Matthew 27:26-51

Matthew 27:26

(with Mark 15:15)

Christ on the Cross.

Christ on the Cross is our subject. You know His history, And when you read, "The people stood beholding" you will be ready to add, "And no wonder." Here, before their eyes, was the tragic consummation of a life that was begotten by the Holy Ghost, born of a virgin, and signalized at its birth by the homage of both heaven and earth.

I. His nature was singularly complete. No one of the constitutional temperaments usually distinctive and characteristic of other men is seen in Him, for all of them are resolved in the perfect completeness of His manhood.

II. This completeness of nature displays itself in a corresponding harmony of life. Though of Jewish birth, He was free from bigotry and wedded to no class opinions. In His life there was no excess nor defect, no exaggeration nor narrowness. It presents a complete sphere of beautiful virtue and devout piety, in which all qualities find room for equable adjustment and contribute to an intenser harmony.

III. Notwithstanding such an inward fulness of perfect being, but indeed because of it, His life was full of grief and trouble; His countenance was marred; He was a man of sorrows; grief was His acquaintance, for while His own soul was clear as a morning without clouds, He ever shared the lot of those who sat in darkness, that He might lessen their gloom. He lived not to Himself, but gave His life in service to all.

IV. What think we of Him? Who can doubt that among all the sons of men He only is theSon of man, humanity's root and flower; that in Him all men are united in their ground and Head? But if among the sons of men He only is theSon of man, it can only be because, among all the sons of God, He only is theSon of God, embodying and representing the fulness and glory of God as He embodies and represents the fulness and glory of man. Let us learn to regard His death as sin's great act, as the culminating deed of sinful development in the world's history. The spiritual and worldly powers unite to crucify the Holy One of God. The cross of Christ is a revelation of the sin and guilt of the whole world. But, wonder of wonders! if it is sin's great act, it is also sin's great cure. The cross, which is a monument of the world's doom, is also a standard of the world's deliverance.

W. Pulsford, Trinity Church Sermons,p. 119.