The Expositor’s Bible

                     The Gospel According to St. Mark

                                  By The

                      Very Rev. G. A. Chadwick, D.D.

                              Dean of Armagh

                            Hodder & Stoughton

                                 New York

                         George H. Doran Company

                                   1900





CONTENTS


Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XIII.
Chapter XIV.
Chapter XV.
Chapter XVI.
Footnotes






CHAPTER I.




The Beginning Of The Gospel.


    “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Even
    as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send My
    messenger before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way; The voice of
    one crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord,
    Make His paths straight; John came, who baptized in the wilderness
    and preached the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins. And
    there went out unto him all the country of Judæa, and all they of
    Jerusalem; and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan,
    confessing their sins. And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and
    had a leathern girdle about his loins, and did eat locusts and
    wild honey.”—MARK, i. 1-6 (R.V.).


The opening of St. Mark’s Gospel is energetic and full of character. St.
Matthew traces for Jews the pedigree of their Messiah; St. Luke’s
worldwide sympathies linger with the maiden who bore Jesus, and the
village of His boyhood; and St. John’s theology proclaims the Divine
origin of the Eternal Lord. But St. Mark trusts the public acts of the
Mighty Worker to do for the reader what they did for those who first
“beheld His glory.” How He came to earth can safely be left untold: what
He was will appear by what He wrought. It is enough to record, with
matchless vividness, the toils, the energy, the love and wrath, the defeat
and triumph of the brief career which changed the world. It will prove
itself to be the career of “the Son of God.”

In so deciding, he followed the example of the Apostolic teaching. The
first vacant place among the Twelve was filled by an eye-witness,
competent to tell what Jesus did “from the baptism of John to the day when
He was received up,” the very space covered by this Gospel. That “Gospel
of peace,” which Cornelius heard from St. Peter (and hearing, received the
Holy Ghost) was the same story of Jesus “after the baptism which John
preached.” And this is throughout the substance of the primitive teaching.
The Apostles act as men who believe that everything necessary to salvation
is (implicit or explicit) in the history of those few crowded years.
Therefore this is “the gospel.”

Men there are who judge otherwise, and whose gospel is not the story of
salvation wrought, but the plan of salvation applied, how the Atonement
avails for us, how men are converted, and what privileges they then
receive. But in truth men are not converted by preaching conversion, any
more than citizens are made loyal by demanding loyalty. Show men their
prince, and convince them that he is gracious and truly royal, and they
will die for him. Show them the Prince of Life, and He, being lifted up,
will draw all men unto Him; and thus the truest gospel is that which
declares Christ and Him crucified. As all science springs from the
phenomena of the external world, so do theology and religion spring from
the life of Him who was too adorable to be mortal, and too loving to be
disobeyed.

Therefore St. Paul declares that the gospel which he preached to the
Corinthians and by which they were saved, was, that Christ died for our
sins and was buried and rose again, and was seen of sufficient witnesses
(1 Cor. xv. 1-8).

And therefore St. Mark is contented with a very brief record of those
wondrous years; a few facts, chosen with a keen sense of the intense
energy and burning force which they reveal, are what he is inspired to
call the gospel.

He presently uses the word in a somewhat larger sense, telling how Jesus
Himself, before the story of His life could possibly be unfolded, preached
as “the gospel of God” that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God
is at hand,” and added (what St. Mark only has preserved for us), “Repent,
and believe in the gospel” (i. 14-15). So too it is part of St. Paul’s
“gospel” that “God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ” (Rom.
ii. 16). For this also is good news of God, “the gospel of the kingdom.”
And like “the gospel of Jesus Christ,” it treats of His attitude toward
us, more than ours toward Him, which latter is the result rather than the
substance of it. That He rules, and not the devil; that we shall answer at
last to Him and to none lower; that Satan lied when he claimed to possess
all the kingdoms of the earth, and to dispose of them; that Christ has now
received from far different hands “all power on earth”; this is a gospel
which the world has not yet learned to welcome, nor the Church fully to
proclaim.

Now the scriptural use of this term is quite as important to religious
emotion as to accuracy of thought. All true emotions hide their fountain
too deep for self-consciousness to find. We feel best when our feeling is
forgotten. Not while we think about finding peace, but while we approach
God as a Father, and are anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving make known our requests, is it promised
that the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall guard our
hearts and our thoughts (Phil. iv. 7). And many a soul of the righteous,
whom faith in the true gospel fills with trembling adoration, is made sad
by the inflexible demand for certain realised personal experiences as the
title to recognition as a Christian. That great title belonged at the
first to all who would learn of Jesus: the disciples were called
Christians. To acquaint ourselves with Him, that is to be at peace.

Meantime, we observe that the new movement which now begins is not, like
Judaism, a law which brings death; nor like Buddhism, a path in which one
must walk as best he may: it differs from all other systems in being
essentially the announcement of good tidings from above.

