What is this mysterious, strange, joyous influence that seems to permeate everything at this time of year ... that lingers, like a sweet perfume, delicate and clean, to touch us all with its magic. It is an intriguing thing ... intangible, yet real. We feel it ... sense it ... thrill to it ...
After the Last Supper, in the Garden with the apostles, while the apostles slept, Christ prayed ...kneeling under the little gray-green leaves that gleamed white where the moonlight filtered through.
Was there then no way, no other way? "Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me...."
"This cup" ...
Often Christ had seen the bodies of the crucified hanging on the hill outside the Gennath Gate ... Sometimes He had heard their moans and their curses, seen them writhing in their final agony.
Jesus of Nazareth was a man - a real man. Every bit of His manhood shrank from such an end.
And Luke tells us: "... being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."
Already He was living the pain of it. Could ultimate triumph come in no other way? Human sin - man fleeing God - was capable of dreadful deeds.
Of course ... but must He be the One to taste every depth that sin could devise ... misunderstanding ... betrayal ... desertion by friends ... expediency ... weaknes ... callousness ... deliberate cruelty ... excruciating pain ... death itself ... in order to prove finally and forever that no evil is any match for the Father?
The worn face glistening with sweat - so young in time - grown so old in understanding ... bowed in final surrender ... "Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt."
Then, on the Cross at the end ... the shouting died away. Now even the soldiers were silent. They put away their dice. Their gambling was done. They had won ... and lost.
Suddenly, Jesus opened His eyes and gave a loud cry. The gladness in His voice startled all who heard it. For it sounded like a shout of victory: "It is finished! Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit."
And with that cry He died.
It was the ninth hour ... Yes, "He saved others; himself he cannot save." But they were wrong as well as right. Could He not have saved Himself?
He might have followed the advice of His friends and avoided Jerusalem altogether at the feast time. He might have left the Garden that night instead of quietly waiting there for Judas. He might have compromised with the priests - and made a bargain of future silence with Caiaphas.
Had not Pilate almost pleaded with Him for an excuse, any excuse, for not sending Him to His death? He might have made His Kingdom political instead of spiritual. That would have pleased and silenced Judas. He might have chosen the expedient. As He Himself reminded Peter, He might have called upon twelve legions of angels to rescue Him and to show His great power.
Yes, He might have saved Himself.
He had the power; many ways of escape were available.... But then He would never have been our Savior!
Excerpts taken from "The Best of Peter Marshall" (Guideposts © 1983), used by permission of Marshall-LeSourd LLC.
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