THE first two verses of this chapter link its narrative to that of the preceding one. We have considered the first trial scene, that travesty of justice; the gathering of the Sanhedrim in the night, which was in itself illegal according to their own law. That is revealed in the action which Matthew so briefly chronicles in these two first verses; "Now, when morning was come, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put Him to death." That is they met in the morning and took counsel as to how they should carry out the decision of the night, in order to be technically within the law. Their decision was that they would so act as to compel the Roman power to be the instrument of their own base decision; so they "bound Him, and led Him away, and delivered Him up to Pilate the governor."

The outstanding figures in the section are those of the King Himself, Judas and Pilate.

First of all our eyes are fixed upon the King. Standing in the presence of Pilate, He made His claim to be the King of the Jews. On solemn oath, in the presence of the Sanhedrim in the night, He claimed to be the Son of God, the Messiah. Now once again before Pilate the question was asked, not with the same formality, but it was the question of the judge directly spoken to the prisoner; "Art Thou the King of the Jews?" And again quietly, with little formality, and yet as clearly as in the night, He answered the inquiry of the Procurator. "Thou sayest." That is to say, What thou sayest is so, I am the King of the Jews. Then immediately Pilate turned aside from his true line of action as a dispassionate judge, and reminded the Prisoner of the clamour of these priests. And Christ answered nothing. Christ's sense of true judicial procedure was far finer than Pilate's. He would answer His judge, but He had no answer for clamour, no answer for those men who were there for the set purpose of encompassing His death. The foregone conclusion of His opponents made Him silent.

Let us now look at the two men here coming into contact with Christ. In each case we see the most disastrous failure.

This is the final picture of Judas. What are the things that are impressed upon our mind as we look at him? First, a too late repentance; secondly, a too late restitution, the flinging back of the thirty pieces of silver; and finally, an appalling retribution coming upon him by his own hand. Judas appears in this trial scene as one of the band of Christ's own disciples, one of the inner circle. In following this Gospel, we have seen vast multitudes crowding about Him, the rulers and those in authority deeply interested in Him. We have also seen how they gradually fell away, the rulers first, and then the multitudes, until He slowly and solemnly proceeded to the place He occupied in the awful hour of His passion, absolutely alone so far as human friendship was concerned. Judas had been His companion along the highway of His public ministry. He had sat at the table with Him, and had heard those intimate and private conversations. He had been one of the inner circle of souls, loyal to Him, at least by confession and profession. This man was the traitor in the camp, the betrayer of our Lord from the inner circle to the outer circle; as in turn, they of His own nationality became His betrayers to that yet wider circle of Roman power. So by a process of betrayal from the inner circle outward, our Lord was handed over; by a member of His own disciples to the foes plotting for His own life; and by the members of His own nation to the nation without, which cared nothing for Him, but wholly for themselves.

Many brilliant and interesting attempts have been made to redeem Judas from obloquy, but let us be content to abide by his own conception of what he had done-"I have sinned." Not, I have blundered, or have been mistaken, or foolish, or wrong; not, I have attempted to hurry this Messiah to declare Himself, but, "I have sinned." As we look at Judas in that terrible picture, we see a man filled with terror, the terror of a lost soul; the sense of sin, and the dread of its issue. Not regret, not the sense of sin with desire to escape it, but the sense of sin with desire to escape the issue of it. That is not the repentance that brings a man to God. If a man simply repents of sin, by attempting to escape its issue, he knows nothing of repentance in the true sense of the word. Repentance which would be glad to bear the fire of hell if it would purge from sin, is the repentance that works salvation.

His restitution was also too late. It was a dramatic scene. The priests were moving across the courtyard, from the place where they had met in the palace of the high priest to the palace of the Procurator. Just over the wall were the Temple courts; and suddenly this man confronted the procession of priests, with Jesus in the midst, and cried to them, "I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent blood." Mark the brutality of the answer, "What is that to us? See thou to it;" you made your bargain, abide by it! Then, realizing the whole meaning of the situation, Judas took those thirty pieces of silver-he had not spent one of them, what he got he did not gain, a man never does when he is selling Christ-and flung them over into the Temple enclosure. An awful revelation of the illumination of a soul too late! Then he hurried away and hanged himself. Thus the one traitor in the inner circle of Christ's Kingdom, became his own executioner.

