Is it not when he is at the top of 
 his bent, when his blood runs hot and red, when he 
 stretches his body in the glorious excess of con- 
 scious strength, when he feels, as Christ felt, the 
 sheer mastery and mystery of power. It is then 
 that most of us play the fool. If I may say it 
 reverently, that is when Christ was tempted,—when 
 He, too, stretched His arms in new and awful 
 strength! 
 
 His moment of danger is ours. 
 
 Or it may be the other side of this experience,— 
 
THE ANGUISH ao 
 
 when the elation has passed, as all emotions must, 
 and one is in the natural reaction of the strain. 
 
 By this time, Christ’s early wonder and con- 
 sciousness of dawning power had passed. He had 
 undergone that emotional struggle regarding John’s 
 Baptism and the consecration of the service itself. 
 He had settled His dilemma, and had given Him- 
 self fully to God in the deep experience of the Bap- 
 tism. He had heard God whisper to His soul, and 
 in vision had seen the Heavens opened, and had 
 gazed into the eyes of His Father. 
 
 The experience was now over. 
 
 Like us, He had to drop back to the level of 
 His daily life and ministry. I said the “level,” 
 —but does anyone ever drop back immediately 
 to the level? Do we not rather sink a little below 
 it, like the swing of a pendulum before it comes 
 to rest? 
 
 All experience warns us of that moment of tired 
 reaction. There are few things just so exhausting 
 as emotional exaltation, and consequently, few 
 things so dangerous. After the excitement has 
 waned, we pay the penalty for any true emotional 
 output. We become the slaves of our own depres- 
 sion, with its reproachful fears and defaming 
 temptations. Evil so often catches us on the 
 rebound. 
 
 I am glad to think that this was as true of Jesus 
 as of me. I believe that the experience of the Bap- 
 tism carried with it a moment like this. Jesus is 
 
40 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 linked with us in the very naturalness of such an 
 event. His moment of danger is ours. 
 
 If we watch that moment as He did, and commit 
 it to God as He did, we may also find a way of 
 victory like Him. 
 
 IV 
 
 There is gain also in considering the manner and 
 fashion in which our Lord was tempted. 
 
 His contest came to Him quite definitely and 
 clearly along the individual line of His own peculiar 
 powers. It is a commonplace, but none the less 
 far-reaching, to say that His type of temptation 
 could never be ours, just as ours could never be His. 
 We are each tempted along the peculiar line of our 
 own vocation, our own gifts, and our own tempera- 
 ment. Christ’s temptation, for instance, was purely 
 concerned with His own work. Perhaps that is 
 one reason why we shall never understand its es- 
 pecial poignancy to Him, as in a lesser degree we 
 never understand the plea and appeal of our broth- 
 er’s temptation. I find that I can always overcome 
 another man’s difficulties, as he might smile at 
 mine. It is my own that seem hardest, because, as 
 with Jesus, they are special to me. 
 
 It is foolish to think, therefore, that because these 
 temptations of Jesus seem easy to us, they were 
 easy to Him. Any one of us might smile at the 
 suggestion to cast ourselves down from a pinnacle 
 of the Temple to dazzle a multitude. But Jesus 
 
 ‘ 
 
 i —" 
 
THE ANGUISH 41 
 
 could well smile at our temptation to cheat or tell 
 a lie! He was tempted along His own special 
 line: and we are tempted along ours. Let this 
 ‘remembrance only make us the more reverent 
 and gentle with some other man’s debate, at 
 which we might feel inclined to sniff with con- 
 tempt. No doubt he might return the contempt if 
 only he knew the thoughts and dreams that haunt 
 our minds, ; 
 
 V 
 
 As I see Jesus in the toils, I think it is worth 
 saying, for the comfort of many, that Temptation 
 in itself is no sin. 
 
 I have found that this matter of Temptation per- 
 plexes many good people, and especially perplexes 
 many sensitive young people. As I look at Jesus, 
 I think it is worth repeating, “‘ Temptation in itself 
 is no sin.” 
 
 I cannot emphasise this enough for the sheer 
 commonsense and sanity of our religious life. 
 People have come to me with words like these,—* I 
 am in plain despair about myself. I try to live as 
 much like my Lord as I can: but do what I will, at 
 some unguarded moment, wretched thoughts steal 
 into my mind, and not only pollute my heart but 
 ruin my peace and happiness. Am I an evil thing 
 that these gaunt spectres steal into my thoughts? 
 Is there anything wrong or foul in me, that these 
 masterless dreams master me? Am [I tainted be- 
 
42 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 cause in spite of myself I think these thoughts and 
 dream these dreams? ”’ 
 
 This is no fancied difficulty. It is real, hideously 
 real, to many sensitive and pure-minded souls. The 
 more pure-minded we are, the greater is our diffi- 
 culty. May I answer the question simply by point- 
 ing you here to Jesus? 
 
 We believe that He was without stain. But we 
 know that He was not without temptation! Either 
 temptation in itself is no sin, or else Jesus was not 
 without sin. But the big human fact of the gospels 
 is that Jesus was tempted, tempted indeed in such 
 agony as you and I can never comprehend, tempted 
 till the sweat stood on His brow like drops of blood. 
 He was tempted in all points as we are, yet with- 
 out sin. 
 
 It is our Christian duty to aim at a clean soul, and 
 especially at some self-mastery of our own vagrant 
 thoughts. By discipline and watchfulness, we be- 
 lieve it is possible, in Jesus, to attain to this great 
 ideal. By His aid, we may gradually make our 
 minds a home for chaste and worthy things just 
 as by the reverse we may make them a little 
 painted hell. 
 
 That is all true. A clean mind and heart may 
 indeed be the beautiful reward of daily faithfulness. 
 But none the less it needs to be said that temptation 
 is as natural to us as it was to Jesus: and in itself it 
 is no sin. Our very gift of thinking, the more it 
 discharges its own function and weighs or con- 
 
Fh ey 
 THE ANGUISH 43 
 
 siders possibilities, brings temptation in its train. 
 This we cannot escape, nor is it desirable that we 
 should. ‘Temptation is the obvious penalty of a 
 great privilege, the genius of which lies in debating 
 opposites. 
 
 I venture these two remarks. 
 
 On the one hand, remember that daily resistance 
 ends by bestowing a sure mastery and builds up 
 reserve strength. 
 
 On the other hand, the only sin in temptation is 
 when we play or sport with its suggestion, when 
 we caress it, fondle it, coquette with it, and finally, 
 when we succumb. Sin enters when we slacken the 
 curb, and let go the rein. 
 
 Jesus was tempted. 
 
 Jesus did not fall. 
 
 VI 
 
 The source of Christ’s victory lay in an unfailing 
 reliance on God. | 
 
 Have you observed that on each occasion Jesus 
 slew His temptation with a text, as a hunter uses a 
 particular bullet for his gun? That does not mean 
 that texts are magical or will do their own work 
 independently of us. But it does suggest how 
 richly and intimately Christ leant back on the 
 known records of God’s mind and how He steeped 
 Himself in God’s spirit. The Bible may save no 
 one, as a priest may save no one: for both may be 
 equally outside of us. But it is true to say that if 
 
44 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 the word of God is in our hearts, it will give all 
 needed light, courage, and direction: and out of it, 
 as from a divine magazine, a man may draw 
 some bullets that may slay the suggestions of his 
 own soul. 
 
 The secret is to know God’s mind, walk in His 
 plain ways, and lean heavily on His strength. 
 
 Thus alone did Jesus pass through His anguish. 
 
III 
 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT— 
 (B) THE VICTORY 
 
 ereso~a EH have considered the general conditions 
 oN ul of this amazing struggle in the desert, 
 MM where Jesus fought for His own soul 
 
 MAS and His own ideas of Himself, as a 
 man battles with a strong enemy who wills his 
 death. 
 
 As we saw, this scene is in no sense a dra- 
 matic allegory picturesquely told, or a piece of 
 idealised experience cast into an imaginary form 
 for literary appeal. Jesus is too simple and 
 sincere to be guilty of invention or to play for 
 artistic effect. 
 
 The incident represents a fierce agony where His 
 soul was torn with its own desires and allurements, 
 a thing of sweat and blood, an experience that lay 
 like a searing memory on His heart. In later days 
 He spoke of it to His disciples to show them the 
 depths through which He had waded to victory, 
 and also to give them the inspiration of His own 
 contest and triumph. Even then, in the after-look, 
 the whole experience was so living and vivid to 
 Him that He threw the story into this dramatic 
 
 45 
 
 
 

 
 46 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 form as being the only way in which the thing 
 could be pictured as the titanic struggle it was. 
 
 We noted, also, that in the last resort temptation 
 is wholly an inward event. If evil is to be real to 
 us, it cannot be merely hypothetical, but must enter 
 the mind as a possible seduction. 
 
 This was fully true of Jesus. 
 
 Fach line of conduct which He debated and re- 
 jected must have presented itself to His mind with 
 some attractiveness. “ Satan o’ercomes none but 
 by willingnesse.’’ Each represented, at least, a pos- 
 sible alternative. Otherwise, there would be no 
 agony here, and the scene itself would not be worth 
 recording. It 7s worth recording just because it 
 shows us Christ’s soul in its seething turmoil. For 
 our good,—and that we might know the kind of 
 Master we serve—He expressed His inner experi- 
 ence in this flashing manner. 
 
 The wicked thing that He faced was so over- 
 poweringly real and menacing that He pictured it 
 as a personal antagonist who sought to argue His 
 soul into Hell. When all is said, that represents 
 the final truth. In any case, it is right to say that 
 one who knows temptation as Jesus knew it, knows 
 also that in its essence evil is a personal spirit. 
 Satan becomes brutally real to agonised souls. 
 
 I ask you now to consider the dilemma that faced 
 Jesus in the heart of this scene. 
 

 
 He BOSD MOU OTe a 47 
 
 What was this dilemma? 
 
 If my judgment then was right, I showed you 
 what the Baptism meant for Him. It was a token 
 and proof of His full awakening to God’s call, His 
 own mission, and the powers that lay slumbering in 
 Him. During and after the Baptism, as one might 
 touch a secret spring, these powers broke loose in 
 Him, summoned into consciousness by the majesty 
 of the experience in His own heart. A big revela- 
 tion is always a kind of superb intoxication, an in- 
 spiration that may produce a spiritual metabolism 
 as real as the change from the grub to the chrysalis. 
 These powers, thus stirred, surged through Him as 
 the blood flows through our veins. He was con- 
 scious, as never before, of the dominant force of 
 God within Him. He awoke to a knowledge of 
 majestic power. > 
 
 The circumstances in which He faced His di- 
 lemma seem to me to agree with the nature of the 
 dilemma itself. I like that reference in St. Mark— 
 “He was with the wild beasts.’ There could be 
 no fitter companions for Him at that moment than 
 these beasts of the wilderness. They represented 
 rapacious and unhallowed power, whose only mo- 
 tive was passion and the indulgence of desire, 
 uncontrolled by reason or pity. 
 
 This suggests one unvarying temptation of 
 power, to which indeed countless men have suc- 
 cumbed for the world’s curse. If I understand our 
 
48 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 Lord’s debate aright, the question for Him centred 
 here—“ How shall I use my power?” He felt 
 that He dare not wield the weapon in His hands, 
 until He had defined the spirit and the aims for 
 which He would stand. 
 
 Would His power be hallowed or unhallowed? 
 Like God, or like these wild beasts? 
 
 This is His dilemma. 
 
 The three temptations that assailed Him so 
 fiercely are concerned solely with the possible mis- 
 use of power. He had now His work to do. He 
 had now the needed power to do it. How would 
 He handle His power, this unique endowment? 
 
 As I read the meaning of this strange scene, 
 He was tempted here to employ His power in 
 three suggested ways. He might misuse it for 
 His own good. He might misuse it for the 
 good of others. He might misuse it for the good 
 of God. 
 
 I use the word “good” deliberately. I believe 
 that the subtlety of the temptation lies in the fact 
 that there was no evil in any of the suggestions. 
 Each represented a just and honourable use of His 
 powers, against which there could be no reasonable 
 reproach. A good use, not an evil! A good use, 
 but not the best! Here, as always, it is the “ merely 
 good” that is the enemy of the best. Jesus was not 
 deciding between the low and the high, but between 
 the high and the highest. 
 
THE FICTORY 49 
 
 I 
 
 After His long debate and self-scrutiny, our 
 Lord awoke to the stinging fact that He was 
 hungry. 
 
 Have you experienced what a commanding and 
 imperious thing hunger is? I question if there is 
 anything that slashes the veneer from men and 
 women like desperate hunger. It stirs the tiger in 
 us, out for its kill. 
 
 Christ was hungry. 
 
 He had been so absorbed for days,—as I have 
 seen people so absorbed in sorrow,—that He had 
 felt no need or desire for food. Then in this deso- 
 late place, miles from anywhere, He suddenly 
 awoke to the fact that He was starving. 
 
 At a moment like this a man will do anything 
 merely to appease the pangs of nature, even eat 
 dried grass and munch sticks like a ravenous camel. 
 Hunger has literally changed the face of the world. 
 It has sent droves of gaunt-faced Goths and Mon- 
 gols, rolling like waves, to swamp the most ancient 
 civilisations. Hunger has been the world’s master. 
 
 I can imagine what took place. 
 
 Dazed with His long fast and His absorption in 
 debate, Jesus looked weariedly around. His eyes lit 
 on some stones scattered loosely at His feet. At 
 first He looked at them as though not seeing them. 
 Then a curious startling temptation edged itself 
 into His mind, as by a kind of natural suggestion. 
 
O05, THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 Most of us know the fantastic fashion in which 
 some stones may resemble the flat Eastern cakes 
 His own mother must often have made on her sim- 
 ple griddle in the home at Nazareth. With a kind 
 of reminiscent smile, picking one of them up, Jesus 
 may well have said, “ Would that it were indeed one 
 of my mother’s cakes! ”’ 
 
 Then still lovingly reminiscent, ‘One of my 
 mother’s cakes! . . . Why! I can taste them 
 now!” 
 
 Then the temptation flashed into His heart like a 
 spasm of pain. 
 
 “Why not make this stone in my hand bread? 
 I feel God’s creative power within me. Let 
 me test it for my own pain. To satisfy hunger 
 is a noble and just thing. Why should I not 
 use God’s endowment of grace to appease my 
 appalling need, lest I drop here and perish with 
 faintness? . . . Besides, this will be a decisive 
 test whether I truly possess these powers I feel 
 within me!” 
 
 The temptation was so acute and the need so im- 
 perious that He heard a voice, as you and I have 
 heard a voice, saying, “The stones, Jesus, the 
 stones!” 
 
 “Make them bread! You will surely die here in 
 this desert, a mock Christ, unless you do. 
 
 And may it not be your duty to test your new en- 
 dowment—here in this place, where no eye can see 
 

 
 LEB LOLORY oe 
 
 you if you fail? You must surely prove it some- 
 time. Why not here, lest when you try it before 
 people, you fail and be laughed at?” 
 
 “The stones, Jesus, the stones! . . . What 
 is wrong with it?” 
 
 There was nothing wrong with it. That is the 
 appeal of the temptation. To save life and satisfy 
 dominant need would have been an honourable and 
 seemly use of His gifts. This is the crux of His 
 dilemma-—that the act would have been a clean use 
 of power! 
 
 Why did He refuse? 
 
 Have you seen the beauty of this magnificent re- 
 fusal? Let me tell you why He refused. He 
 refused for me. He would never have been my 
 Saviour, if He had not refused. 
 
 For one day, when I was in a tight corner, Jesus 
 might have come and whispered to me, “ Lad, be 
 brave. Bear it like a man, though it tear your soul 
 to tatters! Bear it, lad.” 
 
 Then I would have turned to Jesus and cried, 
 “Who are you to speak to me? I remember that 
 time in the desert when you were in a tight corner. 
 What did you do? You used God’s special endow- 
 ment for your own ends. ‘That unique gift denied 
 tous! You used it just to save yourself from con- 
 sequences that millions of men have had to endure. 
 O! I know you were hungry: but we are often 
 hungry. It is easy for you to speak, Jesus. You 
 
52 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 got yourself out of your tight corner by a little 
 private miracle.” 
 And that would have finished Jesus for me! 
 
 “The stones, Jesus, the stones!” 
 
 Then thinking of me and my poor human limita- 
 tions, He turned on His own temptation and cried, 
 ** Get thee behind me, Satan.” 
 
 And, at the end, He left that desert, staggering 
 like a drunken man, weak with appalling hunger, 
 until He reached the nearest farm-cottage, and lean- 
 ing feebly on the lintel, begged, as I would do, for 
 a cup of water and a crust of bread! 
 
 For there in that desert, He put Himself 
 solely and simply on my level that He might 
 endure what I must endure. For my sake, He 
 refused to aid Himself by any powers denied to 
 me. And this He did, “emptying Himself,” in 
 order that, being like me, He might become my 
 Saviour. 
 
 That is why He zs my Saviour! 
 
 Such a Master! 
 
 II 
 
 The second scene represents the possible misuse 
 of His powers for the good of others. Again I 
 stress “ for the good of others.’ That is the heart 
 of the temptation. 
 
 He is sitting there on a spur of rock with His 
 chin resting on His hands, looking out wistfully on 
 
THE VICTORY 53 
 
 the scattered world of men and women whom He 
 so passionately wishes to save and serve. 
 
 How can He do it? 
 
 How can He attract these careless, self-centred, 
 worldly, idly-busy people down in the cities and vil- 
 lages of Galilee and Judea? If only He could 
 arrest and grip them! If only He could interest 
 them straight-a-way! If only He could fascinate 
 them, even in spite of themselves! Would it not 
 be worth while to do something that might arrest 
 and startle, win their interest, so that from that He 
 might go on to deeper things? 
 
 Mark you—to deeper things! 
 
 I wonder if anyone can appreciate this dilemma 
 of our Lord just so much as a modern preacher. 
 In my own little measure, with every other min- 
 ister, I have felt the appeal of this debate. I have 
 questioned at times if it might not be a good and 
 gracious policy, for God and my people, to do some 
 outré and startling thing that would at least break 
 the placid calm of solemn indifference, as a stone 
 plops into a stagnant pool. Might I not be serving 
 God and awakening thought, just by scandalising 
 you? Could I not dazzle some of you into the 
 arms of God? 
 
 What would be wrong with that if only I did it 
 for God and you? 
 
 This is what tempted Jesus. 
 
54 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 He loved these people so deeply that He felt He 
 could do anything to win them. But if He came 
 preaching a simple message from God, would they 
 listen to Him? Had they ever listened to any of 
 God’s messengers on these terms? 
 
 But suppose for a moment,—suppose He clam- 
 bered up to the top of that pinnacle of the Temple, 
 that one in the misty distance, when all the priests 
 and people were gathered together for some big 
 occasion. Some big occasion surely—perhaps the 
 Passover! The people would be massed in their 
 thousands: and it was the multitude He wished to 
 impress. He might call aloud from the top. That 
 would attract general and immediate attention. 
 Every neck would be craned to look at Him. 
 Jerusalem literally would stand agape! 
 
 “What fool is that up on the pinnacle? 
 
 Look at him! He is like a spider crawling along a 
 sunbeam! . . . I cannot bear the sight: it makes 
 me dizzy. . . . It is sheer madness! He will 
 fall and be smashed to powder. . . . Heavens! 
 He is going to jump! . . . He has jumped.” 
 
 What a commotion! 
 
 Then, when He landed lightly on His feet like a 
 feather, and bowed smiling like a master jug- 
 gler . . . !!! Noneed to blow a bugle! 
 
 “Who is He? Who is He?” 
 
 . “Tam Jesus, the messenger of God.” 
 
 Think of it. Just to say that to a petrified audi- 
 
 ence. “I am Jesus, the messenger of God.” 
 

 
 THE VICTORY 55 
 
 A programme like that—for God’s dear sake and 
 ours—would certainly stir a gigantic curiosity. 
 Not only would He have an unparalleled start for 
 His ministry, but He would also convince the 
 people of His own unique nature. The nation 
 would hail Him at once as the promised Lord. 
 This would ensure Him an eager, startled, awak- 
 ened crowd who would hang on His lips with gap- 
 ing awe. From that, what might He not do? 
 
 If used by Jesus for higher ends, this might be a 
 good and honourable use of power. To win these 
 careless and indifferent people for the interests of 
 God might in itself justify any means. Could 
 power be better consecrated than in the blessed serv- 
 ice of God? Remember, the blessed service of God! 
 
 Further, for His own comfort, He might prove 
 thereby the truth of God’s promises to His own 
 soul. Here, in this lonely spot, away from judging 
 eyes, this might be the best place to put God to a 
 quiet and reassuring test! 
 
 “Try the pinnacle, Jesus!” 
 
 “All means are good that lead to God. You 
 will arrest these Jews with a superb start, and you 
 will bring in God’s Kingdom with a divine rush. 
 You will convince them that you are the Messiah, 
 with all the credentials of God’s power. What is 
 wrong with it, Jesus? Remember, it is all for 
 God’s blessed service. So try the pinnacle! God 
 will bear thee up.” 
 
56 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 “Get thee behind me, Satan.” 
 
 “T cannot become an ignoble conjuror even for 
 God. I seek to win the world to goodness for the 
 love of goodness, and to God for the love of God. 
 IT come to preach a message of truth: and that must 
 be accepted for its own pure sake. There is no 
 other way of accepting it.” 
 
 There are legitimate ways of arresting attention 
 and winning interest. There are also ways, appar- 
 ently successful, that only end in their own defeat. 
 We may win people to think about God by certain 
 devices—by clap-trap, by exploiting emotion, by 
 sensationalism—but in the end these methods only 
 lead people to despise both God and us. 
 
 Every fair man will notice that throughout His 
 life and ministry Jesus never worked any deed of 
 wonder that would constrain people or win a 
 kind of paralysed consent. Every good deed He 
 wrought was from love or crying human need. He 
 preached the full message of God, God’s love and 
 God’s passion: but He left that message to do its 
 _ own beautiful work. Our Lord will never go out 
 of His way to work a miracle to convince us. 
 Even if He did, it would not convince us. -: Per- 
 haps that is the perfect answer. We can only be 
 convinced of the truth by being convinced of the 
 truth! ‘There is no other possible way. 
 
 A young man said to me not long ago, “I am in 
 such agony of doubt. If God would only give me 
 
 ee ee ee 
 

 
 THE VICTORY ay 
 
 a sign from heaven to convince my soul.” 
 
 My dear Sir, your soul can only be convinced by 
 being convinced! If a thing is not true, a thou- 
 sand miracles will not make it true. Jesus came 
 into Galilee like a simple unheralded messenger, and 
 He preached God and God’s love. If men and 
 women do not take that on its sheer worth and 
 truth, nothing in this earth will ever help them. 
 The only legitimate argument for truth is that it 
 is true. 
 
 There will be no startling sign given unto this 
 generation except “the sign of the prophet 
 Jonah” ! And what was that? Simply an un- 
 known tattered and unheralded man, a despised 
 alien, without credentials and with no fictitious 
 authority, preaching passionately the sin of man 
 and the mercy of God. Nothing more. If truth 
 does not convince you, what will? 
 
 None the less, to win this people at once for 
 God’s message was a real temptation for the eager 
 soul of Jesus. He would have gasping crowds, 
 convinced that He was the Messiah. Would it mat- 
 ter much, even if they were “convinced” by a 
 trick? 
 
 Jesus played fair with human reason. 
 
 So He left the desert trusting only in two 
 things,—truth and God. He resolved that His 
 message must stand or fall by its own worth. 
 
 Walking into the first little village, He stood at 
 
58 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 a corner of the market-place, and cried passion- 
 ately, “ Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at 
 hand.” That is how He began His ministry. That 
 is how He ended it. Even at the last, in Pilate’s 
 palace, He refused “the legions of angels.” 
 
 This is our Saviour, who offers God for His 
 eternal worth alone. Repent, and believe the 
 
 Gospel. 
 
 IIT 
 
 The third scene embodies a possible misuse of 
 His powers for the good of God. Again, I stress 
 the word “ good.” 
 
 However much Jesus loved me, He loved God 
 more. Indeed, He loved me because He loved God. 
 It was the world for God that He wanted, this 
 supremely. It was His dream and passion. How 
 could He do it? If only He could win this world 
 for God. 
 
 Could the attainment of such a magnificent and 
 holy end justify any means? Would it matter what 
 means were used, so long as the end itself was at- 
 tained? At any cost the world for God! But 
 could it be at any cost? Honour, perhaps? Or 
 His own dreams? 
 
 If therefore He used His power to come to terms 
 with the world—to strike a bargain or fix a com- 
 promise—would that be wrong? Suppose He did 
 not pitch His terms so high? Evil was already 
 entrenched in the world: it had literally “ dug itself 
 
 
 

 
 THE VICTORY 59 
 in.” It possessed immense resources and vested 
 interests. To fight it on a clear issue of life or 
 death would mean a bitter business, Even if there 
 must be war, are there not two ways of settling 
 war—one, by fighting to the last ditch, the other, 
 by treaty, an honourable arrangement ? 
 
 It is the feasibility of a treaty that is the heart of 
 this dilemma. Could Jesus deal in compromises? 
 
 It might be better, even for God’s ends, to rule a 
 decently reformed world, seriously reformed, than 
 to insist on perfection and rule only a corner. If 
 He graciously admitted the present state of things 
 —say, that it is only human to err—if He de- 
 manded a more lenient programme, might He not 
 gain in large ways for God’s purposes? ‘The 
 unlimited exactions of perfection, a gospel of 
 thoroughness, might only lead to needless and 
 prolonged antagonisms. But if He pruned His 
 demands to the needs of the age and the imper- 
 fections of man, He might so carry the world 
 with Him that it might soon be almost, if not 
 quite, God’s. 
 
 “Tf you will own me, and acknowledge my 
 power,—if you will fall down and worship me, 
 even for a moment,—lI shall give you what your 
 soul desires, the empire of the world. This is an 
 easy way, and a speedy way, to win the world! If 
 you do not come to terms with me, your way will 
 be hard. Very hard. Look here, towards Jerusa- 
 

 
 60 THE DILEMMA IN THE DESERT 
 
 lem. Do you observe that little hill, with a gaunt 
 cross standing on it? That is the only throne 
 you will ascend, if you do not accept my terms and 
 align yourself with the world’s ideas. All I ask is 
 a trifling recognition, a mere acknowledgment: and 
 all these kingdoms of the world will I give you.” 
 
 An alluring prospect! 
 
 This would satisfy God, surely? This would 
 satisfy Christ’s own personal ambition, surely? 
 This would avoid that ghastly cross, the agony, and 
 the apparent defeat. Not to run the flag just so 
 high: and all for God’s dear sake! 
 
 Jesus said, “ Get thee behind me, Satan.” 
 
 Why did He say it? 
 
