first place, that work which
Christ had come into the world to do. All that work may be resumed in a
single word, "sacrifice." The Son of God had come for this one purpose,
to offer a sacrifice. Here is room for serious misunderstanding. The
blood, the pain, the death, were not the sacrifice. Nothing visible was
the sacrifice, least of all the physical surroundings of its culminating
act. There is only one thing which can rightly be called sacrifice--or,
to put it otherwise, one sacrifice which alone has any worth, alone can
win any acceptance in the sight of God--and that is, the obedience of the
human will, the will of man brought into perfect union with that Divine
Will which is its own highest moral ideal.

The perfect obedience of the human will of Christ to the Divine Will,
could only be realised--such were the circumstances under which the
mission received of the Father was to be fulfilled by Him for the good of
man--by His faithfulness unto death. "He became obedient unto death,"
because in such a world perfect faithfulness must lead to death. But the
death of Christ was no isolated fact, standing out solitary and alone
from the rest of His ministry. It was not merely of one piece with, but
the natural and fitting close of the whole. The death of uttermost
obedience was the crown and consummation of the obedient life. On the
Cross, He was carrying His life's work to its triumphant close. His
Death was, itself, His victory.

This victorious aspect of the Passion is that on which St. John chiefly
dwells. The "glorification" of the Son of man, His "lifting up," was the
whole series of events extending from the Passion to the Ascension. So
the first Christians loved to think of the Cross, not as the instrument
of unutterable pain, but as the symbol of their Master's triumph. It is
this feeling, this apprehension of the Johannine teaching on the Passion,
which accounts for the late appearance of the crucifix. Even when, at
last, the actual sufferings of the Saviour are depicted, we are still far
removed from medieval realism. There are no nails--the Saviour is
outstretched on the Cross by the moral power of His own will, steadfast
and victorious in its obedience. The Sacred Face is not convulsed with
agony, but is turned, with calm and benignant aspect, towards men whom He
blesses. The earliest representations of the Passion, as we have noticed
before, are far nearer to the spirit of the gospels,