THE KING’S BUSINESS
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His own vicious exercise of his power in the past had already incurred the imperial censure, and he dreaded another accusation by the Jews and investigation by the em peror. His past misdeeds had so entangled him as to make it difficult to do right when he would. He seeks an indirect way of es cape, and, as is usual with men who desire to do right but lack the courage to go di rectly at it, he ends by doing wrong. As the people begin to clamor for a prisoner to be released unto them according to the Passover custom, he thinks he sees a way out of his difficulties. He will get the people, whom he believes to be favorably dis posed toward Jesus, to ask for Jesus. This expedient, like others that he has already tried, also fails. Note the unblushing hypoc risy ' of the chief priests, who claimed to have delivered up Jesus because He was an inciter of rebellion, and yet clamor for the release of one who was arrested for and found guilty of actual insurrection. Note too the infamous choice of the people, they “denied the Holy and Righteous One and desired a murderer’’ (Acts 3:14). But that is the choice of every one who rejects Christ and chooses him who “was a mur derer from the beginning” (Jno. 8:44) It was “the chief priests” who in cited the people to this appalling choice. That illustrates how little dependence is to be placed upon religious leaders as such. It proves nothing for a movement that recognized theological dignitaries head it. They headed the movement for the cruci fixion of the Son of God. Saturday, September 4. Mark 15:15-21. Pilate wished to do right, but his de sire to please the people was far stronger than, his desire to please God. Moved by this desire to please men he committed one of the most awful crimes of history, and “delivered Jesus to be crucified.” One stands aghast at the depth of iniquity to which the desire to please men can lead one; but are We not ourselves doing things to “cbntertt the people” that may displease God? To what cruel mockeries and injuries
we saw our Lord subjected, and it was all for us that He thus suffered—shame, ridi cule, spitting and pain (Isa. 53:5). A passerby “Simon of Cyrene” was “impress ed” by the Roman soldiers that he might “bear the cross” for Jesus. A most sweet privilege this, of lightening a little the crushing burdens of our Saviour in this last journey. That Simon was at the time or afterwards became a disciple appears from the fact that his name- and that of his two sons were well known in the apostolic company. Sunday, September 5. Mark 15:22-28. In these verses we see the supreme mani festation of man’s sinfulness and God’s holiness; the unfathomable depth of human depravity and the infinite heights of divine love are both disclosed at Calvary. The Son of God, who was the brightness of God’s glory and the expressed image of His per son, He who was the incarnation of truth and love, and in whom dwelt all the ful ness of the Godhead bodily, came into this world and "they crucified him.” Sin has made of man a moral monster. The atti tude of mankind as a whole toward Jesus is not essentially different today. His cruci fixion was a literal fulfillment of Old Testa ment prophecy (Ps. 22: 16; Zech. 12:10). It was necessary for our salvation that He not only die but die in that precise way (Gal. 3:10, 13; Jno. 3:14; Deut. 21:23). The heartlessness of His executioners comes out very vividly in their gambling for His garments at the foot of the cross upon which He hung in agony, but do we not see even professed disciples of Christ seeking their own petty desires at the very foot of the cross. The casting of lots upon His vesture was also a very literal fulfillment of prophecy (Ps. 22:18). Having settled the ownership of the seamless garment, they sat apparently indifferent, watching the Son of God suffer, but this is not so strange as the indifference With which the average man gazés today at the crucified Son of God as He is presented in song or sermon. The
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