- 3 weeks ago
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00:22Let us pray
00:26Praise, honour and glory be to you, O Christ
00:29Who, when your disciples and friends deserted and left you
00:33Remained alone in the hands of sinful men
00:36Like a most gentle lamb
00:38Within the jaws of a ravenous wolf
00:43Strengthen my excessive weakness
00:45And confirm my too great unstableness
00:47By the support of your grace
00:49And join me to yourself with the bonds of love
00:53That I may neither have no wish nor the power
00:56Ever to depart or separate myself from you
01:01Praise, honour and glory be to you, O Christ
01:04Who allowed yourself to be led around bound
01:07By an armed band and taken to Annas
01:12Allowing yourself to be stood before him
01:14As though you were a common criminal or robber
01:19O unspeakable gentleness of my Redeemer
01:22Look, while they take and drag and thrust you forward
01:27You uttered not a single word of complaint
01:30Or murmur or word of resistance
01:33But in silence you followed them wherever they led you
01:37Obeying their commands
01:39And permitted their wanton injuries to you
01:44Grant, O Lord, that these your virtues may shine in me
01:47To the everlasting glory of your name
01:51Praise, honour and glory be to you, O Christ
01:54King of heaven and earth
01:55Who in great humility
01:57As poor and needy and of no account
02:00Was stood before the proud High Priest
02:03And most sweetly endure the dreadful blow
02:07Which his impious servant put upon you
02:12Restrain, I beg you
02:13In me all outbreak of anger and passion
02:17Suppress all acts of indignation
02:20And quench within me all desire of revenge
02:24That when I am provoked by injury
02:27I may not be disturbed
02:28I may offer no resistance
02:31May suffer no disquiet
02:34But endure everything with a quiet mind
02:36May I even repay evil with good
02:41Praise, honour and glory be to you, O Christ
02:43Who permitted himself to be lead-boned
02:46In a shameful manner to Caiaphas
02:48That you might deliver us from the penalty
02:51Of eternal death
02:52Restoring to us true liberty
02:56Make me most ready
02:58To endure every reproach
02:59And all contempt for your name's sake
03:03Grant that in the very middle
03:05Of ridicule and outrage
03:06I may give you thanks with a perfect heart
03:09And by means of these trials
03:11May grow and increase more and more
03:14In your love
03:18Praise, honour and glory be to you, O Christ
03:20Who, when three times denied by your Apostle Peter
03:26Mercifully turned and looked upon him with kindness
03:29And brought him to repentance and holy sorrow for his sin
03:32In like manner
03:34May you turn upon me also
03:37Your eye of mercy and love
03:39That I may weep over my past sins
03:42With the tears of true penitence
03:44And may never again commit them
03:47May I never be found sinning against your goodness
03:50In word or deed
03:54Praise, honour and glory be to you, O Christ
03:56Who stood before the elders and the people of the Jews
03:59With a calm countenance and humble look
04:02Who did not refuse to be falsely accused
04:05And to suffer many injuries
04:09Give me grace
04:10Give me grace never to say an untrue word
04:11Or to falsely accuse my neighbour
04:14But that I may bear with all quietness of heart
04:17The calumniers that are heaped upon me
04:21Casting all my troubles upon you
04:23May I always, in silence
04:25Look for the grave and consolation
04:28At your hands
04:58Praise, honour and glory be to you, O Christ
04:59In the presence of your divinity and majesty
05:03May I think of you
05:04Adore, praise and love you
05:07Above all things
05:08Forever and for ever
05:11Amen
05:15O Lord, open our lips
05:17And our mouths shall sing your praise
05:27O be joyful in the Lord
05:30O be joyful in the Lord
05:32O be joyful in the Lord
05:33Turn the Lord with gladness
05:37And come before His prayers
05:40And drill the tongue
05:43Be sure that the Lord
05:47He is God
05:49He is He that hath made us
05:53That not we ourselves
05:55We are His people
05:58And the sheep of His pasture
06:02O do your way
06:05Into this peace we cast him
06:08And into this cross we praise
06:13Be thankful unto Him
06:17And speak to the Lord
06:20Of His name
06:22For the Lord is gracious
06:25His mercy is everlasting
06:31And His truth and joy
06:35From generation to generation
06:44Glory be to the Father
06:48And to the Father
06:52And to the Son
06:53And to the Holy Ghost
06:56As it was in the beginning
06:59Is now and ever shall be
07:05World without end
07:13Amen
07:23I, O Lord, set upon righteousness
07:27O ye complication
07:31And do ye judge a thing that is right
07:36O ye sons of men
07:39May the Lord
07:42May the passion be
07:43Sittin' your hearts upon the earth
07:46While your hands be lifted
07:50With their hands
07:52Dear God, they are proud
07:56Heal from their mother's womb