Yet “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” is a profound agitation
and widespread alarm. Lest the soothing words of Jesus should blend like
music with the slumber of sinners at ease in Zion, John came preaching
repentance, and what is more, a baptism of repentance; not such a
lustration as was most familiar to the Mosaic law, administered by the
worshipper to himself, but an ablution at other hands, a confession that
one is not only soiled, but soiled beyond all cleansing of his own. Formal
Judaism was one long struggle for self-purification. The dawn of a new
system is visible in the movement of all Judæa towards one who bids them
throw every such hope away, and come to him for the baptism of repentance,
and expect A Greater One, who shall baptize them with the Holy Ghost and
with fire. And the true function of the predicted herald, the best
levelling of the rugged ways of humanity for the Promised One to traverse,
was in this universal diffusion of the sense of sin. For Christ was not
come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

In truth, the movement of the Baptist, with its double aspect, gathers up
all the teaching of the past. He produced conviction, and he promised
help. One lesson of all sacred history is universal failure. The innocence
of Eden cannot last. The law with its promise of life to the man who doeth
these things, issued practically in the knowledge of sin; it entered that
sin might abound; it made a formal confession of universal sin, year by
year, continually. And therefore its fitting close was a baptism of
repentance universally accepted. Alas, not universally. For while we read
of all the nation swayed by one impulse, and rushing to the stern teacher
who had no share in its pleasures or its luxuries, whose life was
separated from its concerns, and whose food was the simplest that could
sustain existence, yet we know that when they heard how deep his censures
pierced, and how unsparingly he scourged their best loved sins, the
loudest professors of religion rejected the counsel of God against
themselves, being not baptized of Him. Nevertheless, by coming to Him,
they also had pleaded guilty. Something they needed; they were sore at
heart, and would have welcomed any soothing balm, although they refused
the surgeon’s knife.

The law did more than convict men; it inspired hope. The promise of a
Redeemer shone like a rainbow across the dark story of the past. He was
the end of all the types, at once the Victim and the Priest. To Him gave
all the prophets witness, and the Baptist brought all past attainment to
its full height, and was “more than a prophet” when he announced the
actual presence of the Christ, when he pointed out to the first two
Apostles, the Lamb of God.




At The Jordan.


    “And he preached, saying, There cometh after me He that is
    mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to
    stoop down and unloose. I baptized you with water; but He shall
    baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in those
    days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized
    of John in the Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water,
    He saw the heavens rent asunder, and the Spirit as a dove
    descending upon Him: and a voice came out of the heavens, Thou art
    My Beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased.”—MARK i. 7-11 (R.V.).


It was when all men mused in their hearts whether John was the Christ or
no, that he announced the coming of a Stronger One. By thus promptly
silencing a whisper, so honourable to himself, he showed how strong he
really was, and how unselfish “a friend of the Bridegroom.” Nor was this
the vague humility of phrase which is content to be lowly in general, so
long as no specified individual stands higher. His word is definite, and
accepts much for himself. “The Stronger One than I cometh,” and it is in
presence of the might of Jesus (whom yet this fiery reformer called a
Lamb), that he feels himself unworthy to bend to the dust and unbind the
latchets or laces of his shoe.

So then, though asceticism be sometimes good, it is consciously not the
highest nor the most effective goodness. Perhaps it is the most
impressive. Without a miracle, the preaching of John shook the nation as
widely as that of Jesus melted it, and prepared men’s hearts for His. A
king consulted and feared him. And when the Pharisees were at open feud
with Jesus, they feared to be stoned if they should pronounce John’s
baptism to be of men.

Yet is there weakness lurking even in the very quality which gives
asceticism its power. That stern seclusion from an evil world, that
peremptory denial of its charms, why are they so impressive? Because they
set an example to those who are hard beset, of the one way of escape, the
cutting off of the hand and foot, the plucking out of the eye. And our
Lord enjoins such mutilation of the life upon those whom its gifts betray.
Yet is it as the halt and maimed that such men enter into life. The
ascetic is a man who needs to sternly repress and deny his impulses, who
is conscious of traitors within his breast that may revolt if the enemy be
suffered to approach too near.

It is harder to be a holy friend of publicans and sinners, a witness for
God while eating and drinking with these, than to remain in the desert
undefiled. It is greater to convert a sinful woman in familiar converse by
the well, than to shake trembling multitudes by threats of the fire for
the chaff and the axe for the barren tree. And John confessed this. In the
supreme moment of his life, he added his own confession to that of all his
nation. This rugged ascetic had need to be baptized of Him who came eating
and drinking.

Nay, he taught that all his work was but superficial, a baptism with water
to reach the surface of men’s life, to check, at the most, exaction and
violence and neglect of the wants of others, while the Greater One should
baptize with the Holy Ghost, should pierce the depths of human nature, and
thoroughly purge His floor.

Nothing could refute more clearly than our three simple narratives, the
sceptical notion that Jesus yielded for awhile to the dominating influence
of the Baptist. Only from the Gospels can we at all connect the two. And
what we read here is, that before Jesus came, John expected his Superior;
that when they met, John declared his own need to be baptized of Him, that
he, nevertheless, submitted to the will of Jesus, and thereupon heard a
voice from the heavens which must for ever have destroyed all notion of
equality; that afterwards he only saw Jesus at a distance, and made a
confession which transferred two of his disciples to our Lord.

