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Word from Scotland
by Sandy Shaw
We come to John Chapter 19 verse 5. The prayer and the agony in the Garden is over. The pain deepens and increases. We could use so many words.
The setting is the trial before Pilate and that humiliation and ill-treatment. Who is it who is really on trial here? Is it Jesus Christ, or is it all the others?
Pilate was a cold and haughty and proud Roman. O what pride can make a man do!
Jesus is before him and it is mockery and ridicule of the highest order. There is that purple robe and that crown of thorns and a mad mob wanting and waiting to crucify Him.
This is the man. The old King James Version says, “Behold the man!”
“Ecce Homo” and thousands continue to visit that site on the Via Dolorosa on the north side of Jerusalem. You can walk on the ancient pavement where Jesus Christ walked and see the rut marks of the chariots on the 2,000 year old stones. The pavement is called the Gabbatha. It has been a privilege to have been there on various occasions and to have read the appropriate New Testament passages referring to what happened some two thousand years previously.
Let me give you three words beginning with G that may help you teach and share the simplicity of this profound time – Gethsemane – Gabbatha – Golgotha. That sums up a period of around 18 hours.
This was God – and never did Pilate speak a truer word – Behold the man – here is thee man!
Our Saviour – our Redeemer – Our Christ – our Saviour – was a Man!
What went through the mind of Jesus in the desert when the devil tempted Jesus Christ. If you bow down before me – if we can strike a bargain – then – then – and did not the shadow of the cross come over him like a cloud, if only for a moment. Bargain with me! But not our Jesus! Consent to your ways? I would sooner die!
The spiritual flood and winds of human hate are soon to beat upon this house, but it was built upon a Rock and Jesus was able to stand, although for three days it appeared that He had been swept away in the storms of sin. Not a bit of it!
“O love that wilt not let me go!”
Behold the man! Here is the man! These words have echoed down through the centuries and they ring true. Go back for a moment and try to go that little bit deeper, but staying in John. Chapter 1 verse 36.
Look, the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God. This is more than manliness. This is sacrifice. This is suffering. This is love confronting the world’s sorrow and shame and sin.
The Lamb of God is taking everything that is bad and dark and sinful upon Himself.
William Booth of The Salvation Army, in his young days, when he felt the call of the slums and the underworld and all life’s painful wreckage, described his feelings. “I hungered for hell and pushed into the very midst of it. I loved it because of the souls I saw.” He was taking this need upon himself.
Jesus was taking upon Himself the sorrow and shame and sin of the world.
There was a missionary who returned from the Gobi desert, taking the love of God into the darkness because of the love of Jesus Christ, and said, “I could never have done it unless I prayed each day – Guide me O Thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through the barren land: I am weak but Thou art mighty; Hold me with Thy powerful hand.”
People go and take a lot upon themselves, all because of what Jesus Christ has taken upon Himself and has removed from us, and has released us, and delivered us and set us free, and we have desire as well as calling to share the Gospel.
There is no such thing as a bloodless Gospel. There is no such thing as a Gospel without sacrifice and suffering.
We can sing all the wonderful new songs we wish, and I appreciate most of them, but it is sacrifice and suffering to various degrees, and it would be deceitful to hide this from people.
Chapter 19 verse 14 – here is your king – behold your king.
The writer to the Hebrews had a vision one day and he saw Jesus. We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour. (Hebrews 2:9).
This is the only answer for our troubled world. If the world could see this, would there be any more war? If the world could see this, would there so many millions left without water and food and housing and medicine?
He is to be King wherever we are – and wherever we go – even though those around us may not want us to introduce our risen living King into their presence.
We cannot avoid doing that. We dare not tell Him to sit outside. Where do you put Jesus Christ in what is called ‘multi-faith services’?
The Man Who is the Lamb of God Who Saves us, is the King, and He is King from the beginning. Where is He who is born the king of the Jews?
This is more than trying to love your neighbour, and living decently and respectably. It is the message that God has come right down to where we are.
Asaph found that, at that time in the sanctuary. Read and study Psalm 73.
Jesus knew who He was and what He was doing, that night in the garden when He was in prayer.
Do you think in the light of this that Jesus Christ might have had His day, and that is it? This is God in action and that is why we worship and praise and pray and study His Holy Word, and for no other reason.
He has broken through into our lives and He may break through again, in some new fresh vital way!
This is the hope of every contrite heart – the joy of all the meek.
Behold the man – behold the Lamb of God – behold your King – Behold your God!
Alexander 'Sandy' Shaw is pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship in Nairn, Scotland. Nairn is 17 miles east of Inverness - on the Moray Firth Coast - not far from the Loch Ness Monster!
Gifted as a Biblical teacher, Sandy is firmly committed to making sure that his teachings are firmly grounded in the Word.
Sandy has a weekly radio talk which can be heard via the Internet on Saturday at 11:40am, New Orleans time, at wsho.com.
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