 Simply because, like God, He would have all or 
 nothing. Evil is the one thing with which God 
 cannot compromise. Jesus must use God’s powers 
 on God’s terms, and do God’s work with God’s 
 tools. All or nothing! There is no other way for 
 the Son of God. 
 
 So He left the desert, cleansed of His own 
 temptations. How bitter and seductive they were, 
 we can but imperfectly guess. Our joy for ever 
 lies in His victory. He went forth, in God’s 
 strength, to walk the narrow path He had mapped 
 out for Himself in His great debate. 
 
 From that moment, in a natural self-enlighten- 
 ment, He must have known where that path led. A 
 
 
 
THEME LCLORY: 61 
 
 soul that saw so deeply into the mind of God could 
 not help seeing as deeply into the mind of man. 
 And there in the misty depths of human hatred, He 
 could not but foresee the possibility of defeat. 
 Defeat meant death. Death meant a cross. 
 
 I understand now where He beat out that royal 
 sentence: “ What shall it profit a man if he gain the 
 whole world and lose his own soul? ” 
 
 “ Strong Son of God.” 
 
IV 
 THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 
 THE LURE OF A VACANT THRONE 
 
 IN vif JO fair man may deny that Jesus walked 
 PISS re > warily and in strict fulfilment of the 
 
 AWNig| rigourous programme He had beaten 
 
 ssi] out for Himself in the agony of the 
 nay There He had definitely faced the issues 
 as they affected His mission and His ministry. He 
 had chosen His path, planned His campaign, de- 
 fined His aims, and settled His loyalties. 
 
 He began His ministry then in the clear spirit 
 and with the definite aims foreshadowed in that 
 Temptation scene. That is beyond all question. 
 
 In spite of this, before He had gone far, He was 
 forced to face a startling dilemma which arose 
 and confronted Him from out of the facts and 
 results of His own early work. This dilemma 
 was so embarrassing and presented such incalcu- 
 lable possibilities, that it is only fair to Jesus to 
 show that it was not of His seeking but was 
 forced on Him by the folly and bias of others. 
 He did not diverge one hair-breadth from His 
 own ideal and methods as settled in the desert: 
 and yet He was called upon to consider a problem 
 
 62 
 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 63 
 
 that shook the whole dream of His ministry afresh 
 to its foundations. 
 
 I 
 
 I find that most of the dilemmas of my own life 
 are the result, conscious or unconscious, of my own 
 acts. I can truly say that “if I had not done this ”’ 
 or “if I had not said that,” I should not have been 
 forced to face this or that unnerving problem. If, 
 then, we are to acquit Jesus of being a party to His 
 own dilemma, we must in honesty state certain 
 things as clearly as possible. 
 
 Let us observe that from the outset our Lord 
 proclaimed only a spiritual message of high de- - 
 mand. He dwelt entirely on the spiritual issues of 
 God’s claim. There could be no possible. mistake 
 about this in the mind of an unprejudiced hearer. 
 Nothing either in His message or manner could 
 appeal to lower views. He preached God, God 
 alone,—God’s call, God’s love, God’s forgiveness, 
 God’s Fatherhood. In all fairness it has to be said 
 that if anyone mistook that message then he was 
 
 guilty of the common human mistake of reading 
 
 his own bias into Christ’s words. Our Lord’s 
 position in this matter was as clear as sunlight. 
 
 Further, His gospel of the Kingdom was plainly 
 stated and unmistakably spiritual. He dwelt, for 
 instance, on the nature of the Kingdom. It is 
 
64. THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 
 
 within you, He said, and it comes with no outward 
 appearance or pretension. . . . As faithfully, 
 He announced its terms and its objects. Its terms 
 —repentance, faith, and a God-like heart. Its ob- 
 jects—the salvation of the human soul and the 
 salvation of the world of human souls. 
 
 And even more pointedly, He unfolded its demands 
 —the good life lived in God, love and charity to 
 others, and a life of gracious sacrifice. Is it pos- 
 sible that any unbiassed hearer could make a mis- 
 take about this definite programme? 
 
 Once more, lest any unthinking person might be 
 misled, He deliberately limited Himself in the 
 working of His wonders. There is no record or 
 ‘suggestion of any great deed wrought by Him for 
 display, for personal pleasure, for publicity, or for 
 its own sake. If we examine His works of grace, 
 we Shall find that He never exercised His power 
 except at the call of urgent need or from the pas- 
 sion of His own love. For, as I tried to show you, 
 the temptation to juggle with His mysterious 
 powers or to dazzle the multitude by display had 
 been faced and settled in that lonely struggle in the | 
 desert. From that He never swerved. 
 
 still more, a supreme point to notice, Jesus : 
 always sought to keep a firm control of public en- — 
 thusiasm. Whenever it grew too ardent or threat- 
 ened to become unreasoning, He quietly withdrew — 
 
THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 65 
 
 Himself to other towns, as if to allow the simmer- 
 ing passion to cool. Again and again, in this same 
 connection, He cautioned grateful people whom He 
 had helped not to publish or blazon His reputation 
 abroad. It is remarkable how often the records tell 
 us that He warned this one or that one to “ tell no 
 man.” It is quite plain what this means. These 
 injunctions of silence are part of a reasoned policy, 
 —RHis desire to win acceptance for the truth of 
 His message alone, not for the startling deeds 
 which might so easily inflame the unbalanced 
 popular imagination. 
 
 All this is true and needs to be said, in view of 
 what took place. 
 
 II 
 
 In spite of this quiet programme, the result of 
 His early ministry was astounding. He leapt at 
 once into an amazing popularity,—the kind of 
 boundless acclamation that has so often turned the 
 heads of great men and twisted them into looking 
 down wrong lanes. 
 
 As the records plainly show, Jesus had the whole 
 body of the people at His heels like a flock of 
 sheep. Even His enemies,—dubious of Him but 
 fascinated, their hostility still half-dormant,—could 
 not tear themselves from His influence. He was 
 the idol of the countryside: and every village for 
 miles around sent its quota each day to swell the 
 multitude. The crowds about Him were insuffer- 
 
66 THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 
 
 able in their pressure, for they beleaguered Him 
 day and night. Their unending demands broke all 
 endurance,—even Christ’s. Often He had to steal 
 away to a mountain-top or a desert place, not only 
 for private prayer, but for sheer rest. 
 
 But perhaps with Him these two were one. 
 Prayer was Rest! 
 
 Have you ever considered how little private life 
 Jesus had at this time? | 
 
 We know what private life means to us. Any — 
 one who lives in the public eye realises that some — 
 private life may mean the salvation of his soul—a 
 stolen moment in the day—a corner of the home 
 which he can call his own and where he may relax 
 and become his natural self. This privilege often 
 saves our sanity! I am told that even the leather- 
 belts and chains of machinery need to be frequently 
 relaxed if their efficiency is to be preserved. We 
 are delicate machinery! 
 
 Jesus had no private life. 
 
 Even when the prying eyes of the crowd were off 
 Him, there were the speculating eyes of these 
 twelve big men boring Him through. He was 
 hedged round with eyes, a ring of eyes. Eyes 
 everywhere,—kindly or critical, adoring or ques- 
 tioning, reverent or cynical. Eyes that cursed or 
 eyes that caressed, eyes that were either an envy or 
 a benediction. But eyes! Always eyes! We read 
 so often that they ‘ watched’ Him. 
 
 \ 
 
THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 67 
 
 None the less, the amazing thing to me is how 
 simple, how unconsciously unaffected, how serenely 
 natural He remained through it all. There is not 
 the suggestion of a strut, a pose, or an affectation 
 about the simple unspoiled Jesus. Anyone who 
 lives much in the public gaze knows how easy it is 
 —often how necessary it is—to acquire subtle 
 affectations, a social or a business manner, or a 
 protecting pose. A prince’s smile: a politician’s 
 vagueness: a doctor’s manner: a business man’s 
 hustle: a parson’s gravity :—so much of it all, not 
 really insincere, is only a subtle defence against the 
 unending demands of constant publicity! I have 
 never met a public man whom I could not convict 
 of a suspicion of Strut. I do not condemn him in 
 the least: it often saves his sanity! 
 
 But there it is! , 
 
 The amazing thing in Jesus is the unvarying _ 
 simplicity, naturalness and honesty of His whole 
 life, without pose or posture or affectation. He 
 was always Jesus, never the official prophet. 
 
 That in itself is something that needs to be 
 accounted for. 
 
 | Til 
 Unfortunately, this popularity was not only 
 blind and ignorant, but based on false hopes, 
 founded on crude popular misconceptions and base- 
 less dreams. The people were gasping for a 
 worldly Kingdom, a free Jewish empire, a nation 
 
68 THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 
 
 that could lift the heel of Rome from its throat, a 
 lordly people that might dominate the world in 
 earthly grandeur and revive the lost glories of 
 the past. 
 
 Now comes a real touch of irony. 
 
 In spite of His plain unvarnished message, as I 
 have sketched it to you, these people imagined that 
 they saw in Jesus the type of leader they wanted. 
 Could self-deception go farther? This big man of 
 power would lead them! Here was the Messiah, 
 the very Messiah they desired! 
 
 This is one of the great ironical situations in 
 history. 
 
 Not once but always Jesus said, “The Kingdom 
 of Heaven cometh not with observation.” 
 
 “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” 
 
 Yet they came by force to make Him a King. 
 
 IV 
 
 It is historically true that if Jesus had made even 
 a trifling departure from His own perfect pro- 
 gramme, He might have set the heather on fire. It 
 is surely worth a thought—what a changed world 
 it would have been, if He had faltered here! The 
 simmering political and social discontent only 
 needed a spark. ‘To my mind, that spark was an 
 ambitious man, a leader with some power behind 
 him, one who could invoke and hold human 
 loyalties. 
 
 None could have done that better than Jesus. 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 69 
 
 Could our Lord so rearrange His own ideas and 
 so reconstruct His own programme that He might 
 make use of this great leverage for the ends of His 
 Kingdom? 
 
 It was a chance such as had never entered into 
 any other life. The unrest did not need to be 
 created. It was there. The passion was there. 
 The people were there. Most of all, the opportunity 
 was there. And if you think of it, it is oppor- 
 tunity that generally suggests a way for us to damn 
 ourselves. More men are led astray by a plausible 
 opportunity than by their own native passions, 
 Opportunity is the mid-wife to desire. 
 
 “ How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds 
 Makes ill deeds done.” 
 
 V 
 
 They came by force to make Him a King. 
 
 Hot with their age-long wrongs, carried away by 
 their own dreams and desires, seeing in Jesus an 
 evident source of majestic power, they came to 
 force His hand. 
 
 They would lead Him to a vacant throne. 
 
 Our question is, whether Jesus, when ap- 
 proached by this mob of a committee, could con- 
 sider their offer and become an opportunist? He 
 could justly urge that He had not sought this 
 dénouement. Indeed He could assert beyond all 
 question that He had avoided it. He had used no 
 
70 TEE DOT LEMMA "OF PORU fa Riiy 
 
 unjust means to buy such outrageous popularity. 
 But now that it had come,—unsought and even un- 
 wanted,—might He not use this unique chance, 
 purified of course, for the ends of God? ~ 
 
 This, I think, was a real dilemma. 
 
 VI 
 
 Flow great the dilemma was, we may see if for 
 a wild moment we imagine that Jesus accepted the 
 challenge. Suppose He said, “I shall use this 
 superb chance that is thrust upon me for the glory 
 of God.” 
 
 Had He said so, I believe that there is a good 
 line of argument in which He could have fully 
 justified Himself to us and the world. Remember 
 that we judge Him now by His own best standards. 
 If He had never given us these standards,—as in 
 this present refusal—how would we judge His 
 acceptance? 
 
 1. To begin with, the chance was wholly un- 
 sought. It came to Him as a kind of “act of 
 God.” Many of us indeed might have read “ provi- 
 dence ”’ in such a circumstance. 
 
 2. Further, He might have argued justly that 
 He and He alone could direct this movement in 
 gracious ways and to magnificent ends. We have 
 no idea what a popular movement might accom- 
 plish, with a leader like Jesus at its head. Think of 
 it calmly for a moment. A great social and po- 
 litical regeneration, promoted and inspired by a 
 
 . 
 
 : 
 : 
 . 
 
THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 71 
 
 pure force like Jesus,—why! the idea is an intoxi- 
 cation! It would revolutionise all systems and 
 cleanse all governments. What a world it might 
 have been! 
 
 3. Moreover, although the movement was selfish 
 and aggressive so far as the Jews were concerned, 
 He could have introduced into the crusade His own 
 redeeming passion. He could have given it a 
 world-wide turn and a God-like turn. He could 
 have made His own conditions and introduced His 
 own ideals. And whatever happened, being what 
 He was, He would certainly have brought an im- 
 mense social betterment to the oppressed peoples of 
 the world. He could have changed history more 
 deeply and for infinitely better ends than Alexander 
 or Napoleon. 
 
 4, In any case, although it meant warfare, is it 
 not sometimes a good thing to use power to crush 
 omnipotent evil and to correct the flagrant injus- 
 tices of a rotten world? The arm of force, used 
 justly, brings its own remedy with speed and does 
 not ask a needy world to wait for the slow evolving 
 ways of argument and persuasion. While we rea- 
 son and wrestle for “spiritual conviction,’ mil- 
 lions are dying in ruin. Gracious force might do 
 in a year what persuasion could not accomplish in 
 centuries. 
 
 5. Again, although such a use of force might 
 not be the highest employment of His power, yet in 
 a world like this we have to take things as they are 
 
De PHE DILEMMA OF NPOPU LARLY 
 
 and men as they are. We have to strive not for 
 impossible ideals but for what is humanly prac- 
 ticable. If men will not accept the best, may we 
 not use the second-best ? 
 
 6. Further, there might be bloodshed. But is it 
 not a squeamish and overwrought conscience that 
 considers bloodshed always wrong? In the long 
 run, there might be less bloodshed in correcting one 
 immense wrong, now and for ever, than in allowing 
 a thousand smaller wrongs to remain, injustices 
 that daily exact their own cruel levy. The little 
 driblets, when put in the bucket, might be worse 
 than one big welter,—say, “one war to end 
 war ’’! 
 
 7. In any case, judged from any angle, would 
 this opportunity not bring a golden day nearer,—a 
 great age of political justice, righteous rule, and the 
 supreme honour of God? 
 
 8. And finally, even if Jesus were to accede to 
 this appeal of ambition, is there anything wrong 
 with a personal ambition that has the best ends of 
 others locked in its heart? Ambition, nobly used, 
 has been one of God’s most blessed gifts to a strug- 
 gling world. 
 
 These are not arguments which I have invented. 
 I have heard them used every day by good men, and 
 greeted with cheers in our commercial and political 
 life. Why might Jesus not use them, too, in a far 
 purer cause than anybody ever planned? 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 73 
 
 Vil 
 
 If He had accepted, what then? 
 
 I can give the best answer by guessing why He 
 refused. 
 
 1. He came to offer men one thing and one thing 
 only,—Gop. But God is a personal offer to a man’s - 
 soul, and must be personally and intelligently ac- 
 cepted. We can never force a man to accept God 
 against his reason. We might as well compel an 
 astronomer to believe that the sun moves round the 
 earth. We may compel him to say it, as they once 
 compelled Galileo: but we cannot compel him to 
 believe it. 
 
 In the same way, a man can only believe in God 
 as his soul compels him, not as anybody else com- 
 pels him. That is why all religious persecutions 
 and all so-called “holy wars” are sheer futilities. 
 We may command assent: but we cannot command 
 belief. 
 
 Now, Jesus came to offer the world Gop! He 
 therefore refused to use His power to subdue the 
 world, because, even if He had subdued it, He could 
 never subdue it to God. The good life in God is 
 something that must be deliberately chosen. Chris- 
 tianity does not deal in conscripts but in volunteers. 
 
 2. My second reason is a corollary from this. 
 We cannot “ save the world ” or “‘ save the masses ” 
 as our saying goes. It is a foolish phrase. Wecan 
 only save the individuals who are in the world. 
 
74 THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 
 
 Salvation is a personal matter. We are saved when 
 we turn to God in our great need and choose Him 
 as Lord and Saviour. 
 
 In early days, a missioner might go to the court 
 of a Frankish King. If he converted the King, that 
 lord might then order his whole tribe to be con- 
 verted with him. They were baptised in solid 
 droves and blocks. Another nation for Christ! 
 Converted! 
 
 But of course they were not converted. For con- 
 version is always and only a matter of personal 
 conviction: it is a soul turning to God as a flower 
 turns to the light, and deliberately choosing God. 
 One cannot be converted in any other way. 
 
 Hence, since Jesus came only to preach and pro- 
 claim God, and since God can only be accepted as 
 we give our hearts to Him, force was the last 
 weapon He could use. (I think it is also the last 
 weapon His Church can use.) For His high ends, 
 it would matter next to nothing though He con- 
 quered and subdued the whole world, so long as He 
 did not win their love. To gain even one man’s 
 love was a greater victory than to have a conquered 
 world prostrate at His feet. 
 
 3. Further, this suggested plan of a great na- 
 tional movement represented the second best. But 
 after the Temptation, Jesus never dealt in second 
 bests! He sought a man’s heart, not his person: 
 his love, not his mere obedience. A slave may 
 
LLL 
 THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 75 
 
 obey: but Jesus does not deal in slaves. His trade 
 is in the free affections of a heart that gives itself 
 gladly, not because it is driven, but because it is 
 won. ‘That is the best,—God’s best and Christ’s 
 best. If He cannot get this, He will have nothing 
 else. He may stand at the door and knock. We 
 know He does. But He will never push that door 
 open or steal in unwanted. by an unsnibbed window. 
 
 4. Christ never put social and political pro- 
 grammes first. He never even put temporal wel- ~ 
 fare first. Let the modern world listen! 
 
 I do not say that He despised these things, or did 
 not give them their due importance and place. No 
 one cared more for people and their temporal wel- 
 fare than our Lord. He fed hunger: He healed 
 disease: He corrected wrongs: He declared justice: 
 He cured insanity: He preached a clean, pure life. 
 None ever did these things more passionately, be- 
 cause if the truth be told none ever loved so dearly. 
 It might be well if the modern church cared for 
 these things as much as Jesus, 
 
 But Christ’s was a love big enough to wish the 
 best, not the second best. He knew that the su- 
 preme thing a man needs is a saved soul, a heart 
 right with God and touched by His love. As an 
 immediate social consequence, we know that when 
 the heart is right with God, truly right, it will be 
 right with man. It is a vision of God that gives 
 us the finest vision of man. I question indeed if 
 
76 THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY 
 
 our heart will ever be right with man until it is 
 right with God. 
 
 So you will not find any social or political pro- 
 grammes in Jesus. You may find much in His 
 teaching and life that may help and inspire your 
 programme. But it will be your programme, not 
 His! Iam tired of those who read the New Testa- 
 ment as if it were a modern social tract or a treatise 
 on Economics. The people who speak of Jesus as 
 if He came merely to affect our social welfare, or 
 give happiness, or a “ good time ”’ do not know the 
 first thing about His message. 
 
 He gave the inspiration for all good programmes, 
 for He gave the love for God, man, truth, justice, 
 peace, and equality,—the basis of all good pro- 
 grammes. But programmes die: it is a habit they 
 have. The inspiration remains. And that is why, 
 when all our modern platforms are demolished, 
 Jesus will be eternally used as the buttress of every 
 good scheme. He alone gives the love, the truth, 
 and the passion that make men dream of Utopias 
 and work for a coming Kingdom. 
 
 He gives God, the secret of all progress. 
 
 Vill 
 
 “Come and be our King, Master: and bring in a 
 glad new empire that will sweep evil by force into 
 life’s dust-bin.” 
 
 But Jesus slipped away from the acclaiming 
 crowds. He climbed up that hill behind the multi- 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA OF POPULARITY TY, 
 
 tude: He fell on His knees: He prayed passion- 
 ately all night long to God. . . . When the 
 dawn came, it rose also in His own soul. 
 
 Then in the morning, when the people knew by 
 His face that He had refused, the fickle crowds fell 
 away from Him as leaves drop from the frosted 
 trees in November. He was a crank, not a 
 Messiah. 
 
 Jesus was left once more with His little com- 
 pany. “ Will ye also go away?” He asked. I can 
 imagine the wistfulness of His note as He looked 
 at the dwindled band. Had they, too, joined Him 
 from false motives? 
 
 Peter cried—(God bless you, Peter, though I 
 know that even you must have been heart-broken 
 when Jesus pushed that glittering crown aside)— 
 Peter cried, “ Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou 
 hast the words of Eternal life.” 
 
 I believe that Jesus smiled. 
 
 So He settled His great dilemma. He refused 
 the vacant throne. 
 Unless you count the cross a throne? 
 
V 
 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 
 
 Gis|F we have done anything so far, we 
 Wa\ have at least seen that our Lord’s life 
 was as full of problems and unnerving 
 decisions as any human life could be. 
 His vocation did not ensure Him any ignoble 
 freedom from temptation, but only a noble cour- 
 age against its attacks. Even to see a fact like this 
 may be an immense spiritual gain for us. 
 
 For one thing, it will help to destroy that inane 
 
 
 
 picture of a calm passionless Christ who marched . 
 
 along our tortured ways with unclouded serenity, 
 and who therefore had little touch with us and no 
 appeal for our tempted souls. 
 
 I consider that our chief gain in this study of 
 His problems will lie in our rediscovering His 
 ancient agonies and finding how He had to wrestle 
 through, by perfect communion with the Father, to 
 His own hard-won victory. If we see this, I think 
 He will stand by us as a real Saviour, made like us, 
 who by His victory can transform us until we are 
 _made like Him. For it is only as He is one with 
 
 / us in our temptations, that He can ever make us one 
 
 with Him in His victory. 
 
 78 
 
 
 

 
 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 19) 
 
 One may freely admit that an ideal and a passion 
 such as possessed Him may have rescued Him from 
 many of the petty deviations and allurements that 
 
 curse our peace. This is true. When our eyes are ~~ 
 
 fixed on a star we are not so ready to see the mud 
 that lies at our feet. Hence we may well admit 
 that Jesus may have been saved from many of our 
 commonest fleshly snares. But if this is so, is it 
 not also true that like Him we too may possess a 
 protecting dream, and may thereby be saved from 
 a mind too easily distracted and allured? 
 
 On the other hand, the possession of such an 
 ideal as Christ had may bring its own peculiar and 
 typical temptations. Not the least of these is the 
 constant discord between the ideal and reality, the 
 hard brutal facts of ordinary living. We find 
 among ourselves that the higher we pitch our ideal, 
 the deeper is our constant puzzle. The man who 
 takes life easily goes through it easily. But the 
 very purity of our ideal brings its own spiritual 
 danger: for when measured against life, it may 
 induce petulance, impatience, contempt and pride. 
 We have seen it even in the best souls. Thus I 
 imagine that none of us can be tempted as fiercely 
 as Jesus, simply because none of us has the peerless 
 dream He had in His heart. 
 
 We pay for our ideals in subtle ways. 
 
 So far the dilemmas Christ had to settle were per- 
 
 sonal, springing from the debate in His own soul. 
 
80 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 
 
 He had, for instance, to settle the spirit in which 
 He would do His unique work. He had also to 
 define the aims of His work. Finally, He had to 
 formulate the methods by which He would carry it 
 out in practice. ‘These dilemmas arose out of the 
 native purity of His own heart, and out of the 
 special quality of His work. 
 
 In this and the succeeding chapters I turn to two 
 problems which were thrust upon Him by others. 
 They are dilemmas of judgment rather than of con- 
 duct. Perhaps, indeed, some might be inclined to 
 call them “conundrums” rather than dilemmas. 
 But this at least may be said of them, that each of 
 them presented Jesus with a distinct choice. His 
 answer, one way or the other, meant much for His 
 ministry and for us. 
 
 I 
 
 By this time, the hostility of the Pharisees had 
 become compact and even desperate. They had 
 reached that point in their aversion when they were 
 ready to attempt anything that could either trip or 
 convict Jesus. 
 
 In their personal bias, they imagined that He was 
 not only their individual enemy, but also the enemy 
 of their system. To quote the words of John the 
 Baptist, they came to see that the axe was not only 
 threatening the branches, but was laid at the root 
 of the tree. Hence they began to surround Him on 
 every conceivable occasion and tempt Him in every 
 
 a ee se ~~ 
 
THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 81 
 
 suggestible way to see if they might unearth some 
 plausible excuse for a charge that might silence 
 Him for good. 
 
 By painful experience, however, they had dis- 
 covered that Jesus was a doughty opponent. On 
 occasion, He had actually turned their own guns 
 against themselves. They had now grown cun- 
 ningly cautious. ‘‘ Once bitten is twice shy.” 
 
 It must have been an annoyance beyond bearing 
 to these domineering ecclesiastics that this “ unlet- 
 tered’’ man should have held them so easily at 
 arm’s length. They had regarded Him at first with 
 a kind of tolerant wonder, which had changed into 
 an intolerant contempt, and finally had hardened 
 into an intolerable anger. 
 
 There is nothing just so dangerous as narrow \~~ 
 goodness. Sometimes it is more dangerous than 
 open sin. For this narrow goodness generally per- ; _ 
 suades itself that its own form of goodness is the ~ 
 only possible. 
 
 We must never forget that the Pharisees were 
 good men, ready to suffer for their own ideas of 
 God. Our modern picture of them, our very use 
 of the word “ Pharisee,” is a foolish and ignorant 
 libel. ‘These men saved the religious life of their| 
 own day, and saved it nobly. 
 
 But they were bigots for their own forms andt—~ 
 their own narrow ideas of truth. There is no 
 enemy of growing truth so bitter as a bigot. The 
 
eR PEER NEN ASST 
 82 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 
 
 Pharisees made up their minds that Christ’s type 
 of religion was really worse than sin. Sin at least 
 was an open enemy; but Jesus was subtly under- 
 mining the whole edifice of God. They resolved 
 that this man must be wrecked, by fair means 
 or foul. 
 
 It is certainly worth observing that Jesus was 
 crucified not by men who were wicked, as we com- 
 monly understand the term, but by men who 
 were “ good.” 
 
 IT 
 
 After many galling repulses, they now feel that 
 they must plot out some deep move. Simple but 
 deep! The more guileless, the better. 
 
 First of all, in their twisted hate of Jesus, they 
 did a curious thing. They enlisted the aid of the 
 
 / Herodians. Strange bed-fellows, surely! ‘T'o see 
 “ the Pharisees and the Herodians—ancient enemies 
 
 —whispering together in eager alliance almost 
 _/ makes one smile. So might one laugh to see an old 
 ./“ Die-hard” and a Hyde Park Orator plotting out 
 - a common political agreement! 
 
 Look at them for a moment. Such a queer alli- 
 ance deserves a passing glance. 
 
