USA > North Carolina > Ashe County > History of Ashe County Baptist Association, North Carolina SBC, 1949 to 1977 > Part 14
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17
It was on this pastorial field that he spent the remaining time of his ministry.
His health finally gave way and he had to retire back to his home on Grasy Creek Va .
KEN HUDLER
ARTIST-LECTURER Grew up in Grassy Creek Baptist Church, and moved into the Oak Grove Baptist Church Bel Air. M. D.
Following will be some of his work as an artist.
249
INTRODUCTION
Quite some time ago, I became aware of a personal conviction that the general concept of religious art could be expanded in op- posite directions. That is, I felt that greater accentuation could be given to the human characteristics of Jesus Christ, and also to ele- ments pertaining to His divinity; especially the suffering of His di- vine nature as He made atonement for our sins.
During my years in art college, the conviction deepened. In the workshop of my heart, this conviction has become a matrix which has as its industry the production of paintings that portray my beliefs concerning Christ, the Word made flesh. I have worked especially to expound my convictions that Christ-even as He walked as man with man - suffered in His divine soul as only God can suffer.
It has been my privilege to present a number of these paintings in an "exhibition-lecture" program before many audiences of vari- ous faiths. The response to this presentation, which I have chosen to call "The Man of Sorrows," is the impetus for reproducing the paintings and lecture to form this booklet.
It is my belief that we all, even the regenerated, are inclined to step within the scope of the indictment given in Isaiah 53, verse 3: "And we hid as it were our faces from Him." With hidden faces we cannot behold Christ as He really is. Thus, we reshape Him in our subconscious minds. We create a smoother image which is less chafing to our consciences; an image which is flexible, and which will conform to the shape of our lives as they are, leaving them un- disturbed. The Christ we see behind hidden faces requires not spirituality, only sentimentality. Even as He makes atonement, His blood flows from superficial wounds in graceful streamlets down over His serene, unquivering body.
Ineffectuality is the aspect of this distorted image of Christ, and apathy the token of our response to Him. It is my sincere prayer that we may learn to behold the Lord Jesus Christ with uncovered eyes, especially as He became "The Man of Sorrows."
Kezflualler ISA. 53
250
A LTHOUGH CHRIST was both human and di- vine, His disciples were simply human. I believe that one strong evidence of their humanity was the fear with which they were stricken when their ship was stricken by a storm on the Sea of Galilee.
At the outset of this voyage across the Lake of Galilee to the country of the Gadarenes, the lake was calm and smooth, like the glass of a mirror. But later that "mirror lake" suddenly became like a shattered mirror whose thousands of fragments were thousands of jagged, perilous waves.
These militant waves, marshalled by the wind, launched fierce attack upon that small, defenseless vessel. Some of the waves with wild glee went leaping into the ship. The disciples pulled hard on the ropes, but the sea had taken command of the ship. Christ, undisturbed by the storm, was in the stern of the ship asleep under a blanket of human weariness. He had just come from many hours of ministering to needy multitudes.
Finally, some of the disciples went stumbling and groping their way to the stern. I believe it must have been Simon Peter who laid rough, rope-burned hands upon the Lord's shoulders and cried loudly, "Carest thou not that we perish?" Christ awoke and was displeased. Most of us are irate when we are shaken roughly awake. But the displeasure that Christ knew was not caused by the dis- turbance of His rest and sleep. He was displeased by the lack of faith displayed by His disciples.
Christ rose up and rebuked the sea that was behaving so much like a fearsome dragon and caused it to lie down and become calm, benign, and subdued. Fright had opened wide the eyes and mouths of the disciples, but this distortion of their faces was not to sub- side when the storm subsided. Wide eyes and open mouths are also the expression of amazement, and there was amazement in abundance as they whispered among themselves, saying, "What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the waves obey Him?"
25I
THE MAN OF SORROWS
I N JOHN'S GOSPEL, chapter 1, verse 14, we read a description of Christ that says: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." What was the aspect of that flesh? What were the salient physical characteristics of the God-man, Jesus Christ? What did He look like? I believe that the Christ who was for many years carpenter before He became public figure, was a robust in- dividual with muscled arms and callused hands.
He was meek; but true meekness, such as His, has no kinship with weakness. He is often rightly thought of as the Gentle Shep- herd who leads His sheep to shady, green pastures. But He was also the rugged Christ of the dusty road, and more than that, the Christ of the gutter of that road; for there is where He went to thrust His miracle-working hands into the wretchedness and filth that en- gulfed the outcasts of humanity.
