Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1888 — A CROSS WE MUST BEAR. [ARTICLE]

A CROSS WE MUST BEAR.

tHESCARS AND THE AGONIES OF CRUCIFIXION, Sermon Delivered i»t Brooklyn TnborwnMe on Snernmoutnl by , the Kev. T. l>e Witt Tnlmage. Dr,, Talinfge took for his text the passage: “Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me can not l>e mv disciple.’ —Luke xiv., 27. He said: The cross was a gibbet on w hich criminals were put to death. It was sometimes made in the shape of the letter T, sometimes in the shape of the letter X, sometimes in the shajK* of the letter I—a simple upright;, sometimes two cross pieces placed against a perpendicular bar so that upon the lower cross piece the Criminal partially sat. Hut, whatever the style of cross, it was always disgraceful and always agonizing. But in all the forest of crosses on the hills and in tile valleys of the earth -there is one cross that attracts more attention than any other. It is not higher t han the others, it is not made out of different wood, there is nothing peculiar in the notch at w hich the two pieces are joined, and as to the scene, they witnessed crucifixions every, few w eeks, so that I see a reckless man walking about tiie hill and kicking carelessly aside a skull, and wondering who the villain was whir hail so flat and misshapen a head; and here is another skull, and there on the. hillside is another skull. Indeed, the Bible says it was “a place of skulls.” But about the victim on one of these crosses all ages are crying: “Who is He? Was He a man? Was He a Clod? Was He man and God?” Through the darkness of that gloomy day I come close up enough to tde cross to see who it is. It is Jesus.- • How did lie come there? Had He come up on the top of the hill to look off upon the beautiful landscape or upon a brilliant sunset? No. He came there ill and exhausted. People sometimes wonder why Uhrist expired so quickly on the cross — in six or seven hours—while other victims- have been on tho cross for fortyeight hours before life was extinct. . I will tell you the reason. He was exhausted when He came there. He had been scourged. We are horrified at the cruelties of the whipping* post, but those cruelties were mercy as compared with the scourging of Jesus Uhrist. But that, my-frienthtywas beforrUhrist had started for, Calvary. That was only t lie whipping. Are you ready for‘your journey to the cross? The carpenters have split the timber inky two-pieces. They-" are htyjVv. 'u# they are Tong pieces, for one of them must be fastened deep down into the earth iest the struggling of the victim upset the structure. They put this timber on the shoulder of Christ very gradually, first, to see whether He can stand it, and after they find He can stand it, they put the whole weight upon Him. Forward, now, to Calvary! The hooting and the veiling mob follow on. Under the weight of the cross, being weary and sick, He stumbles and falls, and they jerk at His robe, indignant that He should have stumbled and fallen, and they cry: ,f Get up, get up!” Christ,mitring one hand ou tlie ground and the other on the cross, rises, looking into the face of Mary, Ilis mother, for sympathy; hut they tell her to stand hack, it is no place for a woman -“.Stand back and stop this crying.” Christ moves on with His burden upon His shoulders, and there is ahoy that passes along with him-r-a boy holding a mallet and a few nails. I wonder what they are for. Christ moves on until the burden is so great He staggers and falls flat into the dust and faints dead away, and a rutfiian puts his foot on Him and shakes Him as he would a dead dog, while another ruffian looks down at Him, wondering whether He lias fainted away; or whether He is only pretending to faint away, and with jeer and contempt indescribable says; “Fainted, have you? Fainted! get up! get on!” Now, thev have arrived at the foot of the hill. Off with His clothes. Shall that loathsome mob look upon the unrobed body of Christ? —Yes. The commanding officers sav: “Unfasten the girdle, take off the coat, strip Him.” The work is done. But bring back the coat, for here are the gamblers tossing up coin on the ground, saying: “Who shall have the coat?” One ruffian savs: “I have it, I have it—it is mine!” He rolls it up and puts it under his arm, or examines it to see what fabric it is made of. Then they put the cross upon the ground! and they Stretch Christ upon it, and four or five men hold Him down while they drive the spikes home, at every thump a groan, a groan! Alas! the hour passes on and the time comes when they must crucify Him.