The criticism which transforms our Lord’s part in these events to that of
a pupil is far more wilful than would be tolerated in dealing with any
other record. And it too palpably springs from the need to find some human
inspiration for the Word of God, some candle from which the Sun of
Righteousness took fire, if one would escape the confession that He is not
of this world.

But here we meet a deeper question: Not why Jesus accepted baptism from an
inferior, but why, being sinless, He sought for a baptism of repentance.
How is this act consistent with absolute and stainless purity?

Now it sometimes lightens a difficulty to find that it is not occasional
nor accidental, but wrought deep into the plan of a consistent work. And
the Gospels are consistent in representing the innocence of Jesus as
refusing immunity from the consequences of guilt. He was circumcised, and
His mother then paid the offering commanded by the law, although both
these actions spoke of defilement. In submitting to the likeness of sinful
flesh He submitted to its conditions. He was present at feasts in which
national confessions led up to sacrifice, and the sacrificial blood was
sprinkled to make atonement for the children of Israel, because of all
their sins. When He tasted death itself, which passed upon all men, for
that all have sinned, He carried out to the utmost the same stern rule to
which at His baptism He consciously submitted. Nor will any theory of His
atonement suffice, which is content with believing that His humiliations
and sufferings, though inevitable, were only collateral results of contact
with our fallen race. Baptism was avoidable, and that without any
compromise of His influence, since the Pharisees refused it with impunity,
and John would fain have exempted Him. Here at least He was not “entangled
in the machinery,” but deliberately turned the wheels upon Himself. And
this is the more impressive because, in another aspect of affairs, He
claimed to be out of the reach of ceremonial defilement, and touched
without reluctance disease, leprosy and the dead.

Humiliating and penal consequences of sin, to these He bowed His head. Yet
to a confession of personal taint, never. And all the accounts agree that
He never was less conscience-stricken than when He shared the baptism of
repentance. St. Matthew implies, what St. Luke plainly declares, that He
did not come to baptism along with the crowds of penitents, but
separately. And at the point where all others made confession, in the hour
when even the Baptist, although filled with the Holy Ghost from his
mother’s womb, had need to be baptized, He only felt the propriety, the
fitness of fulfilling all righteousness. That mighty task was not even a
yoke to Him, it was an instinct like that of beauty to an artist, it was
what became Him.

St. Mark omits even this evidence of sinlessness. His energetic method is
like that of a great commander, who seizes at all costs the vital point
upon the battle field. He constantly omits what is subordinate (although
very conscious of the power of graphic details), when by so doing he can
force the central thought upon the mind. Here he concentrates our
attention upon the witness from above, upon the rending asunder of the
heavens which unfold all their heights over a bended head, upon the
visible descent of the Holy Spirit in His fulness, upon the voice from the
heavens which pealed through the souls of these two peerless worshippers,
and proclaimed that He who had gone down to the baptismal flood was no
sinner to be forgiven, but the beloved Son of God, in whom He is well
pleased.

That is our Evangelist’s answer to all misunderstanding of the rite, and
it is enough.

How do men think of heaven? Perhaps only as a remote point in space, where
flames a material and solid structure into which it is the highest bliss
to enter. A place there must be to which the Body of our Lord ascended and
whither He shall yet lead home His followers in spiritual bodies to be
with Him where He is. If, however, only this be heaven, we should hold
that in the revolutions of the solar system it hung just then vertically
above the Jordan, a few fathoms or miles aloft. But we also believe in a
spiritual city, in which the pillars are living saints, an all-embracing
blessedness and rapture and depth of revelation, whereinto holy mortals in
their highest moments have been “caught up,” a heaven whose angels ascend
and descend upon the Son of man. In this hour of highest consecration,
these heavens were thrown open—rent asunder—for the gaze of our Lord and
of the Baptist. They were opened again when the first martyr died. And we
read that what eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor heart conceived of the
preparation of God for them that love Him, He hath already revealed to
them by His Spirit. To others there is only cloud or “the infinite azure,”
as to the the crowd by the Jordan and the murderers of Stephen.

Now it is to be observed that we never read of Jesus being caught up into
heaven for a space, like St. Paul or St. John. What we read is, that while
on earth the Son of man is in Heaven (John iii. 13),(1) for heaven is the
manifestation of God, whose truest glory was revealed in the grace and
truth of Jesus.

Along with this revelation, the Holy Spirit was manifested wondrously. His
appearance, indeed, is quite unlike what it was to others. At Pentecost He
became visible, but since each disciple received only a portion,
“according to his several ability,” his fitting symbol was “tongues
parting asunder like as of fire.” He came as an element powerful and
pervasive, not as a Personality bestowed in all His vital force on any
one.

So, too, the phrase which John used, when predicting that Jesus should
baptize with the Holy Ghost, slightly though it differs from what is here,
implies(2) that only a portion is to be given, not the fulness. And the
angel who foretold to Zacharias that John himself should be filled with
the Holy Ghost, conveyed the same limitation in his words. John received
all that he was able to receive: he was filled. But how should mortal
capacity exhaust the fulness of Deity? And Who is this, upon Whom, while
John is but an awe-stricken beholder, the Spirit of God descends in all
completeness, a living organic unity, like a dove? Only the Infinite is
capable of receiving such a gift, and this is He in Whom dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily. No wonder then that “in bodily form” as a
dove, the Spirit of God descended upon Him alone. Henceforward He became
the great Dispenser, and “the Spirit emanated from Him as perfume from the
rose when it has opened.”