If we would know the difference between true repentance and false, let us go back to the story of Peter, and put the statement there into comparison with the statement here. Peter had basely denied Him; but mark the ending of the two stories. Of Peter it is written, "He went out and wept bitterly." Of Judas it is written, "He went away and hanged himself." In the one case, we have the man repentant, sorry for the actual sin, and turning from it, desiring to escape from the wrong done. In the other case we have a man, desiring to escape the consequences of his sin, by his own act plunging himself into them.

Now let us look at the high priests, and if it be possible, calmly. They gathered up those thirty pieces of silver. Notice their religious conscience. In the midst of the greatest travesty of justice that the world has ever seen, themselves the inspirers and instigators of the foul deed, the darkest sin ever committed, they said-"It is not lawful to put them into the treasury." What shall we do with them? We will endeavour to cleanse this money which has been cast into the Temple courts by putting it to charitable uses! We will buy the potter's field, and we will make it the place to bury strangers in. How often men attempt to cleanse money by putting it to charitable uses. Mark the irony of the whole situation, how the people named the thing correctly, even when the priests tried to hide it. The priests said, A field to bury strangers in. The people said, The field of blood! Thus, all unintentionally, they sent down through all the years the right naming of the thing they had done, "The field of blood."

The story of Pilate is a story of conscience; and there are these distinct movements in the process; first conscience startled; then conscience struggling; then conscience compromising; and, finally, conscience drugged, silenced! The final revelation of the study is that the man who governs his life simply by conscience, is likely to ruin his life.

His conscience was startled by the very presence of Jesus. There would seem to be no other explanation. Pilate was a man never popular, even among his own friends; hard, cold, dispassionate, used to scenes of blood; a man who in all likelihood had risen from the rank of a slave, not immediately, but by succession. The man who rises, without the grace of God, always becomes the greatest despot, when he is given power. But when the priests came to him, bearing that Prisoner, he was a startled man. No such prisoner had stood before him up to that moment. Pilate embodied Roman authority; but here was a Prisoner at the bar, Who immediately became the Judge, while the judge became the prisoner. Pilate felt the influence of His stately and quiet affirmation of Kingship. "Art Thou the King of the Jews?" which meant to say, Thou art claiming to be the King of the Jews; it is an absurd position; settle it at once by saying that Thou art not! But instead of a denial, there was an affirmation. Pilate expected the Prisoner would wish to escape; he found the Prisoner had no desire to escape. Pilate himself ' would have given anything to escape. His conscience was aroused.

Then we see a man struggling with his conscience. His arguments for Jesus as against the priests, and that last suggestion supposed to be by himself a master-stroke of cleverness, prove this. It was his custom to release a notable prisoner. Barabbas was a man guilty of robbery and murder, and yet a man making claims to free his people. Barabbas means son of the father; and is a title rather than a name. Some of the ancient manuscripts give the name as Jesus Barabbas. In all probability he had set up Messianic claims, on the low level of a material fight and robbery. Pilate saw the difference, and thought that surely these religious men, if driven to choice, would be bound to accept Jesus. So little did Pilate know of priestism! Which will you have, Jesus which is called Christ, or Barabbas?

Then there occurred an interval, in which the priests persuaded the people to ask for Barabbas; and, as John tells us, in the loneliness of an inner chamber, face to face with Christ, Pilate asked, "What is truth?"

The hidden interview over, the people were ready to answer; and Pilate came with his question,

Then followed the washing of his hands in water. Judas, a frenzied soul, went back and faced the high priests and said, "I have betrayed innocent blood." Now Pilate said, "I am innocent of the blood of this righteous Man; see ye to it."

