With this purpose in his mind—­let us weigh our words here, and reflect again upon the clearness of his insight into life and character, into moral laws, the laws of human thought and feeling, upon his profound intelligence and grasp of what moves and is real, his knowledge (a strong word to use, but we may use it) of God—­with this purpose in his mind, thought out and understood, he deliberately and quietly goes to Jerusalem.  He “steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).  “I must walk,” he said, “to-day and to-morrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33).  To Jerusalem he goes.

We may admit that with his view of the psychology of sin, he must have a serious view of redemption.  But why should that involve the cross?  That is our problem.  But while we try to solve it, we must also remember that behind a great choice there are always more reasons than we can analyse.  A man makes one of the great choices in life.  What has influenced him?  Ten to one, if you ask him, he does not know.  Nothing else, he will say, seemed feasible; the thing was borne in on me, it came to me:  reasons?  He cannot tabulate reasons; the thing, he says, was so clear that I was a long way past reasons.  And yet he was right; he had reasons enough.  What parent ever analysed reasons for loving his children, or would tabulate them for you?  Jesus does not explain his reasons.  We find, I think, that we are apt to have far more reasons for doing what we know is wrong, than we have for doing what we know is right.  We do not want reasons for doing what is right; we know it is right, and there is an end of it.  Once again, Jesus, with his clear eye for the real, sees what he must do.  The salvation of the lost means the cross for himself.  But why? we ask again.  We must look a little closer if we are to understand him.  We shall not easily understand him in all his thoughts, but part of our education comes from the endeavour to follow him here, to “be with him,” in the phrase with which we began.

First of all we may put his love of men.  He never lost the individual in the mass, never lost sight of the human being who needed God.  The teacher who put the law of kindness in the great phrase, “Go with him twain” (Matt. 5:41), was not likely to limit himself in meeting men’s needs.  He was bound to do more than we should expect, when he saw people whom he could help; and it is that spirit of abounding generosity that shows a man what to do (Luke 6:38).  Everywhere, every day, he met the call that quickened thought and shaped purpose.