 On the one hand, the Pharisees. . . . The 
 strictest of the strict, the Puritans of their day, 
 rigid and _ stiff-backed nationalists, who would 
 acknowledge no rule and no King but the Lord 
 Jehovah, the preachers of a spiritual democracy! 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 83 
 
 On the other hand, the Herodians. . . . The 
 political party who adhered to the dynasty of 
 Herod, the apostate Jews who strutted like pea- 
 cocks about the court of Kings, the Royalist 
 cavaliers of their age, the kind of men who 
 might flatter even the Herods about the divine 
 right of Kings! 
 
 To see them together, plotting against Jesus, is a 
 spectacle. It is more than that. It is a unique in- 
 stance of lesser hates driven out by a greater, a 
 proof that all the varied forms of evil can club 
 together to defeat goodness. Pharisees and Herod- 
 ians, with their heads glued together in that corner, 
 to “down”’ Jesus, their common foe! 
 
 I do not know who suggested it—though it has 
 a typically Herodian touch—but between them, 
 they devised a clever move. 
 
 First of all, as an accomplished courtier might 
 do, one who believes in the oily art of flattery, they 
 concocted a choice tribute to Jesus. Indeed, I ques- 
 tion if there is any finer tribute to our Lord than 
 this preamble they composed. It is doubly valuable 
 to us today, for it is that rare thing, the testimony 
 of enemies. 
 
 I do not say that they believed their own words: 
 but in a true sense, their words were what they be- 
 lieved in spite of themselves. Since they were 
 insincere, they lied when they spoke the truth: but 
 since they were really expressing the impression 
 
84 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 
 
 Jesus made on their hearts, they spoke the truth 
 when they lied. 
 
 Their next move was even more clever. 
 
 They guessed that if either of them, Pharisees or 
 Herodians, approached Jesus openly, He would be 
 on His guard at once. Their plan was to take Him 
 unawares. There must be nothing obvious or 
 challenging. 
 
 So they gathered together some young men,— 
 students, fresh open-faced young lads, disciples of 
 one of the schools. From their point of view, this 
 was distinctly clever. (Though from our point of 
 view today, this in itself was a singular testimony 
 to Jesus.) They knew and counted on Christ’s 
 interest in any young artless enquirer. They be- 
 lieved—is it not an unconscious tribute to Jesus ?— 
 that He would welcome such genuine seekers, wor- 
 ried with problems. How His big heart would 
 open to any groping puzzled soul! And here were 
 some young men, enquiring students, wrestling 
 with life’s problems, knocking at His door! 
 
 A clever touch indeed! 
 
 Clever, if they had not been dealing with Jesus! 
 
 Iil 
 
 The first scene in the play I might call the Com- 
 edy in the Green Room. 
 
 Having carefully chosen their young students, 
 _ they gathered them together in a quiet place and 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 85 
 
 put them through their paces. The young men, 
 { guileness so far as enmity was concerned, were 
 like a group of actors preparing and conning their 
 lines before stepping on the stage. They were told 
 exactly what they should say. They were asked to 
 repeat it again and again until they were word- 
 perfect. They were even instructed how to deport 
 themselves, and how to put a little more guileless 
 interest into their eyes! 
 
 It is amusing for us today to get this peep behind 
 the scenes. It suggests to me the Green Room, 
 where the actor mutters over his lines, while here 
 and there he gives his borrowed plumes a pull and 
 a pat, and dabs a little more rouge and powder on 
 his face. 
 
 All this before he faces the limelight. In this 
 case, the search-light of Christ’s calm eyes! 
 
 Out you go then, young lads, and act your play. 
 You are now word-perfect and you know how to 
 hold yourselves, as guileless enquirers. Jesus will 
 see that you are only young men keen on problems, 
 seeking light amid youth’s puzzles and worries, 
 
 We of course shall keep discreetly in the 
 shadow! Surely these artlessly artful college men 
 will throw dust in this Galilean’s eyes. After all, 
 He is only a rough untutored prophet from the 
 country! 
 
 IV 
 They are now on the stage. 
 
86 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 
 
 Word-perfect and suitably rouged—no longer 
 simple, however, for they have become confed- 
 erates and plotters, even if it be only a young man’s 
 crude idea of a joke—word-perfect and accoutred, 
 they come before Jesus. 
 
 I can imagine the shadowed eyes with which He 
 looked at them as they went through their pitiful 
 part. He was not hearing their words so much as 
 hearing their thoughts. I have no doubt they per- 
 formed their duty well and flattered themselves 
 that they had deceived this simple Galilean. And 
 when they had finished, they waited. 
 
 For what? 
 
 We read in one simple sentence,—a striking in- 
 stance of the Bible’s glorious economy in words— 
 “Jesus perceived their wickedness.” 
 
 It is a modern as well as an ancient game to try 
 to throw dust in Christ’s eyes. 
 
 Let us watch them, as they play their part. 
 
 Before they stated their dilemma, they led up to 
 it by mouthing that fine tribute which the grey- 
 haired and hard-eyed plotters had put into their 
 hearts. 
 
 Notice this tribute for a moment. 
 
 As they spoke it, in laboured insincerity, it is 
 only honied speech, oily words, vulgar flattery. 
 Yet I do not know a finer unconscious tribute to ° 
 this Jesus of ours. It may be that enemies often 
 see more clearly than friends. 
 
| 
 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 87 
 
 “We know that thou art true’”’—sincere, with 
 no double meanings or divided loyalties, one who 
 rings true like a bell. This is a tribute to 
 character. ; 
 
 “And that thou teachest the way of God in 
 truth,’—honestly and fearlessly, with open face 
 and clean heart. This is a tribute to His message. 
 “The way of God,” mark you. That is something 
 they never confessed before. 
 
 “ Neither carest thou for any man, for thou re- 
 gardest not the person of man,’—neither courting 
 human favour nor dressing your message to suit 
 your audience. This is a tribute to His methods, 
 which contrasted so strongly with the leaders of 
 His day. 
 
 Well done, young men! Well done, you old 
 grey-haired plotters! We take this gladly as the 
 testimony of the enemy. 
 
 They lied when they spoke the truth. They 
 spoke the truth when they lied. 
 
 V 
 
 Then came the dilemma. 
 
 In their case, I have called it a conundrum: for 
 though it was a real and bitter dilemma to many 
 earnest Jewish hearts, it was only a conundrum to 
 them. They were waiting for Christ’s reply, not 
 to receive and welcome light, but to scribble His 
 answer down on one of their student note-books 
 and report it by their seniors to Pilate. 
 
88 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 
 
 This is the dilemma. 
 
 Is it lawful for us as good Jews, as God’s people, 
 owing allegiance to Him alone, is tt lawful for us to 
 give tribute to Caesar, or not? 
 
 The question is as clever as the methods in 
 which it was prepared. It hoisted Jesus on to the 
 horns of a dilemma. 
 
 If, to give a true solution, one must answer every 
 question by “ Yes” or “ No,” then Jesus was in a 
 cleft stick. He could not avoid the issue by an 
 evasion, and no answer at all would have been 
 worse than either “yes” or “no.’ If He had 
 refused to answer, it would have been a proof of 
 fear, and His silence would have condemned Him 
 as a prophet and teacher with His audience. Si- 
 lence or evasion would have been fatal. 
 
 But if He answered “yes” or “no,” He was 
 equally lost. 
 
 If He said “ We are a conquered people and are 
 rightly due to give tribute to Caesar,” He would 
 have outraged all the holy passionate nationalistic 
 dreams of the nation. Not a decent Jew would 
 have listened to Him for another moment. Even 
 among His own disciples there were keen Zealots, 
 who hated Rome worse than the Southern Irish 
 hated Cromwell, and with as much reason. 
 
 If He said, “ We Jews may be forced at the 
 point of the bayonet to pay tribute to Caesar, but 
 we deny that it is lawful,” there would have been 
 a troop of soldiers at His humble lodging within 
 
 a 
 
a ener] 
 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 89 
 
 an hour, and Pilate would have made short work 
 of this political upstart. Rome might tolerate any 
 diversity of religious opinion: but she was hard as 
 steel in political questions. 
 
 Tell us, therefore, us young men, “Is it lawful 
 to give tribute to Caesar or not?” 
 
 Jesus looked at them. | 
 Have you ever wondered what the eyes of Jesus 
 were like? We find a Greek word used in this 
 connection in the New Testament which suggests) _. 
 
 that Jesus “looked into” or “looked through” ° 
 people. Whatever that implies, it implies at least 
 that there was a quality of sheer intensity in His 
 gaze, a steady penetrating look, such a look, for 
 instance, as that which broke through Peter’s 
 bluster until it touched the healing fount of tears. 
 
 Christ looked through these young men and saw 
 the intention of their soul. “Why tempt ye me, 
 ye hypocrites?”’ What a thrust for His com- 
 placent questioners who had fondly hoped to throw 
 dust in His eyes! 
 
 In reply, Jesus gave what I might reverently 
 describe as the cleverest and the most perfect © 
 answer that I know of in all literature. “‘ Shew me 
 the tribute money.” And they brought Him a 
 penny. “Whose is this image and superscrip- 
 tion?” They say unto Him, “ Caesar’s.” Jesus 
 said, “ Render unto Caesar the things that are 
 
 Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” 
 
90 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 
 
 I told this story once to an American who did 
 not know much about his New Testament. When 
 I had finished, he turned to me and said, “ Well, 
 now, can you beat it?” 
 
 That is my own opinion. “Can you beat it?” 
 
 VI 
 
 What did Jesus do in this answer? 
 
 Incidentally, I may say that He has taught me 
 the utter folly of trying to treat Him as if He 
 were a fool. 
 
 Weare all guilty of this, even in our holy things, 
 perhaps most of all in our holy things. We bring 
 our little insincerities, our social disguises, our 
 painted faces, and our parrot words into His pres- 
 ence. We think that we deceive Him as we deceive 
 others, and often ourselves. But whatever Christ 
 is, He is clear-eyed. He simply looks at us with 
 the eyes of God. Perhaps these eyes pity, but at 
 least they see! 
 
 We are a people who love masks, and we all wear 
 them. There is not a face before me now that is 
 not subtly masked. We deceive men, for “ there is 
 no art to read the mind’s construction in the face.” 
 In time we may even deceive ourselves. 
 
 God is not mocked! 
 
 Further, Jesus defined His own attitude unmis- 
 
 takably to a great modern question, from two 
 
 angles,—negatively and positively. 
 
 , * 
 * 
 

 
 eee ee ee eee eee, 
 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 91 
 
 1. Negatively, this is a plain announcement that 
 He refused to be drawn into the vortex of political 
 debate, or to side with any party. 
 
 Why did He do this? 
 
 Some people think that He should have given 
 wise political guidance to His own needy age. If 
 He had any light to give, why should He withhold 
 it? Men surely need gracious leadership in the 
 material things of life, as well as in the spiritual. 
 
 He refused to do this for one or two serious 
 reasons. 
 
 (a) However important and urgent they may 
 seem to us, political questions are purely temporary. © 
 They pass in a few years into the limbo of mere 
 dialectics, and are soon only of such historical in- 
 terest asa mummy is. This question of tribute to 
 Caesar, for instance, is dead. The claim of the 
 American States to secede,—a great matter in its 
 own day—is dead. Roman Catholic emancipation 
 —how bitter that question was—is dead. Woman’s 
 suffrage—we remember its turmoil—is dead. In 
 fact, all the questions we call great, great often 
 because we are so near to them, die in their own 
 age and certainly die with their settlement. They 
 are as temporary as our own darkened passions. 
 
 But Christ’s message is timeless, not for one 
 day but for all days. If He had pronounced on 
 any big question that agitated His own day, 
 
 however timely His word would have been, He ~~ 
 
 would have ceased to be timeless. That part of 
 
92 THE DILEMMA} OF (POLITICS 
 
 His message would have died with the occasion that 
 prompted it. 
 
 (b) All parties, just because they are parties, 
 cling only to aspects of truth. The whole truth so 
 often lies not in any one of the parties but in all. 
 Just because I am outside of it, I have been im- 
 mensely puzzled, when in America, to understand 
 the difference, other than historical, between a 
 Democrat and a Republican. These distinctions 
 are real to those who live amid their issues, but 
 unreal to those who are outside them. I dare say, 
 an American citizen might be as puzzled to under- 
 stand the difference between a “ cautious Liberal ” 
 and a “ progressive Unionist ”’! 
 
 Parties everywhere represent only aspects of 
 truth. But Jesus said, “I am the Truth.’ He 
 claimed to give something that is bigger than any 
 party, that may be a light and an inspiration to 
 purify all parties. If He had given political guid- 
 ance, He would have been just as living or as dead 
 as the issues on which He pronounced! 
 
 2. On the positive side, His answer suggests 
 that He gave big living principles, not little passing 
 policies, eternal principles of right and justice in 
 which ephemeral policies may be framed. 
 
 He was concerned with the saving doctrines of 
 good life and conduct, by which all policies may be 
 measured, and in which all policies may be inspired. 
 He gave regulative views of God, of man, of 
 

 
 Dn 
 THE DILEMMA OF POLITICS 95 
 
 worth, of truth, of love, of justice, to which all 
 our political schemes should be brought as to a 
 touchstone. 
 
 That is what He did here. 
 
 In no sense did He evade the question. He 
 answered it perhaps in the fullest measure in which 
 the burning question of state and religion has ever 
 been answered. 
 
 On the one hand, He commanded all men, 
 frankly and fully, to “ Render unto Caesar the 
 things that are Caesar’s.”” What does that mean? 
 Surely it means nothing less than that we should 
 give our full dues to the powers that be, fulfilling 
 our duties to the State, to society, and to our 
 fellow-citizens. We are members of the State, and 
 we handle “ Caesar’s money.” That implies that we 
 accept the privileges of state citizenship, state rights, 
 state protection, state comfort, state amenities. 
 
 Now if we accept great privileges, we should be 
 as ready to accept great responsibilities. It is a 
 mean thing to take all that the state offers, and 
 refuse what the state needs. It is the meanest thing 
 
 in the world, for instance, to stand amid all the |.~ wi 
 
 great privileges of a stable and civilised nation, and 
 yet cheat in our income tax! 
 
 Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. 
 The very sweep and comprehensiveness of this 
 charge cover all duties and all times. 
 
 “ And to God, the things that are God's.” 
 
94 THE DILEMMAVOF POLITICS 
 
 That is added as if its application regulated the 
 message of the first sentence. 
 
 It does. 
 
 For our view of the State will ultimately depend 
 on our view of God. If God’s true service be put 
 first, our service of the State will never suffer. The 
 best citizens of the Fatherland are those who love 
 the Father’s land. 
 
 For in God our conscience is sharpened, our 
 sense of duty is deepened, and our regard for others 
 becomes a love. If first of all and most of all we 
 seek to give God what is God’s due,—our worship 
 and reverence and obedience,—we shall never 
 grudge what is due to our fellow-men or to the 
 State in which we live. i 
 
 You will notice that once more Jesus gives no 
 limiting details, but only a great principle to be 
 interpreted by our growing conscience. By lifting 
 all policies into the region of principle, He made 
 His message to His own age as much a message 
 to ours, a message that can never be exhausted until 
 we reach “ perfection’s sacred heights.” 
 
 Thus He settled His dilemma. 
 
 “Render unto Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” 
 
 As my American friend remarked, “Can you 
 beat it?” 
 
VI 
 THE DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 
 
 @IESUS stepped into a full social system, 
 Ni; —what we might call a “ going con- 
 cern ’’—which was exactly as good or 
 as bad as the conscience of the age 
 could devise or tolerate. Each generation, like 
 each nation, has the government it deserves. Men 
 make their own systems, and they must be judged 
 by them. 
 
 Jesus had to adjust Himself to this established 
 order as we adjust ourselves to ours. Each day of 
 His life and each act of His day would necessarily 
 bring Him into definite relation with the political 
 _ and municipal order of things. Like all His 
 fellow-countrymen, He lived under this order, and 
 must have been subtly influenced by it in nameless 
 ways. The whole system, good or bad, must have 
 come under His daily notice and daily criticism, 
 for praise or blame. We have to remember that 
 He was as much a citizen, with a citizen’s duties 
 and privileges, as any other individual. 
 
 Around Him, there were political institutions of 
 ancient standing: customs of commerce and con- 
 duct that were deeply rooted: systems of law and 
 justice that had been slowly built up through the 
 
 95 
 
 
 
96 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 
 
 _ generations. This recognised social order sur- 
 rounded Him in all the departments of His life, as 
 the air He breathed. He found it there, acknowl- 
 edged and enforced, as we find it around us when 
 we step out into work and manhood. 
 
 What relation would Jesus assume towards this 
 established social system? How would He adjust 
 Himself to its mingled good and evil? Would He 
 venture on criticism, or if need be, take a public 
 stand against open and flagrant injustice? 
 
 We have seen already what attitude He assumed 
 to political programmes. That attitude was 
 summed up in the memorable sentence, ‘“‘ Render 
 unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to 
 God the things that are God’s.” 
 
 I turn now and ask you to observe the very defi- 
 nite attitude He assumed to the intricate system 
 of municipal and national law in His own land 
 and day. . 
 
 The dilemma was introduced to Him in a singu- 
 lar fashion. 
 
 I 
 
 He had been speaking to His disciples concern- 
 ing the duties and dangers lying ahead of them in — 
 the difficult days to come. At the close of His talk, 
 He warned them that they might reasonably expect 
 political trouble. Their enemies might use the full — 
 power of the State to crush them, and might hale: 
 
 \ 
 
DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 97 
 
 them before magistrates and powers to stop their 
 mouths in prison or in death. If so, they should 
 carry themselves with a high heart, for God 
 through His Holy Spirit would keep them strong. 
 
 That casual word “ magistrate’ struck the ear 
 of one man in the audience, and chimed in with his 
 own preoccupied and unharmonious thoughts. He 
 was that dreadful type of person, a man with a 
 grievance. Most of us have had reason to fear 
 this species of monomaniac, for we know that even 
 the most irrelevant and casual reference will lead 
 him to his pet obsession, as sour jam attracts a 
 stray wasp! ° 
 
 The word “ magistrate ” set this man off royally 
 on his hobby-horse! 
 
 Evidently, there were two brothers of them who 
 had fallen out pitifully about property, a subject 
 that has ruined more homes than warfare itself. 
 ’ The quarrel had evidently gone to extremes. Why 
 is it that between kinsfolk it generally goes to ex- 
 tremes? I have seen brethren more bitterly 
 estranged, on some question of property or money, 
 than if they had been ancient hereditary enemies. 
 
 (1f you will forgive a digression, I should like 
 to make use of these brackets to insert one! 
 
 May I assure parents and guardians from my own 
 ministerial experience, that the one thing they 
 should be sure of, for their children’s sake, is that 
 their affairs are put in strictly legal order? I have 
 heard fond people remark, “ My children are much 
 
98 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 
 
 too affectionate ever to quarrel in after days about 
 such things as property.” If you wish to save 
 them from quarreling, be wise enough now to put 
 the temptation beyond their reach! In later days, 
 other interests and other motives arise, with the 
 new bonds we form; and I have seen families, once 
 loving, rent and ruined by some quarrel about half 
 an acre of ground.) 
 
 Forgive my digression :—but it springs from the 
 sad facts of this case. 
 
 II 
 
 These two brothers had fallen out about an in- 
 heritance. From the facts before us, it is very 
 likely that their trusting father—to use a modern 
 phrase—had died “ without a will.” He had be- 
 lieved, as others do, in his sons’ love and mutual 
 honour. But when hard cash and broad acres 
 came into the case, greed crept in to keep them 
 company. 
 
 We do not know all the facts: but we know the 
 one big fact,—greed, suspicion, hatred. 
 
 since this man appealed to Jesus, an unofficial 
 person, we may justly infer that he had already 
 tried all available official means without success. 
 
 Probably, the case had been disposed of in court: 
 and the decision had gone against him. Or he may 
 have been defeated, as so many in those “ good old 
 days” were defeated, by the art of oiling the 
 

 
 
 
 ee ee ee ee ee eee eee ..,  ———————————————————_—_— ee 
 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 99 
 
 judge’s palm. (Thank God that such twisted 
 corruption is no longer possible!) Or finally, the 
 issue may have been a debate between law and 
 equity. The law may have pointed one way: and 
 equity, as it sometimes does, may have pointed 
 another. 
 
 But at least, since the man came to Jesus, a 
 purely unofficial person but one of startling mag- 
 netic influence, we may assume that he had already 
 tried every other available means without success. 
 He was driven to bring his case to this wonderful 
 teacher as a last resource, in the hope that He might 
 use the strange influence He exercised over people, 
 to straighten things out. 
 
 Til 
 
 “ Master, speak to my brother that he divide the 
 inheritance with me.” 
 
 What was he asking Jesus to do? 
 
 His question invited our Lord, quite pointedly, 
 not only to use His spiritual influence to settle a 
 question of money, but also to set Himself over 
 against the law of the land, to re-try a case that 
 had been already settled in the approved courts of 
 justice, and so, directly or indirectly, to make some 
 pronouncement on the system of legal justice 
 under which He lived. 
 
 All this lies behind the man’s suggestion. It is 
 this that makes it essentially impudent. 
 
 Some might feel inclined to argue that Jesus 
 
100 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 
 
 should have heard this man’s case, lest there might 
 have been a bitter injustice lurking behind it. Pre- 
 suming that the man was in trouble, could Jesus 
 do less? That would have been in gracious keeping 
 with His gentle and loving heart. 
 
 But Jesus was not only gentle. He was also fair. 
 To be fair, in a thorny case like this, He would also 
 have had to hear the other man’s side! If He had 
 done that, His act would have amounted to nothing 
 less than this—a retrial by Him of a case already 
 settled in a court of law. 
 
 The law may have been biassed, one-sided and 
 unequal. It may have been wrongly administered 
 and badly interpreted. It may have been weighted 
 like loaded dice. But all that is totally beside the 
 bigger question involved in the man’s request,— 
 that Jesus should give some pronouncement on a 
 case legally settled. 
 
 “ Master,” said the man, “ speak to my brother 
 that he divide the inheritance with me.” 
 
 IV 
 
 Christ’s answer, in contrast with His usual man- 
 ner, is noticeably stern. ‘‘ Man,” He said—there 
 is a note of aloofness and reproof in that word— 
 “Man, who made me a judge or an arbiter 
 over your” 
 
 There is more than a mere refusal in these words. 
 In the first place, there is a distinct and serious 
 
DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 101 
 
 condemnation of the type of man who put the 
 question and the type of question he put. 
 
 If you think of it, the absurd irrelevance of this 
 stranger’s request showed that he had not been 
 listening with any spiritual interest to the deep 
 things of which Jesus had been speaking. He had 
 apparently heard Christ’s weighty and solemn 
 words,—for he responded to one of them like a 
 parrot,—and then like some silly story-teller, he 
 remarked “ By-the-way, speaking about magis- 
 thatesacin rg eet 
 
 Jesus has really nothing to say to that type of 
 spiritual irrelevance. 
 
 But further and deeper, our Lord’s answer re- 
 veals an implied respect for the system of justice 
 _and the recognised officials of His own day. 
 
 “ Who made me a judge?” He remarked. The 
 only and obvious implication is——a judge is the 
 one fitting person to whom you have any right to 
 apply! In the social system in which you live and 
 which you permit, the judge has his recognised 
 place and duty; and if law is to stand for anything 
 at all, it is to a court of justice you must have 
 recourse. “‘ Had I been a judge properly appointed, 
 that might have been different. But I am not a 
 judge. Bring your case, therefore, to its proper 
 atena.”’ 
 
 That, I think, is the obvious inference from our 
 Lord’s answer. 
 
nn | 
 102 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 
 
 Now, I take this as Christ’s recognition of the 
 system of law under which He and we must live. 
 
 In His own case, He might well do honour to 
 the majesty and fairness of the law of the Roman 
 Empire. If it may be said that the Greeks gave 
 the world the dream of art and beauty, and the 
 Hebrews the dream of God and true religion, it 
 may as fairly be said that the Romans gave the 
 world a vision of just and impartial law. 
 
 But whether He criticised it or no, Christ gave 
 the accepted system under which He lived due and 
 fitting recognition. In effect, His answer amounted 
 to this—if you have a case for justice, bring it to 
 the appointed seat of justice. 
 
 V 
 
 I think we should not pass this over lightly, as 
 if there were no temptation or dilemma here for 
 Jesus. 
 
 In the first place, He knew, as no other man 
 ever did, how unequal and even unjust the best 
 human laws may be. Indeed He actually warned 
 His own disciples against going to law, and asked 
 them to settle their disputes in the higher court 
 of love and sacrifice. Even in the matter of 
 the “sacred law,” He had shown how deadly 
 all legal enactments may be, and how barren 
 strict observance may be. And in place of legal 
 exactness He had put the fulfilling spirit of love — 
 and service. 
 
ee ra 
 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 103 
 
 Further, knowing human nature as He did, He 
 was aware how open the men of His day were to 
 bribery and corruption. Subtle influences could 
 often bias judgment, and the scales could be 
 judiciously and judicially weighted. He knew that 
 a rich man might often buy justice, while a poor 
 man could only sell it. 
 
 He knew also that even with good intention, a 
 law might be questionably administered. Judges, 
 like doctors, could disagree, and could so easily 
 differ on a point of interpretation. 
 
 And finally, none knew better that the most 
 comprehensive law can never include all the equi- 
 ties. Sometimes in the framing and administration 
 of law, equity escapes, like the perfume from 
 a rose. 
 
 Why, then, did He not take this unique oppor- 
 tunity to let the world see that there might be 
 principles higher than law, and that it might be 
 expedient sometimes to set law aside? Surely He 
 could have shown that He was a greater than 
 Solomon! He could have judged this case in such 
 a striking fashion that He might have given suc- 
 ceeding generations an uplifting vision. 
 
 VI 
 There are some people who believe that Jesus 
 refused to deal with this man’s request because He 
 knew that the man was in the wrong. Others 
 
104 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 
 
 allege that He treated him‘so cursorily because the 
 fellow was greedy and avaricious. 
 
 These are merely assumptions and are as need- 
 less as they are unjustified. Even if they were 
 true, they would give us no adequate explanation 
 of Christ’s answer. . . . I think we should 
 notice that as a matter of fact, Jesus did not en- 
 guire into the case at all. Deliberately, I believe. 
 He merely cut the man short with this abrupt re- 
 proof, not because he was greedy or because he 
 was in the wrong, but for another and, I think, 
 better reason. Our Lord refused to take any 
 action, because He regarded the matter as one with 
 which He had nothing to do! “ Who made me a 
 judge or a divider over you?” 
 
 I take His answer as a recognition of all properly 
 constituted authority. 
 