At the same time was heard a Voice from heaven. And the bearing of this
passage upon the Trinity becomes clear, when we combine the manifestation
of the Spirit in living Personality, and the Divine Voice, not from the
Dove but from the heavens, with the announcement that Jesus is not merely
beloved and well-pleasing, but a Son, and in this high sense the only Son,
since the words are literally “Thou art the Son of Me, the beloved.” And
yet He is to bring many sons unto glory.

Is it consistent with due reverence to believe that this voice conveyed a
message to our Lord Himself? Even so liberal a critic as Neander has
denied this. But if we grasp the meaning of what we believe, that He upon
taking flesh “emptied Himself,” that He increased in wisdom during His
youth, and that there was a day and hour which to the end of life He knew
not, we need not suppose that His infancy was so unchildlike as the
realisation of His mysterious and awful Personality would make it. There
must then have been a period when His perfect human development rose up
into what Renan calls (more accurately than he knows) identification of
Himself with the object of His devotion, carried to the utmost limit. Nor
is this period quite undiscoverable, for when it arrived it would seem
highly unnatural to postpone His public ministry further. Now this
reasonable inference is entirely supported by the narrative. St. Matthew
indeed regards the event from the Baptist’s point of vision. But St. Mark
and St. Luke are agreed that to Jesus Himself it was also said, “_Thou_
art My beloved Son.” Now this is not the way to teach us that the
testimony came only to John. And how solemn a thought is this, that the
full certitude of His destiny expanded before the eyes of Jesus, just when
He lifted them from those baptismal waters in which He stooped so low.




The Temptation.


    “And straightway the Spirit driveth Him forth into the wilderness.
    And He was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; and He
    was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto
    Him.”—MARK i. 12, 13 (R.V.).


St. Mark has not recorded the details of our Lord’s temptations, and lays
more stress upon the duration of the struggle, than the nature of the last
and crowning assaults. But he is careful, like the others, to connect it
closely with the baptism of Jesus, and the miraculous testimony then borne
to Him.

It is indeed instructive that He should have suffered this affront,
immediately upon being recognised as the Messiah. But the explanation will
not be found in the notion, which Milton has popularised, that only now
Satan was assured of the urgent necessity for attacking Him:


    “That heard the adversary ... and with the voice Divine
    Nigh thunderstruck, the exalted Man, to whom
    Such high attest was given, awhile surveyed
    With wonder.”


As if Satan forgot the marvels of the sacred infancy. As if the spirits
who attack all could have failed to identify, after thirty years of
defeat, the Greater One whom the Baptist had everywhere proclaimed. No.
But Satan admirably chose the time for a supreme effort. High places are
dizzy, and especially when one has just attained them; and therefore it
was when the voice of the herald and the Voice from the heavens were
blended in acclaim, that the Evil One tried all his arts. He had formerly
plunged Elijah into despair and a desire to die, immediately after fire
from heaven responded to the prophet’s prayer. Soon after this, he would
degrade Peter to be his mouthpiece, just when his noblest testimony was
borne, and the highest approval of his Lord was won. In the flush of their
triumphs he found his best opportunity; but Jesus remained unflushed, and
met the first recorded temptation, in the full consciousness of
Messiahship, by quoting the words which spoke to every man alike, and as
man.

It is a lesson which the weakest needs to learn, for little victories can
intoxicate little men.

It is easy then to see why the recorded temptations insist upon the
exceptional dignity of Christ, and urge Him to seize its advantages, while
He insists on bearing the common burden, and proves Himself greatest by
becoming least of all. The sharp contrast between His circumstances and
His rank drove the temptations deep into His consciousness, and wounded
His sensibilities, though they failed to shake His will.

How unnatural that the Son of God should lack and suffer hunger, how right
that He should challenge recognition, how needful (though now His sacred
Personality is cunningly allowed to fall somewhat into the background)
that He should obtain armies and splendour.

This explains the possibility of temptation in a sinless nature, which
indeed can only be denied by assuming that sin is part of the original
creation. Not because we are sinful, but because we are flesh and blood
(of which He became partaker), when we feel the pains of hunger we are
attracted by food, at whatever price it is offered. In truth, no man is
allured by sin, but only by the bait and bribe of sin, except perhaps in
the last stages of spiritual decomposition.

Now, just as the bait allures, and not the jaws of the trap, so the power
of a temptation is not its wickedness, not the guilty service, but the
proffered recompense; and this appeals to the most upright man, equally
with the most corrupt. Thus the stress of a temptation is to be measured
by our gravitation, not towards the sin, but towards the pleasure or
advantage which is entangled with that. And this may be realised even more
powerfully by a man of keen feeling and vivid imagination who does not
falter, than by a grosser nature which succumbs.

