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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Following the Christ (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 42. Calvary
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Calvary
Then came the morrow. The experience of Calvary came hard on the heels of Gethsemane. The pain of spirit became both pain of body and pain of spirit, intensified clear beyond what the night before had anticipated. How shall I trust myself to speak of that morrow, or you to listen? Yet, let us hold still, and, for a great purpose, look at it again, if only for a moment, that the meaning of it, the flame of it may take fresh hold, and consume us anew.
Gethsemane was followed by a sleepless night, while bitter hate brought its utmost iniquity and persistence to hound this Man to death. Nine, of the next morning, found Him hanging, nailed on the cross, crowned with the cruel mocking thorn crown. From nine till three He hung, while the strange darkness came down over all nature from noon till three, the blackness of midnight shutting out the brightness of noon. The Father's presence was withdrawn. This tells the bitterness of the cross for Jesus as does nothing else.
It was out of a breaking heart that the cry was wrung, "My God, My God, why didst Thou forsake Me?" When you can penetrate that darkness you may be able to tell how really Jesus took our place, and suffered as sin for us,—not before. Then with a great shout of victory He gave up His life. His great heart broke. He died. He died literally of a broken heart. The walls of that muscle were burst asunder by the terrific strain on His spirit.
He died for us. He who so easily held off the murderous mob with their stones, now holds Himself to that cross,—for us. This is the Calvary experience. It can be felt, but never explained fully; words fail. It can be yielded to until our hearts are melted to sobs, but never fully told in its tenderness and strength to others. It can bring us down on knees and face at His feet as His love-slaves for ever,—so is its story best told to others. That breaking heart breaks ours. That pierced side pierces through all our stubborn resistance. That face haunts us. Its scars tell of sin, ours. Its patient eyes tell of love, His. Was there ever such sin? Was there ever such love? Was there ever such a meeting of sin and purity, of love and hate, of God's best and Satan's worst?
Surely there can be no following here! And, strange to say, the answer is both a "no," with a double underscoring of emphasis, and a "yes," that will come to have a like emphatic underlining. No, there can be no following. Here, He is the Lone Man who went before. And He remains the Lone Man in what He did, and in the extent of His suffering. There is only one Calvary. There was only the One whose death could settle the sin score for us men. It is only by His death for our sin that there is any way out of our sore plight of sin, and sin's own result. There the Lord Jesus did something that had to be done, for the Father's sake; there He broke the slavery of our sin; there He broke our hearts by His love. There He stands utterly alone in what He did. Calvary has no duplicate, nor ever can have. That is the emphatic "no" side of the answer. There can be no following on that road.
And yet,—and yet, there can be. There is a "yes" side to the true, full answer. There will be a Calvary experience for every one who really follows. His was the Calvary experience, ours is a Calvary experience. It does not mean what His meant for the world. But it enters into the marrow of our very being, and means everything to us. It means that as I really follow there will come to me experiences of sacrifice that will take the very life of my life—if I do not pull back, but persist on following the beckoning hand. And it means too, that there will be in a secondary, a minor sense, a redemptive value in my suffering. That suffering will be a real thing in completing the work of some man's redemption.
Listen to Paul. He has been writing to the Corinthian Christians in much detail, of the suffering he has been going through of both body and spirit, and then he adds, "so then death working in me worketh life in you." (2Co_4:12.) The same thought underlies that wonderful bit of tender, tactful pleading in the eleventh and twelfth chapters of the same letter. The same thing is put in a rather startling way in the epistle to the Colossians, (Col_1:24.) "I... fill up on my part, in my flesh, that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for His body's sake, which is the Church."
This fits in with the thought in that word "began" in the beginning of the book of Acts. (1Co_15:3-4.) In a very real sense our Lord depends upon our faithful following to supplement among men the great thing which only He could do. Paul knew a Calvary experience, and Peter and John, and so has, and will, every one who follows the pierced hand that beckons. Ask Horace Tracey Pitkin at Paotingfu if he understands this. And the China soil wet with his blood gives answer, and so do the lives of those who were won to Christ through such suffering throughout China. Ask David Livingstone away in the inner heart of Africa, and those whom no man can number in every nation, who have known this sort of thing by a bitter, sweet experience, some by violence, some by the yet more difficult daily giving out of the life in hidden away corners.