There is here, secondly, a manifestation of the voluntariness of our Lord's suffering.
When that terrified mob recoiled from Him, why did He stand there so patiently? The time was propitious for flight, if He had cared to flee. He might have' passed through the midst of them and gone His way,' as He did once before, if He had chosen. He comes from the garden; there shall be no difficulty in finding Him. He tells who He is; there shall be no need for the traitor's kiss. He lays them low for a moment, but He will not flee. When Peter draws his sword He rebukes his ill-advised appeal to force, and then He holds out His hands and lets them bind Him. It was not their fetters, but the cords of love' which held Him prisoner. It was not their power, but His own pity which drew Him to the judgment hall and the Cross.
Let us dwell upon that thought for a moment. The whole story of the Gospels is constructed upon the principle, and illustrates the fact, that our Lord's life, as our Lord's death, was a voluntary surrender of Himself for man's sin, and that nothing led Him to, and fastened Him on, the Cross but His own will. He willed to be born. He came into the world' by His own choice. He took upon Him the form of a servant.' He took part' of the children's flesh and blood.' His birth was His own act, the first of the long series of the acts, by which for the sake of the love which He bore us, He humbled Himself.' Step by step He voluntarily journeyed towards the Cross, which stood clear before Him from the very beginning as the necessary end, made necessary by His love.
As we get nearer and nearer to the close of the history, we see more and more distinctly that He willingly went towards the Cross. Take, for instance, the account of the last portion of our Lord's life, and you see in the whole of it a deliberate intention to precipitate the final conflict. Hence the last journey to Jerusalem when His face was set,' and His disciples followed Him amazed. Hence the studied publicity of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Hence the studied, growing severity of His rebukes to the priests and rulers. The same impression is given, though in a somewhat different way, by His momentary retreat from the city and by the precautions taken against premature arrest, that He might not die before the Passover. In both the hastening toward the city and in the retreating from it, there is apparent the same design: that He Himself shall lay down His life, and shall determine the how, and the when, and the where as seems good to Him.
If we look at the act of death itself, Jesus did not die because He must. It was not the nails of the Cross, the physical exhaustion, the nervous shock of crucifixion that killed Him. He died because He would. I have power to lay down My life,' He said, and I have power'--of course--to take it again.' At that last moment, He was Lord and Master of death when He bowed His head to death, and, if I might so say, He summoned that grim servant with a Come!' and he came, and He set him his task with a Do this! and he did it. He was manifested as the Lord of death, having its keys' in His hands, when He died upon the Cross.
Now I pray you to ask yourselves the question, if it be true that Christ died because He would, why was it that He would die? If because He chose, what was it that determined His choice? And there are but two answers, which two are one. The divine motive that ruled His life is doubly expressed: I must do the will of My Father,' and I must save the world.'
The taunt that those Jewish rulers threw at Him had a deeper truth than they dreamed, and was an encomium, and not a taunt. He saved others'--yes, and therefore, Himself He cannot save.' He cannot, because His choice and will to die are determined by His free love to us and to all the world. His fixed will bore His body to the tree,' and His love was the strong spring which kept His will fixed.
You and I have our share in these voluntary sufferings, and our place in that loving heart which underwent them for us. Oh! should not that thought speak to all our hearts, and bind us in grateful service and lifelong surrender to Him who gave Himself for us; and must die because He loved us all so much that He could not leave us unsaved?
