He must have often felt
ashamed at the treatment He received during His life of humiliation, as
it is well called; and He must often have felt ashamed of His disciples:
but all that is blotted out by the crowning shame of the cross. We hang
our worst criminals rather than behead or shoot them, in order to heap up
the utmost possible shame and disgrace upon them, as well as to execute
justice upon them. And what the hangman's rope is in our day, all that
the cross was in our Lord's day. And, then, as if the cross itself was
not shame enough, all the circumstances connected with His cross were
planned and carried out so as to heap the utmost possible shame and
humiliation upon His head. Our prison warders have to watch the
murderers in their cells night and day, lest they should take their own
life in order to escape the hangman's rope; but our Lord, keenly as He
felt His coming shame, said to His horrified disciples, Behold, we go up
to Jerusalem, when the Son of Man shall be mocked, and spitefully
entreated, and spitted on; and they shall scourge Him and put Him to
death.
Pages:
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233