Alfred Edersheim · 105 of 129

CHAPTER XV. 'CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED.' · Part 3

By accepting the physical refreshment offered Him, the Lord once more indicated the completion of the work of His Passion. For, as He would not enter on it with His senses and physical consciousness lulled by narcotised wine, so He would not pass out of it with senses and physical consciousness dulled by the absolute failure of life-power. Hence He took what for the moment restored the physical balance, needful for thought and word. And so He immediately passed on to ‘taste death for every man.’ For, the two last ‘sayings’ of the Saviour now followed in rapid succession: first, that with a loud voice, which expressed it, that the work given Him to do, as far as concerned His Passion, was ‘finished;’ and then, that in the words of Psalm xxxi. 5, in which He commended His Spirit into the Hands of the Father. Attempts at comment could only weaken the solemn thoughts which the words awaken. Yet some points should be noted for our teaching. His last cry ‘with a loud voice’ was not like that of one dying. St. Mark notes, that this made such deep impression on the Centurion. In the language of the early Christian hymn, it was not Death which approached Christ, but Christ Death: He died without death. Christ encountered Death, not as conquered, but as the Conqueror. And this also was part of His work, and for us: now the beginning of His Triumph. And with this agrees the peculiar language of St. John, that He ‘bowed the Head, and gave up the Spirit’ (τͺ πνεͺμα).

Nor should we fail to mark the peculiarities of His last Utterance. The ‘My God’ of the fourth Utterance had again passed into the ‘Father’ of conscious fellowship. And yet neither in the Hebrew original of this Psalm, nor in its Greek rendering by the LXX., does the word ‘Father’ occur. Again, in the LXX. translation of the Hebrew text this word expressive of entrustment - the commending - is in the future tense; on the lips of our Lord it is in the present tense. And the word, in its New Testament sense, means not merely commending: it is to deposit, to commit for safe keeping. That in dying - or rather meeting and overcoming Death - He chose and adapted these words, is matter for deepest thankfulness to the Church. He spoke them for His people in a twofold sense: on their behalf, that they might be able to speak them; and ‘for them,’ that henceforth they might speak them after Him. How many thousands have pillowed their heads on them when going to rest! They were the last words of a Polycarp, a Bernard, Huss, Luther, and Melanchthon. And to us also they may be the fittest and the softest lullaby. And in ‘the Spirit’ which He had committed to God did He now descend into Hades, ‘and preached unto the spirits in prison.’ But behind this great mystery have closed the two-leaved gates of brass, which only the Hand of the Conqueror could burst open.

And now a shudder ran through Nature, as its Sun had set. We dare not do more than follow the rapid outlines of the Evangelic narrative. As the first token, it records the rending of the Temple-Veil in two from the top downward to the bottom; as the second, the quaking of the earth, the rending of the rocks and the opening of the graves. Although most writers have regarded this as indicating the strictly chronological succession, there is nothing in the text to bind us to such a conclusion. Thus, while the rending of the Veil is recorded first, as being the most significant token to Israel, it may have been connected with the earthquake, although this alone might scarcely account for the tearing of so heavy a Veil from the top to the bottom. Even the latter circumstance has its significance. That some great catastrophe, betokening the impending destruction of the Temple, had occurred in the Sanctuary about this very time, is confirmed by not less than four mutually independent testimonies: those of Tacitus, of Josephus, of the Talmud, and of earliest Christian tradition. The most important of these are, of course, the Talmud and Josephus. The latter speaks of the mysterious extinction of the middle and chief light in the Golden Candlestick, forty years before the destruction of the Temple; and both he and the Talmud refer to a supernatural opening by themselves of the great Temple-gates that had been previously closed, which was regarded as a portent of the coming destruction of the Temple. We can scarcely doubt, that some historical fact must underlie so peculiar and widespread a tradition, and we cannot help feeling that it may be a distorted version of the occurrence of the rending of the Temple-Veil (or of its report) at the Crucifixion of Christ.