 In its effect, His reply amounts to this—‘“‘ We 
 have a system of law in our land. We people, as 
 citizens, are ultimately responsible for our own 
 laws. We make them. Our laws represent the 
 formulated conscience of our people, so far as that 
 can be ascertained. If our social conscience is bad, 
 our laws are bad: and we are judged not only by 
 the laws we decree but by the laws we allow. In 
 fact, every nation has only the government it de- 
 serves. Submit your case therefore to your consti- 
 tuted authorities.” 
 
 I deny that this is an evasion of an awkward 
 
DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 105 
 
 case. Jestis was too brave ever to evade any issue 
 just because it was awkward! 
 
 On the contrary, I regard this as a distinct state- 
 ment of a principle. The principle is this :—since 
 we make our own laws and expect others to abide 
 by them, we must be ready ourselves to do the 
 same. ‘That is the only means by which law can 
 be either sacred or honoured. If the honour of 
 making law is ours, the onus of obeying it is 
 also ours. 
 
 Vil 
 
 I can think of three reasons why Jesus answered 
 His enquirer in this abrupt fashion. 
 
 1. To put it in our homely phrase, this was not 
 His job. 
 
 He came to declare the Father’s will and to give 
 men the mind of God in such a way that they would 
 have big controlling principles of life and conduct 
 to guide them in all details. To have these ruling 
 principles is better and bigger than to have a thou- : 
 sand petty narrow commands. He gave us God’s 
 love, God’s truth, God’s justice. From these, amid 
 our changing circumstances, we may easily devise 
 the rules that are suitable for our own age and 
 fitness. 
 
 Perhaps the fact that we must discover our laws 
 for ourselves is part of our spiritual education and 
 the proof of our spiritual manhood. Therefore 
 He gave us no “ cut-and-dried” laws: but He so ¢ 
 
Le A A nnn | 
 106 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 
 
 instructed the conscience that we can frame wise 
 laws for ourselves. In every case, it is the con- 
 science and the heart and the soul that Christ is 
 after. If only He can get our conscience stirred 
 and enlightened, He will have given us a finer gift 
 than if He had provided us with the most perfect 
 code of specified commands and observances. 
 
 This agrees with His own judgment of the mi- 
 nute law of Moses. I do not say that He swept the 
 details aside. But if He did not come to destroy it, 
 He came to fulfil it. And His method of fulfilment 
 was to gather it up into a bigger truth, the love of 
 God and man, that love which alone fulfils the law. 
 Christ was concerned with principles, under which 
 details find their due place and inspiration. 
 
 Indeed, that a people should make their own 
 laws is their only hope of national salvation! 
 We train young people to implicit obedience in 
 school and in the home, whether they under- 
 stand why they should obey or no. But we do 
 that, not to keep them forever in leading strings, 
 but to give them the principles by which they may 
 afterwards rule their own lives in discipline and 
 happiness. 
 
 That is what Christ wanted. 
 
 He stated the broad principles of God’s justice, 
 righteousness, and love. From these, He trusts us 
 to make and administer our own laws, as occasion 
 may arise. 
 
DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 107 
 
 2. Jesus answered the man in this fashion be- 
 cause, like most of us, he was laying the main 
 emphasis on the wrong things. 
 
 As soon as His enquirer went away, our Lord 
 turned to the people and said, “Take heed and 
 beware of covetousness.” ‘Take heed, that is, of 
 any view of life that estimates it by what we have 
 instead of what we are,—the things we can grasp 
 instead of the things we can do and be. 
 
 It may be hard for us to understand, but the 
 fact remains, none the less, that Jesus was not 
 really interested in “things” at all. He Himself 
 had no things! No home, no land, no possession, 
 no money. Indeed, when He wanted that penny 
 to answer the conundrum about Caesar’s tribute, 
 He had to borrow it from a bystander. 
 
 I do not know whether Christ’s own programme 
 is possible for us in our complex civilisation. We 
 have to live: and half our life, by a strange irony, 
 consists in making or earning things. But from 
 Christ’s point of view, we certainly put too much 
 stress on material concerns. It is a serious spiritual 
 danger. However important they may be, these 
 things dwarf everything else, until material com- 
 fort becomes even the test of modern civilisation. 
 The most civilised nation is the nation that has 
 most material plenty! I wonder what Jesus would 
 say to that, 
 
 He took this definite line for Himself that we 
 might learn true values, and so might sit less tightly 
 
108 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 
 
 to the things of sense. We speak with reverence 
 of the sacredness of property. He spoke only of 
 the sacredness of souls. 
 
 3. He advised this man to abide by the law of 
 his land, because He invariably did so Himself. 
 He paid His own tribute, when demanded. At 
 the end, He even respected the law by which He 
 was condemned. I do not know anyone who lived 
 a better citizen’s life than Jesus. 
 
 Christ might easily have claimed for Himself 
 that He was above our poor and inadequate sys- 
 tem. Why should He, with His august views, be 
 bound by our pitiful little ideas of what is right 
 and wrong? He must have seen how imperfect 
 our legal provisions were. Yet He submitted Him- 
 self fully to the social exactions of His day and its 
 governing powers. 
 
 That does not countenance quiescence or supine 
 assent. If we make laws, we can unmake them. 
 But it does suggest the needed spirit of obedience 
 and reverence. If the whole social system is in 
 our own hands and of our own making, it is our 
 duty to plan the best: but when we have planned 
 the best, it is equally our duty to bind ourselves by 
 it. The true way to rectify wrongs is not to dis- 
 obey law but to alter it. Among Christian people, 
 revolution, in the old or new sense of the term, 
 has no place whatever. The only true revolution 
 lies in remodelling our law. 
 
DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 109 
 
 Regarding this “reign of law,” some people 
 think that the Church, Christ’s Church should be 
 above the law, or at least should be outside the 
 ordinary statutes that govern other institutions. In 
 former days, this view was most perfectly crystal- 
 lised in the claim of the Medieval Church that a 
 priest should only be tried by priests: and that a 
 church court should have the power to frame its 
 own legal decisions. I suppose this is an aspect 
 of the ancient privilege that a peer should only be 
 tried by his fellow-peers! 
 
 How such a claim on behalf of the Church 
 arose, it is hard to say,—except from ecclesiastical 
 arrogance. For it rests on a desolating view of 
 mankind quite opposed to our Lord’s. In His eyes, 
 the lowest and humblest man is the peer of any 
 peer! For with Him, there is no difference be- 
 tween men because of status, or position, or ordi- 
 nation, or rank, or money. There is neither Jew 
 nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. We 
 are all one in Christ Jesus. 
 
 That the Church or any individual Christian 
 should demand to be outside the sweep of the law, 
 when Christ made no such claim for Himself, is 
 ridiculous. It is absurd to think that any group 
 of people, living in and by the law, should yet claim 
 to be beyond the law, a self-governing Kingdom 
 within a Kingdom. 
 
 This would reduce the whole idea of social 
 authority to an absurdity. But most of all, it 
 
110 DILEMMA OF NATIONAL LAW 
 
 would contradict Christ’s personal practice. He 
 Himself submitted to the constituted powers of 
 His day, and He sent others,—this man especially 
 —to the legal system under which they lived for 
 justice and redress. 
 
 This does not mean that law is sacrosanct. If 
 law is made, it can be unmade. In this lies our 
 remedy and our challenge. Let us see that our 
 laws are in accordance with the declared mind of 
 God and the love of Jesus. Let us work for finer 
 and juster statutes. Let us point out all inade- 
 quacies and expose deficiencies. But what we ask 
 others to respect, let us respect for ourselves. 
 
 [t is our Christian duty to labour ceaselessly to 
 make our social system perfect. But we should 
 realise equally that no true character, private or 
 national, can be built up or sustained unless in the 
 honouring of the laws which we make or permit. 
 
 “ Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the - 
 inheritance with me.” 
 
 Jesus said, ‘ Man, who made me a judge? ” 
 
 Go to the constituted authorities. 
 
VII 
 THE DILEMMA OF THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 = a WO main roads swept out of Jericho,— 
 : (i 2)/] one north, the other south. 
 lieN ‘Ga At the moment, Jesus was standing 
 eS) at the outskirts of the town. From St. 
 Mark’s simple record, we gather that some big 
 emotion seemed to grip and possess Him, thoughts 
 that stirred Him like heaving lava. He looked this 
 way: and He looked that. His soul was plainly 
 in a great torment. 
 
 Which of these two ways would He take? 
 
 They were roads of diverse fate for Him and 
 the world. In a true sense, the history of civilisa- 
 tion depended on which of these paths He chose to 
 walk. On such things do our destinies hang. 
 
 
 
 One road, sloping gently to the north, recalled 
 to Jesus many gracious memories of His distant 
 home in Galilee—friendship and tested love—a sure 
 
 prospect of continuing happiness,—a ripe old age 
 
 in growing honour and respect. 
 
 Should He choose to take it, this north road 
 would bring Him again to the good hearts that 
 loved Him, where He could continue His ministry 
 with deepening appreciation. ‘There, among His 
 
 11] 
 
112 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 
 
 own loyal folk, with increasing honour, He might 
 live as God’s great prophet until the rich years 
 took their toll of Him, silvered with age and 
 service. Might He not build a great Kingdom in 
 the years to be? 
 
 The other road struck south, up the stony ways 
 to Jerusalem. But by this time, that city, the 
 magnet of all pilgrim hearts, was a thing of omen 
 for Jesus. He understood very plainly that this 
 city meant danger and death. There,—whisper- 
 ing behind walls and conferring at the corners 
 of the streets—hatred and bigotry were clubbing 
 together. 
 
 At this very moment, enemies were gathered in 
 an evil league. Many kinds of people who hated 
 each other deeply seemed to hate Him more, and 
 were united to strike down goodness. One might 
 overhear their whispered queries, “ Will He come? 
 Will He risk coming? And if He comes, can we 
 lay hands on Him, and end His mischievous 
 work? ” 
 
 I have little doubt that as He glanced down that — 
 south road, Jesus understood very plainly what its 
 prospect held for Him. As His own words show, — 
 He could discern that the end of the road was 
 blocked by a cross. 
 
 The Son of Man must die. 
 
 Thus the road to the north spelt one thing— { 
 life: the road to the south spelt its opposite—death. — 
 
DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 113 
 
 These were the alternatives hidden behind a simple 
 choice of two roads. Which would He take? 
 
 As we know today, not only His own fate but 
 ours depended on His choice. From the. human 
 angle, this was literally His last opportunity of 
 decision. The die must be cast\here,—this way or 
 that. If He went north, He chose home, love and 
 life: and avoided a cross. If He went south, He 
 placed Himself fully, without escape, in the hands 
 of evil men. 
 
 If He went north, He went as Jesus. 
 
 If He went south, He went as Christ. 
 
 I protest against the common idea that Jesus 
 came to His big decisions with a superb ease and 
 serenity of soul quite alien to us. 
 
 Some people imagine that they do Him honour 
 by denying that He had to argue and wrestle with 
 temptation in our quivering fashion. ‘They think 
 it belittles Him to attribute any hesitation or in- 
 decision to His mind. But in real truth, these 
 people empty His acts of moral value: for in rob- 
 bing Him of temptation, they rob Him of victory. 
 
 Needless to say, death was no easier for Jesus 
 than it is for us. Some good people, in the same 
 foolish anxiety to do Him honour, speak of the 
 cross as if it caused Him no real concern, as if He 
 took it in His stride as a part of the day’s work, 
 indeed, as if He walked up to it at the end with a 
 smile on His lips! 
 
114 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 
 
 I respect their intention. ‘They wish, no doubt, 
 to show the magnificence of His obedience. But 
 obedience has no value, if one has never been 
 tempted to disobey. 
 
 If we wish to have any comprehension of this 
 agony outside Jericho, the fact for us to note is 
 that Jesus,—thirty-three years old—was no more 
 in love with death than any other healthy man of 
 similar age. Rather, because of His untainted en- 
 joyment, He valued life and the gifts that grace it 
 more than any of us can ever understand. To me 
 it seems not only absurd but dishonouring to say 
 that He was untouched by any of my shrinking 
 agony or my physical aversion from suffering and 
 death. That ends only in cheapening His cross 
 and questioning His moral courage. 
 
 At this moment, outside Jericho, we see Him 
 battling with His own oppressive temptations and 
 settling the last issues in His soul. 
 
 On the one hand, could anyone blame Him if He 
 quietly steered northwards to Galilee? Like other 
 wise men, He might argue that He could do more 
 good alive than dead. He might establish His 
 Kingdom on solid foundations, and He might 
 give, not three years but thirty years, to the train- 
 ing of His raw disciples. That in itself would be 
 a priceless gain for the Kingdom. . . . In 
 any case, was it not better to be a live dog than a 
 dead lion? 
 
a rn enn | 
 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 115 
 
 On the other hand, why need He thrust His neck 
 into the noose? Was there any compulsion, real 
 compulsion, that the Son of Man must die? Was 
 there not an equally gracious alternative,—that He 
 might live, and win the world by living? 
 
 Outside Jericho, then,—on this road—while the 
 choice is still His,—we see the Master debating the 
 question in its final form, the form that will com- 
 mit Him for ever. I claim that this scene is the 
 true beginning—I might almost say, the true 
 climax,—of His agony and passion. I believe that 
 He never suffered as intensely again as He suffered 
 here. For everything that followed this scene in 
 time, followed it in effect. It is the supreme mo- 
 ment of His ministry: it is the water-shed of 
 His life. 
 
 I place the real Gethsemane here, not in the 
 garden! | 
 
 T 
 
 The scene itself, though sketched in one short 
 verse, is loaded with its own agony. I do not know 
 if the disciples at the moment understood what they 
 saw, but at least the incident left an indelible, if 
 _ puzzling, memory in their hearts. 
 
 _ It all happened so unexpectedly and oddly. Sud- 
 denly, as Jesus and the disciples were outside 
 Jericho, something seemed to master and shake 
 Him. . . . He stepped clear ahead of the crowd. 
 
116 | DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 
 
 They were amazed. . . . They were 
 afraid. 
 
 Here is Mark’s record told in such simple 
 words, “ And they were in the way going up to 
 Jerusalem: and Jesus went before them: and they 
 were amazed: and as they followed, they were 
 afraid. And He took again the twelve, and 
 began to tell them what things should happen 
 unto Him.” 
 
 There is something unexplained here. 
 
 That Christ striding ahead! Why should that 
 make them amazed and afraid? It is the only 
 record we have of any incident or occasion when 
 these disciples, who loved Him, were filled with 
 nameless dread. They were struck dumb: they 
 were astonished: they fell back in fear! 
 
 What accounts for it? 
 
 It must have been something in Jesus,—some 
 sign of agony, some mark of uncontrollable emo- 
 tion, some drawn look,—that startled these loving 
 hearts. I have no doubt that His face became 
 fixed and drawn. I have no doubt that He evi- 
 denced emotion. . . . Perhaps as they looked, 
 they saw His fingers clenched into His flesh, till 
 the knuckle-bones showed white with the tension. 
 
 Perhaps, in the sudden silence and amazement, they — 
 
 heard a groan burst from His lips. 
 Who can know? 
 
 At least, some amazing thing happened. As 
 
 Jesus strode out in front, these disciples, for the 
 
 > ose 
 
— 
 
 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS iA ig 
 
 only time in their lives, were stricken with sudden 
 panic. Fear! Imagine it. Fear! Of Jesus? At 
 least some nameless dread, as they watched and 
 followed. 
 
 Il 
 
 I am not sure whether the disciples fully under- 
 stood what happened, any more than we do now. 
 I am not sure even whether they linked cause and 
 effect together, or understood the reason of their 
 Master’s emotion. That at least is something 
 which we can do for ourselves. For with the 
 narrative before us, we can see why our Lord 
 suffered. 
 
 The Master Himself supplied the explanation of 
 His own emotion, 
 
 After a moment or two, having relaxed from 
 His overmastering feelings, He turned back to 
 His astonished disciples, and said quietly, “ Be- 
 hold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of 
 Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests.” 
 
 Observe the quietness. But that quietnes: 
 had been bought at a great price, His dedication 
 of Himself. 
 
 With these words in our ears—His own ex- 
 planation—it is obvious what contest of thought 
 had stirred this passion in Jesus. Here, on 
 this bit of white road, outside Jericho, He had 
 finally decided to go to Jerusalem, knowing what 
 it meant. 
 
118 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 
 
 Here we have His great and final commitment 
 of Himself. He saw the cross, and read it as the 
 mind of God. He vowed Himself now to God, 
 for us. 
 
 This, no less, is what He debated and settled 
 here, once and for all. 
 
 Til 
 
 That is why I say that this is the worst moment 
 in our Lord’s passion and agony. He never 
 suffered again as He suffered now. 
 
 Some of you might question this statement: and 
 if asked to give your view of Christ’s darkest 
 moment, you might answer otherwise. 
 
 1. Some might point to the real Garden of Geth- 
 semane, that night of unguessed agony, when 
 “His sweat was as it were great drops of blood 
 falling down to the ground.” Could there be a 
 darker moment than that experience of loneli- 
 ness and desolation? Surely that was anguish 
 beyond any? 
 
 2. Others might picture Him, a King and the 
 Son of God, in the ribald company of Pilate’s 
 palace. They mocked Him: they slapped Him: 
 they spit upon Him: they dressed Him out in 
 loathsome mockery. All that He believed about 
 Himself in His own soul was then grossly ridi- 
 culed. It was an experience of complete degra- — 
 dation. With the power of God in His heart, that 
 must have been an hour of deep despair! 
 
 
 
DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS ae, 
 
 3. Others again might justly point to the cross 
 itself with all its grisly accessories. Could any- 
 thing surpass that anguished cry, when He thought 
 Himself forgotten of God and man, “ My God, my 
 God, why hast thou forsaken me?” ‘To wonder 
 if even God has shut His eyes—does that not touch 
 the depths? 
 
 IV 
 I do not lessen the agony of these scenes. Far 
 be it from me! Yet I say that our Lord’s greatest 
 
 moment of anguish was on this road from Jericho, \_-~ 
 
 when His emotion so over-mastered His superb 
 
 control that His strange conduct paralysed His 
 
 trusting disciples with fear, the only recorded 
 
 occasion when Christ so affected His followers. 
 Why do I say so? 
 
 When you think of it, a man’s greatest agony \ 
 
 always lies in his deciding. Just to know what to 
 do, amid the balancing of “pros” and “cons,” in 
 the wrangle of possibilities, with the fear of false 
 decision, with the haunting horror of a fatal fool- 
 
 ish step, just to make your mind up finally to face . 
 
 some dreadful thing, that is always a _ soul’s 
 greatest agony. | 
 Any of us who has been faced with some mo- 
 
 mentous decision knows the agony of this moment. 
 
 When one’s whole life hangs on a single act, the 
 decision 1s compressed passion. There may be 
 people who jest about their decisions, or who can 
 
 ew 
 > 
 
120 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 
 
 shut their eyes and leap: but these are not people 
 who look at life seriously. Where there is a soul 
 like Jesus, faced with issues like Jesus, the decision 
 is an agony of perplexity. 
 
 On the other hand, once the mind is bent and 
 the die is finally cast, a man may quietly face any- 
 thing. Our greatest pain lies in clenching our 
 hands and setting our face towards Jerusalem. If 
 we settle that, our decision, once it is made, brings 
 a peculiar peace and power of its own,—a gracious 
 compensation. Having once faced Jerusalem, one 
 may face Jerusalem’s cross. 
 
 We see Jesus here in the actual moment of His 
 life’s decision. If He can settle this, the rest fol- 
 lows as a foreseen part of it. Without any doubt, 
 as we gather from His own words, He knew 
 exactly what this journey to Jerusalem portended. 
 He knew that He was putting Himself into the 
 remorseless hands of His enemies. If He once set 
 His face towards Jerusalem, He took what fol- 
 lowed as part of His decision, the outcome of 
 His act. 
 
 If He waited behind and took the north road to 
 
 Galilee—and who could reproach Him, except 
 
 Himself?—He might save Himself. But He 
 would never be the Christ. 
 
 If He went to Jerusalem, He might win the 
 world by the grace of God. But it would be by 
 His own death, 
 
a 
 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 121 
 
 V 
 Which would He do? Now was the great 
 moment. 
 The road north and Home! 
 The road south and Calvary! 
 Christ indeed at the Cross-roads. 
 
 Why do we foolishly limit Christ’s “ Tempta- 
 
 tion” to that early dilemma in the desert? It isa _~ 
 
 thousand pities, for it leads undiscerning people to 
 imagine that the rest of His life was beautifully 
 serene, so different from our broken ways. But it 
 is not true. Wherever and whenever the flesh and 
 the spirit strove for mastery, our Lord was 
 tempted. Indeed, I believe that in the clear light 
 of early hope and radiant faith, the temptation in 
 the desert was easier for His soul than this last 
 bitter agony of consecration. However He was 
 tempted then, He was never more tempted than 
 here, when at last He set His face to go to 
 Jerusalem. If He faltered or failed now, He 
 faltered and failed for ever. Galilee or Jerusa- 
 lem—which ? 
 
 In the desert, He had wrestled with Satan. Here 
 He wrestled with God. 
 
 VI 
 
 This is Gethsemane—on this white ribbon of 
 road! 
 
 The other Gethsemane, amid the olive trees, is 
 
122 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 
 
 a troubled reflection of this. But for this, there 
 would have been no garden scene: and in the 
 strength of this, the garden scene was fought 
 and won. 
 
 Having once faced Jerusalem and pledged His 
 loyalty to God, nothing thereafter could ever 
 daunt Him. This carried everything with it. Here 
 He first tasted the bitterness of death. 
 
 Stand back, you disciples! We today stand 
 back with you. For we know that as He strides 
 
 before you, with set face and clenched hands, He © 
 
 is fighting out His last great temptation. He sees 
 before Him the cup which God is holding out. He 
 sees the cross like a dark shadow before His 
 
 feet... « Look at His drawn face! :...: Bat@ 
 
 He has made the great decision and settled His 
 dilemma. He has finished His passion. Geth- 
 semane itself can hold no terror now. Even the 
 cross hereafter is only a means to an end. 
 
 He has settled the end. Let God send His own 
 means. 
 
 VII 
 In what does the “agony of Christ” consist? 
 
 ) 
 
 Se a 
 
 It does not consist, as so many think, in His : 
 physical suffering, but in the anguish of mind — 
 
 through which He faced it. We are inclined— 
 
 some churches are especially sinners in this regard 
 —to lay too much stress on the mere physical pain 
 
 ae ee 
 

 
 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 125 
 
 which Christ endured, as if that were the one thing 
 exceptional in His case. But so far as pain goes, 
 every great soul who has died a martyr’s death has ~ 
 had an equal share with Jesus. Oddly enough, too, 
 as some of us saw in warfare, the more cowardly 
 a man is, the greater is this part of his agony—the 
 mere pain. 
 
 No! . . . The real passion of Jesus was not 
 
 what He suffered physically, but what He endured ' 
 in His mind and soul. It was not the pain of His 
 twitching body, but the infinitely deeper pain of 
 - squaring His life with God’s will, turning His soul 
 in the way the Father pointed, giving Himself for 
 a needy world, “a ransom for many.” 
 You may think He was mistaken in this. But 
 even if you are right, that does not lessen His 
 agony, if He believed it. . . . He did believe it. 
 He believed that only by His death could men 
 live. And as He walked to Jerusalem now, He saw 
 that the cross was near. 
 
 His suffering lay in the agony of mind to , 
 face that. 
 
 Vill 
 
 Here, then, outside Jericho, finally and fully, 
 He faced the cross. “ Behold we go up to Jerusa- 
 lem, and the Son of Man shall be delivered unto 
 the chief priests.” 
 
 I want you to turn your eyes to that fe on 
 the road. Watch Him! 
 

 
 124 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 
 
 It was no easy thing for Him to face His call. 
 The kind of gospel that makes the cross an easy 
 thing for Jesus, as if He took it all in His natural 
 stride, as if it caused Him no torment, as if He 
 marched up to it with an easy smile,—that kind of 
 gospel is trash, not worth having. It would not 
 save a dog, far less a human soul. 
 
 There is blood in the real Gospel: there must be 
 blood in any gospel! 
 
 I am not speaking of the physical blood of 
 Jesus. I squirm at the man who dips his hands 
 in the blood of our Lord, and holds them up as a 
 proof of God’s love. Strange proof! Blood 
 proves nothing except that it is blood. It all 
 depends on what the blood represents: and even 
 then, it is only a poor physical symbol of deeper 
 things. . . . Physical blood may mean nothing. 
 But there is the blood of agony, and decision, and 
 anguish, and perfect consecration. ‘That is what 
 Jesus gave—and gave here—the blood of hard 
 obedience. 
 
 Consciously—knowing what He did—knowing 
 what He faced—knowing the sin of men—know- 
 ing the mind of God—He set His face to go to 
 Jerusalem. I like that phrase used elsewhere, “ He 
 set Hrs face.” A strong anguished face. A face 
 of infinite resolve. A face of sacrifice. 
 
 Jerusalem or Galilee? 
 
 The south road or the north? 
 

 
 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 125 
 
 The Cross or peace? 
 Peace by the Cross. 
 He made the choice here. 
 
 IX 
 
 He dared. Why did He dare? 
 
 Because He knew. . . . I might have dared, 
 if I had not known. I find that most of my cour- 
 age comes from blessed ignorance. I do not know 
 what tomorrow holds, or what Jerusalem means: 
 therefore I march breastforwards. If I knew, I 
 should be paralysed with fear. Knowledge would 
 kill me. 
 
 He knew. 
 
 Because He believed. . . . I dare because I 
 believe that God will make an exception of me and 
 _will work a miracle. He will let me escape. Kind 
 God! If I do face Jerusalem, I disbelieve in a 
 cross. He faced Jerusalem believing in the cross: 
 _but He believed, as I seldom do, in a God behind 
 | the cross. He believed in death, His own death: 
 but He believed that death could not hold Him. 
 _ He saw a grave, His own grave: but He saw it 
 open to the Syrian stars, with the stone rolled 
 away. 
 
 He believed. 
 
 
 
 Because He loved. . . . Generally, I dare 
 because I do not care. Our great deeds of heroism 
 
 | 
 | 
 
126 DILEMMA OF CROSS-ROADS 
 
 are the fruit of desperation. JI am often brave, 
 when my heart is dead. If I love too much, I am 
 afraid. Love makes me a coward for the things 
 I love. 
 
 He loved. 
 
 So outside Jericho, having faced Himself and — 
 God, He turned and walked on the south road. © 
 Quietly. Resolutely. Every step took Him nearer © 
 to a cross. I am glad that the cross was not an — 
 accident bravely faced, but an event foreseen and © 
 
 quietly reckoned with. 
 He settled that here. 
 The Gethsemane of the Cross-roads. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 Vill 
 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 
 
 WANA! pressing sense of awe in His own heart, 
 eS Wl Jesus had reached Jerusalem, 
 
 eS) —s As He walked through the familiar 
 streets once more, He saw the whole city in a new 
 
 
 
 light. How could He do otherwise? For He saw 
 
 it now as His great antagonist, and at the end, as 
 His grave. “A lamb to the slaughter.” 
 