He is a Christ who sweated, and it is likely that He often had dirt beneath His fingernails. He had a personal acquaintance with pain, misery, grief, loneliness, hunger, weariness, and anger. He knew all the temptations and stimulations known to man, for He too was clad in the shabby cloth of human flesh.
Although clad in this fleshly garment, Christ never allowed one thread of its fabric to become broken by the pulling, tearing forces of temptation. That is, Christ, although robed in sinful flesh, never committed a sin.
Fully God and fully man was He as His broad shadow spread out across the paths of His fellow men.
KENNETH HUDLER IS THE SON OF MR & MRS WALTER HUDLER OF GRASSY CREEK
NORTH CAROLINA
252
CAREST THOU NOT THAT WE PERISH?" Mark 4:38
253
"LAZARUS, COME FORTH!" John 11:43
254
"IT IS WRITTEN, 'MY HOUSE IS THE HOUSE OF PRAYER'; BUT YE HAVE MADE IT A DEN OF THIEVES!" Luke 19:46
255
I LN JERUSALEM, Christ went into the temple and was sorely displeased to see His Father's house profaned by dis- honest merchants and moneychangers. Using a rope as a whip, He drove them out.
One can imagine that the hearts of those thievish men stopped pumping blood and began to pump the fear that had taken over their hearts, for Christ was unlike any other angry person they had ever seen. His face was an ember glowing with holy wrath. I am not attempting to be clever when I say that Christ was literally a "holy terror" to the desecrators of the temple.
However, Christ the angry one was not Christ the sinning one. He was like you and me in that there were times when He mani- fested anger. But, He was unlike us in that He did not let that anger turn into sin, as we so often do.
Christ cleansing the temple epitomizes the anger of God against all unrighteousness.
I T IS THE TIME of the Feast of the Passover, and Christ and His disciples meet in an upper room in Jerusalem to observe this feast.
In this painting, I have again tried to emphasize my conviction that Christ was robust and virile of physique. He uses His huge carpenter's hands to break bread which He will give to His dis- ciples ås a token of His soon-to-be-broken body.
I have also tried to create a sensitive expression on His face to indicate that His thoughts are visualizing the suffering which He must soon endure.
I believe that our Lord knew incomparable loneliness. Even His most intimate associates, His disciples, fell pitifully short in understanding the work and mission of their master.
"AND HE TOOK BREAD, AND GAVE THANKS, AND BRAKE IT .. Luke 22:19
256
税
257
J ESUS AND HIS DISCIPLES leave the upper room and go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Here He draws apart from His disciples and goes to a secluded spot and falls down to pray. What is the burden of His prayer? Christ prays that, if it can be His Father's will, He may not have to drink the cup of death that even now is being brewed for Him in the blackened cauldron that sim- mers over the fires of Hell.
The full measure of His dread and horror of crucifixion cannot find adequate expression in the verbal articulation of His prayer. The streams of bloody-sweat that pour from His body are more eloquent.
The bloody-sweat of Jesus in Gethsemane is no poetic exag- geration; for, although it is rare, other cases of "Hematidrosis," or bloody-sweat, are well documented in medical literature. Under great emotional stress, tiny blood vessels in the sweat glands can break. Thus, blood becomes mixed with sweat.
But how may we understand the overwhelming emotional stress, the intense anguish of Jesus as He prays in Gethsemane? We remember that Christ, although divine, is also human. Could He be experiencing the same human fear and dread that would be known by any mortal facing the indescribable pain and other suf- ferings that are synonymous with crucifixion? If this be true, His keen perceptive powers must create a sharp, vivid, mental picture of the excruciating agonies that He must endure. He can envision the scourging that will slash His back into bloody ribbons of ragged flesh. He foresees the rough, wooden cross upon which He will be laid and to which the Roman legionnaires will nail His hands and feet with gruesome, blunted spikes. He realizes that several strong men will lift up that cross after He has been nailed to it and shove
258
it roughly into a hole in the ground. He knows that the jarring, rip- ping impact of that heavy, wooden structure thudding against the bottom of that hole will cause the wounds in His hands and feet to tear hard against those unyielding spikes. Moreover, Jesus is aware that to be crucified is to be enswathed in shame, and that Death with hated slowness spreads his mantle over victims of cruci- fixion. For such victims die by slow, torturous suffocation while they suffer limitless pain and misery caused by the wounds and abuses that have been wrought in their bodies.