08:00As soldiers may upon
08:03May God stay and see Christ
08:08They are the exemplars
08:11Of the poison of the sabbath
08:14Even like the dead man
08:18That slaughtered by his
08:21Praise to God
08:24And who we are
08:25Fights of the child
08:28Chalking where the star
08:31Fights be
08:33For the known
08:37For the children
08:38Spite of the children
08:41For the sons
09:10CHOIR SINGS
09:30CHOIR SINGS
09:51CHOIR SINGS
09:58CHOIR SINGS
10:12CHOIR SINGS
10:28CHOIR SINGS
10:50CHOIR SINGS
10:57CHOIR SINGS
10:59CHOIR SINGS
11:01CHOIR SINGS
11:03CHOIR SINGS
11:05CHOIR SINGS
11:06CHOIR SINGS
11:06CHOIR SINGS
11:06CHOIR SINGS
11:06CHOIR SINGS
11:08CHOIR SINGS
11:34CHOIR SINGS
11:38A man named Barabbas was imprisoned with rebels who had committed murder during an insurrection.
11:46And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to release a prisoner for them, as was his custom.
11:53So Pilate asked them, Do you want me to release the king of the Jews for you?
11:59For ye knew that the chief priests had handed him over because of envy.
12:05But the chief priests stirred up the crowds to have him release Barabbas instead.
12:11So Pilate spoke to them again, So what do you want me to do with the one you call king
12:17of the Jews?
12:19They shouted back, Crucify him!
12:23Pilate asked them, Why? What has he done wrong?
12:29But they shouted more insistently, Crucify him!
12:35Because he wanted to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for him.
12:41Then after he had Jesus flogged, he handed him over to be crucified.
12:48So the soldiers led him into the palace, that is the governor's residence, and called together the whole cohort.
12:56They put a purple cloak upon him, and after braiding a crown of thorns they put it on him.
13:03They began to salute him, Hail King of the Jews!
13:06Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spat upon him.
13:12Then they knelt down and paid homage to them.
13:16When they had finished mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes back upon
13:22him.
13:22And they led him away to crucify him.
13:33The soldiers forced a passer-by to carry his cross.
13:36Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country.
13:40He was the father of Alexander and Rufus.
13:44They brought Jesus to a place called Golgaba, which is translated as Place of the Skull.
13:51They offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.
13:56Then they crucified him and divided his clothes, throwing dice on, to decide what each would take.
14:06It was nine in the morning when they crucified him.
14:10The inscription of the charge against him read, The King of the Jews.
14:16They crucified two outlaws with him, one to his right and one to his left.
14:22And those who passed by defamed him, shaking their heads and saying,
14:26Ha ha! You, who can destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from
14:32the cross.
14:35In the same way, even the chief priests, together with the experts in the law, were mocking him amongst themselves.
14:42He saved others, but he cannot save himself.
14:46Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, that we may see and believe.
14:52And those who were crucified with him also spoke abusively to him.
15:00That when it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.
15:06Around three o'clock, Jesus cried out with a loud voice,
15:10Eloi, Eloi, Eloi, Lema sabachthani.
15:14Which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
15:20Some of the bystanders heard it and said, Listen, he is calling for Elijah.
15:27Then someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to
15:33drink, saying, Leave him alone.
15:38Let us see if Elijah will come to take him down.
15:42But Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last.
15:46And the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom.
15:51Now when the centurion who stood in front of him saw how he died, he said, Truly this man was
15:58God's son.
16:01And there were also women watching from a distance.
16:04Among them were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph and Salome.
16:13When he was in Galilee, they had followed him and given him support.
16:19Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were there too.
16:25This is the word of the Lord.
16:28Thanks be to God.
16:35To me, the standard feature of the account of the crucifixion is the peace of Jesus.
16:42Surely anyone else would have had plenty to say in the circumstances.
16:47Jesus, though, led the others to the talking of the accusing.
16:53These moments are a shining example of how to accept God's will.
16:58The night before, Jesus had been wrestling with the burden of what would happen.
17:03But now that it has happened, he was quiet, letting God's will be done.
17:11Just at the very end, there is one last, final cry of despair for his separation from his father.
17:18But that is all.
