James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary
Luke 23:21
SPIRITUAL IMPULSES
‘But they cried, saying, Crucify Him, crucify Him.’
Every one must have felt that it is a strange and touching and instructive fact, that the Sunday which immediately precedes Good Friday should be the Sunday of the Palm.
Among the voices which cried ‘Hosanna!’ there were some who joined in the horrible chorus, ‘Crucify Him! crucify Him!’ Such a revulsion, from love to cruel hatred, is happily a rare thing. But the principle is a common one, and the tendency is deep in our nature.
There are passages of some men’s minds to which even the streets of Jerusalem could scarcely furnish a parallel. There are those who could tell—if they would-—that they have passed from a holy service to the grossest sin!
Be greatly on your guard against reactions. To some minds the danger is, of course, much greater than it is to others.
I. In a sense, all religion is an impulse; it is an impulse of the Holy Ghost; and impulsiveness is a beautiful thing. It is the germ of all great character and noble actions. But impulsiveness has its great dangers. Take care, not only of gradual slidings, but of rapid rushes!
II. To this end, remember always, that feelings are the best of servants, but the worst of masters; and those who carry the highest sail must be careful to lay in the largest ballast. I tremble for a soul which makes its religion a sensation; when I hear it always saying, ‘I feel! I feel!’ Suspicious words! dangerous words! words that are not in the Bible!
III. To us the incident was probably intended to convey two thoughts.
(a) The one, that as this week began in majesty, so the whole work of Christ’s atoning sacrifice rests upon greatness.
(b) The other, that, as with Christ, so with us, there are bright things in every grief, and earnests of glory in our deepest humiliations.
Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration
‘A man is not necessarily what the popular verdict declares him to be. This multitude was both right and wrong—right in hailing Christ as King, wrong in regarding Him as mere temporal deliverer. Afterwards thought itself wrong in the matter in which it had been right, and acted wickedly and cruelly because it had been wrong when it had believed itself right. Christ was no more a King because of their loud hosannas, and no less a King when their craven throats made themselves hoarse with the shout of “Crucify Him.” So if society chooses to persecute a good man, or to deify a bad man, its false judgment does not make good bad, or bad good. If the opinion of the multitude cannot make wrong right, so neither shall it make us think wrong right.’
(SECOND OUTLINE)
TRUE AND FALSE ENTHUSIASM
I. To-day, as long ago, Jesus Christ is the true object of the enthusiasm of mankind.—We know, as that multitude did not, the meaning of His life and mission. We know that even while the unthinking crowd was shouting around Him, the weight of the world’s sin lay heavy on His heart, and the black shadow of the Cross flung itself upon His sunlit pathway down the slope of the hill. We know that He was going to die, and to die for us that we might live.
II. There may be outward devotion to Christ while the heart remains a stranger to His nature, His claim and His love.—There was, after all, no spiritual enthusiasm among the multitudes. What of our protestations of allegiance to Christ? Are they more real, more heartfelt, more abiding than those of this light-hearted crowd? The true enthusiasm for Christ exhibits itself not in eloquent speeches about Him, not in rhapsodical outbursts of homage to Him, not in tearing down palm branches and casting them at His feet, but in the life of faith, in the patient, untiring endeavour for His sake to forsake sin, for His sake to bear life’s burdens, for His sake to do God’s will, for His sake to strive to become more like Him every day.
III. The narrative bids us beware of regarding emotional excitement as identical with religious feelings and states of mind and heart.—The religion of some people exhausts itself in Hosannas and Hallelujahs. Cut them off for a month from attendance at public services and the electricity of crowded assemblies, and the effect of moving appeals, and you will find their spiritual fervour has evaporated. The claims of Christ have only touched and ruffled the surface of their natures. Emotion certainly plays its part, but let our feelings arise from our faith, not our faith depend upon our feelings.
Illustration
‘We know that the world owes more to the man Christ Jesus, than to any or all besides; that the noblest elements in poetry and art, the splendid ideals of conduct which the best men in all ages since His day have set before themselves, the deeper sense of justice, and along with it the attempering of justice with mercy in our legislation, the civil and religious liberty we enjoy, the elevation of woman and through her of the race, the sacredness of the family tie; these, and a thousand others of our most precious possessions, we owe to the teaching and example of Jesus, and to the undying impulse which the world has received from His life and death, and living Presence in it.’