But even if the rending of the Temple-Veil had commenced with the earthquake, and, according to the Gospel to the Hebrews, with the breaking of the great lintel over the entrance, it could not be wholly accounted for in this manner. According to Jewish tradition, there were, indeed, two Veils before the entrance to the Most Holy Place. The Talmud explains this on the ground that it was not known, whether in the former Temple the Veil had hung inside or outside the entrance and whether the partition-wall had stood in the Holy or Most Holy Place. Hence (according to Maimonides) there was not any wall between the Holy and Most Holy Place, but the space of one cubit, assigned to it in the former Temple, was left unoccupied, and one Veil hung on the side of the Holy, the other on that of the Most Holy Place. According to an account dating from Temple-times, there were altogether thirteen Veils used in various parts of the Temple - two new ones being made every year. The Veils before the Most Holy Place were 40 cubits (60 feet) long, and 20 (30 feet) wide, of the thickness of the palm of the hand, and wrought in 72 squares, which were joined together; and these Veils were so heavy, that, in the exaggerated language of the time, it needed 3000 priests to manipulate each. If the Veil was at all such as is described in the Talmud, it could not have been rent in twain by a mere earthquake or the fall of the lintel, although its composition in squares fastened together might explain, how the rent might be as described in the Gospel.

Indeed, everything seems to indicate that, although the earthquake might furnish the physical basis, the rent of the Temple-Veil was - with reverence be it said - really made by the Hand of God. As we compute, it may just have been the time when, at the Evening-Sacrifice, the officiating Priesthood entered the Holy Place, either to burn the incense or to do other sacred service there. To see before them, not as the aged Zacharias at the beginning of this history the Angel Gabriel, but the Veil of the Holy Place rent from top to bottom - that beyond it they could scarcely have seen - and hanging in two parts from its fastenings above and at the side, was, indeed, a terrible portent, which would soon become generally known, and must, in some form or other, have been preserved in tradition. And they all must have understood, that it meant that God’s Own Hand had rent the Veil, and for ever deserted and thrown open that Most Holy Place where He had so long dwelt in the mysterious gloom, only lit up once a year by the glow of the censer of him, who made atonement for the sins of the people.

Other tokens were not wanting. In the earthquake the rocks were rent, and their tombs opened. This, as Christ descended into Hades. And when He ascended on the third day, it was with victorious saints who had left those open graves. To many in the Holy City on that ever-memorable first day, and in the week that followed, appeared the bodies of many of those saints who had fallen on sleep in the sweet hope of that which had now become reality.

But on those who stood under the Cross, and near it, did all that was witnessed make the deepest and most lasting impression. Among them we specially mark the Centurion under whose command the soldiers had been. Many a scene of horror must he have witnessed in those sad times of the Crucifixion, but none like this. Only one conclusion could force itself on his mind. It was that which, we cannot doubt, had made its impression on his heart and conscience. Jesus was not what the Jews, His infuriated enemies, had described Him. He was what He professed to be, what His bearing on the Cross and His Death attested Him to be: ‘righteous,’ and hence, ‘the Son of God.’ From this there was only a step to personal allegiance to Him, and, as previously suggested, we may possibly owe to him some of those details which St. Luke alone has preserved.

The brief spring-day was verging towards the ‘evening of the Sabbath.’ In general, the Law ordered that the body of a criminal should not be left hanging unburied over night. Perhaps in ordinary circumstances the Jews might not have appealed so confidently to Pilate as actually to ask him to shorten the sufferings of those on the Cross, since the punishment of crucifixion often lasted not only for hours but days, ere death ensued. But here was a special occasion. The Sabbath about to open was a ‘high-day’ - it was both a Sabbath and the second Paschal Day, which was regarded as in every respect equally sacred with the first - nay, more so, since the so-called Wavesheaf was then offered to the Lord. And what the Jews now proposed to Pilate was, indeed, a shortening, but not in any sense a mitigation, of the punishment. Sometimes there was added to the punishment of crucifixion that of breaking the bones (crurifragium, σκελοκοπͺα) by means of a club or hammer. This would not itself bring death, but the breaking of the bones was always followed by a coup de grâce, by sword, lance, or stroke (the perforatio or percussio sub alas), which immediately put an end to what remained of life. Thus the ‘breaking of the bones’ was a sort of increase of punishment, by way of compensation for its shortening by the final stroke that followed.