17:22If only we could all act with such dignity and acceptance.
17:27Fortunately, however, we are unlikely to be asked to face death for Jesus.
17:31But, on a daily basis, we are often asked to make smaller sacrifices.
17:37And how often do we grumble about these? Often, probably.
17:44How often do we do that?
17:46What do we have to complain about?
17:48What is our sacrifice compared to that upon our Lord?
17:56Even in death, Jesus bore witness to his being.
18:00No sooner had he died than the centurion, who was in charge of the executions, believed.
18:07This soldier, a man who oversaw crucifixions on a regular basis,
18:11saw something in Jesus that was so different to what he was accustomed to seeing.
18:17That he was left in no doubt whatsoever as to what had been done.
18:24Note that he did not say,
18:26Maybe this could have been the Son of God.
18:30How true it is that God spared not his own Son,
18:34but delivered him up for us all.
18:38Jesus was first examined by Annas,
18:41then tried before Caiaphas, the high priest,
18:43and then condemned by the Sanhedrin.
18:46But the mock trials, with their injustice and their indignities,
18:50were not enough to exhaust the appointed humiliation and suffering.
18:56Christ needed to be brought before the Roman governor,
18:59who had come up from Caesarea to Jerusalem to attend the feast of the Passover.
19:06In order that he might endure the curse attaching to everyone that hangs on a tree.
19:11In order that he might fulfill his own prediction that he should die by crucifixion.
19:17He needed to be sentenced, not merely by a Hebrew, but also by a Roman tribunal.
19:24The passage today, therefore, shows us the different agencies by which the condemnation of Christ was brought about.
19:35Pilate perceived that it was for envy that the chief priests had delivered him up.
19:41They both hated the spiritual teaching of the prophet of Nazareth,
19:44so much at variance with their own,
19:47that they were jealous of the influence which he had acquired over the people,
19:50not only in Galilee, but in the whole of Judea.
19:55The hatred and envy of the priests, Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes,
20:00had been abundantly shown by their treatment of Jesus for some time past,
20:05but was made more apparent by the events of the last night.
20:11Their arrest of him in the garden, their treatment of him before the high priest,
20:16had been malicious and unjust.
20:19And now their charges against him of the bar of Pilate,
20:22a charge of virtually political treason against the authority of the Roman Empire,
20:28was a proof of the length to which their hatred and hypocrisy could proceed.
20:33They brought this charge simply because they thought that this would tell most against him,
20:39in the estimation of the procurator.
20:44A few days ago the crowds in the streets of Jerusalem
20:47had welcomed the prophet of Nazareth with the crying,
20:50Hosanna to the son of David!
20:53Blessed is he who comes in the name of the law!
20:58Of those who had assailed the triumphal entry of the Nazarene,
21:03probably the greater part were Galileans,
21:06and the apprehension of Jesus had been effected at night.
21:10The trial of Jesus had been hurried on before the day,
21:14probably with this intent,
21:16so that the pilgrims from the north of Palestine,
21:19who were so largely adherents of Jesus,
21:21might be prevented from taking any steps to rescue the prisoner,
21:25or at all events from making a demonstration on his behalf.
21:33Yet the population inhabiting and staying in the city cannot be acquitted of proverbial fickleness.
21:42The acolytes of the priesthood, no doubt, led the way,
21:45and raised the first shouts of popular outcry against Jesus.
21:50The multitude were whipped up by the priests,
21:53and their adherence to this position of hostility,
21:56this howl for the blood of the innocent.
21:58The infamous choice of the populace,
22:02who preferred Barabbas the murderer to Jesus,
22:05was one of the most distressing incidents of the whole awful business.
22:10A rioter and murderer was apparently represented as a champion of national independence,
22:18while the Holy One and the just,
22:21was charged with being the enemy of the temple,
22:24its services and solemnities.
22:28In this way the people were brought upon to demand the death of the precious,
22:33and the liberation of the vile.
22:40The responsibility of capital punishment lay solely with Pilate.
22:46Had he stood firm for justice and right against lawlessness and violence,
22:50Jesus would certainly have been saved.
22:54But so it was not to be.
22:56The governor's own conviction of the innocence and excellence of the accused are evident,
23:02both from his language.
23:04Why, what evil has he done?
23:06I find no fault in him.
23:08And also from his repeated,
23:10though unsuccessful because irresolute efforts to save his life.
23:17It is clear that Pilate had some admiration and respect for the prisoner,
23:22whilst he despised the accusers and the mob.