 At least, we know that He saw the Temple 
 differently. 
 
 No doubt, in His frequent visits during the past 
 years, He had been roused to anger and loathing 
 by the sight of the traders and money-changers 
 who crowded the court of the Temple with their 
 booths and tables. Wise people assured Him that 
 it was indeed a great boon for the pilgrim- 
 
 _ worshippers to be able thus to purchase their votive” 
 _ offerings here at the Temple door. This privilege 
 
 was a real convenience for the pilgrims. Other- 
 
 
 
 | 
 
 wise, they might have had to search Jerusalem 
 for appropriate sacrifices, or perhaps bring their 
 pigeons and lambs from distant Galilee. In any 
 
 _ case, the outlanders from Africa and Asia could 
 
 127 
 
138 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 
 
 have their foreign money so conveniently ex- 
 changed for current coin. With a fixed rate of 
 exchange and duly authorised “ bankers,” this ac- 
 commodation at the Temple may have been a real 
 privilege and blessing. 
 
 None the less, such a commercial invasion of the 
 Temple courts by these bargaining hucksters was 
 grossly irregular. The practice had crept in 
 through the influence of the sons of Annas, and had 
 been condoned on plausible grounds for over a 
 generation. It was a “distinct convenience!” 
 . Many wrongs are tolerated in that name. 
 
 Besides, it had now been permitted for so many 
 years that it seemed almost a tradition of the 
 Fathers. Custom can gild iniquity! . . . Con- 
 venience and custom, an alliance that has broken 
 the back of most reformers! 
 
 I 
 
 With a heart so deeply stirred by His own 
 complete self-commitment, Jesus came into the 
 Temple. His renewed consecration worked in 
 Him like fire. 
 
 We know what He did,—an act so daring and 
 dramatic, so triumphantly autocratic, that it fanned 
 the smouldering opposition of the Priests into a 
 white flame. But that was a risk which His 
 righteous anger must face in such a clear cause. 
 
 He entered into the Temple amid the jostling 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 129 
 
 _ pilgrim crowds, where they were chaffering with 
 the traders for pigeons and lambs for their altar 
 offerings. With a quick glance around at this 
 sordid desecration, He picked up some ropes, cut 
 belike from the heaped hampers of cackling fowls 
 around Him. ‘Twisting the ropes passionately into 
 a knotted scourge, He called aloud on God’s name 
 _and began to drive the hucksters and the bargaining 
 pilgrims in a confused medley from the Temple- 
 courts. A choice cleansing indeed! With pure 
 anger flashing from His eyes, He swept the 
 tabble out. In God’s name, declaiming against 
 this sordid desecration, He overthrew the tables 
 of the money-changers until their copper coins 
 rattled chimingly on the stone-floors and rolled 
 circling like cart-wheels into every corner of the 
 Temple court. 
 
 It is a great scene. 
 
 I love this view of His flashing eyes. A fierce, 
 angry, passionate Christ. . . . Then we teach 
 our children to sing ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and 
 pmild.” ... Mild? 
 
 
 
 
 
 It is an amazing thing to me that at the 
 moment His drastic deed passed almost unchal- 
 lenged. But then, one might as well challenge 
 a whirlwind! He had against Him the solid 
 weight of tradition, and public and official toler- 
 -ance. Yet when He swept them out, as a house- 
 _wife sweeps out dust, no one raised a word of 
 
 
 
 | 
 : 
 
130 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 
 
 protest. ‘They fled from His anger in a moral 
 panic! 
 
 Perhaps, they were too astonished and stupefied 
 at His daring! Perhaps, they were too choked 
 with their spluttering rage! Perhaps, they were 
 too busy catching the stampeded sheep and goats, 
 while the money-changers grubbed on their knees 
 after their rolling coins! 
 
 Somehow, I think the reason lay deeper than 
 mere stupefaction. 
 
 It is astonishing how a brave act, done in a clear 
 cause of righteousness, will render its opponents 
 tongue-tied with shame. They may yelp like scur- 
 rying dogs: but apart from their hoarse cries, they 
 know that there is nothing to be said. A good 
 deed, strongly done, is its own best argument. 
 
 some people have wondered how that crowd of 
 interested traders and the greater crowd of wor- 
 shippers whose needs they honestly served, allowed 
 a lone man like this to hustle them out, with 
 scarcely a note of resistance. 
 
 It is no miracle. 
 
 It is just the silent even unwilling consent which 
 a brave act of goodness commands—always com- 
 mands—by striking its opponents dumb with guilt. 
 They had nothing to say. 
 
 II 
 
 It took the Priests a whole day to recover from 
 their startled rage. Those who were standing by 
 
THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 131 
 
 when the drama was acted were forced to choke 
 down their passion. They knew that if they raised 
 their voice in protest, they would be condemned in 
 the eyes of all just men. For though this trade in 
 the Temple was permitted and condoned, it had not 
 gone without protest. In his own conscience, every 
 fair man knew that Christ’s act could not be 
 challenged. 
 
 There was a hurried meeting of the Sanhedrin 
 that night, and no doubt a full attendance. What 
 a wagging of tongues, like the angry buzzing of 
 bees! What a screed of slander! Their suppressed 
 passion had now a chance of boiling over safely in 
 private. 
 
 In the end, however ungraciously, they admitted 
 to themselves that though custom and convenience 
 tolerated the money-changers, Jesus had a clear 
 case. So when passion had eased itself by ex- 
 pression, moderate counsels prevailed. They 
 agreed to send a deputation, strong and well- 
 chosen, in an apparent spirit of reasonableness, to 
 interview Jesus. ‘They would ask this man a 
 blunt question. 
 
 I said a blunt question: but it was as sharp as it 
 was blunt. 
 
 “By what authority, Sir, doest thou these 
 things?” 
 
 Apparently reasonable, but as I hope to show, 
 making a wholly unreasonable demand. 
 
b3i2 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 
 
 Blunt, but very sharp. 
 
 The sharpness of the question lay in this, that 
 it presented Jesus with an awkward dilemma: and 
 His answer to the dilemma meant much for His 
 ministry. 
 
 IIT 
 
 Obviously, there are only two straight answers 
 to this question. Whichever of these two answers 
 He gave, Jesus would sacrifice His reputation with 
 the populace. 
 
 On the one hand, He might say openly and 
 clearly, “ My authority is from God. I do these 
 acts in the name and by the Spirit of God.” 
 
 If He had said this, what would have happened? 
 
 For the first time, He would have given these 
 biassed priests something they desired, something 
 also which He had carefully withheld from them, 
 —a handle by which they could hold Him on a 
 distinct charge of blasphemy. Christ had still 
 work to do, definite and necessary work. He had 
 this last rich week of service to live. We know 
 that He never openly courted His own death. If 
 the cross came, He would face it. But on no 
 occasion did He ever say or do anything that would 
 deliberately hasten or precipitate the end. While 
 He did not fear or shun it, no one can honestly 
 assert that He fanned the flame of hate. 
 
 On the other hand, if He said, “ My authority 
 is from men and out of my own heart,” He would 
 
 ~—— 
 
THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 133 
 
 have ruined His character as a prophet with the 
 people, besides saying what was not true. If He 
 admitted that His authority was only the assurance 
 of a strong, courageous human character, He might 
 bid farewell to any hope of winning the people or 
 winning us. 
 
 This was a dilemma, with sharp prongs. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was a well-laid plan, begotten in the cunning 
 of hate. They hoped to make Jesus pronounce His 
 own sentence, and become His own executioner. 
 Whatever way He answered this apparently rea- 
 sonable question, He dug His own grave. 
 
 So in the morning, when Jesus had returned 
 from Bethany and was walking in the courts of 
 the cleansed Temple, they came to Him and put 
 their catch-question, almost as if they were asking 
 a reasonable explanation which they felt to be 
 their due. 
 
 “By what authority doest thou these things?” 
 By “these things,” they meant not only that single 
 dramatic act in the Temple, but His whole career 
 as a prophet and preacher. 
 
 But they were reckoning without their host. 
 
 To begin with, Jesus does not consider what a 
 man asks so much as the spirit in which he asks it. 
 The heart behind a question makes it sincere or 
 insincere. Indeed, according to the mind of the 
 
134 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 
 
 man, it may not be a question at all, but only 
 a trap. 
 
 He had proclaimed the answer to their question 
 a thousand times in their hearing. He had said, 
 openly and often, that His charter was from 
 God, and that He was God’s messenger and 
 God’s Son. It was not as if He now refused to 
 answer their query. What He refused to answer 
 was its spirit. 
 
 Further, no one can really produce credentials 
 from God, as he would produce a written character 
 from his breast-pocket. ‘The truth of God has to 
 be judged, not on outside evidence or outside 
 authority, but for itself. That is the only way in 
 which it can be judged. Truth does not ask for 
 any outward authority: it asks only for inner 
 assent. 
 
 But most of all, Jesus believed as a principle that 
 no man need ever give account to others for doing 
 the work of God’s Kingdom. Goodness is its own 
 best guarantee. If it is not, what is there in heaven 
 or earth that can guarantee it? 
 
 This scene reveals to us what it was that 
 “angered” Jesus in all His dealings with these 
 priests. They were supposed to be the official 
 preachers of goodness: yet they wilfully shut their 
 eyes to all the goodness of our Lord. In His view, 
 this vicious attitude of soul was akin to the un- 
 pardonable sin. For in order to defeat Christ’s 
 
a rR meme rr eer ee cnr naar er ae RSE TREE SESE TURES 
 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 135 
 
 goodness, they asserted that He did His gracious 
 work by the aid of the devil! . . . A man who 
 says that, is standing in the last ditch in his resist- 
 ance to God. 
 
 V 
 
 We know how Jesus turned them off. 
 
 Not, mark you, because He was afraid, or be- 
 cause He was unwilling to answer. We know that 
 He had answered their question every day of His 
 life, when any seeking soul sought His help. But 
 He now refused to give an answer to their specious 
 question because He discerned the wile spirit of 
 their heart. 
 
 But Iam wrong. He did answer them. 
 
 For He generously gave them a blessed oppor- 
 tunity of answering themselves,—which is the only 
 way in which this type of question can ever be 
 answered by anyone. 
 
 In giving His reply, He took the great and noble 
 instance of John the Baptist, that incomparable 
 prophet of God. Everybody knew the work of 
 John, and everybody had been given a full oppor- 
 tunity of judging him. 
 
 This was an argument from the less to the 
 greater. If they could answer their own question 
 in regard to John, how much more clearly could 
 they answer it in regard to Him? 
 
 Tell me this now,—a Roland indeed for their 
 Oliver—tell me this, “ The Baptism of John, which 
 
136 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 
 
 you all know and with which so many of you were 
 baptised, the Baptism of John, was it from Heaven 
 or or men?”’ 
 
 Answer me! 
 
 This counter-question of Jesus is not an evasion, 
 but is the necessary preliminary to any serious 
 answer of their own question. For Christ’s ques- 
 tion is the plainest test of their sincerity and genu- 
 ineness. If they were genuine people, they would 
 have no difficulty in answering Him regarding 
 John. I want you to observe that had they 
 answered Him fairly, as well they might, Jesus 
 would have dealt as fairly with them. He was 
 always fair. 
 
 We know how they replied. 
 
 The deputation drew off to a corner of the court- 
 yard and whispered solemnly and secretly together. 
 If we say “of men,” our lives will be in danger, 
 for the people revere the sacred name of the Bap- 
 tist and count him a prophet of God. No, we dare 
 not say “of men.” . . . If we say “of God,” 
 
 we shall be playing into His hands. We and not 
 
 He will be in a cleft stick: for He will turn at 
 once and say, “Why, then, did ye not believe 
 Him? ” 
 
 I can imagine the whimsical yet pitying eyes 
 with which Jesus looked at them as they conferred 
 
 together in the corner. He watched and waited | 
 
 with amused eyes. 
 
 ,a se SS ee ee ee 
 
THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 137 
 
 At last, when they had debated the matter to 
 their own satisfaction, they came forward and 
 said, ‘‘ Master, we cannot tell.” 
 
 Christ looked at them, seeing deep down into 
 their hypocritical soul. I do not know any more 
 austere and withering answer than His. “ Neither 
 do I tell you by what authority I do these 
 thingsih es 5 Go! 
 
 Whited sepulchres! 
 
 VI 
 
 What explains Christ’s answer? 
 
 Insincerity explains it. Subterfuge explains it. 
 Deceit explains it. A lie explains it. That is all! 
 These men were thoroughly dishonest, with them- 
 selves and with God. 
 
 Should Christ have answered them? And was 
 His reply only a clever evasion? 
 
 In the first place, Christ does not answer, then 
 or now, people like these. We know how readily 
 and graciously He deals with all honest enquirers. 
 When a member of this party, a Scribe, came ask- 
 ing one of the petty dialectic questions of the day 
 —in his case asking it honestly—Jesus answered 
 Him as honestly as he asked it. “ Which is the 
 greatest commandment, Lord?” : and when Christ 
 answered him, the man marvelled. There was no 
 needy seeker whom Jesus did not treat with infinite 
 courtesy. But there are types of people and types, 
 
138 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 
 
 of questions, insincere or sneering, with which He 
 will have nothing to do. 
 It is well for us to know this. 
 
 But further, He answered their question in the 
 perfect way. For had they been sincere or eager 
 for light, He gave them a clear lead and guidance 
 how they might answer it for themselves. Natu- 
 rally, as religious leaders, they ought to have been 
 able to answer that question about John. They 
 had seen him and noted his power. They had first- 
 hand facts about the marvellous reformation he 
 had wrought. Therefore, it stood to reason that if 
 they could answer regarding the Baptist, they would 
 have no difficulty in answering regarding Jesus. 
 It was simply an argument from the less to the 
 greater. 
 
 But such men steal the sun out of their own 
 skies. 
 
 VII 
 
 I wish you to see how perfectly and fully Christ 
 answered the question of these priests. For His 
 notable reply states some broad principles, that 
 mean everything for us. 
 
 In the first place, no good man ever needs out- 
 side authority to permit him to do good. ‘The only 
 authority is that of his own conscience and his own 
 Master. Righteousness lies in the nature of things, 
 
THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 139 
 
 and its own “ rightness” is its only guarantee. If. 
 a thing is good, it is already established eternally as 
 the only thing that has a right to be! A good man 
 holds his charter from no man, and need answer to 
 no man. He holds his charter from no Church, 
 and need answer to no church. He holds his char- 
 ter direct from God and from God alone. 
 
 It would be a queer world if we had to give 
 reasons for doing good, or were forced to quote 
 authorities for being virtuous. For the authorities 
 would be less than that which they were supposed 
 to authorise! You can never authorise goodness by 
 saying that it is expedient or fitting or proper: you 
 can only authorise it by saying that it is good! 
 Its only authority lies in itself, in the nature of 
 what it is. 
 
 If you will not dub me an extremist, I shall tell 
 you what it all amounts to. . . . If it were 
 borne into the minds of most good men and women 
 that the only way to righteousness is the wrecking 
 ‘of every den of iniquity in this city and the clearing 
 of defiling houses by the high hand of force, then 
 to those who asked and demanded authority, I 
 should feel inclined to say, ‘‘ Goodness such as this 
 needs no buttress except its own pure self. A good 
 act is the only thing in the world that has an abso- 
 lute right to be.” 
 
 A boy friend of mine once took a reel of thread 
 and a bamboo-cane, and began to tie a twenty- 
 year-old lime tree to the cane to “keep it safe.” 
 
140 TARE DILEMMA OFUAOTH ORE TY. 
 
 That is no more laughable than the attempt to 
 authorise goodness such as Christ’s by quoting 
 authorities that are infinitely less than Himself. 
 By what authority do you thus cleanse the Temple? 
 And the only answer lies in the act itself. It is a 
 pure act of God: it is a deed of goodness that 
 authenticates and justifies itself. 
 
 Christ’s answer states a second principle. 
 
 The Priests asked Him. for a special sign of 
 authority, something out of the common, by which 
 they might be convinced. But they had all the 
 ordinary authority before them that a reasonable 
 soul can either expect or possess. They had the 
 authority of His works, His life, His words, which 
 in common with everybody else they might have 
 judged with an open mind. But that did not satisfy 
 them. They wanted some startling signal sign of 
 His claim to be what He was and do what He did. 
 
 Jesus had settled this temptation for Himself in 
 the Desert. He resolved to win or lose men by 
 ordinary ways of reason and appeal. He might 
 have used the extra-ordinary: but He put that aside 
 as unworthy of Him and God. He resolved to 
 appeal only to the mind and heart and soul of men, 
 —their reasonable nature. 
 
 In this instance, the Pharisees are practically 
 asking Him for a little private miracle to sub- 
 stantiate His claims. A little private miracle or a 
 big public miracle—what does it matter? They 
 
THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 141 
 
 are equally beyond the self-imposed scope of 
 Christ’s work. He will preach God and God's 
 truth: He will appeal to the human soul: but 
 beyond that, He will not go. If men do not 
 choose Him for the worth of His message, for its 
 essential appeal to the human soul, He can do 
 nothing more. 
 
 “ By what authority doest thou these things?” 
 
 “T ask you to use your reasonable mind and 
 soul in judging the great message of John, as it 
 appeals to your reason. What do you think of 
 John’s message? When. you have settled that, by 
 the great gifts God has given you, tell me what 
 you think of mine? If you can do the one—as 
 you ought to do—you may more easily do the 
 other.” 
 
 We know enough about Jesus, enough about His 
 life, His work, His character and His message, to 
 enable any and all of us to come to a decision about 
 Him. And it is we who have got to come to a 
 decision! He stands among us and quietly asks 
 us “ Whom say ye that I am?” ‘Tons of addi- 
 tional evidence would not satisfy a man who can- 
 not be satisfied with what there is. 
 
 There is a third principle. 
 
 The religion of Jesus is a faith. In saying this, 
 I do not contrast faith with knowledge: only fools 
 do that. The genius of the Christian faith is that 
 it looks forward one day to perfect knowledge! 
 

 
 142 THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 
 
 But I contrast faith with authority,—that 
 ancient, and very modern, passion to have some 
 outside guarantee on which we can lean. So many 
 of us do not trust in Jesus for Himself, but we 
 trust in what lesser authorities say about Him! 
 We trust, for instance, in an infallible book, or an 
 infallible church, or in some infallible expert. It 
 is pathetic to see how so many modern folk ask 
 for some authority on which they are going to rest 
 their views of Jesus! 
 
 We are cursed with experts and authorities. It 
 may be a church, or a book, or a creed, or a man,— 
 what does it matter? It is the same irreligious 
 thing. “ Authority” is always irreligious! 
 
 Our love of experts! . . . Ifa noted scientist 
 pronounces a dictum—often a wild guess or a leap 
 of “faith”—we go twittering around and fire 
 him as an authority at every hapless soul we meet. 
 “Surely you do not believe that? Have you not 
 heard what Professor So-and-So says?” That 
 settles the poor wight,—especially if the scientist 
 owns a fine foreign name which your hearer is 
 ashamed to say he has never heard before! 
 
 Or we quote an article in a creed, made in 
 ancient days by “experts.” ‘This is what the creed 
 says, you poor mouse! And the poor mouse dare 
 not cheep. 
 
 Or we quote a church. Here is the authority of 
 the saints and fathers, the decrees of the Church. 
 This is what they said: this is what they laid down 
 
THE DILEMMA OF AUTHORITY 143 
 
 for us. Surely you do not set your little mind up 
 against that! 
 
 We take everything today—our thinking, our 
 ideas, our education, our statecraft, even our re- 
 ligion,—from the hands of specialised authorities. 
 It is sheer mental ruin, especially in religion. 
 “ What think ye of Jesus? ’’—and you for yourself 
 are as able to settle your personal relation to Him 
 as any scholar that was ever born. Jesus believed 
 that the simplest soul could accept Him fully as 
 Lord and Master, and could do it,—nay, must do 
 it—out of his own heart and mind. Jesus is His 
 own and only authority. 
 
 By what authority, then, doest thou these things? 
 God’s or man’s? Jesus did not evade the question. 
 But He gave the Priests the only answer that is 
 ever possible. Be ye the Judges! 
 
 It is always and only a matter for your own soul. 
 
IX 
 THE DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 
 
 cast the “tts 
 
 #\ In that moment of vision, when He 
 1 weighed the offers of Fate, He had re- 
 ive to face all that Jerusalem might hold. 
 
 What did it hoid? 
 
 Whatever we think of His forecast of the cross, 
 at least the most hesitant of us must admit that 
 He knew the certain danger of His decision. The 
 hatred of the official classes was now such an 
 angry and bitter thing that He would have been 
 more blind than the least discerning of us had 
 He not known that Jerusalem meant plotting and 
 death. 
 
 He knew it. He had known it long. 
 
 
 
 Now that the Sadducees, the princely priests of 
 Jerusalem, had joined forces with the Pharisees and 
 lent their political distinction to the opposition, the 
 reception that Jesus would receive in the city of 
 David was only too sure. So long as the Pharisees 
 and Scribes alone were His opponents, the issue 
 might be considered purely religious. If so, Pilate, 
 as a typical Roman, in line with Rome’s generous 
 
 144 
 
DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 145 
 
 policy of toleration, would have nothing to do with 
 it. Like Gallio, he would ‘‘ care for none of these 
 things”! Rome allowed a fine liberty in religious 
 opinion. : 
 
 When the weight of the Sadducees and High 
 Priests, however, was thrown solidly into the scale, 
 the matter became dangerously political. For the 
 first time, the possibility of a trial before the Pro- 
 curator, on a political charge involving death, be- 
 came a probability, if not a certainty. The Sad- 
 ducees by their social influence could easily en- 
 sure that. 
 
 Knowing this danger and yet facing the ordeal, 
 Jesus came to Jerusalem. With these clear eyes of 
 His, He foresaw exactly what His act involved. 
 Again and again, for the comfort of His disciples, 
 He had spoken plainly of His death. After that 
 striking incident at Jericho, it would be simple 
 folly for anyone to imagine that Jesus was taken 
 by surprise. 
 
 Surprise? . . . The Son of Man must die. 
 
 Why need He have come? 
 
 There are people who say that by His coming, 
 He forced His own death upon Himself, and thrust 
 His neck into the noose. A little prudence on His 
 part might have averted it all. Since He knew that 
 
 Jerusalem was ready to be inflamed, He could have 
 ' withheld the one spark that lit the fire, by with- 
 holding Himself. Did He not play into the hands 
 
146 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 
 
 of His enemies, and also precipitate His own end 
 by this rash adventure to Jerusalem? 
 
 Such a view misses two crucial things. 
 
 In the first place, it misses the most important 
 of all considerations, the character and mind of 
 our Lord. In talking about the death of Jesus, the 
 one thing we must remember is Jesus Himself. To 
 Him, duty and His own idea of God’s work meant 
 everything. ‘The Father had given Him a great 
 work to do: and He would do it. He could not 
 have been the Saviour of the world, had He been 
 untrue to Himself in any way. 
 
 He knew there was danger, which focussed itself 
 in a cross. Should He have allowed this inner 
 knowledge to influence His outward movements? 
 Even with an average acquaintance of our 
 own, what would we think of him, if he balked 
 at duty because it was dangerous? . . . Though 
 there was grave and deadly danger out there in 
 Flanders, that did not keep your sons from going 
 there! What would you have thought of them, if 
 it had? 
 
 In the second place, this criticism misses Christ’s 
 own view of His mission. 
 
 He believed that He came not only to tell people 
 about God, as you and I might do, but to show 
 them God, to exhibit God. His message was Him- 
 self, not only what He said but what He was. His 
 
DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 147 
 
 life and teaching witnessed to the love of the 
 Father: but He believed that the most startling and 
 perfect witness to God might be His death. Yes, 
 He believed this—that His own death, if it came as 
 the fulfilment of duty and love to God and man, 
 would exhibit the very heart and soul of a re- 
 deeming Father. 
 
 No! We cannot judge Jesus or His acts apart 
 from His own view of Himself and His work. 
 
 “The Son of Man must die,” He said. 
 
 Must? 
 
 What is the meaning of that strange word? 
 
 There would have been no “ must,” of course, 
 had He gone from Jericho northwards to the slopes 
 of Galilee, back to His loving friends among whom 
 He might have lived in great honour. But as we 
 know, He regarded that possibility as dire retreat 
 and dereliction of duty. To shun Jerusalem was 
 simply to deny God. If therefore He kept to the 
 way of truth and the mind of His Father, He must 
 face the Capital. His own divine sense of service 
 called Him. 
 
 The argument in His heart was not “J must , 
 die,’ but “I must face God’s call whether I die 
 
 or no.” If obedience to God summons me to 
 Jerusalem, I must go: and if there is a cross, I 
 must not shirk it. 
 
 The “must” lay in the obedience of His own 
 heart. It was not the “ must” of outward neces- 
 
 a 
 
[rere en | 
 148 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 
 
 sity but the deeper “must” of inward faithful- 
 ness. “ No man taketh my life from me, but I lay 
 it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, 
 and I have power to take it again.” . . . The 
 only thing I have not power to do is to deny God 
 and my own conscience. 
 
 The argument, therefore, is as plain as it is 
 exalting, “The Son of Man must be true to God. 
 God calls me in my heart to Jerusalem. Jerusa- 
 lem means a cross. ‘Therefore the Son of Man 
 must die.” 
 
 Some people speak as if there were miraculous 
 virtue in the Death of Christ as a@ mere death. 
 There is none. We have all to die some day, 
 naturally or by violence. The virtue in any death 
 consists solely in the motive and the sense of duty 
 that lie behind it, which alone give it moral value. 
 It is not the bare simple fact that Jesus died, that 
 may redeem us; it is the greater fact of why 
 He died. 
 
 Christ died because He loved the world. 
 
 So He came to Jerusalem. 
 With open eyes! 
 
 I 
 
 I wish you now to see Him among the olive 
 trees in the Garden of Pain, where He faced one 
 of His extraordinary dilemmas. 
 
 They had left the Supper-Table. 
 
DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 149 
 
 Jesus, even in speaking about His on-coming 
 death, had been marvellously serene. There was a 
 singular composure in every word He spoke. Look 
 at these passages again, and you will see a calm 
 controlled Christ. In the institution of the Supper 
 itselfi—which, remember, was a forecast of His 
 death,—_He was the epitome of restraint and quiet 
 assurance. “Take, eat, this is my body, which is 
 broken for you.” Could anything be more com- 
 posed than His whole personal conduct during these 
 last few days, and especially these last few hours? 
 
