“And all the multitudes who came together for this spectacle, when they observed what had happened began to return, beating their breasts.”
“A time to mourn and a time to dance” – Eccl 3:4b
On July 5th, 1893, Mary and Ruby, the sixteen and twelve year old daughters of John Ray of Bardwell, Kentucky, went berry picking. They never returned. The bodies of the two girls were found later lying next to each other, their throats slit with a razor. Later examination determined they had been raped.
Some neighbors reported that they had seen a light-skinned man, possibly of mixed race, running from that area earlier in the day. A search ensued, and the numbers of searchers grew as the story spread. John Ray wanted justice. He wanted to see the man who had done this to his little girls get his just reward.
The next morning they got news that officials in Sikeston, Missouri, about 30 miles away, had arrested a young black man named C.J. Miller, who had been waiting for a train there.
They said his clothing roughly matched the reports and he had two rings in his pocket that had the names of the girls inscribed on them.
A large group, including two deputies, two witnesses and 30 armed men accompanied John Ray to Sikeston, arriving there at nine that evening. John Ray was surprised to see that C.J. was dark-skinned, since the reports had been that the offender was almost white.
In addition, the two witnesses said they could not be sure C. J. Miller was the right man, his clothes did not really fit the description after all, and the rings he had on him had nothing engraved on them, and John Ray said they did not belong to his daughters.
Nevertheless, Miller was turned over to the group from Bardwell, and transported back to that town for investigation.
John Ray tried to reason with those with him, saying that the evidence mounting up was indicating that they had the wrong man. But he was being ignored.
By eleven o’clock on the morning of July 7th hundreds of people, many of them armed, had gathered in Bardwell to meet the incoming train. All that kept the crowd from taking Miller by force was their respect for the father of the victims and his insistent pleas for order.
Well, the investigation continued, turning up nothing of note, and as it did the crowd continued to grow in numbers and in emotional intensity. By afternoon and despite the repeated objections by John Ray, people were gathering wood and throwing it into a pile for a bonfire.
Yelling for the crowd to give him a moment’s silence, Ray stood up and said, “I am not convinced this is the culprit who murdered my little girls. Please, do not torture this man. You must not burn him alive.”
The crowd was still for a moment, then someone yelled, “Hang him!” Immediately other voices joined in and began to chant. “Hang him! Hang him!”
The crowd rushed forward and took Miller out of the jail. They ripped his clothes off and used his shirt to put around his loins. A log chain, nearly a hundred feet in length and weighing more than a hundred pounds was wrapped around his neck and body.
They dragged him through the streets to the platform they had built, wrapped the chain around his neck and tossed the other end over the cross arm of a telegraph pole.
They lifted Miller several feet off the ground and let him drop. That first fall broke his neck, but the body was repeatedly raised and lowered while the men shot C. J. full of holes.
The corpse hung there for more than two hours while photographs were taken, the man’s fingers and toes were cut off for souvenirs, then finally the chain was released and the body of this innocent man dropped into the fire that had been lit below.
Miller, when arrested, had been waiting for the train that would have taken him home to his wife in Springfield, Illinois.
(taken from: “Under God”, Mac & Tait, Bethany House, 2004, pg 94-97)
The story of C. J. Miller is not an isolated one. History is full of accounts of mob rule and the terrible things that happen when reason is abandoned and mad blood-lust takes control.
And even now, one hundred and twelve years later, our hearts are made to grieve for this poor man in his innocence, and his unsuspecting young wife, waiting at home for her husband to return from his business, not knowing as his body lies turning to charcoal in the fire of a town’s wrath that she’ll never see his face again.
Yet there are two sobering thoughts that must be addressed here for the sake of honesty. One is that while we grieve we must also admit that had we been there at that time some if not all of us may have been in that mob.
Such is the black and twisted condition of the sin nature, that a man may be full of nobility and truth and goodness toward his fellow man, and in a moment turned to murder by the drinking of Satan’s clever concoctions of anger, grief and self-righteousness.
Secondly, and with no desire to malign the memory of an innocent man who fell victim to mob violence, we acknowledge that he was still just a man, who like the rest of Adam’s race fell short of the glory of God and apart from Christ had earned sin’s wage.
Not so in the case of the One who became a spectacle on Golgotha’s crest, that day outside of Jerusalem.
The One who from ages past had angels bowing in His presence, flying around His throne declaring, “Holy, Holy, Holy”, Who walked among His creation in purity, unscathed by sin, One with the Father, His flesh barely veiling the glory within, deserved none of what He was getting.