23:25And yet he yielded to their savage outcry,
23:28from a desire to content the Jews,
23:31from whom it was in his interest to be in good standing,
23:37and from fear.
23:39Lest, if he acquitted the prisoner,
23:42his conduct might be misrepresented to the emperor to his disadvantage,
23:47and so might prove the occasion of his ruin.
23:54Desire of popularity,
23:56fear of the Roman tyrant's throne.
23:59These were the motives,
24:01which in the mind of the cynical and selfish procurator,
24:05outweighed all considerations of righteousness and humanity.
24:09And so it came to pass that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate.
24:18The demeanour of Jesus was both dignified and honourable,
24:22but far from fitted to procure his release.
24:27Silence, when false witness testified against him,
24:31only infuriated his foes.
24:34Before the Jewish tribunal,
24:36he had acknowledged that he was the Messiah and the Son of God.
24:40Before Pilate he confessed himself to be a king.
24:44A confession which, however,
24:46explained as a claim to spiritual domination,
24:50was an embarrassment to his well-wisher and judge.
24:54And his reminder that there was a higher,
24:57because a divine authority,
24:59to which all earthly authority is subordinate,
25:02was itself irritating to a proud and absolute ruler.
25:07There was a marvellous mingling of bold and meek
25:10in the conduct of the innocence of this holy prisoner.
25:16Morally his demeanour exculpated him,
25:19but legally it was to his disadvantage.
25:23And his confession of royalty became his sentence of condemnation,
25:27written upon his cross for the apparent vindication,
25:30but for the real and eternal censure of those who accused
25:34and of those who sentenced.
25:37Thus did Jesus witness a good confession before Pontius Pilate.
25:44So let us observe the force and the virulence of sin
25:48taking possession of human nature,
25:50corrupting and degrading it.
25:52The malice, bigotry and falsehood of the priests,
25:57the fickleness and unreasoning fury of the mob,
26:00the selfishness and cowardice of the governor,
26:03all illustrate the length to which sin can go.
26:07The innocence and the benevolence of the victim
26:10render more conspicuous the enormity of this pose.
26:16Observe the faultless and beautiful spirit displayed by the suffering,
26:21the absence of resentment or complaints,
26:24the meek submission to all that he needs must suffer.
26:27A being so morally perfect demands our admiration and our worship
26:32and invites our confidence and our love.
26:37Consider the price of our redemption.
26:39Jesus bore all this injustice, these insults,
26:43for man.
26:44He was condemned that we might be acquitted.
26:47He was slain that we might live.
26:54During this awful night and morning,
26:57our Lord three times underwent the suffering
27:00and indignity of public and vulgar derision.
27:03First before the high priest,
27:05at the hands of the officers and servants of Caiaphas.
27:09Then again when he was set at north and mocked
27:11by the soldiers of Herod Antipas.
27:14And yet again when Pilate delivered him
27:17into the keeping of the Roman soldiers,
27:19a company of whom were about to lead him out to be crucified.
27:24Insult was only to insult,
27:26and his bitter cup ran over.
27:31The whole band or cohort are said to have joined in
27:34the rival spot in the praetorium.
27:38What they did, it must be remembered,
27:40they did in ignorance.
27:42These Roman legionaries knew nothing of a messiah,
27:45and they were probably completely unacquainted
27:47with the character and career of him whom Pilate had delivered over to.
27:53Their insensibility to human suffering was equal to their indifference to human innocence and virtue.
28:01All they knew was that their master,
28:04although possibly convinced of Jesus' blamelessness,
28:08was yet content to give him up into their hands to ill-treat and put to a shameless death.
28:15We cannot, therefore, wonder at their insolence and cruelty.
28:20And yet we cannot read the sad story without feelings of shame and sorrow,
28:25as we remember that persons belonging to our race and sharing our nature
28:29should have inflicted such indignities upon the Holy One and the Just,
28:34upon the world's friend and our Saviour.
28:39There were many base and repeated mockeries.
28:43Jesus was invested with a purple robe.
28:47Most probably this would have been a military cloak
28:50whose crimson hue might render it an emblem of the imperial purple.
28:56He was crowned with a circlet of thorns,
28:59another symbol of royalty that was roughly woven
29:02from the stem of a pretty shrub.
29:06He was addressed as kin,
29:08utterly incapable of understanding a moral sovereignty,
29:12a spiritual sway.
29:14These coarse soldiers, to whom force was everything,
29:18insulted the meek and unresisting sufferer
29:21by the use of a title from which their lips could only be derisory.