Now Jesus was a perfect man. To His exquisite sensibilities, which had
neither inherited nor contracted any blemish, the pain of hunger at the
opening of His ministry, and the horror of the cross at its close, were
not less intense, but sharper than to ours. And this pain and horror
measured the temptation to evade them. The issue never hung in the scales;
even to hesitate would have been to forfeit the delicate bloom of absolute
sinlessness; but, none the less, the decision was costly, the temptation
poignant.

St. Mark has given us no details; but there is immense and compressed
power in the assertion, only his, that the temptation lasted all through
the forty days. We know the power of an unremitting pressure, an incessant
importunity, a haunting thought. A very trifling annoyance, long
protracted, drives men to strange remedies. And the remorseless urgency of
Satan may be measured by what St. Matthew tells us, that only after the
forty days Jesus became aware of the pains of hunger. Perhaps the
assertion that He was with the wild beasts may throw some ray of light
upon the nature of the temptation. There is no intimation of bodily peril.
On the other hand it seems incredible that what is hinted is His own
consciousness of the supernatural dignity from which


    “The fiery serpent fled, and noxious worm;
    The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof.”


Such a consciousness would have relieved the strain of which their
presence is evidently a part. Nay, but the oppressive solitude, the waste
region so unlike His blooming Nazareth, and the ferocity of the brute
creation, all would conspire to suggest those dread misgivings and
questionings which are provoked by “the something that infects the world.”

Surely we may believe that He Who was tempted at all points like as we
are, felt now the deadly chill which falls upon the soul from the shadow
of our ruined earth. In our nature He bore the assault and overcame. And
then His human nature condescended to accept help, such as ours receives,
from the ministering spirits which are sent forth to minister to them that
shall be heirs of salvation. So perfectly was He made like unto His
brethren.




The Early Preaching And The First Disciples.


    “Now after that John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee
    preaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled,
    and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe in the
    gospel. And passing along by the sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and
    Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they
    were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after Me, and I
    will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they left
    the nets, and followed Him. And going on a little further, He saw
    James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in
    the boat mending the nets. And straightway He called them: and
    they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired
    servants, and went after Him.”—MARK i. 14-20 (R.V.).


St. Mark has shown us the Baptist proclaiming Christ. He now tells us that
when John was imprisoned, Jesus, turning from that Judean ministry which
stirred the jealousy of John’s disciples (John iii. 26), “came into
Galilee, preaching.” And one looks twice before observing that His
teaching is a distinct advance upon the herald’s. Men are still to repent;
for however slightly modern preachers may heal the hurt of souls, real
contrition is here taken over into the gospel scheme. But the time which
was hitherto said to be at hand is now fulfilled. And they are not only to
believe the gospel, but to “believe in it.” Reliance, the effort of the
soul by which it ceases equally to be self-confident and to despair,
confiding itself to some word which is a gospel, or some being who has
salvation to bestow, that is belief in its object. And it is highly
important to observe that faith is thus made prominent so early in our
Lord’s teaching. The vitalizing power of faith was no discovery of St.
Paul; it was not evolved by devout meditation after Jesus had passed from
view, nor introduced into His system when opposition forced Him to bind
men to Him in a stronger allegiance. The power of faith is implied in His
earliest preaching, and it is connected with His earliest miracles. But no
such phrase as the power of faith is ever used. Faith is precious only as
it leans on what is trustworthy. And it is produced, not by thinking of
faith itself, but of its proper object. Therefore Christ did not come
preaching faith, but preaching the gospel of God, and bidding men believe
in that.

Shall we not follow His example? It is morally certain that Abraham never
heard of salvation by faith, yet he was justified by faith when he
believed in Him Who justifieth the ungodly. To preach Him, and His gospel,
is the way to lead men to be saved by faith.

Few things are more instructive to consider than the slow, deliberate, yet
firm steps by which Christ advanced to the revelation of God in flesh.
Thirty years of silence, forty days of seclusion after heaven had
proclaimed Him, leisurely intercourse with Andrew and John, Peter and
Nathanael, and then a brief ministry in a subject nation, and chiefly in a
despised province. It is not the action of a fanatic. It exactly fulfils
His own description of the kingdom which He proclaimed, which was to
exhibit first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. And
it is a lesson to all time, that the boldest expectations possible to
faith do not justify feverish haste and excited longings for immediate
prominence or immediate success. The husbandman who has long patience with
the seed is not therefore hopeless of the harvest

Passing by the sea of Galilee, Jesus finds two fishermen at their toil,
and bids them follow Him. Both are men of decided and earnest character;
one is to become the spokesman and leader of the Apostolic band, and the
little which is recorded of the other indicates the same temperament,
somewhat less developed. Our Lord now calls upon them to take a decided
step. But here again we find traces of the same deliberate progression,
the same absence of haste, as in His early preaching. He does not, as
unthinking readers fancy, come upon two utter strangers, fascinate and
arrest them in a moment, and sweep their lives into the vortex of His own.
Andrew had already heard the Baptist proclaim the Lamb of God, had
followed Jesus home, and had introduced his brother, to whom Jesus then
gave the new name Cephas. Their faith had since been confirmed by
miracles. The demands of our Lord may be trying, but they are never
unreasonable, and the faith He claims is not a blind credulity.

