Sermon XII.
The Cross, The Measure of Sin.
(Passion Sunday)
"For my thoughts are not as your thoughts;
nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are exalted above the earth,
so are my ways exalted above your ways,
and my thoughts above your thoughts."
—Isa. LV., 8, 9.
To-day, my brethren, is the beginning of Passion-tide, the most solemn part of the season of Lent. The two weeks between now and Easter are set apart especially for the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ. Therefore the Church assumes the most sombre apparel, and speaks in the saddest tone. The actual recital of the Passion, the following of our Blessed Saviour step by step in His career of woe, she reserves for the last three days of this sorrowful fortnight. In this, the earlier part of it, her aim is rather to suggest some thoughts which lead the way to Calvary, and prepare the mind for the great event that happened there. I shall then be saying what is suitable to the season, and at the same time directing your minds to what I regard as one of the most useful reflections connected with this subject, by asking you this morning to consider the sufferings of Christ as a revelation of the evil of sin.
But, it may be asked, does man need a revelation on this point? Is not the natural reason and the natural conscience sufficient to tell us that sin is wrong? Undoubtedly a man naturally knows that sin is an evil, and without this knowledge, indeed, he would be incapable of committing sin, since in any action a man is only guilty of the evil which his conscience apprehends. But this natural perception of sin is more or less confused and indistinct. Our Saviour on the cross prayed for His murderers in these words: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." He did not mean that they were ignorant that they were doing wrong, for then they could have needed no forgiveness, but that they did not realize the full atrocity of the deed. They were acting guiltily indeed, but inadvertently and blindly: And the same may be said of very many sinners. Sin is for the most part a leap in the dark. A man knows he is doing a dangerous thing, but he does not realize the full danger. He does not take in the full scope of his action, nor its complete consequences. St. Paul speaks of the deceitfulness of sin, and the expression describes very well the source of that disappointment and unhappiness which often overtakes the transgressor when he finds himself involved in difficulties from which it is all but impossible to extricate himself and sorrows which he never anticipated. It is the old story. Sin "beginneth pleasantly, but in the end it will bite like a snake and will spread abroad poison like a serpent." [Footnote 78] Oh! how many are there who are finding this true in their own experience every day.
[Footnote 78: Prov. xxiii. 31, 32.]
Tell me, my brethren, do you think that young persons who contract habits of sin that undermine their health know all they are bringing on themselves—the weakness of body, the feebleness of mind, the early decay, the shame, the remorse, the impotence of will, the tyranny of passion, the broken vows and resolutions, the hopelessness, the fear—perhaps the premature disease and death? No, all this was not in their thoughts at first. These are the bitter lessons which the youth has learned in the school of sin. He has not found out what he was doing till it was all but too late. Or that married woman who has stepped aside from the path of virtue, did she realize what she was doing? Did she think of the plighted faith broken; did she think of the horrible guilt of the adulteress, of the agony, the remorse, the deceit, the falsehood, the trembling fear of her whole future life; did she realize the moment when her guilt would be detected, the fury of her wronged husband, her family dishonored, her children torn from her embrace, her name infamous, herself forlorn and ruined? Oh, no! these things she did not realize. There was indeed, on the day when she committed the dreadful crime, a dark and fearful form in her path, that raised its hands in warning, and frowned a frown of dreadful menace. It was the awful form of conscience, but she turned away from the sight, and shut her ear to the words, and heard not half the message. And so the dreadful consequences of her sin have come upon her almost as if there had been no warning. Or that drunkard, when he was a handsome young man, with a bright eye and a light step, and was neatly dressed, and was succeeding in his business; when he first began to tipple, did he realize that he would soon be a diseased, bloated, dirty vagabond; that his children would be half naked, and his wife half starved; or that he would spend the last cent in his pocket, or the last rag on his back, in the vain effort to allay that thirst for drink which is almost as unquenchable as the fire of hell? No, he little foresaw it, and if it had been told him, he would have said with Hasael, the Syrian captain, when Elisha showed him the abominations he was about to commit, "What, am I a dog, that I should do such things?" Or that thief, when he yielded to the glittering temptation, and made himself rich