Yet, here we find ourselves. We were in Jerusalem for the Passover. A festive time of year. The highest of the high holy days. The lamb had been selected and we had examined it for three days to be certain it wasn’t sick or injured or lame.
Items for the meal had been purchased in the marketplace and we had all been spending the day visiting and sharing, laughing together and telling old stories; it was Passover eve, like every other Passover eve.
Then there were shouts and a crowd seemed to be moving like an uneven flow of water through the streets and heading for the governor’s palace. So we followed, drawn in like iron filings to a magnet dragged in the dirt.
We watched and listened as the religious leaders coaxed Pilate to make some judgment on this Jesus, the Nazarene. He was arguing with them but they were persistent.
But hadn’t we been hearing some good things about this man?
Weren’t people saying He had performed miracles of healing and feeding multitudes of people? Wasn’t there a report just this week of His having raised a man back from four days death over in Bethany?
So what had He done wrong? Well, it must have been something, we reason, because the Pharisees and the scribes know the law and they’re the ones in charge here.
Maybe He broke some Roman law. Otherwise, why would they bring Him before the Roman procurator?
Well, if that’s the case, we reason, we can’t be having that. We don’t need Roman soldiers marching through the streets, arresting and beating people just to teach a lesson; and we certainly don’t need martial law declared on the eve of Passover.
Whatever He did, we all agree, we’re glad they nipped it in the bud before real trouble was stirred up.
The crowd is large and noisy and it’s difficult from back here to tell exactly what’s being said or what’s going on. Someone up ahead turns his head back to say, ‘they’re flogging him’.
Well, ok then. Too bad for Him, but maybe this’ll put an end to it. The Jews will be satisfied, the Romans will be appeased, maybe this guy from Nazareth will have learned a lesson; maybe even go back to Nazareth. Then we can get on with the celebration and have done with this unpleasantness.
A few minutes pass and we wonder what’s going on up front, when Pilate appears on the balcony above his judgment seat. “Behold the man” he yells, and a soldier roughly drags someone out of the shadows.
The crowd gasps as one and our stomachs churn just a little at the site.
The man is a bloody mess. His face is misshapen as though it has been pounded with hammers. Someone has fashioned a wreath of wild thorns and pressed it down on his head. His beard appears to have been yanked out in handfuls, but the worst sight of all is His torso. His flesh is hanging in ragged flaps, cut away from his ribs by the scourging. How can he still be alive? How can He be standing?
The sight disgusts us. What must He have done or said, to deserve this?
Suddenly a chanting begins from up there where the Pharisees are standing as a group.
“Crucify! Crucify Him!”
It begins to ripple through the crowd, sporadic at first from individuals scattered here and there, but then growing to a crescendo until it rings in our own ears from the people all around us.
Yes! This must be right. Anyway, it’ll end His suffering if nothing else. He certainly couldn’t live through the night in that condition, and besides, who’s going to want to nurse Him all day during Passover?
So we join in. “Crucify! Crucify Him!” And someone yells, “Let His blood be on us and on our children”, meaning we take responsibility. You don’t have to fret, Pilate. No one is going to snitch you off to the Caesar. You’re only doing what the people want, and that’s the kind of politicking that keeps the peace.
So amid the din Pilate says something inaudible and turns away. Soldiers step up and grab the man by the arms and lead him back into the recesses of the building, then appear moments later leading Him to the outer courtyard.
A couple more soldiers place a beam over His shoulders and force Him to carry it, and as they march Him through the streets toward the Damascus
gate, the mob follows, and we’re caught up in the irresistible flow.
We’re thinking to ourselves that we’d rather just step out now and have no more part of this, but something compels us to continue; to see it through.
After all, we yelled too. We demanded it. We may as well see it to its finish.
The going is slow and arduous. The crowd is so thick and unruly that the soldiers have to whip and kick at people to clear them away from the very narrow street leading out of the city. The prisoners, Jesus and two others who have also been condemned to death, stagger along under the weight of the wooden beams, and finally the soldiers grab a man from the crowd and force him to carry Jesus’ beam so the crowd won’t begin to sympathize with His circumstances and turn ugly.
Finally outside the city walls the going gets easier and the entourage makes its way up the place of the skull until they reach the top.
It’s an unpleasant place, to say the least. There are skulls and scattered bones laying about from previous crucifixions where the bodies were made to hang there until they literally rotted off the crosses and were dragged apart by animals. The stench of death is all around.