But-I am convinced in every square-inch of my soul that not one syllable of His agonizing beseeching to be spared crucifixion is uttered that He may escape these horrifying physical tortures. For-although unthinkable in its terribleness -this physical abuse yet amounts to only what man can do to the flesh. Has not Christ taught His followers not to fear those who can only destroy the body? (Matthew 10:28)
His mental torment and anguish of soul in Gethsemane are caused by His knowledge that, when He shall be crucified, His pure, pristine, spotless, sinless soul will be laid bare and spread out to have poured out upon it all the burning, boiling, frothing, scarring, scathing acid of the sins of the entire human race! He will have to absorb all this poisonous filth that is absolutely foreign to His divine nature; and, in doing so, He will lose His identity in this sin and become indistinguishable from it. The Sinless One will become the personification of sin - that which, of all things in the universe, is most repulsive to Him.
But, what is the dominate note of His prayer to His Father? "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done."
259
"FATHER, IF THOU BE WILLING, REMOVE THIS CUP FROM ME." Luke 22:42
260
J ESUS ENDS HIS PRAYING, rises from the blood- ied ground, and rejoins His disciples. He is immediately taken prisoner; and, during the hours that follow, He is subjected to five mock trials. Indeed, from each of these trials Justice retreats with spotted robes; for the black filth of lies spews forth in profusion from mouths with lips curled into the shape of hatred. Despite this, Pontious Pilate can find no cause to convict Jesus of wrong. How- ever, to please the mob, Pilate orders Barabbas released and con- demns Jesus to be scourged and crucified.
Crucifixion and scourging were so common in that day that the Gospel writers undoubtedly considered a detailed description totally superfluous. But let us realize that a great portion of the blood that our Lord shed was spilled in the, scourging. So weak was He from the shock caused by great blood-loss that He fell beneath the weight of the cross when it was placed upon His gory back and shoulders.
Is the blood precious to us, as we so often sing that it is? Then, although the aspect of it being shed is horrible, may it not be said of us that we still hide as it were our faces from Him. And, although this blood washes the sinner as white as snow, may it stain our memories an indelible crimson.
From one historian's account we learn what was entailed in the inhuman punishment of scourging. The prisoner is stripped of his clothing and his hands are tied to a post above his head. The Roman legionnaire steps forward with the flagellum in his hand. This is a short whip consisting of several heavy, leather thongs with
26I
two small balls of lead attached near the end of each. The heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again across the shoulders, back, and legs of Jesus. The blood flows as the first blows cut through the skin. Then, as the blows continue, there is spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles. The balls of lead cause large, deep bruises which are broken open by subsequent blows. Finally the skin of the back is hanging in long ribbons and the entire area is an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue. When it is determined by the centurion in charge that the prisoner is near death, the beating is finally stopped. Jesus, in a state of half-consciousness, is untied and allowed to slump to the stone pavement - wet with his own blood.
The Roman soldiers, in joking mockery of this One's claim to be a king, throw a purple robe around His shoulders. Then they fashion for Him a crown from a bundle of flexible branches covered with long thorns. This is pressed onto His head and the thorns puncture His scalp and brow. They mock Him and strike Him across the face. Finally they tire of their sadistic sport, and the robe is torn from His back. This has already become adherent to the clots of blood and serum in the wounds. The rough jerking away of this robe is like the careless removal of a surgical bandage -causing excruciating pain.
The heavy cross is laid upon His gory back and shoulders. The procession of the condemned Christ, two thieves, and the execu- tion detail of Roman soldiers-headed by a centurion - begins its slow journey along the Via Dolorosa.
262
THEN PILATE THEREFORE TOOK JESUS AND SCOURGED HIM." John 19:1
263
T HEY BRING HIM TO CALVARY, the place of public execution.
There is no verse that gives direct description concerning the Roman executioner; but I have considered that it would not con- flict with the Scriptures to suppose that this huge, brutish man might have looked over into the face of Jesus and have seen some- thing quite different from the expressions that he had witnessed on the faces of the rogues and criminals whom he had put to death. I imagine that what he saw in the face of Jesus was so infinitely strange that even he, a hardened and beastly man, drew back in a moment of hesitation -even fear - before he drove those blunted spikes through the hands of Jesus.