What next? Conscience drugged. "Then . . . Jesus he scourged and delivered to be crucified."

Now once more we look back; and this story of Judas teaches us that there is an unpardonable sin. There are many passages in the New Testament that speak of it, always with awful solemnity. What is it? Rejection of the Saviour. If Judas, instead of confessing his sin to the high priest, had confessed it to Christ, he would have been pardoned there and then; if, instead of allowing an awful fear resulting from sin to drive him to self destruction, he had flung himself upon the tender compassion of Jesus he would have been forgiven even then. The unpardonable sin, and the only one for which Christ has no word, no look, no help, is the sin of deliberately, and willfully, and finally, rejecting Hun, as Saviour.

As we look at Judas, we learn also that whatever price we put upon Christ we are likely to get for Him. It is an awful truth. We can sell Christ for our own price! The devil will take care of that! F. Beard, of Chicago, in one of his wonderful cartoons, has a picture that would shock the sensibilities of some. It is that of a man in his inner office, leaning on his desk, writing, and looking over his ledgers and books. Outside the door of that office stands the Christ, knocking, but the door is locked and there is no entrance for Hun. Standing by the man is the devil not-the devil of the Middle Ages, with horns and hoofs, but the cultured, refined, and insidious devil of the nineteenth century, who woos and wins with gold. And what is he doing? He is giving this man all that he asks, in order to keep Christ out. It is graphic, awful, and true! That is the devil's mission, to give men anything, in order to keep Christ out.

But there is a difference between getting and gaining. The things a man gets when he sells Christ are not current in the eternities; and at the last, his soul passing out into the darkness, as did that of Judas, he will fling back the getting of years into the Temple, having lost Christ and the thirty pieces of silver. We see the King in Pilate's hall arraigned. But Pilate was arraigned. Nineteen centuries have gone and the world knows it now. Not the high priests are jailors. He is the Jailor; He holds them in His right hand, and their eternal destinies depend upon Him. Not the Roman Procurator was judge. He was a prisoner, and his question was more than he knew, "What shall I do with Jesus?" In that moment when Pilate released Barabbas, and gave Jesus to the Cross, the Roman kingdom was doomed in the economy of God. Presently the followers of the Christ found their way to Rome. A halting man, feeble in bodily appearance, came into Rome as a prisoner, and receiving into his own hired house all that came to him, he taught them the things concerning Jesus, Whom their Governor had given to the Cross. Thus Rome was shaken at the centre; and its pagan power was broken by the coming of the King Pilate had flung out.

THESE verses tell the story of the Passion and Passing of the King. To say that, is to recognize the difficulty of exposition, and to fill the soul with that awe and reverence without which all such attempts would be sacrilegious. There are matters here too profound for words, things that cannot be fully apprehended by our finite minds. Here, as never before in the reading of this Gospel, we see the King in a loneliness and a dignity which defy explanation. The story is full of contradictions, and yet wonderfully complete. If we read it as a passage out of merely human history, it would be a story of an ignominious and overwhelming defeat. It is not too late to read it in that way. Nineteen centuries have revealed the fact that the rough and bloody Roman gibbet was the throne of imperial monarchy, and spiritual empire.

As we come to the story, we have the great advantage of all the gathered light of the experience of the Church, and the experience of the world, and we see these things as it would have been utterly impossible for men to see them at the tune. The seeing of these things in the gathered light of the centuries, creates this difference, among others, between the men who looked upon them then, and ourselves. They imagined that they perfectly understood all that was happening. We know that we do not even now understand all that happened. Had that been an ordinary death, then all that these men said in the presence of it was true; but that is a supposition which cannot be entertained in view of the effect which has been produced in individual, social, national, and worldwide life, as the issue of that Cross. There have been other details sublimely heroic; but to speak of this merely as heroic, is almost to insult it. There have been other deaths tragic and dreadful, and while this is more tragic than any other, to speak of it as a tragedy merely, would savour of irreverence.

