Calvary
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Jerusalem. Only a short time ago the people had cried out, “His blood
be on us and on our children.” How blindly had they invoked the doom
they were soon to realize! Many of the very women who were weeping
about Jesus were to perish with their children in the siege of Jerusalem.
Jesus referred not only to the destruction of Jerusalem, but to
the end of the world. Said he, “Then shall they begin to say to the
mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these
things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” The innocent
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were represented by the green tree. If God suffered his wrath because
of the sins of the world to fall upon the Redeemer, in that he was
permitted to suffer death by crucifixion, what might be expected to
come upon the impenitent and unbelieving, who had slighted the
mercies of God, purchased for them by the death of his Son? The
mind of Jesus wandered from the destruction of Jerusalem to a wider
judgment, when all the impenitent would suffer condemnation for their
sins; when the Son of man should come, attended not by a murderous
mob, but by the mighty hosts of God.
A great multitude followed the Saviour to Calvary, many mocking
and deriding; but some were weeping and recounting his praise. Those
whom he had healed of various infirmities, and those whom he had
raised from the dead, declared his marvelous works with earnest voice,
and demanded to know what Jesus had done that he should be treated as
a malefactor. Only a few days before, they had attended him with joyful
hosannas, and the waving of palm-branches, as he rode triumphantly
to Jerusalem. But many who had then shouted his praise, because it
was popular to do so, now swelled the cry of “Crucify him! Crucify
him!”
Upon the occasion of Christ riding into Jerusalem, the disciples
had been raised to the highest pitch of expectation. They had pressed
close about their Master, and had felt that they were highly honored to
be connected with him. Now they followed him in his humiliation at a
distance. They were filled with inexpressible grief, and disappointed
hopes. How were the words of Jesus verified: “All ye will be offended
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because of me this night; for it is written, I will smite the shepherd,
and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.” Yet the disciples
still had faint hope that their Master would manifest his power at the
last moment, and deliver himself from his enemies.