The prisoners have been forced to lay down, so we can’t see them, but there are the sounds of hammering and men screaming in agony. Then the crosses are raised up and dropped into place with a thud and now we can see. We don’t really want to anymore. But we do.
The clothing of the crucified men has been stripped away, not for any good reason, just to add insult to injury.
The one called Jesus looks the worst out of the three. Blood seems to be running down Him from everywhere and we wonder how He could possibly still have any life in Him at all.
Women are crying all over the top of the hill. Some men are too. But there are others, especially the ones closest to the action, taunting and jeering.
“Look at Him” they’re saying. “He helped others, He cannot help Himself”.
Even one of the soldiers tossed out a challenge. “If you are the son of God, save yourself!”
What possessed us, to come up here? How could we have let the momentum of the mob suck us in and fire up such malice in our own hearts? Weren’t we, just a few hours ago, preparing for the high holy day and looking forward to worshiping God with our sacrifice?
Then how did we get to this spot, and why are we seeing this?
But something compels us to stay. This is truly a spectacle. Something that captures the eyes and the mind and the heart in a vise grip and will not let go. It’s as though our own feet are nailed to the ground. And we just stare in horror.
Things are said from the cross that only those right up front can hear clearly. Several hours have passed but we’re still rooted there, and suddenly the sky grows dark.
There are people wailing in fear now. It’s noon. And this is a sort of eerie darkness. Not the kind that we call ‘night’, where we look up and see stars and a moon, but just a darkness that can be likened to looking through a black veil over the face. It’s as though the sun has decided it will watch no more of this madness and has gone away to grieve.
For three hours it stays this way, and aside from the occasional moan and soft weeping coming from here and there, there is silence in this large assembly.
Suddenly Jesus yells in a voice that startles us back to attention; “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”
Haven’t we read that somewhere in the Psalms? Why is He quoting the Psalms at this moment?
After a pause He cries out again, and this time it sounds, not like fear and grief like before, but more like a shout of triumph.
“It is finished! Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit”
Then He grows quiet. He’s not lifting Himself up to breathe anymore. His head hangs down and He is perfectly still and limp. Even from back here it is apparent that He has died.
A few minutes pass, then we see soldiers approaching the crosses and one of them is holding an iron bar. At first it doesn’t register in our minds what he’s about to do, until he brings the bar back in a posture that says he’s about to smash the leg bones of one of the other two men hanging there.
As one we turn quickly away. We’ve seen enough today. Visions of this day will replay in our dreams for a long time to come.
There are others turning away also, starting to head silently back down the hill. Some are actually striking their chests with their fists and weeping. Some of us are doing that too, as we move out and once more join the flow of the crowd; back to Jerusalem. Back to our families. Back to the Passover. Back to life as usual? Perhaps not.
I’ve wondered about this bit of information from Luke, probably told him by Peter or John or Mary, that people went away beating their breasts.
It’s a sign of powerful emotional stress of some kind, to be sure. But even with my limited understanding of human nature I have to doubt that they were all feeling the same thing; responding in the exact same way to what they had witnessed.
Spurgeon suggests various responses of the heart to that spectacle on Golgotha, and I won’t quote him but I will agree with his fundamental assessment.
Because in the same way that there are thousands and tens of thousands who gather on worship days and hear the Word of God spoken but the seed falls on shallow soil, so I think there may have been many on that hill that day who feared the darkness and were moved by the pathos of the moment, but the next day were unchanged and even ready to go watch another crucifixion when the occasion presented itself.
Still others might have been more reflective and thoughtful, and realized that they had observed and even involved themselves in the wrongful death of an innocent man.
They might have been among those who taunted and stuck out their tongue and made mockery in the frenzy of the moment, but who later felt guilty, and then angry at those who had egged them on to join in and come to the spectacle.
But since there is no realization of who this Man really was and what He was doing there for them, there was no true repentance, but a self-righteous excusing of their own actions and loathing for the religious few who seemed to have instigated the travesty.
So as time goes by the memory fades. The odors are purged with the smells of roasting lamb and baking bread, the sounds of agony fade and are replaced by the laughter of children doing their mock search for leaven in the corners and under the tables, and afterwards there are the pursuits of worldly gain to take priority once more.
So it is with the mechanically religious, who take time away from their labors for one hour per week, to perform the rituals that will confirm their worthiness to enjoy peace and Heaven. And they will hear a Good Friday sermon about the sufferings of the Christ, and they will shake their heads in wonder at the cruel circumstances that put Him there. But they will never see that it was not the Pharisees or the Romans but their own sin that drove those spikes. Therefore they will step back into the routine of their week with an even stride and never miss a beat. Conscience clear, all is well.