One is quite powerless in the presence of this story. Here exposition has to end, save as perchance it may reverently touch upon some of the outer things. To the inner heart of the mystery exposition cannot penetrate. It is well in that connection to notice the remarkable reticence of Matthew. Other evangelists tell us more than he tells us, and yet they are all reverently reticent in the presence of the Cross. Much more might have been written of that scene in the palace, when Pilate, having handed Jesus over in answer to the clamour of the mob inspired by the priests, the whole band of Jews gathered about Hun; but there is a dignity and reverent reticence in the story of Matthew. That reticence is more marked as we proceed. He does not describe the crucifixion at all. There is a change in this connection in the Revised Version, full of significance. The Authorized makes it appear that Matthew declares that they crucified Him, for it reads there "they crucified Him," as though drawing attention to the act itself as being performed. The Revised reads, "when they were come unto the place called Golgotha, that is to say, The place of a skull, they gave Him wine to drink, mingled with gall: and when He had tasted it, He would not drink. And when they had crucified Him, they parted His garments among them, casting lots: and they sat and watched Hun there." He does not describe it, but refers to it as a fact accomplished. We need in the reading of that to remember that between verses thirty-four and thirty-five (Mat 27:34-35) the crucifixion took place. It would seem that Matthew, when writing the story of the King, turned away as though he would say to those who would read, I cannot even look upon that. Let us observe the same attitude. The longer one lives and contemplates this central mystery of our faith, the less one can peer into it on the material side, and the less one can attempt to explain it in the profundity of its spiritual meaning.

Let us, then, reverently meditate on this paragraph, in three ways. First, the attitude of God as revealed; secondly, the attitude of the King; finally, the attitude of humanity.

The attitude of God in the presence of this Passing and Passion of the King. One may be inclined to say that the passage says hardly anything about God. And that indeed is the first matter which arrests attention, the apparent non-interference of God. That becomes most remarkable as we remember previous matters in this Gospel, how at the close of the years o privacy God broke the silence and spoke, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased;" how on the Mount of Transfiguration when His humanity had wrought itself out to an absolute perfection and was ready for glory, and yet turned again to the earthly way, and the way of sorrow, God said to the disciples who were fearful in their obedience and their following, "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him." Think of the relation existing between the King and God as we have seen it flashing out every now and then in the course of the ministry and teaching of Jesus. Remember how He said, "No one knoweth the Son, save the Father." Then turn to this picture in which we see this One,-Who was perfect in His life, Who pleased God in His teaching so that God had broken the silence of heaven to set the seal of His approval upon Him,-now in the midst of a brutal band of soldiers who were making sport of Him, and there was no interference. That is the mystery of all mysteries. We talk of the problem of pain; there it is focussed. We talk of the problem of evil, there it is concrete; that God could leave Hun alone in that hour of human persecution. All this is most apparent at Golgotha. When the King was hanging upon the Cross and the interpreters of religion, the priests, misinterpreted God, there was a great silence. God's Non-interference is the first thing that impresses one, as the story is read.