It were unjust to suppose, that in their anxiety to fulfil the letter of the Law as to burial on the eve of that high Sabbath, the Jews had sought to intensify the sufferings of Jesus. The text gives no indication of this; and they could not have asked for the final stroke to be inflicted without the ‘breaking of the bones,’ which always preceded it. The irony of this punctilious care for the letter of the Law about burial and high Sabbath by those who had betrayed and crucified their Messiah on the first Passover-day is sufficiently great, and, let us add, terrible, without importing ficticious elements. St. John, who, perhaps, immediately on the death of Christ, left the Cross, alone reports circumstance. Perhaps it was when he concerted with Joseph of Arimathæa, with Nicodemus, or the two Marys, measures for the burying of Christ, that he learned of the Jewish deputation to Pilate, followed it to Prætorium, and then watched how it was all carried out on Golgotha. He records, how Pilate acceded to the Jewish demand, and gave directions for the crurifragium, and premission for the after-removal of the dead bodies, which otherwise might have been left to hang, till putrescence or birds of prey had destroyed them. But St. John also tells us what he evidently regards as so great a prodigy that he specially vouches for it, pledging his own veracity, as an eyewitness, and grounding on it an appeal to the faith of those to whom his Gospel is addressed. It is, that certain ‘things came to pass [not as in our A. V., ‘were done’] that the Scripture should be fulfilled,’ or, to put it otherwise, by which the Scripture was fulfilled. These things were two, to which a third phenomenon, not less remarkable, must be added. For, first, when, in the crurifragium, the soldiers had broken the bones of two malefactors, and then came to the Cross of Jesus, they found that He was dead already, and so ‘a bone of Him’ was ‘not broken.’ Had it been otherwise, the Scripture concerning the Paschal Lamb, as well that concerning the Righteous Suffering Servant of Jehovah, would have been broken. In Christ alone these two ideas of the Paschal Lamb and the Righteous Suffering Servant of Jehovah are combined into a unity and fulfilled in their highest meaning. And when, by a strange concurrence of circumstances, it ‘came to pass’ that, contrary to what might have been expected, ‘a bone of Him’ was ‘not broken’ this outward fact served as the finger to point to the predictions which were fulfilled of Him.

Not less remarkable is the second fact. If, on the Cross of Christ, these two fundamental ideas in the prophetic description of the work of the Messiah had been set forth: the fulfilment of the Paschal Sacrifice, which, as that of the Covenant, underlay all sacrifices, and the fulfilment of the ideal of the Righteous Servant of God, suffering in a world that hated God, and yet proclaimed and realising His Kingdom, a third truth remained to be exhibited. It was not in regard to the character, but the effects, of the Work of Christ - its reception, alike in the present and in the future. This had been indicated in the prophecies of Zechariah, which foretold how, in the day of Israel’s final deliverance and national conversion, God would pour out the spirit of grace and of supplication, and as ‘they shall look on Him Whom they pierced,’ the spirit of true repentance would be granted them, alike nationally and individually. The application of this to Christ is the more striking, that even the Talmud refers the prophecy to the Messiah. And as these two things really applied to Christ, alike in His rejection and in His future return, so did the strange historical occurence at His Crucifixion once more point to it as the fulfilment of Scripture prophecy. For, although the soldiers, on finding Jesus dead, broke not one of His Bones, yet, as it was necessary to make sure of His Death, one of them, with a lance, ‘pierced His Side,’ with a wound so deep, that Thomas might afterwards have thrust his hand into His Side.

And with these two, as fulfilling Holy Scripture, yet a third phenonmenon was associated, symbolic of both. As the soldier pierced the side of the Dead Christ, ‘forthwith came there out Blood and Water.’ It has been thought by some, that there was physical cause for this - that Christ had literally died of a broken heart, and that, when the lance pierced first the lung filled with blood and then the pericardium filled with serous fluid, there flowed from the wound this double stream. In such cases, the lesson would be that reproach had literally broken His Heart. But we can scarcely believe that St. John could have wished to convey this without clearly setting it forth - thus assuming on the part of his readers knowledge of an obscure, and, it must be added, a scientifically doubtful phenomenon. Accordingly, we rather believe that to St. John, as to most of us, the significance of the fact lay in this, that out of the Body of One dead had flowed Blood and Water - that corruption had not fastened on Him. Then, there would be the symbolic meaning conveyed by the Water (from the pericardium) and the Blood (from the heart) - a symbolism most true, if corruption had no power nor hold on Him - if in Death He was not dead, if He vanquished Death and Corruption, and in this respect also fulfilled the prophetic ideal of not seeing corruption. To this symbolic bearing of the flowing of Water and Blood from His pierced side, on which the Evangelist dwells in his Epistle, and to its external expression in the symbolism of the two Sacraments, we can only point the thoughtful Christian. For, the two Sacraments mean that Christ had come; that over Him, Who was crucified for us and loved us unto death with His broken heart, Death and Corruption had no power; and that He liveth for us with the pardoning and cleansing power of His offered Sacrifice.