Nor does He, even now, finally and entirely call them away from their
occupation. Some time is still to elapse, and a sign, especially
impressive to fishermen, the miraculous draught of fishes, is to burn into
their minds a profound sense of their unworthiness, before the vocation
now promised shall arrive. Then He will say, From henceforth ye shall
catch men: now He says, I will prepare you for that future, I will make
you to become fishers of men. So ungrounded is the suspicion of any
confusion between the stories of the three steps by which they rose to
their Apostleship.

A little further on, He finds the two sons of Zebedee, and calls them
also. John had almost certainly been the companion of Andrew when he
followed Jesus home, and his brother had become the sharer of his hopes.
And if there were any hesitation, the example of their comrades helped
them to decide—so soon, so inevitably does each disciple begin to be a
fisher of other men—and leaving their father, as we are gracefully told,
not desolate, but with servants, they also follow Jesus.

Thus He asks, from each group, the sacrifice involved in following Him at
an inconvenient time. The first are casting their nets and eager in their
quest. The others are mending their nets, perhaps after some large draught
had broken them. So Levi was sitting at the receipt of toll. Not one of
the Twelve was chosen to that high rank when idle.

Very charming, very powerful still is the spell by which Christ drew His
first apostles to His side. Not yet are they told anything of thrones on
which they are to sit and judge the tribes of Israel, or that their names
shall be engraven on the foundations of the heavenly city besides being
great on earth while the world stands. For them, the capture of men was
less lucrative than that of fish, and less honourable, for they suffered
the loss of all things and were made as the filth of the earth. To learn
Christ’s art, to be made helpful in drawing souls to Him, following Jesus
and catching men, this was enough to attract His first ministers; God
grant that a time may never come when ministers for whom this is enough,
shall fail. Where the spirit of self devotion is absent how can the Spirit
of Christ exist?




Teaching With Authority.


    “And they go into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day He
    entered into the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at
    His teaching: for He taught them as having authority, and not as
    the scribes.”—MARK i. 21, 22 (R.V.).


The worship of the synagogues, not having been instituted by Moses, but
gradually developed by the public need, was comparatively free and
unconventional. Sometimes it happened that remarkable and serious-looking
strangers were invited, if they had any word of exhortation, to say on
(Acts xiii. 15). Sometimes one presented himself, as the custom of our
Lord was (Luke iv. 16). Amid the dull mechanical tendencies which were
then turning the heart of Judaism to stone, the synagogue may have been
often a centre of life and rallying-place of freedom. In Galilee, where
such worship predominated over that of the remote Temple and its
hierarchy, Jesus found His trusted followers and the nucleus of the
Church. In foreign lands, St. Paul bore first to his brethren in their
synagogues the strange tidings that their Messiah had expired upon a
cross. And before His rupture with the chiefs of Judaism, the synagogues
were fitting places for our Lord’s early teaching. He made use of the
existing system, and applied it, just as we have seen Him use the teaching
of the Baptist as a starting-point for His own. And this ought to be
observed, that Jesus revolutionized the world by methods the furthest from
being revolutionary. The institutions of His age and land were corrupt
well-nigh to the core, but He did not therefore make a clean sweep, and
begin again. He did not turn His back on the Temple and synagogues, nor
outrage sabbaths, nor come to destroy the law and the prophets. He bade
His followers reverence the seat where the scribes and Pharisees sat, and
drew the line at their false lives and perilous examples. Amid that evil
generation He found soil wherein His seed might germinate, and was content
to hide His leaven in the lump where it should gradually work out its
destiny. In so doing He was at one with Providence, which had slowly
evolved the convictions of the Old Testament, spending centuries upon the
process. Now the power which belongs to such moderation has scarcely been
recognised until these latter days. The political sagacity of Somers and
Burke, and the ecclesiastical wisdom of our own reformers, had their
occult and unsuspected fountains in the method by which Jesus planted the
kingdom which came not with observation. But who taught the Carpenter? It
is therefore significant that all the Gospels of the Galilean ministry
connect our Lord’s early teaching with the synagogue.

St. Mark is by no means the evangelist of the discourses. And this adds to
the interest with which we find him indicate, with precise exactitude, the
first great difference that would strike the hearers of Christ between His
teaching and that of others. He taught with authority, and not as the
scribes. Their doctrine was built with dreary and irrational ingenuity,
upon perverted views of the old law. The shape of a Hebrew letter, words
whereof the initials would spell some important name, wire-drawn
inferences, astounding allusions, ingenuity such as men waste now upon the
number of the beast and the measurement of a pyramid, these were the
doctrine of the scribes.