But that is not all the story. It was not wholly non-interference. There is one touch full of beauty; "From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour." That seems to have been the act of God. It would seem that in infinite tenderness God wrapped the land in darkness in the hour of His Son's supreme suffering. About those three hours we know nothing, save the words that escaped the lips of the Sufferer Himself. Here we approach that which is perhaps the matter most difficult of interpretation. There came a moment when the voice was heard amid the darkness, and it said, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" The men about the Cross were quite familiar with the words. They were not strange words. They were quoted from the Psalter, from the Worship-book of the Hebrew people. They had often chanted the psalm in solemn monotone and recited it in many an hour of heart anguish. But there are values in it far deeper and more profound than the Psalmist knew when he wrote the song. When he wrote it, it was the expression of sorrow such as he was then passing through. But it has become for evermore full of meaning to us, because Christ uttered these words upon the Cross. There is great value in recognizing the fact that it was a human cry, and that Jesus quoted it. And the value is all the greater if we remember that all that follows in that twenty-second Psalm is an exposition of what it is to be God-forsaken. The Psalmist was not looking at the Cross on the green hill, he had no vision of it; he was writing of his own heart's agony; and here this One, this King upon the Cross, stretched back through the centuries and took hold of the most awful wail of agony that ever escaped the human heart, and quoted it as His own experience. He was of our humanity, born of the virgin, throughout the whole of His public ministry He had spoken in human terms, and yet with an unequivocal Divine authority. When we look at this Cross and listen to His words thereon, we must be very careful that we do not divide between the Deity and the humanity of Jesus. If He was God manifest in the days of His teaching; He was God manifest on the Cross; God coming into identification with the issue of the sin of man. "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" It was first of all the cry of a soul at the uttermost of sin, having lost the vision of God. It was the cry of a soul at the uttermost of sorrow, conscious of its lack of God. All sorrow is lack. All grief is consciousness of lack. And the final lack is God. When the soul becomes conscious of the lack of God, that is the uttermost sorrow. Moreover, it was the soul in the presence of mystery, in the presence of silence, with no voice, with no answer. Here, then, because this Man was God incarnate, because from beginning to end every word that fell from His lips was a word of God, this also is the word of God. In that moment He expressed in human speech the fact that the pains and penalties of the human sin were His. That is as far as we can see into the Atonement. That is the heart of it, and the centre of it, and the soul of it, and the marvel of it, and the mystery of it! If we make this Man upon the Cross a Man merely, then the presentation is out of harmony with the rest of the Gospel story, and out of harmony with the deepest of human experience concerning Him. But when we say that this Man upon the Cross was still the unveiled God, then all the physical bruising, terrible as it was, so that eyes can hardly bear to look on it, is but a material shadow of the suffering of the Divine heart in the presence of sin, by which suffering He dealt with sin and bore it, as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. We see the Man among the soldiers, we see them press the crown of thorns upon His brow; they are thorn-crowning God!

Whence came the thorns? Let us go back to the beginning of Bible human history, and we find it was said; "Cursed is the ground for thy sake: in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." In Pilate's judgment hall, we see the soldiers with rough hands plaiting a rude crown of thorns; and there is a suggestiveness which arrests the soul. They were pressing back into the brow of God incarnate, the very curse that followed sin. And what was He doing? We speak of the non-interference of God; it was His non-interference with Himself, for it was His determination to work out the mystery of His pain in the shedding of blood in order to cleanse the very sin of the men who crushed the thorns upon His brow.

But where was God when the last word had been spoken and the King had yielded up His Spirit? And again the answer was not the answer of speech, but the answer of an act. "And behold, the veil of the Temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom." That was a great symbolic act, indicating the fact that symbolism was for ever over. The veil of the Temple was that which excluded men from God. Think of that holy of holies in the Temple in Jerusalem, of its darkness! No light was ever there! There had been light in olden days when the glory of the Shekinah shone between the overshadowing wings of the cherubim; but that had long since passed away. Men were outside, not permitted to enter. But when our King died, the veil was rent, and that meant first that light broke through where all had been darkness, and secondly that the God Who had been a mystery became a Revelation, shining out upon all human history; and it meant also that excluded men were admitted. What happened when the veil was rent? All the world was brought inside; and all souls were made priests, who come through the name and merit of the Priest Who that day had died. And so if we see first the non-interference of God; we see also the triumph of God by identification with men; and we see that triumph manifested, in the rending of that veil.

Now let us reverently look at the King Himself. We begin exactly where we began before. Mark these words for a moment as the very words of the King Himself, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Notice that they indicate His identification with God in the experience of that issue. No one can read this story consecutively from the beginning of the Gospel until this point and imagine that in the Cross there was some kind of conflict as between Christ and God. There was nothing to mar the perfect harmony between God and Christ in that Cross. He was neither persuading God to love us, nor overcoming reluctance in the heart of God to save us. He was co-operating with the work of God in the revelation of the love that makes man know what the heart of God really is. As we listen to the voice of the King, we detect the perfect harmony, and realize how here, as everywhere, the first recorded words of Jesus were still true, "Knew ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" This also was His business, and the King was in perfect accord with the law and purposes of God.