 Then Judas, that twisted soul, departed on his 
 evil errand. Slinking through the moonlit streets 
 to follow Christ to the Garden, he went to those 
 who had bought him and asked for a band of sol- 
 diers. Jesus and the eleven stepped out of the 
 friendly house and made for Gethsemane. 
 
 They crossed the brook Kedron. 
 
 Bishop Lightfoot remarks that all the blood from 
 the sacrifices of the Temple altars was drained into 
 this little stream. Perhaps at the moment that 
 Jesus crossed it, the water was running red. If so, 
 there was soon to be a greater sacrifice. 
 
 The blood of lambs. 
 
 The blood of The Lamb. 
 
 The little enclosed garden, planted with strag- 
 gling olive trees, was a favourite resort of our 
 Lord. It was a place of quiet, especially at this 
 time, amid the clamour of the droves of foreign 
 
150 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 
 
 pilgrims who jostled each other through the streets 
 of the city. We may imagine it, if we will, as a 
 private garden on the hillside of Olivet, perhaps 
 the property of a secret friend, a place certainly 
 where He was welcome and where He could be 
 sure of seclusion and quiet. 
 
 By the sacred association of memory, places may 
 come to have a peculiar message for the human 
 heart. We have known of cases where the vision 
 of a lonely hillside, an old whitewashed farmhouse 
 with eaved windows, or a little island long-unvisited 
 but long-remembered, has melted a hard heart into 
 unwonted tenderness. 
 
 So for the last time, as to a remembered place, 
 Jesus turned towards Gethsemane, the garden of 
 Olives. Like a wounded stag making for the high 
 slopes, He set out for this quiet garden where He 
 could face His big hour alone. He had a tryst with 
 God and His own soul. 
 
 I wish to emphasise the marvel of His compo- 
 sure up to this point. 
 
 He entered the garden quietly. As quietly,, He 
 asked His disciples to lie down in the cool summer 
 night and rest. ‘Taking three of them with Him— 
 the three who had shared great experiences with 
 . Him of old—He went deeper into the olive trees. 
 Bidding the chosen three watch with Him, as if He 
 felt a need of human fellowship and sympathy, He 
 went forward Himself alone. 
 
DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 151 
 
 So quietly! So assuredly! 
 
 Then, alone by Himself, His great heart broke. 
 
 Falling on the ground, He cried aloud with 
 anguish, again and again, “ Let this cup pass from 
 me, O God. Let this cup pass from me.” An 
 anguished soul, stretching out imploring hands 
 to God. 
 
 As they first heard His agonised call, I can 
 picture the questioning eyes with which the dis- 
 ciples gazed into each other’s faces in the distorting 
 moonlight. Then, weary beyond words, after that 
 hectic week in Jerusalem, sleep had its gentle way 
 with them. And if they still heard His cries, it was 
 as those who hear in broken dreams. 
 
 He was now unheard by any except God. 
 
 II 
 
 Why did He cry? 
 
 Did He repent His decision? . . . His own 
 words and His own acts fully answer that. “ Let 
 this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, 
 but as thou wilt.” There is no possible room for 
 repentance or regret in these words. That decision 
 made at Jericho, to face Jerusalem and all its possi- 
 bilities, had been made once and for all. His words 
 suggest only an infinite trust in God, and certainly 
 there is no regret in His heart. 
 
 Did He only now realise, as a man in warfare 
 might, that death was startlingly near? . . . Our 
 
152 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 
 
 records show that for a long time He had reckoned 
 with death, not as something which might be, but 
 as something which must be. We know that He 
 had opened His heart on this matter in repeated 
 warnings to the disciples. In that Last Supper it- 
 self, He had declared His mind, and made His 
 death a sacrament. | 
 
 Was He suddenly afraid with the natural shrink- 
 ing of the flesh? . . . It would be foolish to 
 say that Jesus had no natural human fear of death: 
 but, on the other hand, the one thing about Him 
 regarding which any fair man may be sure is that 
 He was no coward recoiling. from suffering because 
 of simple physical pain. The perfect proof of this 
 lies in the later events. After this scene, He went 
 through every conceivable form of brutal treat- 
 ment and the sharp pain of the crucifixion without 
 one murmur. Without one selfish murmur! Apart 
 from that solitary cry, “I thirst,” and the beauti- 
 ful commitment of His own soul to God, our 
 Lord’s words in His dying were uniquely imper- 
 sonal. With all other men, pain drives their 
 thoughts in on themselves: pain drove His thoughts 
 out for. others 7.0.00...) Le ttself a Onatemor 
 uniqueness ! 
 
 Was tt a sheer nervous breakdown, such a mo- 
 mentary spiritual collapse as might overtake any 
 sensitive over-wrought soul? . . . If so, we 
 have to explain two astonishing things—His mag- 
 nificent and reasoned calm before, and His even 
 
rene ener 
 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 153 
 
 more magnificent and more reasoned calm immedi- 
 ately thereafter. Five minutes later, when He 
 faced the rabble of Judas, He was the only com- 
 posed and unflurried person in the entire crowd. 
 A nervous collapse does not work like that! 
 
 Was it a fierce gust of self-pity, that He, a 
 young man of thirty-three summers, had now to 
 leave the joys of life and friendship? He had a 
 love of life, like any of us. Was this experience 
 just a spasm of bitter self-pity? . . . To begin 
 with, Jesus sat lightly to life in a way that few of 
 us can estimate. The world and its ways had no 
 hold on His heart. Moreover, as we know, He 
 was not bound up in possessions or wedded to 
 things as we are. He loved life, it is true: but 
 He never loved it better than God. All through 
 His ministry, He lived solely in the belief that the 
 Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister. There is no room for self-pity in a mind 
 that thought as Jesus thought. 
 
 ITI 
 Not one of these things accounts for this garden 
 scene. The fullest allowance for the shrinking of 
 a highly-sensitive soul completely fails to explain 
 this fierce dread. 
 Especially with one like Jesus. 
 
 Why did He cry? 
 It does not lie with us even to imagine that we 
 
154 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 
 
 can understand a soul like His, or can compre- 
 hend the thoughts that passed through His mind. 
 There are depths even in a fellow-man’s suffering 
 that we can never plumb. How much more with 
 Christ ? 
 
 Yet it may be a spiritual gain for us to observe 
 three things. 
 
 1, Quite evidently, this was a passionate return 
 of that inner debate which He had held with Him- 
 self in the Contest in the Desert. 
 
 There, as we remember, He had been tempted to 
 accomplish His mission in different ways. Not 
 necessarily evil ways, but ways that “ differed in 
 excellence.” Indeed, the debate about possibilities 
 was the soul of His temptation. . . . Here, 
 again, as He faces the last things, He is tempted 
 to ask Himself the same question. Js there no 
 other way? Must He redeem the world thus? Is 
 He shut up to the Cross? 
 
 In vision, He sees the Father holding out the 
 cup in His hands for Him to take. But 
 but . . . is it possible for the cup to pass? Is 
 there no other way? 
 
 “Let this cup pass from me.” ‘That is a definite 
 petition to God, a real anguished prayer. I hold 
 that we can make nothing of these words that will 
 be worthy of Him or the occasion unless we see 
 that He was tempted, quite definitely, to let the cup 
 pass. Why should He not ask this question and 
 offer this prayer? If He had not asked it, He 
 
DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 155 
 
 would have been a mere automaton, and not a suf- 
 fering debating soul like me. 
 
 I should not care to think that the cross was an 
 easy thing for Jesus, a cheap thing, a light thing. 
 His self-committal is the dearer to me that it was 
 terribly hard. We know that Jesus faced it in sweat 
 and tears. These tears baptised His full obedience. 
 
 It is a cheap, cheap gospel that makes the thorny 
 way of duty easy for Jesus, as if it cost Him 
 nothing. It cost Him—yes! it cost Him,—blood 
 and agonies and tears. What more could it 
 cost Him? 
 
 I think we can only value His finished work as 
 we see the deep passion of debate. Pray God we 
 see it! That He should debate it, is no sin. That 
 having debated it, He should fully accept it, crowns 
 Him Christ. 
 
 2. I do not see how this scene can be explained, 
 for a person like Jesus, by any theory that does 
 not take account of its shame. 
 
 The apostles, who were so near to Him, medi- 
 tated deeply on His work. As they reflected on 
 the agonies they had seen Him endure, they came 
 to the clear belief that it was the shame of the 
 Cross that broke Jesus down. The Epistle to the 
 Hebrews speaks openly about this “shame of the 
 cross,’ What does that mean? Not only that one 
 like Jesus should die thus,—like a common criminal 
 —but that He should hope to redeem the world 
 
156 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 
 
 thus! 3 gu Daas Ve Byva crosse)) an ho Wiive 
 the idea was a joke to the Greeks, sheer foolish- 
 ness: and it was a cruel offence to the Jews. ‘That 
 cross seemed to them the last unutterable thing. 
 
 Bowed and prostrate there among the olive trees 
 in agony, this dreamer hoped to win and redeem 
 the world for God. A great dream! So great a 
 dream that it should be nobly fulfilled! . . . But 
 look! To perfect this great dream, God was now 
 offering Him a cross! This emblem of shame. 
 This ancient curse. ‘To redeem the world! A cross 
 where they butchered slaves. A cross where they 
 slew their rogues. When we contrast this starless 
 night with the glorious dawn of the Baptism, we 
 can understand the questioning in His heart. Is 
 this the only means by which God can be perfectly 
 obeyed? If this was the Father’s chosen way of 
 redeeming the world and answering Christ’s glori- 
 ous consecration, it was just a path of simple 
 shame. No less. 
 
 Would Jesus accept it? He came to do the 
 Father’s will: but was there no other way? Must 
 He walk this grim road? Let this cup pass. 
 
 You do not honour Him, remember, by thinking 
 that there was no revulsion in His heart, and no 
 agony of debate. This cup! If ever a prayer was 
 passionate, this was. 
 
 3. Our only comprehension, however partial, of 
 the agony and dread of this scene in Christ’s heart 
 
a eee] 
 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 157 
 
 lies in our reading it wholly in line with His 
 own words. 
 
 After all, what a man thinks about a thing makes 
 it good or evil, hard or easy for him. 
 
 A young officer, hardly more than a school-boy, 
 joined our battalion in France. The captain of his 
 company sent him out early for a reconnaissance 
 in No-man’s Land. His fellow-officer who ac- 
 companied him, reported afterwards that the boy 
 was useless, as he was so evidently possessed with 
 uncontrollable terror. J remember how his com- 
 panion remarked grimly that he had been afraid 
 lest the lad’s chattering teeth should alarm the 
 enemy! Next night, when he heard that another 
 party was being sent out, the boy-officer, as pale 
 as death, came and asked the captain to allow him 
 to go. His senior remonstrated and spoke kindly 
 of his conduct on the previous night. “ Yes,” said 
 the lad, “ but I want to get used to it, Sir, and I 
 want to conquer myself.” 
 
 Now, it meant nothing—sometimes only a joke 
 —for many a strong-nerved man to crawl through 
 that slime in No-man’s Land. But what did it 
 mean for this boy, with his high-strung tingling 
 nerves? I hold that you can estimate his act only 
 when you remember what he was thinking! The 
 state of that lad’s mind put the sheer courage of 
 his act on a plane totally different from anybody 
 else. So much of our average courage is of the 
 animal. ‘This was of the soul! 
 
158 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 
 
 I am certain that we can only understand the 
 agony of Jesus, when we relate it to what He 
 thought of Himself. ‘That alone gives us any 
 glimpse of His mental and spiritual debate. 
 
 Many another man has gone to a cross without 
 the quiver of an eyelid. Why not Jesus? One of 
 the two thieves on the cross joked and swore. 
 Why not Jesus? 
 
 Why should He be lying on the ground as 
 twisted as any of these gnarled olive trees them- 
 selves, with strong cries breaking from His heart? 
 
 The truth is,—it is the only thing that explains 
 the scene—Jesus regarded Himself in a unique 
 way, a ransom for many. He read an unutterable 
 meaning into His own sacrifice. For He regarded 
 Himself, in His death, as carrying the sins of the 
 world, and as being identified with His burden. 
 He who knew no sin was made sin. And in His 
 own mind, it is the thought of the sin of the world 
 that breaks Him down. ‘That He—the Son of 
 Man—should die—thus—for that! A cross— 
 for that! 
 
 Nevertheless, Thy will be done. 
 
 IV 
 
 In the light of this—as I think of this—I can 
 have a glimpse, though I cannot express it, of 
 what passed through the Saviour’s mind, as He 
 lay that night amid the olive trees. I can see a pure 
 and stainless soul: Himself clear of sin: Himself 
 
—eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoeoeoEeEeeEeeEE——————————————————— ey 
 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 159 
 
 hating sin: yet giving Himself for sin: to bring 
 men to God. It is not only that He is going to 
 die, but to die thus and for this end, that constitutes 
 the agony of Jesus. 
 
 When He had given Himself, when He had 
 fought through the storm and brought His will to 
 the service of God, the anguish passed clean out of 
 His heart. In one view, this is the most amazing 
 fact in Christ’s life. He was heaped with con- 
 tumely and pain and desolation: He was scourged 
 and ridiculed: He was crowned in ribald mockery. 
 Yet these last few hours are the most serene of His 
 ministry. Never was His majesty so supreme as 
 during these Court scenes. I cannot explain it. 
 Can it be explained? I do not know whether I 
 wish it explained. 
 
 Some of you, puzzled with the agony of this 
 Garden scene, may insist, ‘ Why did this anguish 
 never return to Him amid all the gathered abomi- 
 nations He suffered afterwards?” 
 
 I have told you that I do not know. If I were 
 to venture one explanation which has helped my 
 own soul, it would be this:—a cross once gladly 
 accepted ceases to bring pain. In God’s will, He 
 found God’s peace. 
 
 With a new and strange light of conquest on 
 His face, Jesus looked up. 
 
 There through the twisted trunks of the trees, 
 He saw a flare of swaying torches and the glitter 
 
160 DILEMMA IN THE GARDEN 
 
 of spears. Judas with his motley band! Judas 
 who of old knew this quiet retreat and remembered 
 how the Master loved its spangled shade! Judas 
 who had lain with Him only yesterday among 
 the olives! 
 
 Coming to the sleeping disciples—alas! for the 
 third time—Jesus touched them quietly and said, 
 “It is enough. The hour is come. Lo, he that 
 betrayeth me is at hand.” This is a mystery of 
 beautiful composure and quiet faith. 
 
 And so, having fought His battle and settled 
 His dilemma, He walked forward, with a con- 
 trolled soul, to meet Judas and death. 
 
 Poor Judas! 
 
 Into the woods my Master went, 
 
 Clean forspent, forspent. 
 
 Into the woods my Master came, 
 
 Forspent with love and shame. 
 
 But the olives they were not blind to Hém, 
 The little gray leaves were kind to Him: 
 The thorn-tree had a mind to Him 
 
 When into the woods He came. 
 
 Out of the woods my Master went, 
 
 And He was well content. 
 
 Out of the woods my Master came, 
 
 Content with death and shame, 
 
 When Death and Shame would woo Him last, 
 From under the trees they drew Him last: 
 °Twas on a tree they slew Him—last 
 
 When out of the woods He came. 
 
X 
 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 
 
 —>—]O speak or not to speak? 
 fj ay That last crowded day, with its 
 Su WER swarming audiences, seemed to offer 
 FEES Jesus a unique chance. He had already 
 wrought some arresting deeds in Jerusalem; and 
 now His capture had raised interest in Him to the 
 highest pitch, The Halls of Judgment and the 
 open Forum were alike packed with greedy listen- 
 ers, keen to know the charges brought against Him 
 and as keen to hear His defence. 
 This was a great final chance. 
 Would He take it? 
 
 
 
 
 On the one hand, here at last were the real lead- 
 ers of the people, the great men in high authority. 
 He was now face to face with the men who wielded 
 social and religious power. The whole Sanhedrin, 
 gathered in mass, was before Hm. Surely an un- 
 paralleled occasion for stating His case and defin- 
 ing His startling claims! 
 
 On the other hand, here were Pilate and Herod, 
 whom He had now an opportunity to impress. At 
 least, they were open-minded men without any of 
 the inherited bias of the priests. They would 
 
 161 
 
162 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 
 
 weigh up the charges in all fairness, and give 
 His claims a just and impartial hearing. Why 
 should Jesus not use this last momentous chance 
 for a full statement of His mission? His judges 
 might be unimpressed: they might even sneer: 
 but He could at least deliver His soul of its 
 burden. If He declared His message the issue 
 lay with them. 
 
 And between these two extremes, there stood the 
 mass of the people gathered from every available 
 quarter of the Jewish world. During this Passover 
 time there were thousands of pious pilgrims from 
 the four corners of the globe. ‘They had heard 
 flavoured tales of this man’s words and works; 
 and they would gladly avail themselves of an oppor- 
 tunity to see and hear Him. The fact that the 
 whole atmosphere was electric would be wholly in 
 His favour. He might now deliver Himself of His 
 message with the abandon of a martyr. 
 
 Amartyr! . . . Inany case, have not martyrs 
 always used these last dramatic moments for some 
 great declaration? Even as they stood among the 
 licking flames, they have eased their souls by a final 
 proclamation of the truth. 
 
 Although He should be condemned, should not 
 Jesus tell this cosmopolitan crowd, fully and boldly, 
 that He was come from God? What an audience 
 to address, even though they should batter Him 
 down for blasphemy! 
 
 To speak or not to speak? 
 
THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 163 
 
 I 
 
 How did He settle this dilemma? 
 
 They brought Him first, before dawn, to Annas. 
 
 This aged man, ex-High Priest, had never seen 
 or heard Jesus. He had been for long “ the power 
 behind the throne”: and what he could not effect 
 by official power, he effected by unofficial intrigue. 
 If He could impress Annas, Jesus might do won- 
 derful work. For this old priest could make and 
 unmake people: and his word was a thing of power. 
 According to our records, he seemed anxious to 
 investigate and understand the prisoner. 
 
 Would Jesus avail Himself of this chance? 
 
 We read, for instance, that Annas questioned 
 Jesus regarding “‘ His doctrine and His disciples.” 
 This was a subject, surely, which would appeal to 
 Jesus. His doctrine—just to tell this priest of all 
 the truth of His heart, to unload His soul of its 
 burden, and to expound the grace of His message. 
 
 I know that in countless other instances 
 when people came to Him enquiring about His 
 doctrine, His eyes lit up with eagerness. He opened 
 His heart and emptied it of its deepest secrets. So 
 fully, so gladly. a 
 
 Annas questioned Him regarding His doctrine.” 
 
 We read that He refused to answer him directly 
 but referred him to the testimony of others. | 
 
 Why? 
 
 They took Him afterwards to Caiaphas, High 
 
Priest of the time, son-in-law of Annas. ‘This man 
 was the actual head of the Jewish Church govern- 
 ment. If the priesthood represented anything of 
 God, this man represented the priesthood. He 
 had around him the whole Sanhedrin of wise 
 men who governed the church. This was truly 
 the Jewish parliament : and it offered Jesus a unique 
 opportunity. 
 
 We know that He answered some of the High 
 Priest’s questions: but there are certain of His 
 silences before this man that are difficult to 
 understand. 
 
 When the witnesses, for instance, had stated 
 their lying case against Him, Caiaphas asked Jesus 
 if He had anything to say. “ Answerest thou 
 nothing?” the High Priest cried. “‘ What is it 
 that these witness against thee?” 
 
 “ But He held His peace and answered nothing.” 
 
 Why? 
 
 They brought Him next to Pilate, the Roman 
 Ruler. 
 
 The charge now was one of death, and the death- 
 sentence lay in the hands of this man alone. He 
 was a Roman: and as a Roman, he was trained in 
 the principles of justice. It was a proud boast, 
 fully justified, that one might expect a fair hearing 
 and an honest pronouncement in a Roman court. 
 This was one of the glories of the great empire. 
 
 Perhaps, this was the chance for which 
 
THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 165 
 
 Jesus was waiting? He may certainly speak here 
 without fear or favour. 
 
 We read that Pilate asked Him, “ Whence art 
 thou?” Again he asked, “‘ Hearest thou not how 
 many things these witness against thee?” 
 
 “But Jesus yet answered him nothing: so that 
 Pilate marvelled.” 
 
 Why? 
 
 In the midst of the trial, when Pilate over- 
 heard the chance word “ Galilee,’ he sent Jesus to 
 Herod, the ruler of Galilee, who was then in 
 Jerusalem. No doubt, the Roman Procurator 
 adopted this device in the vain hope of ridding 
 himself of the puzzle of this man’s judgment. It 
 would be a wonderful way out of an awkward busi- 
 ness, if only Herod would take the affair in hand. 
 Perhaps he might! 
 
 If ever a man was glad to see Jesus, it was 
 Herod. We read that “ when Herod saw Jesus, he 
 was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him 
 of a long season, because he had heard many things 
 of him: and he hoped to have seen some miracle 
 done by him.” Surely this offered a wonderful 
 opportunity for Jesus! A man unprejudiced by 
 Jewish bias, full of natural expectation and keen 
 curiosity, trained in Greek ways and with that 
 fine “ latitude” of the Greek mind. A King, more- 
 over, with his court about him,—a chance in a 
 million. . . . We read that Herod “ questioned 
 
166 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 
 
 with Him in many words.” The suggestion under- 
 lying the phrase is that he sought to draw Jesus 
 out in diverse ways. Question after question! 
 
 “ But He answered him nothing.” 
 
 Stern stony silence. A mute Christ. 
 
 Why? 
 
 IT 
 
 This is a strange picture of Jesus. It makes me 
 afraid. An austere, silent, judging Christ. He 
 stands there before these questioning men like a 
 statue. Is it possible that some day when I speak 
 to Him, “questioning with Him in many words,” 
 He may be as stonily silent? 
 
 What accounts for it? 
 
 I cannot help remembering another and brighter 
 picture of my Lord. I see countless seeking souls 
 flocking to Him in distress. They lay their vague 
 needs before Him, their sins, their sorrows, their 
 fears, their doubts. He welcomes every case so 
 genuinely, and He deals with each in unexampled 
 courtesy and grace. Not one of His suppliants 
 . departs disappointed. He seems indeed to labour 
 and agonise to make Himself plain and clear to the 
 simplest or most darkened mind. If they seek Him, 
 He as surely seeks them! 
 
 I know, further, that the reason of this present 
 silence cannot be that these men were sinners. He 
 welcomed sinners: He loved sinners: He sought 
 
THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 167 
 
 sinners. His enemies nicknamed Him “ The 
 Friend of Sinners,” a nickname that is now our 
 glory. That Woman at the Well was a sinner; 
 yet He strove with infinite patience to make the 
 way plain for her puzzled and stupid mind. 
 Zaccheus was a sinner; yet He charmed Zaccheus 
 with His unexpected and overwhelming kindness. 
 Mary Magdalene was a sinner; yet He gave her 
 what all men denied her, the forgiving grace of 
 God and the friendship of His own respect. 
 
 When these notable men spoke to Him, why was , 
 
 He silent? With this unique chance of a great 
 declaration before the assembled people, why should 
 He answer nothing? 
 To speak or not to speak? Which would He do? 
 But He held His peace. 
 
 If 
 
 I can only judge of the debate in His heart by 
 the debate that might have been in my own. I 
 should have argued something like this:—Here is 
 my last great chance. These gathered expectant 
 masses. These notable men. A final declaration 
 of my message, though I should die for it. A great 
 proclamation of God. A martyr’s last confession. 
 Then if need be, the fire! 
 
 Why was He silent? 
 
 1. A broken heart? 
 Those who say this forget that He was not 
 
168 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 
 
 wholly silent. He answered some questions before 
 His varied judges with spirit and fire. Indeed, He 
 Was never more conscious of power and His own 
 strength than at this moment. ‘ Thou couldest 
 have no power against me, except it were given 
 thee from above.” That is not the speech of a 
 broken heart, but of one that is perfectly sure of 
 itself and its own grounds of confidence. If He is 
 mute, it is not because He is stunned! 
 
 2. Afraid to commit Himself ? 
 
 As little afraid as ever. ‘“ Art thou the Christ, 
 the Son of the Blessed?”” And Jesus said “‘ I am.” 
 That is as plain a statement and answer as any man 
 could either give or expect. No one need ever 
 make any mistake regarding Christ’s view of Him- 
 self and His own vocation. He came to tell the 
 world who and what He was. He told it. 
 
 3. Disappointed at events? This unexpected 
 turn? 
 
 Unless the whole record of His life is sheer in- 
 vention, He not only foresaw the end but walked 
 towards it. Death did not overtake Him in any 
 sense: He met it. I can see no room anywhere 
 for believing that Jesus was surprised or astonished 
 at the turn of events or at the acts of men. He 
 spoke to His disciples in repeated warnings, fore- 
 telling His end, lest they might be too astounded 
 when the great blow fell. “The Son of Man must 
 die.” He knew that, and openly faced it. 
 
 4. Afraid that God had forsaken Him? 
 
THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 169 
 
 Listen to this quiet word which reveals, more 
 than anything, His perfect trust in God. ‘“ Here- 
 after shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of 
 the power of God.” ‘That is assurance of a su- 
 preme order. You may discredit His claim, if you 
 care. But at least, it is assurance. Clear con- 
 fidence in the Father He loved and served. I do 
 the Father’s will! 
 
 IV 
 
 Why did He refuse to answer certain particular 
 questions and certain particular men? 
 
 I might have taken this whole occasion as a 
 glorious opportunity of open speech. Could there 
 be a better starting-point, for instance, than that 
 blunt question of Pilate, “ Whence art thou?” 
 Why did He pass that by? And the whole inter- 
 view with Herod—not one word? As I hinted, 
 the record suggests that Herod “fired” questions 
 at Him, like shots from a machine-gun. But He 
 stood in complete silence. 
 
 I believe that the answer lies in the type of men 
 who put the question and the type of question 
 they put. 
 
 Let us look at the men. 
 
 Annas. . . . Years ago, when Jesus had been 
 a boy playing in the fields and lanes of Nazareth, 
 this man had been High Priest. He was a man of 
 
L700 NO ee DLE Me ORS LENGE 
 
 singular power and as singular ruthlessness. For 
 a discreditable act, as haughty as it was cruel, he 
 had been deposed. But though thus deposed and 
 discredited, he had remained, by intrigue and wire- 
 pulling, the secret power behind the throne. He 
 had successfully manoeuvred four of his sons into 
 the High-priesthood, and the present High Priest, 
 Caiaphas, was his son-in-law. Thus by his arti- 
 fices, he had made the High-Priesthood a family 
 preserve! | 
 
 He was wise enough to know that it was not the 
 nominal power but the real power that mattered. 
 If he was now old in years, he was older in cun- 
 ning. He had shown himself a man without 
 scruple or conscience, a political adventurer more 
 than a priest of God. It was he and his sons— 
 “the booths of the sons of Annas””—who made 
 a monopoly of the Temple sacrifices, and coined 
 easy money out of its desecration. He filled his 
 coffers by turning religion into a “ protected” 
 trade. 
 
