John the Lone Disciple at the Cross
"When they came unto the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him."—Luke xxiii. 33.
"At Calvary poets have sung their sweetest strains, and artists have seen their sublimest visions."—Stalker.
"Now to sorrow must I tune my song,
And set my harp to notes of saddest woe,
Which on our dearest Lord did seize ere long,
Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so,
Which He for us did freely undergo:
Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight
Of labors huge and hard, too hard for human wight."
—Milton.—The Passion.
Even careful students of the life of John are not together in their attempts to follow him on the day of crucifixion. Some think they find evidence, chiefly in his silence concerning certain events, that after hearing the final sentence of Pilate condemning Christ to be crucified, he left the palace and joined the other disciples and faithful women and the mother of Jesus, and reported what he had seen and heard during the night; and at some hour during the day visited Calvary, and returning to the city brought the women who stood with him at the cross: and witnessed only what he minutely or only describes. Other students think he followed Jesus from the palace to the cross, remaining near Him and witnessing all that transpired. This is certainly in keeping with what we should expect from his peculiar relation to Christ. It is in harmony with what we do know of his movements that day. So we are inclined to follow him as a constant though silent companion of Jesus, feeling that in keeping near him we are near to his Lord and ours. This we now do in the "Dolorous Way," along which Jesus is hurried from the judgment-seat of Pilate to the place of execution.
Christ Bearing His Cross—H. Hofmann
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It is John who uses the one phrase in the Gospels which furnishes a tragic subject for artists, and poets and preachers, on which imagination dwells, and excites our sympathies as does no other save the crucifixion itself. His phrase is this,—"Jesus ... bearing the cross for Himself." We notice this all the more because of the silence of the other Evangelists, all of whom tell of one named Simon who was compelled to bear the cross. As John read their story, there was another picture in his mind, too fresh and vivid not to be painted also. He recalled the short distance that Christ carried the cross alone, weakened by the agonies of the garden and the scourging of the palace, until, exhausted, He fell beneath the burden. We are not told that the crown of thorns had been removed, though the purple robe of mockery had been. So this added to His continued pain. As John looked upon those instruments of suffering he heard the banter and derision of shame that always accompanied them.
There followed Jesus "a great multitude of the people," whose morbid curiosity would be gratified by the coming tragedy. But there were others—"women who bewailed and lamented Him."