The tragedy of Calvary. Part 99.

The tragedy of Calvary: or the minute details of Christ's life from Palm Sunday morning till the resurrection and ascension taken prophecy, history, revelations and ancient writings by Meagher, Jas. L. (James Luke), 1848-1920

 Isaiah, Vatican City: Sistine Chapel ceiling

This was the fourth time that the council had met and condemned him to death. Then they all rose from their seats, and vied with each other in reviling and insulting him, calling him a low-born miserable wretch, an impostor, who pretended to be their Messiah, the Son of God, and entitled to sit at the right hand of God. It was the custom in Judea to fasten an iron chain around the neck of a prisoner condemned to death, and they ordered the Temple guards and the archers to put it on him again, and to tie his hands, and get ready to bring him before Pilate, They sent a message to Pilate asking him to be ready to try a prisoner, whom they were about to bring before him early in the morning.

The abject servility of the East, the vulgarity of the mob which delights to see the man in authority fallen, the ferocity that is in man, the lowest instincts of fallen nature now broke loose, and they fell on him again with shouts, insults and strokes. While the members of the court were getting ready to go to Pilate's palace, they consulted among themselves how they could prove that Jesus was an enemy of the government of Rome, and hostile to the emperor. The guard was standing outside the house surrounded by a great crowd of people attracted by curiosity.

Thus were fulfilled the words of Isaias the prophet, written hundreds of years before, when he saw a vision of the awful scene of man's redemption about to be enacted (Isaias liii. 21)

ISAIAS' PROPHECY. UTTERED 700 YEARS BEFORE CHRIST.

"And he shall grow up as a tender plant before him, and as root out of a thirsty ground. There is no beauty in him, or comeliness, and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness that we should be desirous of him. Despised and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with infirmity, and his look as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our infirmities, and carried our sorrows, and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins, the chastisement of our peace was on him, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all.

"He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth, He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth. He was taken away from distress and from judgment, who shall declare his generation ? Because he is cut off out of the land of the living, for the wickedness of my people have I struck him. And he shall give the ungodly for his burial, and the rich for his death; because he hath done no iniquity, neither was there deceit in his mouth. And the Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity; if he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed, and the will of God shall be prosperous in his hand. Because his soul hath labored, he shall see and be filled; by his knowledge shall this my just servant justify many, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I distribute to him very many, and he shall divide the spoils of the strong, because he hath delivered his soul unto death, and was reputed with the wicked, and he hath born the sins of many and hath prayed for the transgressors." (Isaias liii.)