And an acute observer would remark that the authority of Christ’s teaching
was peculiar in a farther-reaching sense. If, as seems clear, Jesus said,
“Ye have heard that it hath been said” (not “by,” but) “to them of old
time, but I say unto you,” He then claimed the place, not of Moses who
heard the Divine Voice, but of Him Who spoke. Even if this could be
doubted, the same spirit is elsewhere unmistakable. The tables which Moses
brought were inscribed by the finger of Another: none could make him the
Supreme arbitrator while overhead the trumpet waxed louder and louder,
while the fiery pillar marshalled their journeying, while the mysterious
Presence consecrated the mysterious shrine. Prophet after prophet opened
and closed his message with the words, “Thus saith the Lord.” ... “For the
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Jesus was content with the attestation,
“Verily, I say unto you.” Blessed as a wise builder was the hearer and
doer of “these words of Mine.” Everywhere in His teaching the centre of
authority is personal. He distinctly recognises the fact that He is adding
to the range of the ancient law of respect for human life, and for purity,
veracity and kindness. But He assigns no authority for these additions,
beyond His own. Persecution by all men is a blessed thing to endure, if it
be for His sake and the gospel’s. Now this is unique. Moses or Isaiah
never dreamed that devotion to himself took rank with devotion to his
message. Nor did St. Paul. But Christ opens His ministry with the same
pretensions as at the close, when others may not be called Rabbi, nor
Master, because these titles belong to Him.

And the lapse of ages renders this “authority” of Christ more wonderful
than at first. The world bows down before something other than His
clearness of logic or subtlety of inference. He still announces where
others argue, He reveals, imposes on us His supremacy, bids us take His
yoke and learn. And we still discover in His teaching a freshness and
profundity, a universal reach of application and yet an unearthliness of
aspect, which suit so unparalleled a claim. Others have constructed
cisterns in which to store truth, or aqueducts to convey it from higher
levels. Christ is Himself a fountain; and not only so, but the water which
He gives, when received aright, becomes in the faithful heart a well of
water springing up in new, inexhaustible developments.




Miracles.


    “And straightway there was in their synagogue a man with an
    unclean spirit.”—MARK i. 23 (R.V.).


We have just read that Christ’s teaching astonished the hearers. He was
about to astonish them yet more, for we have now reached the first miracle
which St. Mark records. With what sentiments should such a narrative be
approached? The evangelist connects it emphatically with Christ’s
assertion of authority. Immediately upon the impression which His manner
of teaching produced, straightway, there was in the synagogue a man with
an unclean spirit. And upon its expulsion, what most impressed the people
was, that as He taught with authority, so “with authority He commandeth
even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.”

Let us try whether this may not be a providential clue, to guide us amid
the embarrassments which beset, in our day, the whole subject of miracles.

A miracle, we are told, is an interference with the laws of nature; and it
is impossible, because they are fixed and their operation is uniform. But
these bold words need not disconcert any one who has learned to ask, In
what sense are the operations of nature uniform? Is the operation of the
laws which govern the wind uniform, whether my helm is to port or
starboard? Can I not modify the operation of sanitary laws by
deodorization, by drainage, by a thousand resources of civilization? The
truth is, that while natural laws remain fixed, human intelligence
profoundly modifies their operation. How then will the objector prove that
no higher Being can as naturally do the same? He answers, Because the sum
total of the forces of nature is a fixed quantity: nothing can be added to
that sum, nothing taken from it: the energy of all our machinery existed
ages ago in the heat of tropical suns, then in vegetation, and ever since,
though latent, in our coal beds; and the claim to add anything to that
total is subversive of modern science. But again we ask, If the physician
adds nothing to the sum of forces when he banishes one disease by
inoculation, and another by draining a marsh, why must Jesus have added to
the sum of forces in order to expel a demon or to cool a fever? It will
not suffice to answer, because His methods are contrary to experience.
Beyond experience they are. But so were the marvels of electricity to our
parents and of steam to theirs. The chemistry which analyses the stars is
not incredible, although thirty years ago its methods were “contrary” to
the universal experience of humanity. Man is now doing what he never did
before, because he is a more skilful and better informed agent than he
ever was. Perhaps at this moment, in the laboratory of some unknown
student, some new force is preparing to amaze the world. But the sum of
the forces of nature will remain unchanged. Why is it assumed that a
miracle must change them? Simply because men have already denied God, or
at least denied that He is present within His world, as truly as the
chemist is within it. If we think of Him as interrupting its processes
from without, laying upon the vast machine so powerful a grasp as to
arrest its working, then indeed the sum of forces is disturbed, and the
complaints of science are justified. This may, or it may not, have been
the case in creative epochs, of which science knows no more than of the
beginning of life and of consciousness. But it has nothing to say against
the doctrine of the miracles of Jesus. For this doctrine assumes that God
is ever present in His universe; that by Him all things consist; that He
is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our
being, although men may be as unconscious of Him as of gravitation and
electricity. When these became known to man, the stability of law was
unaffected. And it is a wild assumption that if a supreme and vital force
exist, a living God, He cannot make His energies visible without affecting
the stability of law.

Now Christ Himself appeals expressly and repeatedly to this immanent
presence of God as the explanation of His “works.”

“My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” “The Father loveth the Son, and
showeth Him all things that Himself doeth.” “I, by the finger of God, cast
out devils.”