 His real power was shown now by the simple 
 fact that the band of Judas hurried Jesus to him 
 first of all. If anybody could worm a charge out 
 of this prisoner, Annas could. 
 
 When Jesus met Annas, the two eternal prin- 
 ciples of honour and cunning stood face to face. 
 This is not really the meeting of two men, but of 
 two systems, two ideas of life, and two views of 
 God. Christ or Annas? That is the eternal and 
 
THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 171 
 
 elemental conflict in this world, the spirit of world- 
 liness and the spirit of other-worldliness. On the 
 one hand, the pure perfect soul of Jesus, as clear 
 as that blue sky: on the other hand, that old figure 
 huddled in the chair, a heap of wizened cunning, 
 who had held to evil power by underground in- 
 trigues and deceit. Christ or Annas? 
 
 Now tell me! . . . What had one like Jesus 
 to say to one like that? 
 
 Caiaphas. . . . Of the breed and kidney of 
 Annas. ‘This is the man who lives for ever in 
 history as the father of an immortal epigram. 
 That epigram is one of the coldest pieces of cyni- 
 cism that a callous mind ever coined. It is a heart- 
 less tag of political wisdom that reveals the man’s 
 coldly brutal heart. “It is expedient,’ he re- 
 marked, “‘ that one man should die for the people.” 
 This is the true gospel of the scape-goat! What 
 does it matter about a poor devil of a scape-goat? 
 If the dragon is hungry, throw him a man. It 
 keeps the dragon quiet! 
 
 Here is the true apostle of expediency. A man 
 who can damn a fellow-man with an epigram. 
 
 Now tell me! . . . What had one like Jesus 
 to say to one like that? 
 
 Pilate. . . . Poor Pilate! He had been 
 reared and trained in the honoured Roman tradi- 
 tions of justice and law. Great traditions! Great 
 
172 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 
 
 law, the foundation-stone of all modern law! Yet 
 he twisted that iron system like a piece of putty in 
 his supple fingers. In his weak and indifferent 
 way, he tried to do justly. But justice needs a 
 fearless heart and a scorn of consequences! 
 
 Thou art no friend of Caesar, Pilate, if thou let 
 this man go free. ‘That settled the matter. The 
 threat of complaint! So he delivered Jesus into 
 their hands. Then, in a melodramatic pose, he 
 washed his own hands. Stained hands, that water 
 will not cleanse! 
 
 Now tell me! . . . What had one like Jesus 
 to say to one like that? 
 
 Herod. . . . The King who was a Greek 
 poseur: who in a drunken riot for a drunken vow 
 gave John the Baptist’s head to a dancing girl: the 
 libertine who at that moment was living in married 
 shame: the affected trifler who wanted to see 
 Jesus perform a few conjuring tricks, miracles by 
 order! . 
 
 Some time ago, Jesus used a phrase about this 
 man that is unique in Christ’s vocabulary. As we 
 know, our Lord could fearlessly denounce classes 
 and sects and parties: He could lash ideas and 
 customs. But I only know of one individual soul 
 whom He scourged with a phrase. “ That fox,” 
 He said of Herod. It is the one instance in the 
 New Testament where Jesus slew a man with a 
 killing word. 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 173 
 
 Now tell me! . . . What had one like Jesus 
 to say to one like that? 
 
 V 
 
 There are some men to whom Jesus can give 
 no answer. Speech would be wasted breath. 
 Pearls before swine! His silence is their judgment. 
 
 If we look at those occasions when Jesus was 
 silent and at the questions which He refused to 
 answer, we may discover some principles that will 
 be an encouragement and warning to ourselves. 
 
 It is good for us to see this austere Jesus. 
 
 1. Jesus always refused to answer anyone who 
 tried to trap Him. 
 
 We see this in many striking instances. Phari- 
 sees, Scribes and lawyers came frequently with 
 cunning questions that they might “catch” Him. 
 They dug awkward holes, hoping that He might 
 trip headlong into one of them. But on every oc- 
 casion, “ perceiving their wickedness,’ He turned 
 their questions adroitly aside. 
 
 For instance, no one thinks for a moment that 
 a man like Annas was in any deep spiritual anxiety 
 about Christ’s “doctrine”! His only purpose was 
 to entice Jesus to speak that he might pounce like 
 a hawk, with his ancient cunning, on any incau- 
 tious declaration. Annas was presumably the 
 Judge: but he was also the prosecuting cross- 
 examiner: and all his apparently interested ques- 
 
174 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 
 
 tions regarding Christ’s doctrine were only sly 
 cunning, slyly disguised. He was out for prey! 
 
 And that reference to His disciples! Did he 
 wish Jesus to mention their names that he might 
 jot them in a book for future use? 
 
 Like this man, Nicodemus once spoke to Jesus 
 about His “doctrine.” How gladly, how patiently, 
 how graciously, our Lord answered the blundering 
 scholar! There was no puzzling detail that He was 
 not ready to explain. 
 
 Annas spoke to Jesus about His “ doctrine.” 
 Jesus refused any exposition. 
 
 Why? . . . He will never answer patent 
 insincerity. 
 
 2. Jesus has no answer for those who pre- 
 judge Him. 
 
 He wants us, He asks us, to judge Him. 
 “Whom say ye that I am?” He welcomes every 
 honest enquiry regarding Himself or His claims. 
 But pre-judging is not judging. It argues a closed 
 mind and a shut heart. That is fatal. 
 
 Caiaphas, for instance, already knew what he 
 was going to do with Jesus. There was no room 
 in his mental outlook for such a prophet with 
 such a view of God. When Christ looked at 
 Him, He was looking at a shut gate, locked and 
 barred. In any question Caiaphas might ask, 
 there was no real desire for information or en- 
 lightenment. Jesus had been “ judged” already, 
 
a 
 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE Ls 
 
 judged before He appeared at the bar: and His 
 judge was now only angling around for a decent 
 pretext of getting Him condemned before Pilate. 
 This “trial” before Caiaphas was a mockery of 
 the name. 
 
 John the Baptist once judged Jesus hardly. 
 From behind his prison bars, he wondered if this 
 type of preacher could possibly be the Messiah? 
 Jesus answered the disciples of the Baptist in gra- 
 cious ways,— Go and tell John.” 
 
 Caiaphas judged Jesus. Jesus was silent. 
 
 Why? . . . He will not answer those who 
 condemn Him before He ts heard. 
 
 3. Jesus has no answer for a poseur. 
 
 Affectation of life or beliefi—(if it is ever 
 possible to “affect” a belief; some think it is) 
 —is at the opposite pole from the natural ways 
 and mind of Jesus. He Himself was so per- 
 fectly sincere and real and earnest. He preached 
 truth, and was truth. And if you will notice, 
 the one thing that roused His anger was pre- 
 tension and sham. He never had anything to say 
 to affectation and unreality. He lashed the Phari- 
 sees, not because they were sinners, but because 
 they were hypocrites. 
 
 That pseudo-Greek with his affected Hellenism 
 would like now to see Jesus and ask Him some 
 questions. 
 
 One day a disciple came to Jesus and said, 
 
176 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 
 
 “Master, there are Greeks at the edge of the 
 crowd who would like to speak with you.’ We 
 read that Jesus was deeply moved and praised 
 God! 
 
 Herod, the pseudo-Greek, questioned Him in 
 many ways. He was silent! 
 
 Why? . . . We can never see God through 
 a@ mask, 
 
 4, Jesus has no answer for a dishonest doubter. 
 
 “Whence comest thou?’ said Pilate. The 
 Roman had been told that this prisoner claimed 
 to be the Son of God, the Messiah, a King. But 
 Pilate, amid his broken and discredited gods, was 
 a cynical sceptic. He regarded the “ religious 
 Jews” with a sneer. We know that he had no 
 place in his thinking either for a life with God 
 here or a life with God hereafter. Indeed when 
 they spoke of the “sons of the Gods ” at Rome, it 
 was generally with a sneer or a snigger. 
 
 When the Woman at the Well spoke to Him 
 about the Messiah, Jesus answered simply, “I that 
 speak unto thee am He.” She had practically asked 
 Him Pilate’s question ‘‘ Whence comest thou?” 
 With a magnificent respect for her groping mind, 
 He answered her beyond her asking. 
 
 “Whence comest thour” asked Pilate. Jesus 
 was silent. 
 
 Why? . . . He deals with doubt, but not with 
 dishonest doubt. 
 
THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE Ut 
 
 5. Jesus has no answer for a man in love with 
 his sin. 
 
 That man Herod had imprisoned John because 
 of the prophet’s just reproof of his wickedness. 
 He hated and feared the preacher who exposed his 
 evil. At this moment, unabashed, he was living in 
 open shame. He had flaunted his gross conduct in 
 the eyes of a scandalised generation. But now that 
 he was in Jerusalem, he would gladly see Jesus! 
 Perhaps the Nazarene prophet would do some 
 miraculous turn like a juggler. At least, he would 
 question Him and learn His mind. 
 
 That woman who was a sinner, a soiled rag, 
 crept to His feet and washed them with her tears. 
 Jesus gave her the benediction of His forgiveness. 
 
 Herod, the sinner, asked Him many questions. 
 Jesus looked at him in stony silence. 
 
 Why? . . . He loves sinners, but not sinners 
 in love with their sin. 
 
 VI 
 
 This last great chance. 
 
 Will He take it? 
 
 Now they are gathered in their sweltering 
 masses, travellers and pilgrims from many lands. 
 The leaders of the people are there, the great men 
 who now hold His destiny in their hands. Pilate 
 and Herod are there. Even if He is to die, perhaps 
 He will make a martyr’s last declaration. 
 
 A dramatic message for God! 
 
178 THE DILEMMA OF SILENCE 
 
 But He had reasoned with them in full measure 
 for three rich years. Going in and out, He had 
 preached God’s message and Kingdom, opening up 
 God’s word and God’s will. He had refused all 
 dramatic and startling methods at the outset of 
 His ministry. Could He begin them at the end? 
 He wished no message delivered on the crest of 
 passion and amid turgid emotion. Amid all this 
 fear and passion, He Himself is now the quietest 
 and most restrained person in all Jerusalem. For 
 after Gethsemane, the strong serene composure 
 lasts unbroken to the end. 
 
 The day of speech is past. It is now the day of 
 action. 
 
 His words had not won them. 
 
 Perhaps the Great Act would? 
 
 Since then, the Cross has been the world’s silent 
 sermon. 
 
 
 
XI 
 THE DILEMMA WITH JUDAS 
 
 ais E Judas had a dilemma as to what he 
 i ¥| would do with Jesus, Jesus had an 
 i) equal dilemma as to what He would do 
 =§ with Judas. 
 
 This lost disciple, the enigma of the world, lures 
 our thoughts as steel is drawn to a magnet. But 
 perhaps in dealing with the intriguing problem of 
 his character, we forget the other problem lying 
 beside it, as real and insistent—the relation which 
 Jesus held to him and his perfidy. 
 
 The whole attitude of our Lord to the traitor is 
 worth consideration. We may find it useful to en- 
 deavour to look at the question from the angle of 
 Jesus, so far as that is possible. 
 
 
 
 Why did the Master choose a disciple like 
 Judas? 
 
 Was He aware of possible danger in this man? 
 
 When was He aware of danger? 
 
 When He became aware of it, did He treat 
 Judas wisely ? 
 
 Was there any way in which the traitor might 
 have been saved from himself, in spite of himself ? 
 
 Did Jesus acquiesce in this man’s act as if he 
 
 179 
 
180 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 
 
 were an appointed means, foreordained by fate to 
 this perfidy? 
 
 These questions may introduce us to Christ’s 
 dilemma. 
 
 J 
 
 To understand Judas in any sense, we dare not 
 come to him, as we generally do, with a ready- 
 made theory, and then attempt to squeeze the facts 
 to suit our theory. That is ruinous with any man, 
 but especially with him. Moreover it is not just 
 either to Judas or Jesus. In all honesty, we must 
 face the facts. The only facts I know of are given 
 in the New Testament. 
 
 If we do face these facts, we shall at once rule 
 out some fine sweeping judgments. In any case, I 
 distrust fine sweeping judgments! Especially about 
 complex things like human beings! We cannot 
 crush a man’s soul into a generalisation or an 
 epigram. 
 
 Some say he was a devil incarnate. 
 
 If this slanders Judas, it slanders Jesus more. Is 
 it conceivable that our Lord could have chosen such 
 aman for an apostle? If Jesus knowing this had 
 called him as a disciple, choosing him, as it were, 
 for a predestined instrument, I should have no 
 further use for Jesus. | 
 
 Some say he was a misguided saint. 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA WITH FfUDAS 181 
 
 This view, buttressed by the literary special- 
 pleading of De Quincey, is condemned by one 
 thing—the facts. It may be generous and beauti- 
 fully charitable on our part to picture him as a 
 Messianic enthusiast who believed in Jesus and 
 only wished to force His hand and make Him 
 declare Himself: but it is not true. Unfortu- 
 nately, the New Testament presents a different 
 picture. 
 
 Some say that he was not normal. 
 
 I wonder what they mean. Is anybody normal? 
 Judas was a man who thought and reasoned and 
 laughed and sinned like any of us. He had our 
 range of possibilities, for good or evil. I have no 
 doubt that he had a Mr. Hyde hidden in his Dr. 
 Jekyll. But so have I! There can be no doubt 
 that he committed his sin, as I do mine, by letting 
 the evil within him triumph. 
 
 Some say he was chosen to be the traitor. 
 
 I am sorry for any man’s view of God, who can 
 imagine this. That this poor wight was staged 
 from all eternity to play the villain—no! God 
 does not run His world like that! And if we add 
 this taint to Jesus,—what a Jesus! It is a poor 
 way to account for Judas by dishonouring Christ. 
 A cat playing with a mouse! . . . I know 
 enough of the hatred of the priests to be sure that 
 Judas, as an instrument for their vengeance, was 
 
182 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 
 
 an accident. They were glad when he came, of 
 course. But if he had not come, their hate would 
 have devised another means. Hate, like love, has 
 “this touch of genius, that it invents its own 
 instruments. 
 
 Some say that he was a traitor all the time. 
 
 From start to finish! Jesus chose him honestly: 
 but the disciple was dishonest and hypocritical in 
 his own heart. . . . Is there not enough against 
 this man without this? If we refuse to dishonour 
 Jesus, I think we ought equally to refuse to dis- 
 honour Judas! . . . Apart from his stern warn- 
 ings, it is a remarkable thing that amid the 
 opprobrium of the world, Jesus in His subsequent 
 dealings treated this man only with an_ over- 
 whelming pity! 
 
 II 
 
 What are the facts? 
 
 There are three at least that no fair man ought 
 to forget. 
 
 1. Judas chose Jesus. 
 
 He followed Him for one reason only, because 
 he Joved His company. Christ attracted him: 
 Christ chimed in with all his dreams. We. must 
 remember that this disciple was a Jewish national- 
 ist,—perhaps the only pure Jew of the twelve: for 
 the rest were Galileans. He saw many of his hopes 
 focussed in this astounding preacher. He brought 
 
 i a 
 

 
 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 183 
 
 his dreaming soul, narrow but dreaming, and laid 
 it down at the feet of our Lord. He listened to 
 Him: he followed Him: he lived:with Him.., 
 
 That may make the mystery of his resco eMall tt ait 
 
 the deeper in the end. None the less, this is the big 
 
 fact. He chose Jesus! He threw in his lot with , 
 Him, from interest and enthusiasm. ‘The prayers — 
 
 of generations seemed to be gathered up in this 
 prophet. 
 
 2. Jesus chose Judas. 
 
 This is the bigger fact of the two. Our Lord 
 discerned latent possibilities in this man. He had 
 the makings of a really great apostle, with dis- 
  tinctive qualities. 
 
 There is no other reason that can account for 
 Christ’s choice, unless we are open to harbour un- 
 worthy ideas of His selection. This nationalistic 
 Jew,—keen, ardent, gifted, passionate—might have 
 become one of the foremost of the disciples. Our 
 Lord certainly chose him first as a disciple, and 
 then as an apostle. That means, after probation, 
 experience, and approval! 
 
 * 3. Jesus honoured Judas. 
 
 I said that Judas might have become one of the 
 foremost of the apostles. For a time, he actually 
 was. He exhibited such marked gifts of adminis- 
 tration and organisation that Jesus promoted him 
 to be treasurer of His band. This appointment 
 meant more in those days than it might mean with 
 us. For in the work of such a wandering band as 
 
 “ 
 
184 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 
 
 the disciples, this appointment carried with it all 
 the arrangements of organisation, billeting and 
 budgeting which such a roving company demanded. | 
 
 There is only one worthy conclusion: Jesus and 
 the disciples trusted and honoured Judas. If you 
 are able to imagine that our Lord knew this man 
 ~ to be covetous and weak, and yet gave him an 
 office that furnished countless natural opportuni- 
 ties for deceit and fraud, I pity you for your view 
 of Jesus. For myself, I could not forgive in Him, 
 what I could not forgive in any other. 
 
 For the credit of Jesus, there is only one con- , 
 clusion from the facts of the case. At this time, 
 Judas, the young man of Kerioth, was keen, hon- 
 est, capable and brainy. He had gifts and qualities 
 that easily singled him out for Christ’s notice, 
 Any other theory contradicts the facts, and defames 
 our Lord. 
 
 III 
 Thackeray remarks that circumstances do not 
 
 | ,change our characters, but only bring out their 
 
 / latent qualities. 
 
 After the first year of His ministry, circum- 
 stances changed with Jesus in a rapid somersault. 
 
 In the first place, the great crowds forsook 
 Him, as we saw in the Dilemma of His Popu- 
 larity. He Himself broke their foolish attachment 
 deliberately. 
 
 Further, His message changed in intensity and 
 
THE DILEMMA WITH JUDAS 185 
 
 trend. He began to teach the disciples deep and 
 hidden things. He openly forecasted the end. 
 “The Son of Man must die.” 
 
 Moreover, the opposition and enmity of the 
 Ruling Classes deepened and darkened. Any 
 chance of a great political and social movement 
 receded into the dim background. Jesus centred 
 His work chiefly on the training of the Twelve. 
 Some of that training seemed bitter and :npalatable 
 doctrine. A Messiah on a Cross! 
 
 This change of meaning and emphasis worked 
 subtly on the heart of Judas. 
 
 Strong passionate men are often narrow and 
 biassed. When such passionate men are disap- 
 pointed, they become brooding. Brooding, dis- 
 appointed, and disillusioned—it is an easy step to 
 hate. We hate the thing that ruins us and breaks 
 our hopes. 
 
 When hate enters into a passionate and narrow 
 soul, it twists its whole nature. Nothing any 
 longer remains sacred. Judas, the nationalist, 
 became morose and twisted, morally and _ spirit- 
 ually. He felt as if his early hopes—the very 
 hopes that had first attracted him to Jesus—had 
 been shattered, and his dreams had been ruined. 
 He had been made a laughing-stock by this dream- 
 ing unpractical idealist of a Christ. . . . Curse 
 Him! It was a bitter business. 
 
 The apostle has now become an apostate. He 
 
186 THE DILEMMA WITH F#UDAS 
 
 harbours a grudge against the innocent cause of his 
 own undoing. 
 
 As well make something out of the wreck! He 
 put his hand in the bag. 
 
 His twisted cynicism and despair began to be- 
 spatter everything: for a soul awry sees every- 
 thing awry. He even misread the passionate and 
 repentant love of the woman who was a sinner, 
 and he decried her enthusiasm as ludicrous and 
 wasteful. His excuse for his muttered grumbling 
 is only another symptom of his spiritual decay. 
 The poor! What was he thinking of 
 the poor? | 
 
 His soul died before his body. 
 
 Jesus saw the change gradually. He could see 
 it in no other way, for the simple reason that the 
 change itself was gradual! The last few months 
 ripened the man’s challenging irritation quickly 
 into disappointment and moody hate. It was all a 
 lost cause! There was no hope for a New Israel 
 from an ineffective man like this! He scorned the 
 source of his disillusionment, that dreaming, un- 
 practical Christ. What a Christ! 
 
 IV 
 Whether there had been a Judas or no, Jesus 
 knew that the Cross was near. The gathering 
 storm was rumbling in the distance, and there were 
 black clouds hanging over Jerusalem. Envy, anger, 
 

 
 THE DILEMMA WITH F¥UDAS 187 
 
 hate among the leaders and priests! If He went 
 to Jerusalem, it was a city of fate. Even now, 
 they had resolved on His death. 
 
 Judas was an accident, though the Cross was not. 
 
 After the implied reproof in that gracious inci- 
 dent of the Repentant Woman, Judas hardened his 
 heart. No doubt in his unhealthy brooding state, 
 he took the general reproof of Jesus as a personal 
 affront. ‘This final scene where Jesus showed the 
 love and gentleness of His heart, revealed also the 
 kind of Messiah He was, and showed Judas what 
 a hopeless and ineffectual person he served. 
 
 Jesus saw this final change, and took His own 
 measures. 
 
 Have you ever wondered why our Lord was so 
 noticeably “secretive”? about His preparation for 
 the Passover Supper? “‘ Where wilt thou that we 
 prepare?” His disciples asked Him. He replied, 
 “Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there 
 shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water: 
 follow him into the house where he entereth in.” 
 
 Why all this secret preparation? And against 
 whom was it devised? 
 
 Against the Priests? I think not. 
 
 Against Judas? Yes. 
 
 The hour was not yet come. 
 
 For on the previous day, the traitor had stolen 
 into Jerusalem. He had sought out the Rulers, in 
 
188 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 
 
 his moody and disillusioned bitterness. Well might 
 
 we believe that they were “glad” when they saw 
 
 him. ‘This man, one of His own disciples, was a 
 windfall! He promised to seek a speedy oppor- 
 tunity to betray Him, in the absence of the multi- 
 tude. Some quiet moment which he, as a disciple, 
 could command. 
 Thirty pieces of silver! Was that the price they 
 
 put on Jesus? | 
 
 _ Rather, it was the price they put upon Judas! 
 \ He could be bought cheap. 
 
 I do not think he really bargained for money. 
 
 -Had he done so, he could have screwed them up | 
 
 so easily to many times the price. They wanted:-to 
 be rid of Jesus at any cost. As it was, they bought 
 the Master for a slave’s purchase. I think in his 
 dark bitterness, Judas would have taken anything 
 or nothing. The actual bargain no doubt was sug- 
 gested by the Priests. Jt bound the man! 
 
 It is a poor, poor view to think that Judas sold 
 Jesus for cash alone. His, like ours, was a com- 
 plex soul, and had many motives. If money was 
 one thread of the piece, it was only a thread. I 
 think that in his sullen anger, he hardly listened to 
 the talk of the priests. He nodded his head. What 
 did it matter? . . . If money had been his sole 
 desire, he would have played for higher stakes: 
 and in the end, his money would have satisfied him. 
 It always does. People who sell big things for 
 
 « 
 
THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 189 
 
 blood-money ask big prices: and at the last, their 
 money is their solace. It heals regrets. 
 
 But Judas at the end threw the clattering coins 
 on the Temple floor. They hurt him like a curse. 
 And then his dead body kept his dead soul company. 
 
 After the bargain, he rejoined the circle of 
 disciples. With what thoughts—a wolf in sheep’s 
 clothing! 
 
 As yet, no one save Jesus suspected the man. 
 The others had too much love for Him to believe 
 that any of their number could bear such malice. 
 As for Judas himself, he kept his own dark coun- 
 sel. Secret sin makes all of us accomplished “ 
 actors. God alone knows what distorted thoughts 
 and obscure motives chased themselves through his 
 twisted brain! 
 
 Meanwhile, all through that sacred meal, his 
 ears were open wide to catch any hints of plans 
 and appointments. Something first-hand for the 
 Priests! 
 
 In his brooding and revengeful soul the purpose 
 was now so deliberate and sullen, that all Christ’s 
 striving could not touch him, It was not the sin 
 of one rash moment, quickly done and quickly re- 
 gretted. That we could understand and forgive. 
 But it sprang from a kind of dour and disappointed 
 vengefulness, that watches its chance like a bird 
 of prey. 
 
 But unknown to him, other eyes, kindly eyes, 
 
190 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 
 
 were reading his sullen soul. E,ver since that inci- 
 dent of the penitent woman who had lavished her 
 
 ointment on the Saviour, Jesus had been watching 
 this man with pity and concern. Now, He sees 
 that the silent processes have ripened, and_ that 
 Judas has cast the die in his own mind. 
 
 It is one thing to be tempted: it is another thing 
 to fall. 
 
 Now that he has fallen, now that the temptation 
 is accepted, Jesus can deal with him. 
 
 Vv 
 
 How did Jesus deal with him? 
 
 In the first place, all through their long com- 
 munion together, He had treated the disciple with 
 the same courtesy and favour as He had extended 
 to the others. At that time, remember, Judas was 
 aman of promise. He was as honourable as his 
 own name,—before he ruined that ancient name 
 for ever. 
 
 Further, when the crisis came and the mob for- 
 sook Him, Judas was equally in the counsels of 
 Jesus. Our Lord must have seen that some at 
 least of His disciples were tempted to leave Him, 
 for He asked “ Will ye also go away?” But in 
 the end, Judas stuck with the rest and remained in 
 the inner circle of twelve, to whom the Lord 
 opened up the deep things of His ministry. 
 
 Then towards the end, when the time was ripe, 
 the Master began to speak more pointedly of His 
 
THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 191 
 
 death. ‘This definite acceptance of the cross was 
 the last straw for Judas. He had no use for a 
 Christ like that. The other disciples, equally with 
 him, had possessed crude ideas of the Messiah. 
 “Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right 
 hand and one on the left hand, in thy glory.” But 
 Judas was a Jew, a passionate loyalist Jew, from 
 the Judean village of Kerioth. His expectations 
 had been deeper and more bigoted. When Christ 
 proved a broken reed for their narrow desires, the 
 others by this time had formed a personal attach- 
 ment to Jesus that took the place of their vanished 
 hopes. A love for the Master, a real friendship, 
 an undefined belief in Him apart from His pro- 
 gramme! But Judas evidently had nothing of this. 
 When his hopes collapsed, there was no personal 
 love to take their place and hold his loyalty. He 
 lost himself in his own disappointed bitterness. 
 
 How did Jesus treat this new development ? 
 
 By open and covert warnings that would have 
 touched and turned another man! . . . Youask, 
 “Why nothing stronger? Were there no means 
 more effective than this?” 
 
 The only method that Christ ever took with any 
 soul, Judas or another, was reasonable spiritual 
 persuasion. He laid Himself and His message in 
 the hands of men, and left the decision with them. 
 If influence, warning, and appeal could do nothing 
 to turn Judas from his treachery, Christ could use 
 
192 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 
 
 nothing else This was in line with the strict 
 spiritual programme defined in the desert. 
 