for a while with dishonest riches, did he then see before him the deeper poverty that was to follow; the loss of all that makes a man's heart glow and his life happy; the lies that he must tell, the subterfuges he must resort to, the horrible detection, the loss of situation, the public trial, the imprisonment? No. Of course these were all daily in his thoughts, for they were part of the risk he knew he was running; but so little did he bring them home to himself, and the suffering he was to endure, that when they came it seemed almost hard, as if a wholly unlooked-for calamity had overtaken him. So it is. Wherever we look it is the same thing. Men imagine sin to be a less evil than it really is. It is so easy to commit it, it is so soon done, the temptation so strong, that it does not seem as if such very bad consequences would come of it. So it is done, and the bitter consequences come. It seems as if the lie that Satan told to Eve in the garden, when he tempted her to eat the forbidden fruit, "Thou shalt not surely die," still echoes through the world and bewitches men's ears so that they always underrate the guilt and punishment of sin; and although the lie has been exposed a thousand times, although in their own bitter experience men find its falsehood, yet they do not grow wiser, they still go on thoughtless, insensible to their greatest danger and their greatest evil, and when they stand on the shore of time, and hear God threatening eternal punishment hereafter to the sinner, they still set aside the warning with the same fatal insensibility. If they are not Catholics, they deny or doubt the existence of hell; if they are Catholics, they think somehow they will escape it.
Oh, my brethren, before you allow yourselves to act on this estimate of sin, so prevalent in the world, ask yourselves how it accords with God's estimate of sin. That is the true standard. God is Truth. He sees things as they are, and every thing is just what He considers it. He is our Judge, and it will not save us when we stand on trial at His bar to tell Him that we have rejected His standard and taken our own. What, then, is God's estimate of sin? Look at the Cross, and you have the answer. Let me for a moment carry you back to the scene and time of the Crucifixion. It is the eve of a great festival in the city of Jerusalem. It is the Parasceve, or Preparation of the Passover. On this day the Jews were required, each family by itself, to kill a lamb and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They were required to eat it standing, with loins girded, and with staves in their hands, because this feast was in memory of the sudden deliverance of their fathers from the bondage of Egypt, when God smote the first-born of the Egyptians with death, passed over the houses of the Israelites, and conducted them miraculously through the waters of the Red Sea. It was a great feast among the Jews, and always collected together a great multitude of strangers in the holy city. But on this occasion a new excitement was added to the interest of the holy city, for there was a public execution on Mount Calvary, and turbaned priests, and Pharisees with broad fringes on their garments, and scribes and doctors of the law, mingled in the throng of mechanics and laborers, and women and children, who hastened to the spot. The day is dark, but as you draw near the Mount, you see, high up in the air, the bodies of men crucified; and sitting on the ground, or standing in groups, talking and disputing among themselves, or watching in silence with folded arms, are gathered a vast multitude of spectators.
What is there in this execution thus to gather together all classes of the people? The punishment of crucifixion was inflicted only on slaves or malefactors of the worst kind, and two of the three that are hanging there are vulgar and infamous offenders. What is it, then, that gives such interest to this scene? It is He who hangs upon that cross, at whose feet three sorrowing women kneel. Read the title, it will tell you who He is. "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." Yes, this is Jesus, the merciful and kind; He who went about doing good, healing all manner of sickness, and delivering all that were possessed with the devil; He who spoke words of truth and love. This is Jesus, the King of the Jews, whom a thousand prophecies fulfilled in him and a thousand miracles performed by Him pointed out as the promised Messias: Jesus, whom the Eternal Father, by a voice from heaven, had acknowledged as His own Son. "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Why is this? Why is it that the just man perisheth? The apostle tells us: "Christ must needs have suffered." He was the true Paschal Lamb that must die that we might go free. He was the victim of our sins. Pilate and Herod and the Jews were but the instruments by which all the consequences of our sins fell upon Him who came to bear them. "Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows; and we have thought Him, as it were, a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, everyone hath turned aside into his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." [Footnote 79]