The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1919-07-12

cruel nails. That
brow, on yhich
the dove-in holy symbolism-has set
her feet, is circled now with a crown
of thorns, and ~blood-drops trickle
down from a score of CHASTITY wounds.
Appalled, nature, gazing upon the aw-
full tragedy, trembles, while over all
the land a supernatural darkness gath
ers round. Out of that darkness
there rises a cry from the lips of the
Lowly Sufferer: "My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?'
There is clearly moral connection
between that cry and the darkness,
so that the one must explain the
other. The line of a hymn we some
woes to hide" as though the darkness
were but natures sympathy, does not
explain it.
"God is Light" it is written, and
this awful darkness is the result and
the proof of his Withdrawing him.
self from that scene
The only man who ever dared say
"why?" to God, and the only occasion
in his career that he did SO, receives
no answer to his cry. And some who
now hear that cry have heard him
say, "He that hath sent me Is with
me: the Father hath not left me
alone; for | do always those things
that please him." But now when they
who have hated him without a cause
have foully murdered him, the heav-
ems turn black above them, not in
anger against them but, as his cry
explains 1.-THE sign that God has
forsaken him in the hour of his deep
est need.
oh, for a voice to make known to
men their personal interest in that
unanswered cryl There is a psalm
that, in one short line, tells it all-the
2nd: the psalm of which this cry is
the opening line. David wrote it, but
it is Christ who is seen and heard in
every word of it. And in the third
verse we hear his answer to this
question, "Why?' Hear it, Oh, sin
ner "But thou art holy" Yes, Thou
art of purer eyes than to behold evil,
and canst not look upon iniquity."
Sin upon the Sinless One? Yes, but it
is your sin and mine laid on him,
and God must turn away his face. All,
Christ in the darkness is Christ made
SIM for you and me Christ forsaken
of God is Christ treated like a sinner
in your place and minel
Outside the limits of Israel's camp
a fire was p~erpetually burning. Upon
that fire the bodies of beasts used for
the sin-offering were consumed, as the
apostle says in Heb. ID, For the
bodies of those beasts, whose blood is
brought into the sanctuary by the
high priest for sin, are burned with
out the camp. Wherefore Jesus also,
that he might sanctify the people with
his own blood, suffered without the
gate" Out to Calvary do they take
him to die, as unfit to die within the
sacred precincts of the Holy City.
Christ on Calvary is Christ, the true
Sin-offering. This is no martyrs or
hero's death 1t is the Son of God
'made sin" for sinners, that they
might be made "the righteousness OF
God in him. and out of that awful
darkness comes our everlasting light ;
out of that forsaking, u assurance
of his abiding presence; out of that
CRY of anguish, our hymn of glad
dest praise. To its bitter dregs has
he drained the cup of divine wrath
against sin, that he might tura 1t
into a cup of eternal bliss for every
one who will drink. o, soul, drink
and 1ivei
If there were no such word in
Scripture as, "He that believeth not
shall be damned" "he that belieyeth
not shall not see life, but the wrath
of God abideth on him" that supernat-
ural darkness round the cross would
be a sufficient warning to all men.
Answer that question, If you can: IT
God turned away his face from his
one beloved Son, the very darling of
his heart, and infinitely holy because
M sin was but imputed to him, what
will he do with you whose sins are
your own by nature and by practice
when you stand before him, as you
surely shall?