Yet one other scene remains to be recorded. Whether before, or, more probably, after the Jewish deputation to the Roman Governor, another and a strange application came to Pilate. It was from one apparently well known, a man not only of wealth and standing, whose noble bearing corresponded to his social condition, and who was known as a just and a good man. Joseph of Arimathæa was a Sanhedrist, but he had not consented either to the counsel or the deed of his colleagues. It must have been generally known that he was one of those ‘which waited for the Kingdom of God.’ But he had advanced beyond what that expression implies. Although secretly, for fear of the Jews. he was a disciple of Jesus. It is in strange contrast to this ‘fear,’ that St. Mark tells us, that, ‘having dared,’ ‘he went in unto Pilate and asked for the Body of Jesus.’ Thus, under circumstances the most unlikely and unfavorable, were his fears converted into boldness, and he, whom fear of the Jews had restrained from making open avowal of discipleship during the life-time of Jesus, not only professed such of the Crucified Christ, but took the most bold and decided step before Jews and Gentiles in connection with it. So does trial elicit faith, and the wind, which quenches the feeble flame that plays around the outside, fan into brightness the fire that burns deep within, though for a time unseen. Joseph of Arimathæa, now no longer a secret disciple, but bold in the avowal of his reverent love, would show to the Dead Body of his Master all veneration. And the Divinely ordered concurrence of circumstances not only helped his pious purpose, but invested all with deepest symbolic significance. It was Friday afternoon, and the Sabbath was drawing near. No time therefore was to be lost, if due honour were to be paid to the Sacred Body. Pilate give it to Joseph of Arimathæa. Such was within his power, and a favour not unfrequently accorded in like circumstances. But two things must have powerfully impressed the Roman Governor, and deepened his former thoughts about Jesus: first, that the death on the Cross had taken place so rapidly, a circumstance on which he personally questioned the Centurion, and then the bold appearance and request of such a man as Joseph of Arimathæa. Or did the Centurion express to the Governor also some such feeling as that which had found utterance under the Cross in the words: ‘Truly this Man was the Son of God?’

The proximity of the holy Sabbath, and the consequent need of haste, may have suggested or determined the proposal of Joseph to lay the Body of Jesus in his own rock-hewn new tomb, wherein no one had yet been laid. The symbolic significance of this is the more marked, that the symbolism was undersigned. These rock-hewn sepulchres, and the mode of laying the dead in them, have been very fully described in connection with the burying of Lazarus We may therefore wholly surrender overselves to the sacred thoughts that gather around us. The Cross was lowered and laid on the ground; the curel nails drawn out, and the ropes unloosed. Joseph, with those who attended him, ‘wrapped’ the Sacred Body ‘in a clean linen cloth,’ and rapidly carried It to the rock-hewn tomb in the garden close by. Such a rock-hewn tomb or cave (Meartha) had niches (Kukhin), where the dead were laid. It will be remembered, that at the entrance to ‘the tomb’ - and within ‘the rock’ - there was ‘a court,’ nine feet square, where ordinarly the bier was deposited, and its bearers gathered to do the last offices for the Dead. Thither we suppose Joseph to have carried the Sacred Body, and then the last scene to have taken place. For now another, kindered to Joseph in spirit, history, and position, had come. The same spiritual Law, which had brought Joseph to open confession, also constrained the profession of that other Sanhedrist, Nicodemus. We remember, how at the first he had, from fear of detection, come to Jesus by night, and with what bated breath he had pleaded with his colleagues not so much the cause of Christ, as on His behalf that of law and justice. He now came, bringing ‘a roll’ of myrrh and aloes, in the fragrant mixture well known to the Jews for purposes of anointing or burying.