But I hope there were at least a few leaving the hill that day, as I hope all of you have gone to the foot of the cross and left, beating the breast because you’ve seen in that tattered and beaten form your own sin, hanging and suffering the fire of God’s wrath.
Surely there were at least a few there who finally understood. Who knew the scriptures and had recognized who He was, and having witnessed His sufferings and perhaps been reminded of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, went away in Godly sorrow that Emmanuel had taken their sufferings for them. That their Passover lamb had indeed been sacrificed.
Because friend, you have to know and understand clearly today that this is the first step toward redemption.
There are churches today, large, active, attractive churches that by the world’s standards are ultra-successful, and they’re preaching Easter but not Good Friday!
They invite you to come to a risen Jesus in the same tone and verbiage they would use to get you to join a club.
Come to Jesus, just as you are. Jesus loves you. Accept Jesus. Come to our church and be loved and accepted and affirmed and let us help you get your life straight and give you purpose.
But you have to understand, beloved, that there is no empty tomb without a cross. If Jesus hadn’t gone to Calvary He’d now be a two thousand year old man, and you would still be in your sin.
Nothing that has not died can be resurrected, and until you have stood at the foot of that cross and grieved over the suffering your sin caused the sinless Son of God, you cannot appropriate to yourself the life that came out of the grave.
But this is a two-sided coin. There must be mourning. But there will also be dancing.
Ecclesiastes 3:5 says there is “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance”.
And as I said, there is no resurrection without a death. But there IS resurrection!
Turn back once more before you leave the crest of the hill, and look once more upon that shattered frame. He hangs there for you.
He hangs there in death so that He might give you life.
He hangs there the recipient of wrath that He might give you joy.
He hangs there condemned that you might be pardoned.
What is the scene before you? The aftermath of mob rule? Mankind at its worst? The most tragic and senseless day in the history of the world?
Look again. You see before you a finished plan. You witness victory. You look upon the carrying away of your sin, so that you might be invited to stand pure and holy and right in the presence of a pure and holy God.
And you may beat your breast now, and rightly so. But though weeping may last for the night, joy comes in the morning.
Ahead there is a resurrection.
Ahead there is joy inexpressible and full of glory.
Ahead there is eternity perfectly conformed to the image of a glorified Christ.
Ahead there is all the riches of heaven laid up for you where moth and rust do not corrupt and thief does not steal.
Ahead there is the vision, not of a broken body on a tree, but the King of
Kings and Lord of Lords, coming to conquer and rule with you at His side.
All of this and more, purchased for you on Golgatha. Where He took the decree of debt that was against you and nailed it to the cross. Where He triumphed over all the principalities and powers; over death and the grave. That’s where it all happened. That is where the Lord of the ages triumphed over evil, and purchased you back to God.
Do you want to see God’s glory? Look at the cross. It’s where He made Him who knew no sin, sin itself, that you might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Are you looking for the final battle? It won’t be a battle. It’ll be a reckoning. The final battle was fought and won outside the walls of Jerusalem in what appeared to be the maddened frenzy of a unruly mob; but was actually the playing out of that which was decreed before the foundation of the world.
There is a time for mourning. For recognition of sin and understanding that sin’s result was the death of the innocent Son of God who hung in your place.
Then there is a time for dancing, when you realize that having now been justified by faith, you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also you have obtained your introduction by faith into this grace in which you stand.
And once the dancing starts, it never ends.
When those still of this world stop to talk seriously of the crucifixion of Christ you will hear them speak of it as they would C. J. Miller, or any other innocent in history who has been misjudged and treated so wrongly. They don’t understand.
Christian, don’t mourn for Him any more. He lives, never to die.
Death has no more dominion over Him, and in Him it has no dominion over you.
He ever lives to make intercession for us, and He will soon return in power and majesty to judge the living and the dead.
Remember also the millions upon millions to whom His death has given life. Dressed in the white of His righteousness they will stand before the throne, singing His praises with joy.
When the world looks at the cross they can only see God brought down low. His Christ beaten and defeated. His people ashamed and guilty.
Not so you, Christian. You can see there honor and glory. You can see Him lifted up so that He might draw all men to Him. You can see the torn veil, through which opening He now smiles and bids you come near. You can now see eternity.
And dance.