Christ lias only one garment left now —a cap, a cap of thorns. No danger that it will fall off, for the sharp edges have punctured the temples, and it is sure and fast. One ruffian takes hold of one end of the short beam of the cross, and another ruffian takes hold of the other end of the short heiun of the cross, and another ruffian puts his arm under the waist of Christ, and another rutfian takes hold of the end of the long beam of the cross, and altogether they move on until they come to the hole digged in the earth," and with an awful plunge it jars down with its burden of woe. It is not the pictufe. of a Christ, it is not the statue of Christ, as you some? times see in a Cathedral; but it is the body of a bleeding, living, dying Christ. Thev sometimes say He had five wounds, but they have counted wrong. Two wounds for'the hands," two wounds for the feet, one wound for the side, they say, five wounds. No, they have missed the worst and, they have missed the most. Did you ever see the bramble out of which that crown of thorns was made? I saw one on a Brooklyn ferry-boat, in the hands of a gentleman who had justreturned from Palestine, a bramble just like that out of which the crown of thorns was made. O! how cruel and" liow stubborn were the thorns. And

! cap pl-thorns w,asput upon,, j Christ, and it was pressed down upon j Him, not five wounds, but ten, twenty, Ithirty- I can not count them. There were three or fourabsenees that made that scene worse. First, there was -Lhe absence >of water.- - The climate "wnsr hot, the fever, the inflammation, the nervous prostration, the gangrene had seized upon Him, and he terribly wanted water. His wounds were worse than gunshoffractures” and yet no water. A t Turk in the thirteenth, century was crucified on the banks of a river so that the sight of the water might tantalize him. And O! how the thirst of Christ must have tantalized as He thought of the Euphrates and the Jordan and the

Amazon and all the fountains of earth and heaven poured out of His own hand. They offered him an intoxicating draught made out of wine and myrrh, but he declined it. He wanted to die sober. No water. Then, my friends, there was the absence of light., Darkness always exasperates touhles. The hours passed on and it is twelve o’clock of the Savior’s suffering, and it is one o’clock, and it is two o’clock, and it is almost three o’clock. Take the- last look at that suffering face; wan and pinched,* the purple lips drawn against the teeth, thte eyes red with weeping and sunken as though- grief had pushed them back, blackness under the lower lid, the whole bodv adroop and shivering with the last chill, the breath growing feebler and feebler and until He gives one long, deep, last sigh. He Is dead. V 0! my soul, He is dead. Can you tell why? Was He a fanatic' dying for a principle that did not amount to anything? Was he a man infatuated? .No: to save your soul from sin, and mine, make eternal life possible He died. There had to be a substitute for sjn. Who shall it bei’ r “Let it be me,” said Christ; “let it fee me.” You understand the meaning of that word substitution. You were drafted for the last war; some one took your place, marched your march, suffered your wounds, and died at Gettysburg. Christ comes to us while we are fighting our battle with sin and death and hell, and He is.©ur Substitute. He marches our march, fights our battle, suffers our wounds, and dies our death. Substitution! Substitution! How do you feel in- regard to that scene described in the text and in the region around about the text? Are your sympathies aroused, or are you so dead in sin and so abandoned hv reason of your tiansgessions that you can look upon all that tearless anil unmoved? No, no;,there are thousands of people here this morning who can say in the depths of their soul; “No, no, no; if Jesus endured that-, and all that for me, I ought to love Him. 1 must love Him, I will love Him, I do love Him, II oW are you going to test your love; are you willingto bear Ilis? You say,“yes! Just tell me what I have to do and I’ll do it. lam ready to carry any cross.” Suppose I should ask you at the close of a religious service to rise up announcing yourself on the Lord’s side—could votf do it? “Oh, no!” you say, “I have a shrinking and a sensitive nature, and it fore a large assemblage announcing myself on the Lord’s side.”. Just as I feared. You cannot stand that cross. The first one that is offered you you reject, Christ carried a mountain, Christ carried a world for von, and you cannot lift an ounce for Him*. But here is a man whose cross will he to announce among his business assoeb ates to-morrow morning on Exchange that he has begun a new life; that while he wants to -be faithful in his worldly duties, he is living for another world, and he ought to advise all those who are his associates, so far as lie can influence them, to begin with him the Christian life. Could you do that, my brother? “O, no,” yousay; “not just that. I think religion is religion and business is business, and it would be impossible for me to recommend the Christian religion in places of worldly business.”... Just as I feared. There is a second cross offered you. and you cannot carry it. Christ lifted a mountain for yon; you cannot lift an ounce /or Him. . .There is some one whose cross will.be to present religion in the home circle. Would you dare to kneel down and pray if your brother and sister were looking at you? , Coulcl you ask a blessing at the tea-table? Could you take the Bible and gather your.family around you, and read of Christ, and heaven, and your immortal soul? Could you. then, kneel and pray for a blessing on your household? "Oh.” von say, “not exact lv that. I couldn't quite do that, because I have a very quick temper, and if I professed religion and tried to talk religion in liiy household, and then after that I should lose my temper they would scoff’ at me and ~say, “You are a pretty Christian!” So you are cowed down, and their sarcastn -keeps ymt ~~oiTt~ of Heaven andaway from Christ, when, under God, you ought to take vour whole family into the Kingdom. Christ lifted a mount-ain-lifted a world—for you; you can not lift an ounce for Him. 1 see how it .is; you want to be favorable to religion, you want to support Christian institutions,, you like to be associated with those who love Jesus Christ; but as to taking a positive step on this subject, you can not—you can not, and my text, like a gate of a hundred bolts, bars you away from peace on earth and glory in heaven. I tell you these things this morning because, my dear friends, I want to show you how light the cross is that we have to carry compared with that which Christ carried for us. You have not had the flesh torn off for Christ’s sake in carrying your cross. He fainted dead away under "His cross. You have not carried the cross until it fetched the blood. Under His there was a pool of carnage that plashed the horses’ fetlocks, i You have friends to sympathize with vou in carrying the cross! Christ trod the winepress of God’s wrath alone, alone! The cross that you and I ought to carry represents only a few days or a few years of trial. The cross that Christ carried for us had compressed into it the agonies of eternity. _ There has some one come here to-day whom you have not observed. He did not come through the* front door: He did not come down any of these aisles; yet I know. He is here. He is from the Fast, the far East. He cpmes with blistered foot, and with broken heart, and cheeks red, not with * health, but with blood temples. I take hold of His coat and I “It does not seem to fit Thee,” “No,” He says, “it is not mine; it is borrowed; it does not belong to Me now. For My vesture did they cast lots.” And I say to Him: “Thine eyes are red as though from loss of sleep.” He says: “Yes, the Son of man had not where to