29:28He was saluted with a semblance of honour and homage.
29:31They bowed their knees and worshipped him.
29:36They smote his head with the sceptre of Eden.
29:40The very fact which should have been Christ's claim to respect,
29:43confidence and adoration,
29:45his royal authority over the conscience and heart of humanity itself,
29:50was turned into a ground of reproach in the matter of reviling.
29:55Thus men treated their divine and rightful true king.
30:01Knowing what was before the condemned,
30:04decency and humanity should have led them to spare him these insults.
30:09But when they were over there was even worse to come.
30:13The purple was stripped from him.
30:16His own garments were put back upon him.
30:18The beam of the cross was laid upon his shoulders
30:20and he was thrust into his place in the rude procession.
30:25And then he was led away to crucifixion.
30:30Let us admire the meekness of him who, when reviled,
30:33reviled not again.
30:36When he suffered, threatened not.
30:39Never was sorrow like his sorrow
30:41and never patience like his patience.
30:46Recognise the true royalty
30:48which a spiritual judgement may discern
30:50underlying the mockery and derision recorded.
30:55See Jesus as a king.
30:57Though crowned with balls.
31:01Learn to confide in a Saviour
31:05whose purpose to save was so resolute,
31:08so benevolent as is apparent here.
31:12A salvation procured at such cost
31:15is a salvation of which none should hear unmoved
31:18and which none who needs it
31:20should hesitate or delay for one moment to accept.
31:28The bigots and the mob had gained their end
31:30and now they have their way with the Holy One and the Just.
31:34The power of Rome is brought into the service
31:37of Jewish fanaticism and malice.
31:41All the evil influences have conspired together.
31:44Now is their hour and the power of darkness.
31:48The world's sin has culminated in the rejection of the world's Saviour.
31:54All happens as have been foreseen in the councils of God
31:59foretold by the inspired prophets and by the Son of Man himself.
32:04The Christ of God is crucified.
32:14The utter story of the crucifixion in St Mark's Gospel is simply told.
32:20There is no endeavour to excite feeling by any other means
32:24than by the clear and artless relation of the facts.
32:28But surely this is enough to awaken the sympathy of every mind
32:32capable of realising the injustice of Christ's enemies
32:36and the meekness, compassion and fortitude of the sufferer.
32:44Jesus, exhausted by the events of the past night and of this morning,
32:49by the wakeful hours, the scourging and the insults he had endured,
32:54would now be incapable of carrying the instruments of his final sufferer,
32:59is natural enough.
33:02The soldiers indisposed themselves to bear the burden,
33:06beneath which they see the sufferer sinking,
33:09impressed into the service of Sarenian Israelites,
33:12who has come to the Passover now being celebrated in Jerusalem,
33:17and who perhaps has been sleeping in one of the villages near the city,
33:22is on his way to the scene of the sacred solemnities.
33:28What seems to the soldiers and to the mob a degradation
33:30is to become an honourable and happy memory to Simon,
33:34whose family is destined, in many years,
33:39to hold a high place in the regard of the Christian community,
33:42and whose name is henceforth linked with that of the Redeemer,
33:46by his sacred and touching association.
33:54Imagination has filled the void wisely left blank by the evangelists,
33:59and the Via Dolorosa has been marked by stations,
34:03each of which has been signalised by some episode of the suffering mercy or sympathy.
34:10The spot where the execution of the iniquitous sentence took place,
34:14may be to the north-west of the city,
34:17and the name, the place of a skull,
34:20may have been derived from its form rounded and bare.
34:24It needed no fanciful legends to endear a spot so memorable to the heart of Christendom.
34:30The pathos of the plain fact is enough.
34:35Calvary, lovely, mournful Calvary, was the scene of Emmanuel's passion.
34:43The compassion of the ladies of Jerusalem is said to have provided a soporific,
34:49stupefying narcotic draught,
34:51to be administered in humanity to the criminals
34:54who were condemned to die a painful and lingering death.
34:57It seems to have been in conformity with custom and from the motives of sympathy
35:03that the draught was offered to Jesus.
35:06Fill high the bowl and spice it well and pour.
35:11The dews oblivious, for the cross is sharp,
35:14the cross is sharp and he is tenderer than a lamb.
35:21His refusal was owing to his determination to accept to the full
35:26the lot of undeserved pain and anguish appointed for him.
35:31Thou will feel all that thou mayst pity all.
35:37He had already exclaimed,
35:39the cup which my father has given me should I not drink it.