He cried with a loud voice. Matthew does not tell us what He said, but that having spoken, He yielded up His Spirit; very literally, He sent His Spirit away. This was a phrase in common use to describe death. In the Cross of Christ, it was justified. We have seen as we have traced the story, how, in the last days of the King's Passion, as He was approaching the Cross, He compelled circumstances to His own will, and the same fact is revealed here. That was the King's triumph. He triumphed, not merely by resurrection, and not alone in that He compelled the hour of His dying to fall in with the counsels of God and with the symbolism of the ancient system, but in that, at the moment when He had passed" through all, "He yielded up His Spirit."

As we look at the attitude of humanity we need do no more than indicate certain lines of thought. It is a very interesting study, that of the people who gathered about the Cross of Jesus. We see humanity materialized, in the soldiers. They began by making sport of Him in the palace. Then they manifested a touch of rough pity as they offered Him the wine and the gall. This was succeeded by an awful indifference, as, having done their work of crucifixion, in the sight of the Cross they gambled for His garments; and "they watched Him." To what depths humanity falls when its ideals are materialized! To these men there was no beauty that they should desire Him, because they were blind to all high and spiritual things.

But there is a worse picture than that. It is that of religion in the presence of the Cross. The most devilish thing in human history is religion when it becomes false. The higher and the nobler a thing, the lower and the more ignoble it becomes when it is false. Begin on the lowest level of illustration. A lost woman is a greater tragedy than a lost man. All reformers and all workers know that it is most difficult to lift and reclaim a woman. And why is this? Because her nature is finer, nearer the spiritual.

One is appalled by the ignorance of the priests, far more than horrified by their brutality. "He saved others, Himself He cannot save." Now had these men had any spiritual understanding at all, they would have known that this was not true of Jesus merely, but has always been true of humanity. In order to save any one to the highest degree, from the lowest plane, the saviour must be willing not to save himself. It is only by the giving of our life away that we can hope to save another life. The whole of life is built upon that great principle, and yet here were interpreters of moral and spiritual things, flinging this as a gibe and a taunt into the face of the dying Christ Himself, "He saved others, Himself He cannot save."

Then observe their misinterpretation of God, "He trusteth on God; let Him deliver Him now, if He desireth Him; for He said, I am the Son of God." How ignorant they were of God!

All the things they said to Him were true, but not as they meant them. These final taunts of the priests constitute a great revelation of the heart of atonement.

There is one other group at which we will glance, that of the women. Reverently, though perplexed; loyal, though disappointed; standing afar off and waiting; were the women who had ministered to Him. We leave them there, that sorrow-stricken company. We shall meet them again; and we shall find that some of them stayed and watched His burial. No apostles did. Some of them watched through the darkness of the night for the break of day. No apostle did. As we look back at that scene, we thank God for the women who waited! Look finally at that Cross. It is the throne. See how it divides to the right and the left. It divided the soldiers. One of their number looked, and looked, the captain of the band, the centurion, and the truth broke upon him, and he said, "Truly this was the Son of God." It divided the thieves; the dying Christ had no word for one but the imperial word of entrance to light for the other. It divided attitudes of mind; priests and women; priests laughing and mocking in their ignorance of spiritual things; women waiting and worshipping in their ignorance of what He was doing. So to-day we are judged by that Cross, and when we pass our verdict upon it, the verdict we pass upon it is, if we could but hear and understand it, its verdict upon us. Ever since that hour, that has been His throne for present administration. Presently He will change it for the throne of glory, and the throne of empire. To that throne of the Cross He brings us now; and according to what we do with it, He will do with us, when He sits on the throne of His glory.