lay His head.” And 1 touch the log on His back and I say: “Why earnest Thou this? "Ah'” He says, “that is a erossT: cArrv for thee and for the sins of the whole world. That is a cross. Fall into line, march on with Me in procession, take vour smaller crosses and your lighter bunlens, and join Me in this march to Heaven." And'we'join that” procession with our smaller crosses and our lighter burdens, and Christ looks back and He sees some are halting because they can ..notewdare tlie and with a voice which has in it majesty and omnipotence. Hc crics until alt the earth trembles: “Whosoever doth hot bear his cross, and come after Me, can not be My disciple.” V Oh! my brethren, my sisters—for I do not speak professionally, I speak as a

brother would speak to a brother or sister —my brother, can you not bear a cross if at last you can wear a crown? Come now, let us divide off; Who is on the ~Li>rd’s side? Who is ready to turn his back upon the Lamb of God" that taketh away the sins of the world? j A Homan Emperor said to a Greek architect: “You build me a coliseum, a grand coliseum, and if it suits me I will crown you in the presence ©fall the people, and I will make a grand day of festival oh vour account.” The Greek architect did his work, did it magnificently, planned the building, looked after its construction. The building was done. The day for opeffing . arrived. In the coliseum were The Emperor and the (ireck architect. The Emperor arose amid the plaudits of a vast assemby, and said: “We have gathered here to-day to open this coliseum and to honor the Greek architect. It is a great day for the Homan Empire. Let this building be prosperous, and let honor be put upon the Greek architect. Oh! we must have a festival to-day. Bring out those Christians and let us have them put to death at the mouth of the lions.” The Christians were put into the center of the amphitheater. It was to be a great celebration in their destruction. Then the lions, hungry and three-fourths starved, were let out from their dens in the side of the amphitheater, and they came forth with mighty spring to destroy and rend the Christians, and all the galleries shouted: “Huzza, huzza! Long live the Emperor!” Then the Greek architect arose in one of the galleries and shouted until the vast assemblage all heard him: “I, teo, am a Christian!” and they seized him in their fury and flung him to the wild beasts,until his body, bleeding and dead. Was tumbled over and over again in the dust of the amphitheater.

Could you have done that for Christ? Could you, in a vast assemblage, all of whom hated Christ, have said: “1 am a Christian,” or, “I want to ben Christian?” Would you have had the ten-thousandth part of the enthusiasm and the courage of the Greek architect? Nay. I ask you another question: Would you in an assemblage where they are nearly all Christians —in ah assemblage avast mnltitude of whom love Clfrist and are willing to live, and if need be, to die for Him—would you dare to say: “I am a Christian,” or, “I want to be a Christian?” Would you say in the presence of the friends of Christ, “Are you for Christ, are you against him?” The destinies of seems as if the last day had come and we were gathered for the reckoning. “Behold, He corneth with the clouds, and eveyv eye shall see Him.” What T say to one I say to all: What are you doing for Christ? What are you bearing for (’hrist? When the Scottish chieftains wanted to raise an a: my they would make a wooden cross, and then set it on fire, and carry it with other crosses they had, through the mountains, through the Highlands and among the peopfe, and as they waved the cross the people would gather to the standard and fight for Scotland. So to-day I come out with the cross of the Son of God. It is a flaming cross —flaming with suffering; flaming with glory. I carry it out among all the people. Who will be on the Lord’s side? Who will gather to the standard of Emmanuel? Across, across, a cross! “Whosoever doth not bear his cross and follow after Me, can not, can not beMydisciple.” ■ ' ' ‘