Jesus would not save Himself
First Part

          On Good Friday, our thoughts are trained on the middle cross on Calvary. Many of our hymns were inspired by the sight of our Lord hanging on the cross. In my hymn that is now in the new UCCP hymnal, we are able to hear in one hymn, “When Our Dear Lord Was on the Cross,” the seven last words of Jesus on the cross.

When Jesus says “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing,” it is his response to what the crowds below were shouting in derision of the suffering Jesus. They were  saying: “He saved others; himself he cannot save; if he be the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross, and he will believe him.” That happened in the Year 33 A.D., but the words keep ringing in our ears.

          The cry of derision was the third cruel thing that was inflicted on Jesus. The first was when the servants of the High Priest spat on his face and slapped him with the palms of their hands. The second was done by the soldiers who put a scarlet robe about him, with a farcical scepter in his hand and a crown of thorns on his head; they even struck him on the head.

          And the third was his word of derision: “He saved others; himself he cannot save.” Today, centuries after that spectacle, what do we think of these words?

          First of all, we wonder at the crowd’s outright hostility. We who have read our New Testament as well as the Old (particularly Isaiah 53—“he was bruised for our transgressions”), we are struck angry at their cruelty and anger.

          Why were the leaders of the temple and the synagogue so incensed against the Master? He questioned some of their stringent laws, such as their Sabbath law, and Jesus gave them a higher law, that is, “it is good to save life on the Sabbath.” Jesus took awat the splendor of the authority of the priest, scribes, and elders by the healing miracles he performed. Jesus took away from them the admiration of the people and this they resented intensely. As the Gospel puts it, “the people heard him gladly.”

          There is little use to read the Gospel narrative of the crucifixion—unless we use it as a mirror to reflect the sin in our own souls.

          At a shrine (New Chapel) in France, there is a parable in which the cross judges us all: “You drove the nails in his white, white feet; I pierced each tender hand… And we laughed as we lifted the cross on high —Too wise to understand you gave him the gall and vinegar. I thrust the lance at his side yet they say it was years and years ago that the Savior was crucified.” To be continued*     

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