There was no need for him to pin down the arm of Jesus with his huge knee. Christ had said that no man would take His life, but that He would lay it down. He did not struggle nor resist.
The crude, heavy executioner's hammer, as it nailed the hands of Jesus to that cross textured with splinters, was at the same time performing like the hammer of the goldsmith. For, as it wrought pain and mutilation to the royal hands of the Prince of Heaven, it wrought for us golden crowns.
264
"AND IT WAS THE THIRD HOUR, AND THEY CRUCIFIED HIM." Mark 15:25
265
T HE CROSS with its innocent victim is raised up and planted in the earth. Christ becomes grotesquely silhouetted against the heavens-the heavens that, according to the psalmist, declare the glory of God. Ah, but now they declare the death of the Son of God!
Christ has been subjected to every indignity and painful abuse imaginable. His body has been unmercifully smitten and muti- lated. He opens His mouth; and from His tortured throat, where the gurgling sound of blood mingles with the rattle of death, there is given the most agonizing cry of suffering that has ever shattered the vast silence of the universe. But this cry is not to give voice to the pain He endures in His mutilated body. Although unbelievably excruciating, this does not compare with the unmitigated grief and anguish that have smitten His soul.
He cries, "My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?" What does this mean? How, and, indeed, why has God forsaken Him? Christ upon that cross has taken upon Himself the entire ag- gregation of the sins of the whole human race. He has lost His iden- tity in that morass of sin and has become indistinguishable from it. This aspect is so terrible to God that He cannot bear to look. He cannot identify with the personification of sin that His son has become - and He forsakes Him.
I am persuaded that compared to the suffering that Christ now experiences in His soul, the scourging that has shredded His flesh is like the caress of His mother's hand. The shocking pain caused by those gruesome spikes in His hands and feet, when compared to that which has punctured His soul, is like the sensation He knew when, as a child, He reached out His hand to catch a raindrop. And by such comparison, the grotesque crown of thorns gouging into His head seems no more than the dust of the carpenter shop fall- ing upon His hair. His divinity has become so mingled and amal- gamated with our sins that now He appears not as divinity, but as
266
sin. Every atom, if you please, of His divine nature has become en- crusted with our filthy, shameful sin.
And that is not all. That sin itself is suffering, as it were. The judgement of Hell is at the same time being poured out upon that sin! In addition to the divine Christ becoming the epitome of sin, He suffers all the ravaging tortures of Hell which are mixed and mingled with that sin! He takes our sins ... and at the same time, takes the judgement for them. Here is the fullness of His sorrow and acquaintance with grief! What Christ suffers for us is spiritual death -separation from God and the horrors of Hell. The death of His soul is infinitely more horrible that the destruction and death of His body.
Simon Peter is not unique. He is not the only one who forsakes and disowns Christ. The Holy God has to forsake and disown the reality of sin that Christ has become. The sky has turned black, for God has drawn an opaque curtain of darkness between Heaven and Earth. I envision that, in Heaven, the music of the angelic choir blends into a symphony of sobs and sounds of weeping. Muteness descends upon the harps of many strings. I see the seraphims with six wings whom Isaiah described as flying with two wings, covering their feet with two, and covering their faces with the remaining two wings. I see them as settling down to the floor of Heaven and sorrowfully covering their faces with all six wir.gs. I envision that the God of the ages covers His face with one hand as He reaches out with the other to touch the empty seat beside Him there in the resplendent, white throne. As He covers His face, there falls pitch- black darkness in Heaven. Every sound is smothered to silence by that thick, stifling morass of darkness. But, outside the closed por- tals of Heaven, out there among the stars, there is heard a strange sound. It sounds like music! The Book of Job mentions a time when, eons ago, the stars sang together. Now they are singing again. How dare they sing now when all else is silent with grief? What are they singing? Ah, they are singing a love song! Celestial
267
"MY GOD! MY GOD! WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?" Matthew 27:46
268
harmonies, carried by the speed of light, waft across unfathomed space to swell the theme of God's immeasurable love for mankind! What lavish, sacrificial, costly love! Christ nailed to that cross is its eloquent token ..