 He might have cut him adrtft. 
 
 He might have disnussed him from the company. 
 ’ He might have used force and restraint. 
 
 But none of these was really possible, if Jesus 
 were to be true to His own ideal. You may urge 
 that He knew the character of Judas and that 
 Satan was seeking him! But He knew the char- 
 acter of Peter, and that Satan was seeking him! 
 In one sense, Peter’s character was a more danger- 
 ous and explosive thing than that of Judas. Should 
 Jesus therefore have cut Peter adrift, lest the lower 
 elements in him triumphed? 
 
 So far, the point to remember about Judas,—as 
 _ it is the point to remember about any man—is that 
 
 up to the last he was saveable, as saveable as Peter. 
 And if anything could save him, it was the gracious 
 Winning and appealing conduct of Jesus, as shown 
 during these last days. That saved Peter: and it 
 could have saved him. 
 
 VI 
 
 Than Christ’s conduct during the Supper itself 
 could anything be more winning? 
 
 To begin with, there was that silent sermon in 
 drama, the Washing of the disciples’ feet. If ever 
 vaulting ambition and angry passion were rebuked, 
 it was there. If ever the nobility of lowly service 
 was evidenced, it was there. But more! For while 
 
THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 193 
 
 He was engaged in this menial office—a great 
 rebuke to all the contentious disciples—He gave 
 Judas a strong personal warning. As He washed 
 their feet, He said, “ Ye are all clean.” Then He 
 added, “ But not all.” I think He said these words 
 as He was on His knees before Judas. “ But not 
 all.’ At least we can be quite certain that nobody 
 but Judas would understand the meaning of these 
 cryptic words. It was Christ’s kindness of heart 
 that purposely made them cryptic. Had he been 
 impressionable, Judas would have felt the sword 
 ‘beneath the velvet. 
 
 Would it influence him, if he knew that Jesus 
 knew? It would influence you and me! 
 
 This passed. 
 
 Then Jesus tried him from another angle. 
 
 We read that as He pondered on all that lay 
 before Him—the hour was gathering fast—His 
 soul became deeply moved. He saw a shadow of 
 the cross athwart the table. Out of His emotion, 
 forgetting Himself and remembering the hapless 
 traitor—indeed, speaking to none but the traitor— 
 He said, “ Verily, verily I say unto you, that one 
 of you shall betray me.” Could warning and 
 pleading be plainer? 
 
 Yes, it could. 
 
 For He turned at once and made the spiritual 
 issues clear. ‘‘ Woe to that man by whom the Son 
 of Man is betrayed.” And then, like a knell, 
 
194 THE DILEMMA WITH $UDAS | 
 
 “ Good were it for that man if he had never been — 
 born.” . . . If Judas resists pleading, he shali — 
 at least know the bitter fruit of his acts. This is 
 the nearest approach to a warning curse that Jesus 
 ever uttered! 
 
 Perhaps He can yet frighten Judas from his evil? 
 
 In Christ’s gentle way, everything was made — 
 abundantly plain to Judas, but kept delicately cov- 
 ered from the others. So covered indeed that it 
 threw the group into blank amazement! They 
 even began to wonder if they themselves, in spite 
 of themselves, could ever betray Him. 
 
 Urged by the others, John, lying at Christ’s 
 right hand, leant back his head till it touched 
 Christ’s breast and whispered, “ Lord, who is it? ” 
 And Jesus whispered back, “ He to whom I shall 
 give the sop.” . . . When He had dipped the 
 sop, He gave it to Judas Iscariot the son of 
 Simon. 
 
 I ask you to remember that this conversation 
 had been whispered. Otherwise, there were some 
 hot souls there—such a fire-brand as Peter—who 
 would never have let Judas leave that room alive! 
 
 It was whispered. 
 
 Judas knew nothing of the private meaning of 
 that sop. Except this—that it was the sop of 
 honour! ‘The others, jealous children, would 
 glower at him when Jesus thus honoured the man 
 of Kerioth. This indeed was the mark of the 
 highest distinctionn—that the host of a feast 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 195 
 
 should single out the “great guest’’ and honour 
 him thus. 
 
 What did this mean? 
 
 Remember the by-play between Jesus and the 
 traitor. Had the heart of Judas been less set and 
 less hard, he would have seen that the Lord, though 
 knowing his treachery, was yet willing to receive 
 him back, and let by-gones be by-gones. This sop 
 of honour, if we may use the term, is Christ’s 
 great “bid” for the loyalty of Judas! 
 
 It was a silent appeal to honour. 
 
 But all that was puzzling Judas at the moment 
 was just the remaining shred of doubt whether 
 Jesus really did know that he was planning treach- 
 ery. Did He know? Or was He only talking in 
 general terms? 
 
 Did He know? 
 
 So taking his courage in both hands, he resolved 
 to settle the doubt. Being the treasurer of the party 
 and one in high honour, he was seated near the 
 Master. Leaning forward, he asked in an under- 
 
 _ tone, drowned by the general heated conversation, 
 
 . 
 : 
 
 
 
 the same question that the others had asked. 
 “Rabbi, is it I?” Jesus turned to him and an- 
 swered, also in a whisper, “ Thou hast said.” 
 
 His villainy was known. 
 
 Would this stop him, if he saw that Christ knew 
 
 and yet forgave? It would break me down. 
 
 It failed. 
 

 
 196 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 
 
 A few moments’ silence! Jesus was giving him 
 his last chance. ‘These few moments are as dra- 
 matic as any in human history. 
 
 Suddenly Jesus turned. 
 
 The first note of sternness creeps into His voice. 
 Aloud now, that all might hear Him, He says to 
 Judas, “That thou doest, do quickly.” If your 
 heart is set on this, I cannot stay you. Do your 
 heart’s errand! 
 
 The innocent disciples, unconscious of that per- 
 sonal dialogue between Jesus and Judas, imagined 
 that the Lord had given him, as treasurer, some 
 command or duty—perhaps bread for tomorrow, 
 or alms for the poor. . . . Otherwise, I repeat, 
 with such a fire-brand as Peter, Judas might not 
 have left the room alive! 
 
 It is plain, I trust, that Jesus in His love for 
 Judas strove with him in searching spiritual ways 
 for his own soul. More He could not do. So far 
 as force was concerned, from the earliest day, He 
 had resolved to be as clay in the potter’s hand. 
 Had He resorted to strong ways, now or later in 
 Pilate’s court, He might, in His own words, have 
 called down hosts from above. But if He had done 
 that, He would have succumbed to the precise 
 Temptation which He had once settled in the 
 Desert. Force for His own ends! 
 
 Thus, to all spiritual striving, Judas was cold as 
 iron. If we re-read these scenes, we shall see how 
 
 
 
THE DILEMMA WITH ¥UDAS 197 
 
 our Lord tried to touch and win him in every loving 
 way. But at the end, when tenderness had done 
 its work in vain, there was only one thing left to 
 say, “ That thou doest, do quickly.” 
 God cannot save a man who will not be saved. 
 He that will damn himself, let him be damned. 
 
 VII 
 
 This is the defeat of Jesus,—a soul He could 
 not win. 
 
 Then came the dramatic departure. Judas rose 
 from his couch and walked from the room. The 
 door slammed. I can hear it now. “ And it was 
 night.” Night around him, and a darker, deeper 
 night within. 
 
 Knowing that Jesus was going to the Garden, 
 the traitor went post-haste to the priests, and from 
 them collected a rabble of retainers and soldiers to 
 effect the arrest. Even now they feared this man 
 of power! So they came with swords and staves to 
 beat Him down! 
 
 But as they trudged through the silent streets, 
 someone called out in the darkness, “Stay! Stay! 
 How shall we know this Nazarene when we meet 
 Him? None of us has ever seen Him face to face.” 
 
 This was indeed a knotty point. 
 
 “ How shall we know Him? It would be tragic, 
 after all this preparation, if we blundered in the 
 dark and brought back the wrong prisoner!” 
 
198 THE DILEMMA WITH FUDAS 
 
 Judas thought quickly. 
 
 Holding up his hand, he stopped the straggling 
 mob. “None of you know this man: and the 
 night is dark. When we draw near, I shall give 
 you a sign. Listen! The man whom you must 
 seizeis . . . the man whom I will kiss.” 
 
 They nodded their heads in the darkness, and 
 passed the word along the line. 
 
 “Tt is the man whom he will kiss.” 
 
 
 
XII 
 THE LAST DILEMMA 
 
 NG MUR Lord’s life is like a sublime piece of 
 | music through which, as a motif, there 
 ; runs one steady haunting refrain. It is 
 AS | always there, and most there when un- 
 Boat That refrain may be expressed in these 
 words, “If only men would believe in Me! If 
 only men would accept me as Lord and King!” 
 We know that this was Christ’s passion and 
 prayer. A personal faith was the one claim He 
 made upon men, all men. Wherever He found 
 such faith, He rejoiced openly. Wherever it was 
 lacking, the very virtue seemed to dry up within 
 Him. He could do nothing without our faith. 
 
 
 
 On the one hand, we remember with what pecu- 
 liar joy He greeted any exhibition of human faith, 
 especially if it came from unexpected and unlikely 
 quarters. He praised that Roman centurion be- 
 cause the man’s trust was deeper than any He had 
 found even in Israel. He healed that woman who 
 crept forward through the jostling crowd and 
 touched the hem of His garment, because though 
 her faith may have been ignorant and superstitious, 
 it was yet deep and real It is a joy to know that 
 
 199 
 
200 THE LAST DILEMMA 
 
 amid many rebuffs from those who should have 
 received Him with enthusiasm but who only re- 
 garded Him with slanting eyes, He had gracious 
 instances of adoring trust among simple people that 
 gave Him abiding happiness. We praise God for 
 all those,—often humble souls—who brought joy 
 to His heart. 
 
 On the other hand, we remember how it hurt, 
 worse than the thrust of a knife, when the people 
 who should have welcomed His as a friend and 
 ally, treated Him with doubt and scorn. 
 
 The official leaders of religion, for instance— 
 the Priests and the Scribes—treated Him as an 
 outcast, and thereby gave Him His deepest pain. 
 “He came unto His own, and His own received 
 Him not.” He might have expected better things 
 from these people of privilege. But privilege may 
 be as much of a curse, as a blessing. Where He 
 might have expected faith, He found only narrow 
 bitterness and vicious hostility. 
 
 In the same way, in His own village and coun- 
 tryside, He could do nothing notable. His towns 
 men considered that they knew Him too well to 
 believe that He could be a prophet! “ He did not 
 many mighty works there, because of their unbe- 
 lief.” I do not think we realise sufficiently how 
 much His rejections must have hurt His soul. We — 
 can only realise this by seeing how openly He re- 
 joiced when He met faith in unexpected quarters. 
 The one side throws light on the other. 
 
a 
 THE LAST DILEMMA 201 
 
 Thus, from first to last, Christ’s dream was to 
 awaken and command faith,—faith in His message 
 and Himself. If only He could win their faith! 
 That is the refrain that runs through His life and 
 ministry. 
 
 This was such a ruling passion in His heart that 
 He had been tempted at times to use less worthy 
 means to secure it. That bitter scene in the Desert 
 is sufficient proof of this. There, in contest with 
 His own soul, He had debated various possibilities 
 how He might attract and grip the faith of His 
 generation. How could He doit? He felt that it 
 was almost worth anything to secure this. 
 
 In the end, as we know, He settled His own 
 God-like course. He chose to honour both God and 
 man by laying God’s truth plainly before man’s 
 reason; and on the other hand, He refused to use 
 any charlatan methods that would either dominate 
 or paralyse human faith or assent. 
 
 But it is good to remember that He had been 
 deeply tempted to win this faith at any cost! His 
 victory in the Temptation lay in His glorious de- 
 cision that some costs were too dear! 
 
 If men would only believe in Him? 
 
 I 
 
 He is now on the Cross. 
 We do not grasp some of the deeper meanings 
 
 of this scene, if we do not remember that the same 
 
 refrain runs through it. “If men would only be- 
 
202 THE LAST DILEMMA 
 
 lieve.”’ That is as much the refrain of His death 
 as the refrain of His life. In fact, as we know 
 now, the cross was His last bid for human love 
 and faith. 
 
 They had taken Him in the Garden by the arti- 
 fice of Judas. They had led Him away like a 
 captured criminal. They had tried Him,—if you 
 may call it a trial—before the High Priests, the 
 Sanhedrin, and Pilate. In the end, the Roman 
 Ruler, badgered from pillar to post and threatened 
 with vindictive complaints to Caesar, had weakly 
 given in to the clamour of the mob. He had deliv- 
 ered Him into their hands. A sport for ribaldry! 
 
 It was an age that knew little mercy. It was an 
 age so little disciplined or law-abiding, that it pur- 
 posely invented excruciating public forms of death 
 to act as a restraining fear upon the people. Per- 
 haps we wince at their barbaric ways, and wonder 
 if they are bone of our bone. But it is not many 
 years, is it, since we too used to hang our highway- 
 men on a gibbet at the cross-roads? Also for a 
 warning to evil-doers! 
 
 I do not speak of the pain of the Cross. I think 
 we dwell too much on the pain of the Cross. Cer- 
 tain Churches at least do... . As we have seen 
 in an earlier chapter, our Lord’s greatest pain was 
 not physical, but mental and spiritual. It was the 
 mental pain of such a death, for such an end, that 
 tore His heart. From the angle of mere pain, 
 
 
 
 So ae a S a ae eS - = 
 
 
 
THE LAST DILEMMA 203 
 
 many a martyr has suffered more. But no one has 
 ever suffered the spiritual agony of Jesus when He 
 gave Himself a ransom for many. 
 
 “They that passed by reviled Hum, wagging 
 their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the 
 Temple.” 
 
 It is not for us to judge the morals of a past 
 age by the morals of our own. Therefore we must 
 accept without undue comment the remark in our 
 records that they mocked and gibed at Him on His 
 throne of a cross. It is easy for us, reared in 
 gentler days only made possible by Jesus, to call 
 them devils incarnate, and to gasp at their depravity 
 and barbarism. But if we live in a changed world 
 today, with purer mercy, the credit is not ours. 
 The credit belongs eternally to that silent figure on 
 the cross. For in deeper ways than we know, His 
 death has been the life of the world. 
 
 One of these gibes, now historic, must have 
 struck Jesus worse than a blow. ‘The Chief 
 Priests—men of privilege but not above the level 
 of the other jesters—cried out, “Let Christ, the 
 King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that 
 we may see and believe.” 
 
 “That we may believe.” It is His own old re- 
 frain echoed mockingly. 
 
 How it must have hurt! 
 
 When Jesus heard it, I can imagine that He shut 
 
204 THE LAST DILEMMA 
 
 His eyes and pictured Himself for a moment back — 
 in the Desert. He could readily recall the scene 
 of agony: it was graven on His soul. Again He 
 was at the threshold of His work, with the door 
 swinging open. He was beating out its aims and 
 objects for God and Himself. Satan whispered in 
 His ear, “ That pinnacle, Jesus! Climb it, and 
 throw yourself from the top. God will surely hold 
 you up! When you drop lightly on your feet, safe 
 and unshaken, you will dazzle the people and com- 
 mand their instant belief. The pinnacle, Jesus! If 
 you do that, you will win their belief in you, as 
 Messiah.” 
 
 That they may believe! 
 
 The point and appeal of that old temptation 
 had lain here, that it offered Him straightaway 
 a world that believed in Him and His claims. If 
 He could start with the people’s faith, what 
 might He not do? The agony of the temptation 
 lay in this that though it was the lower road, 
 it seemed to lead more immediately to the high 
 goal. It chimed in with His own dreams—a 
 world that believed in Him, and a world that He 
 could therefore redeem. At that moment in the 
 Desert, He wondered if any means that could 
 bring the world to God might not be justified. He 
 would have done anything—almost anything—to 
 win their belief. 
 
 If only He could get the world to believe in His 
 message! 
 
THE LAST DILEMMA 205 
 
 The scene has changed. It is no longer the 
 
 Desert but the Cross. Yet the temptation is 
 
 the same. 
 
 Listen! 
 
 “ Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from 
 the cross, that we may see and believe.” 
 
 As these words reached His ears, they were more 
 
 than a cruel taunt. They suggested, in a flashing 
 _ temptation, a last glorious possibility! Here in this 
 
 dramatic moment, surrounded by these gaping 
 crowds, He was offered a unique chance. If by 
 God’s great power He now chose to avail Himself 
 of the resources of Almighty God, He might use 
 this occasion to win an unimpeachable belief. 
 Hereafter, no one could ever deny that He was the 
 messenger of God! If the Father were now made 
 manifest in this startling and convincing fashion, 
 every soul now before Him would be struck dumb 
 with awe and holy fear. God would be glorified. 
 God’s power and truth would be established. Jesus 
 would now command the adoring faith of a smit- 
 ten world. 
 
 I said an unimpeachable belief. But would it be 
 unimpeachable ? 
 
 Would they believe if He worked this last dra- 
 matic dénouement? Even at the last, would they 
 believe? 
 
 Perhaps . . . if He . . . what a unique 
 chance! 
 
 It is the old temptation in a more dramatic form. 
 
206 THE LAST DILEMMA — 
 
 X. 
 
 And remember, Satan can often speak by the mouth 
 of a High Priest. 
 
 II 
 
 I hold that this presents us with Christ’s last 
 dilemma. The appeal of it lies in that mocking cry 
 “That we may believe.” 
 
 What would He do? 
 
 On the one hand, we have His own conviction 
 that He actually possessed all the power of God. 
 If you care, you may deny that He had this power: 
 but you cannot deny that He believed He had it. 
 Even in the Court-room before Pilate, He stated 
 that He could call down, if need be, all the hosts of 
 God to His service. He was conscious of God’s 
 peculiar power within Him, in ways that we can- 
 not grasp. Whatever He believed, He believed at 
 
 least in His own power. 
 
 Suppose for a moment—do not think it wild or 
 ridiculous—suppose for a moment, that Christ did 
 call upon God. Suppose—‘ that we may believe” 
 —He claimed God’s majesty in awful ways, and 
 implored: God, to whom all things are possible, to 
 focus in Him at that moment all the mysterious 
 spiritual resources that we feel around us. Suppose 
 He did summon the eternal might of eternal God 
 to His side in this dread moment! 
 
 “Come down, that we may believe,” they cried. 
 If, as He Himself trusted, Christ could really 
 
 
 
 | 
 | 
 | 
 } 
 | 
 
a  ,,,,,,,,,,,,, —— 
 THE LAST DILEMMA 207 
 
 “ command ” God and could effect by God’s power 
 what we foolishly call a miracle—a name that only 
 cloaks our ignorance of unseen things—this was a 
 dramatic moment. The plea was surely one that 
 would touch and draw our Lord’s heart. A dream 
 of a believing world! 
 
 Suppose then for one fierce moment that the 
 mocking taunt of the Priests touched Him! 
 Suppose that He summoned the Almighty Power 
 of God! Suppose that He came down from 
 the cross. 
 
 “That we may believe.” 
 
 The taunt has hardly passed from their lips. 
 The jeer is still twisting their faces. 
 
 Then the great thing happened! 
 
 They looked. . . . Amazement carved the 
 jeer into frozen wrinkles on their faces, like the 
 grin on a gargoyle. Their eyes stood glazed with 
 terror. 
 
 The cross was empty. 
 
 O God, the cross was empty! 
 
 And there beside them, with the red holes in His 
 hands, stood the man whom they had mocked. 
 
 “That we may believe,” they had said. 
 
 Would they have believed? ‘The only conceiv- 
 able motive that might have influenced Christ’s 
 heart was His desire to convince the world. Would 
 He have convinced the world? 
 
208 THE LAST DILEMMA 
 
 1. In the first place, the Priests would not have 
 believed. 
 
 Neither would I. 
 
 They and I might have believed that Jesus was 
 a man of magic and could do marvellous things: 
 but His descent from the cross would not have 
 helped either them or me one whit to believe in His 
 essential message, that God is love. 
 
 It would have proved, I admit, that God is 
 power! But we knew that already. The whole 
 visible world is a testimony to that. The stars in 
 their courses: the swinging spheres: the mystery 
 of growth: the miracle of life: if any man can live 
 amid these things and not know that God is power, 
 he is a fool. We do not need an outré thing like 
 this descent from the cross to publish or prove the 
 might and the majesty of God. 
 
 But nothing of Christ’s essential message about 
 God’s heart and God’s redemption could have been 
 proved by any display of magical force. Indeed, 
 it would have been the reverse. He would have 
 dazzled the people: He would have struck them 
 stupid with gross astonishment: He would have 
 had them gaping open-mouthed at Him as if He 
 were a freak. But no juggler’s trick would ever 
 induce any sane man to believe in the real mes- 
 sage of the heart of God. There is only one 
 thing in this world that can prove and establish 
 love. And that is sacrifice! It is the only proof 
 of love. As He hung there on the cross He was 
 
THE LAST DILEMMA 209 
 
 proving it now. To descend would have been to 
 disprove it! 
 That is why He died! 
 
 
 
 Long ago, in speaking to the people, Jesus had 
 -answered His own dilemma. 
 He had been telling them a story of a rich man 
 -and a poor man called Lazarus. When the rich 
 man died, he descended into Satan’s kingdom. In 
 the story, Jesus tells how this rich man besought 
 Abraham to send a messenger to earth to warn the 
 man’s brothers, lest they should come to an end 
 like his. Send some one that they may be fore- 
 warned in time, and may repent and _ believe. 
 (“That they may believe.”) But Abraham re- 
 plied, “They have Moses and the prophets—all 
 that anybody else has!—let them hear them.” But 
 the man said, “ Nay, father Abraham: but if one 
 went to them from the dead, they will repent.” 
 And Abraham said unto him, “If they hear not 
 Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per- 
 suaded, though one rose from the dead.” 
 Aye,, though one descended from the cross! 
 Even that would not lead them to believe! 
 2. Miracles do not establish truth. ae) 
 That is why Jesus never wrought them, except 
 for sheer mercy’s sake. All the miracles in the 
 world would not have proved Him to be the mes- 
 senger of God’s love. For all that a miracle proves 
 
210 THE LAST DILEMMA 
 
 is itself, nothing more. It is pitiable to see how 
 some people quote the miracles of Jesus as if they 
 proved that He is the messenger of God’s truth. 
 The miracles do not prove Him: He proves the 
 miracles. 
 
 For instance, a man makes a statement to me 
 which he sees that I do not credit. Then he 
 adds, “In order to prove that what I say is true, 
 I shall now work a miracle. I shall put up my 
 right hand, and catch hold of that star. Then 
 when I have shown you it lying, nestling like an 
 egg, in my hand, I shall whistle it back to its old 
 place. There! Now, when you have seen that, 
 do you believe me? Do you believe that what I 
 say is true?” 
 
 And all I could do would be to shake my head 
 and say, “ My dear sir, though you could juggle 
 with a million suns and stars, that would not prove 
 that what you say is true. It only proves that you 
 are a juggler. That is all!” 
 
 A thing can only be proved true in one way— 
 by being proved true! A man might work a thou- 
 sand miracles, and yet be a first-class liar. 
 
 And Christ’s message of the love of the redeem- 
 ing heart of God would not have been established 
 though He had descended from the cross ten times 
 instead of once. It would have proved—what I 
 knew already—that God holds all power in His 
 hands. But it would not have proved that He has 
 all love in His heart! 
 
 Ce I ee ee ee ee ee 
 
 
 
 
 
THE LAST DILEMMA 211 
 
 3. Jesus had settled this precise temptation for 
 Himself years ago. 
 
 He had settled it, as I showed, in the Desert. 
 There He had debated with Himself how He might 
 win the world for God. Could He win it by force? 
 Or by clap-trap? Or by dazzling it into worship? 
 
 In His own extreme agony, He had settled that 
 He must win it by ordinary means,—by reason, by 
 argument, by pleading, by teaching, by service. He 
 had emptied Himself of all other power, and He 
 stood forth declaring the simple message of God’s 
 love. That, and that only. 
 
 But more! He actually believed that He could * 
 
 prove God’s love best by His own sacrifice. If 
 therefore, in the midst of His sacrifice, He used 
 God’s power to astonish and dazzle men, His sacri- 
 fice would be a plain farce. Having once put 
 Himself in the hands of men, He must leave Him- 
 self there. 
 
 So He settled His last dilemma. 
 
 They cried to Him, “ Come down, that we may 
 believe.”’ 
 
 Thou knowest, O God, how much He wanted 
 them to believe! It was the burning passion of 
 His life. But He would not have them believe in 
 Him, just because He could juggle with miracles 
 or because He could ascend or descend from the 
 cross, as if it were a Jacob’s ladder. 
 
 I never accept Jesus because of His miracles. 
 Do you? I accept His miracles because of Him. 
 
 x 
 
gaa Te THE LAST DILEMMA 
 
 \/ He is the biggest miracle of all, and greater than 
 any deed He ever wrought. 
 
 And it is here that I see the miracle of Him 
 supremely. ‘That He, so conscious within Him 
 of all the coursing power of God, gave Himself 
 into the hands of men and died on a cross for me! 
 
 They cried aloud for the miracle of power. They 
 did not know they were seeing the greater miracle 
 of love. 
 
 “ He gave Himself a ransom for many.” 
 
 I believe in Him today not in spite of, but be- 
 cause of, that cross at which they jeered. 
 
 III 
 
 The sublimity of His sacrifice is shown in one 
 little incident of that last hour. 
 
 As they prepared Him for His cross, they 
 brought Him a drink of myrrh and wine. This 
 represented a type of rough mercy. ‘The drink 
 acted as a kind of mild anzsthetic, and helped to 
 drug the pain. In a merciless age, it was a_ 
 symptom of redeeming thoughtfulness. 
 
 We read that when He had tasted it, He refused 
 to drink. 
 
 Why? 
 
 We know that it would have deadened His pain, 
 and helped to relieve Him of some little part of 
 His suffering. Why did He put aside this 
 kindly cup? 
 
 Because He had already accepted another cup. 
 
THE LAST DILEMMA 213 
 
 He had taken it into His hands in the Garden of 
 Pain. The Father’s cup! And He now resolved, 
 in the majesty of His sacrifice, to die with un- 
 clouded senses and carry His load with an un- 
 dimmed mind. 
 
 “Come down from the cross, that we may see 
 and believe.” 
 
 How could one who accepted the cross as God’s 
 Will, dream of evading it thus? At this stage, He 
 could only command the world’s belief by bearing 
 the world’s cross. 
 
 This is the last phase of His dilemma settled. 
 
 He gave Himself now with an unclouded soul 
 into the arms of God. 
 
 “It is finished.” 
 
 And He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost. 
 
 THE END 
 
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