It is even so; for there are the shroud, and the napkin, and the heavenly watchers; and when he awoke, and cast off his grave-clothes, the earthquake was felt in the city, and jarred the gates of hell. “The Hind of the morning” is up earlier than any of his pursuers, “leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills.” He is seen first with Mary at the tomb; then with the disciples in Jerusalem; then with two of them on the way to Emmaus; then going before his brethren into Galilee; and finally, leaping from the top of Olivet to the hills of Paradise; fleeing away to “the mountains of spices,” where he shall never more be hunted by the black prince and his hounds.
Christ is perfect master of gravitation, and all the laws of nature are obedient to his will. Once he walked upon the water, as if it were marble beneath his feet; and now, as he stands blessing his people, the glorious form so recently nailed to the cross, and still more recently cold in the grave, begins to ascend like “the living creature” in Ezekiel’s vision, “lifted up from the earth,” till nearly out of sight; when “the chariots of God, even thousands of angels,” receive him, and haste to the celestial city, waking the thrones of eternity with this jubilant chorus—“Lift up your heads, O ye gates! and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors! and the King of glory shall come in!”
Christ might have rode in a chariot of fire all the way from Bethlehem to Calvary; but he preferred riding in a chariot of mercy, whose lining was crimson, and whose ornament the malefactor’s cross. How rapidly rolled his wheels over the hills and the plains of Palestine, gathering up everywhere the children of affliction, and scattering blessings like the beams of the morning! Now we find him in Cana of Galilee, turning water into wine; then treading the waves of the sea, and hushing the roar of the tempest; then delivering the demoniac of Gadara from the fury of a legion of fiends; then healing the nobleman’s son at Capernaum; raising the daughter of Jairus, and the young man of Nain; writing upon the grave at Bethany—“I am the resurrection and the life;” curing the invalid at the pool of Bethesda; feeding the five thousand in the wilderness; preaching to the woman by Jacob’s well; acquitting the adulteress, and shaming her accusers; and exercising everywhere, in all his travels, the three offices of Physician, Prophet, and Saviour, as he drove on toward the place of skulls.
Now we see the chariot surrounded with enemies—Herod, and Pilate, and Caiaphas, and the Roman soldiers, and the populace of Jerusalem, and thousands of Jews who have come up to keep the Passover, led on by Judas and the devil. See how they rage and curse, as if they would tear him from his chariot of mercy. But Jesus maintains his seat, and holds fast the reins, and drives right on through the angry crowd, without shooting an arrow, or lifting a spear upon his foes. For in that chariot the King must ride to Calvary—Calvary must be consecrated to mercy for ever. He sees the cross planted upon the brow of the hill, and hastens forward to embrace it. No sacrifice shall be offered to Justice on this day, but the one sacrifice which reconciles heaven and earth. None of those children of Belial shall suffer to-day. The bribed witnesses, and clamorous murderers, shall be spared—the smiters, the scourgers, the spitters, the thorn-platters, the nail-drivers, the head-shakers for Jesus pleads on their behalf—“Father, forgive them! they know not what they do. They are ignorant of thy truth and grace. They are not aware whom they are crucifying. O, spare them! Let Death know that he shall have enough to do with me to-day! Let him open all his batteries upon me! My bosom is bare to the stroke! I will gather all the lances of hell in my heart!”
Still the chariot rushes on, and “fiery darts” are falling thick and fast, like a shower of meteors, on Messiah’s head, till he is covered with wounds, and the blood flows down his garments, and leaves a crimson track behind him. As he passes, he casts at the dying malefactor a glance of benignity, and throws him a passport into Paradise, written with his own blood; stretches forth his scepter, and touches the prison-door of death, and many of the prisoners come forth, and the tyrant shall never regain his dominion over them; rides triumphant over thrones and principalities, and crushes beneath his wheels the last enemy himself, and leaves the memorial of his march engraven on the rocks of Golgotha!
Christ is everywhere in the Scriptures spoken of as a blessing; and whether we contemplate his advent, his ministry, his miracles, his agony, his crucifixion, his interment, his resurrection, or his ascension, we may truly say, “all his paths drop fatness.” All his travels were on the road of mercy; and trees are growing up in his footsteps, whose fruit is delicious food, and whose “leaves are for the healing of the nations.” He walketh upon the south winds, causing propitious gales to blow upon the wilderness, till songs of joy awake in the solitary place, and the desert blossoms as the rose.
If we will consider what the prophets wrote of Messiah, in connection with the evangelical history, we shall be satisfied that none like him, either before or since, ever entered our world, and departed from it. Both God and man—at once the Father of eternity and the son of time—he filled the universe, while he was imbodied upon earth; and ruled the celestial principalities and powers, while he wandered—a persecuted stranger—in Judea. “No man,” saith he, “hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven—even the Son of man, who is in heaven.”
Heaven was no strange place to Jesus. He talks of the mansions in his Father’s house as familiarly as one of the royal family would talk of Windsor Castle, where he was born; and saith to his disciples—“I go to prepare a place for you; that where I am, there ye may be also.” The glory into which he entered was his own glory—the glory which he had with the Father before the world was. He had an original and supreme right to the celestial mansions; and he acquired a new and additional claim by his office as mediator. Having suffered for our sins, he “ought to enter into his glory.” He ought, because he is “God, blessed for ever”—he ought, because he is the representative of his redeemed people. He has taken possession of the kingdom in our behalf, and left on record for our encouragement this cheering promise—“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne; even as I also have overcome, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”
The departure of God from Eden, and the departure of Christ from the earth, were two of the sublimest events that ever occurred, and fraught with immense consequences to our race. When Jehovah went out from Eden, he left a curse upon the place for man’s sake, and drove out man before him into an accursed earth. But when Jesus ascended from Olivet, he lifted the curse with him, and left a blessing behind him—sowed the world with the seed of eternal blessings; “and instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree; and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, and an everlasting sign, that shall not be cut off.” He ascended to intercede for sinners, and reopen paradise to his people; and when he shall come the second time, according to the promise, with all his holy angels, then shall we be “caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
“The Lord is gone up with a shout,” and has taken our redeemed nature with him. He is the head of the church, and her representative at the right hand of the Father. “He hath ascended on high; he hath led captivity captive; he hath received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that God may dwell among them.” “Him hath God exalted, with his own right hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins.” This is the Father’s recognition of his “Beloved Son,” and significant acceptance of his sacrifice. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in the earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”