35:43And it would seem that this cup of woe could not be drunk except
35:47by the retention of his faculties until the very last.
35:56The garments of the prisoner were the prerequisites of the executioners
36:01who divided amongst himself some of his raiment
36:04and who cast lots for the seamless robe.
36:08This was not only the fulfilment of a prediction
36:12but it was also an element in the humiliation and self-sacrifice of the son of the man.
36:22The three words, they crucified him,
36:27is the brief notification of the most stupendous crime committed in the history of mankind.
36:33Every circumstance recorded in such connection is worthy of attention.
36:40There is a note of the time, it was the third hour,
36:44nine o'clock in the morning.
36:48From this we can imagine how hurried had been the proceedings
36:51since the break of day when the cock had crowed.
36:54And how prolonged were those sufferings to be
36:57which did not close until six hours later at three in the afternoon.
37:04There is a memorandum of the superscription.
37:06This was the accusation upon which unproven and misrepresented
37:11Pilate had been induced to sanction this legal murder.
37:15A king crucified and crucified by his subjects.
37:19No wonder that such a crime should be disowned
37:22or rather such a stigma resented by the priests and the elders.
37:29When Pilate persisted that the inscription should remain
37:32he bore witness unconsciously alike to the spiritual loyalty of Jesus
37:38and to the flagrant rebellion of the leaders of the Jewish nation.
37:44The cross was in truth Christ's earthly throne,
37:47the symbol of a worldwide empire.
37:51He had said,
37:53If I be lifted up from the earth,
37:56will draw all men unto me.
38:01Then we have an account of his companions upon the cross.
38:05If anything could possibly add to the indignity of our Saviour's death,
38:09it was the society in which he suffered it.
38:14Barabbas had indeed been released,
38:16but there were two robbers condemned to death
38:18awaiting the execution of their sentence.
38:22Accordingly, advantage was taken of the opportunity
38:25to carry out the sentence against Christ and the criminals upon the same occasion.
38:29And so he was numbered with the transgressors
38:33and an additional stigma attached to him
38:36by his association with the vilest of the vile.
38:40No wonder that the ignorant and the unspiritual
38:43made this a ground of reviling against Jesus
38:45and of reproach against his followers.
38:50To add insult to the injury,
38:53the jeering, the scoffing which Jesus had endured throughout his trials,
38:57it was permitted that his dying hours should be disturbed
39:01and his dying agonies intensified by the mockery of his foes.
39:09The passers-by shouted upon him.
39:12With the customary contempt for the fallen and the deserted,
39:15those passing through the entrance to the city
39:18insulted the crucified with gestures of derision and tones of contempt,
39:23recalling the language in which he had asserted his authority
39:27and contrasted it with his pitiable condition,
39:31terrible sufferings and apparent hopelessness.
39:37The chief priests and the scribes,
39:39who had been foremost in effecting his downfall,
39:42were prominent in glorifying the work of their hands
39:44and scoffed upon him whom they had wreaked their vengeance.
39:52From their lips came the language which, intended to be a reproach,
39:57was really and has ever been deemed one of the most glorious tributes ever paid to them.
40:02He saved others, but he cannot save himself.
40:07When they asked that he should come down from the cross which their malice had raised him upon,
40:13and professed their willingness upon such evidence to believe in him,
40:17we cannot doubt that their words were nothing more than hollow, vulgar mockery.
40:25There was no element of misery wanting in the Saviour's anguish.
40:30It was permitted that the very thieves who joined in the raillery with which Jesus was encompassed and tortured.
40:43This indeed only gives an additional touch to the pathos of the story of the penitent thief,
40:49which St. Luke tells us so exquisitely, and shows in the brighter colours of contrast,
40:54the powerful gentleness and the unselfish pity of the dying Saviour.
41:01So let us admire the submission and meekness of Christ's demeanour,
41:06as we consider with gratitude the redemptive purpose which animated and sustained the sufferer.
41:14Let us learn to glory in that cross, which from an emblem of shame has by Christ been transformed into
41:21our symbol of salvation.
41:24Let us remember those hours of the crucifixion, and how Jesus bowed himself to the will of God.
41:32What an amazing example to us all.
41:40Let us pray.
41:44Let your merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of your humble servants,
41:49that they may obtain their petitions, make them ask such things as will please you.
41:55Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
42:04May the Lord bless us and keep us from all evil, bringing us to everlasting life.
42:12Amen.
42:13Amen.
42:14Amen.
42:14Amen.
42:16Amen.
42:18Amen.
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