What condescension resulted from that love! How can mortal minds, with imaginations always bound to mortal environment, begin to comprehend, even minutely, what it meant for the divine Prince of Heaven to lay aside the mantle of His opulent glory and garb himself in the shabby cloth of human flesh? What was it like for the Perfect One to lose His own identity on Calvary's cross and become the personification of sin? Realizing the utter inability of finite minds to even begin to grasp the magnitude of this condes- cension, I asked God to give me some means by which I could des- cribe just a small, infinitesimal concept of it. God answered this request by putting into my mind an allegory that left me shivering with nausea. I was made to realize as never before that, although we cringe when our aesthetic sensibilities are shocked, the sacrifices and sufferings of our Lord cannot be understood in terms of sweet, sentimental, undisturbing niceties.
This allegory is somewhat shocking. However, I wish to share it with you; for I believe that many agree that we all need to be shocked into a deeper awareness of what Christ suffered for us.
I shall begin this allegory by saying that, when I was a boy, I read a fairy story about a prince who was turned into a frog by a wicked magician. Frogs do not disturb me; but if there is anything in the universe that I cannot abide, it is snakes. I believe that most people share this feeling. I am going to ask you now to imagine that, due to some black magic or alchemy, your body suddenly be- gins to grow smaller. As it grows smaller it changes shape. Your arms and legs disappear. Your head becomes small and wedge- shaped. Your skin changes in color and texture as it takes on scales. You are filled with terror as suddenly you realize that from all out- ward appearances, you have become a slithering, writhing, despi-
269
cable serpent. Although your body has undergone a horrible meta- morphic change, your intelligence, your soul, and your emotional capacity remain unchanged. You cannot protest nor cry out, for your now forked tongue cannot articulate words. You cannot weep; for your unblinking, beady eyes have no tears. You can only crawl out of and away from your clothes that have fallen to the ground, shapeless. You crawl along on the ground that became cursed at the same time a curse was put upon your newly-acquired ancestor. You find yourself crawling along a familiar path, and suddenly you realize that some of the uneven places in the earth that you crawl in and out of are your very own tracks that you made when you walked upright on legs and feet. Your only hope is that somehow you may escape being killed until some miracle can break the awful spell that has been put upon you and restore you to a human being. But suddenly you are caught about the middle with a steel hook that is attached to the end of a long pole. Then you are lifted swiftly and thrust roughly into a heavy sack. You think that this is the end of you as you begin to suffocate in the darkness. Before you die of suffocation, however, the mouth of the sack opens again and you are dumped out. You are grateful for the air and daylight until you realize where you are. You have been thrown into a cage of hissing, vile snakes! Immeasurable and indescribable are your horror, your torment, your anguish, and your disgust as these snakes crawl to- ward you and begin to entwine themselves about your body that is exactly like theirs! You become inseparably linked with the crea- tures that are, of all creatures imaginable, most despised by you. You lose your identity among them and become indistinguishable from them. Your friends and loved ones do not know you and they hate you because they cannot stand snakes!
Yet, I believe that this illustration portrays the full measure of Christ's condescension and suffering to the same degree that a tiny spark portrays the shining of all the stars in a heavenly galaxy. He, who poured out for us the water of life, "poured out his soul unto
270
death." The only way Christ could promise exemption from this spiritual death to those who would keep His word was to die that death Himself.
This question confronts us: "If He died spiritually, was He res- urrected spiritually?" The answer is a victorious "Yes!" This res- urrection was necessary to win victory over spiritual death, just as His bodily resurrection was necessary for triumph over physical death. Jesus was in the throes of spiritual death when He cried out that God had forsaken Him. But when He gave the glad cry, "It is finished," He spoke of the completed work for the salvation of the souls of mankind. His divinity was restored. He had been resur- rected spiritually. He could then peacefully and gladly say, "Fa- ther, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
A Roman legionnaire drove his lance through the fifth inter- space between the ribs and upward into the heart of Jesus. John 19:34 says, "And immediately there came out blood and water." Medical science sheds light for us here. It states that in the case of heart rupture -and only in that case - the blood collects in the peri- cardium (the lining around the outside wall of the heart) and di- vides into a sort of bloody-clot and a watery serum. Thus, the cause of Jesus' physical death seems to be heart rupture, not the usual crucifixion death of suffocation. The emotional stress and spiritual agony caused His heart to rage so wildly that His heart burst open. Our sins killed Christ both spiritually and physically. This ought to cause us to become acquainted with a measure of grief.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.