It was in ‘the court’ of the tomb that the hasty embalmment - if such it may be called - took place. None of Christ’s former disciples seem to have taken part in the burying. John may have withdrawn to bring tidings to, and to comfort the Virgin-Mother; the others also, that had ‘stood after off, beholding,’ appear to have left. Only a few faithful ones, notably among them Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, the mother of Joses, stood over against the tomb, watching at some distance where and how the Body of Jesus was laid. It would scarcely have been in accordance with Jewish manners, if these women had mingled more closely with the two Sanhedrists and their attendants. From where they stood they could only have had a dim view of what passed within the court, and this may explain how, on their return, they ‘prepared spices and ointments’ for the more full honours which they hoped to pay the Dead after the Sabbath was past. For, it is of the greatest importance to remember, that haste characterised all that was done. It seems as if the ‘clean linen cloth’ in which the Body had been wrapped, was now torn into ‘cloths’ or swathes, into which the Body, limb by limb, was now ‘bound,’ no doubt, between layers of myrrh and aloes, the Head being wrapped in a napkin. And so they laid Him to rest in the inche of the rock-hewn new tomb. And as they went out, they rolled, as was the custom, a ‘great stone’ - the Golel - to close the entrance to the tomb, probably leaning against it for support, as was the practice, a smaller stone - the so-called Dopheq. It would be where the one stone was laid against the other, that on the next day, Sabbath though it was, the Jewish authorities would have affixed the seal, so that the slightest disturbance might become apparent.

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It was probably about the same time, that a noisy throng prepared to follow delegates from the Sanhedrin to the ceremony of cutting the Passover-sheaf. The Law had it, “he shall bring a sheaf [literally, the Omer] with the first-fruits of your harvest, unto the priest; and he shall wave the Omer before Jehovah, to be accepted for you.” This Passover-sheaf was reaped in public the evening before it was offered, and it was to witness this ceremony that the crowd had gathered around the elders. Already on the 14th Nisan the spot whence the first sheaf was to be reaped had been marked out, by tying together in bundles, while still standing, the barley that was to be cut down, according to custom, in the sheltered Ashes-Valley across Kidron. When the time for cutting the sheaf had arrived - that is, on the evening of the 15th Nisan, even though it were a Sabbath, just as the sun went down, three men, each with a sickle and basket, set to work. Clearly to bring out what was distinctive in the ceremony, they first asked of the bystanders three times each of these questions: “Has the sun gone down?” “With this sickle?” “Into this basket?” “On this Sabbath? (or first Passover-day)” - and, lastly, “shall I reap?” Having each time been answered in the affirmative, they cut down barley to the amount of one ephah, or about three pecks and three pints of our English measure. This is not the place to follow the ceremony farther - how the corn was threshed out, parched, ground, and one omer of the flour, mixed with oil and frankincense, waved before the Lord in the Temple on the second Paschal day (or 16th of Nisan). But, as this festive procession started, amidst loud demonstrations, a small band of mourners turned from having laid their dead Master in His resting-place. The contrast is as sad as it is suggestive. And yet, not in the Temple, nor by the priest, but in the silence of that garden-tomb, was the first Omer of the new Paschal flour to be ‘waved before the Lord.’

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‘Now on the morrow, which is after the preparation [the Friday], the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, which He was yet alive, After three days I rise again. Command, therefore, that the sephulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply His disciples come and steal Him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Take a guard, go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them.’

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But was there really need for it? Did they, who had spent what remained of daylight to prepare spices wherewith to anoint the Dead Christ, expect His Body to be removed, or did they expect - perhaps in their sorrow even think of His word: ‘I rise again?’ But on that holy Sabbath, when the Sanhedrists were thinking of how to make sure of the Dead Christ, what were the thoughts of Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus, of Peter and John, of the other disciples, and especially of the loving women who only waited for the first streak of Easter-light to do their last service of love? What were their thoughts of God - what of Christ - what of the Words He had spoken, the Deeds He had wrought, the salvation He had come to bring, and the Kingdom of Heaven which He was to open to all believers?

Behind Him had closed the gates of Hades; but upon them rather than upon Him had fallen the shadows of death. Yet they still loved Him - and stronger than death was love.