Thus a miracle, even in the Old Testament, is not an interruption of law
by God, but a manifestation of God who is within nature always; to common
events it is as the lightning to the cloud, a revelation of the
electricity which was already there. God was made known, when invoked by
His agents, in signs from heaven, in fire and tempest, in drought and
pestilence, a God who judgeth. These are the miracles of God interposing
for His people against their foes. But the miracles of Christ are those of
God carrying forward to the uttermost His presence in the world, God
manifest in the flesh. They are the works of Him in Whom dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily.

And this explains what would otherwise be so perplexing, the essentially
different nature of His miracles from those of the Old Testament.
Infidelity pretends that those are the models on which myth or legend
formed the miracles of Jesus, but the plain answer is that they are built
on no model of the kind. The difference is so great as to be startling.

Tremendous convulsions and visitations of wrath are now unknown, because
God is now reconciling the world unto Himself, and exhibiting in miracles
the presence of Him Who is not far from every one of us, His presence in
love to redeem the common life of man, and to bless, by sharing it.
Therefore His gifts are homely, they deal with average life and its
necessities, bread and wine and fish are more to the purpose than that man
should eat angels’ food, the rescue of storm-tossed fishermen than the
engulfment of pursuing armies, the healing of prevalent disease than the
plaguing of Egypt or the destruction of Sennacherib.

Such a Presence thus manifested is the consistent doctrine of the Church.
It is a theory which men may reject at their own peril if they please. But
they must not pretend to refute it by any appeal to either the uniformity
of law or the stability of force.

Men tell us that the divinity of Jesus was an afterthought; what shall we
say then to this fact, that men observed from the very first a difference
between the manner of His miracles and all that was recorded in their
Scriptures, or that they could have deemed fit? It is exactly the same
peculiarity, carried to the highest pitch; as they already felt in His
discourses. They are wrought without any reference whatever to a superior
will. Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do? Elijah said,
Hear me O Lord, hear me. But Jesus said, I will ... I charge thee come out
... I am able to do this. And so marked is the change, that even His
followers cast out devils in His name, and say not, Where is the Lord God
of Israel? but, In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. His power is
inherent, it is self-possessed, and His acts in the synoptics are only
explained by His words in St. John, “What things soever the Father doeth,
these the Son also doeth in like manner.” No wonder that St. Mark adds to
His very first record of a miracle, that the people were amazed, and
asked, What is this? a new teaching! with authority He commandeth even the
unclean spirits and they do obey Him! It was divinity which, without
recognising, they felt, implicit in His bearing. No wonder also that His
enemies strove hard to make Him say, Who gave Thee this authority? Nor
could they succeed in drawing from Him any sign from heaven. The centre
and source of the supernatural, for human apprehension, has shifted
itself, and the vision of Jesus is the vision of the Father also.




The Demoniac.


    “And straightway there was in their synagogue a man with an
    unclean spirit; and he cried out, saying, What have we to do with
    Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? art Thou come to destroy us? I know
    Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him,
    saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And the unclean
    spirit, tearing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
    And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among
    themselves, saying, What is this? a new teaching! with authority
    He commandeth even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him. And the
    report of Him went out straightway everywhere into all the region
    of Galilee round about.”—MARK i. 23-28 (R.V.).


We have seen that belief in the stability of natural law does not forbid
us to believe in miracles.

Special objections are urged, however, against the belief in demoniacal
possession. The very existence of demons is declared to be inconsistent
with the omnipotence of God, or else with His goodness.

And it may be granted that abstract reasoning in an ideal world, thought
moving in a vacuum, would scarcely evolve a state of things so far removed
from the ideal. This, however, is an argument against the existence, not
of demons, but of evil in any shape. It is the familiar insoluble problem
of all religions, How can evil exist in the universe of God? And it is
balanced by the insoluble problem of all irreligious systems: In a
universe without God, how can either good or evil exist, as distinguished
from the advantageous and the unprofitable? Whence comes the
unquestionable difference between a lie and a bad bargain?

But the argument against evil spirits professes to be something more than
a disguised reproduction of this abstract problem. What more is it? What
is gained by denying the fiends, as long as we cannot deny the fiends
incarnate—the men who take pleasure in unrighteousness, in the seduction
and ruin of their fellows, in the infliction of torture and outrage, in
the ravage and desolation of nations? Such freedom has been granted to the
human will, for even these ghastly issues have not been judged so deadly
as coercion and moral fatalism. What presumption can possibly remain
against the existence of other beings than men, who have fallen yet
farther? If, indeed, it be certainly so much farther. For we know that men
have lived, not outcasts from society, but boastful sons of Abraham, who
willed to perform the lusts (τὰ ἐπιθυμίας) of their father the devil. Now
since we are not told that the wickedness of demons is infinite,(3) but
only that it is abysmal, and since we know that abysses of wickedness do
actually exist, what sort of vindication of Deity is this which will
believe that such gulfs are yawning only in the bosom of man?

It alarms and shocks us to think that evil spirits have power over the
human mind, and still more that such power should extend, as in cases of
possession, even to the body. Evil men, however, manifestly wield such
power. “They got rid of the wicked one,” said Goethe, “but they could not
get rid of the wicked ones.” Social and intellectual charm, high rank, the
mysterious attraction of a strong individuality, all are employed at times
to mislead and debase the shuddering, reluctant, mesmerised wills of
weaker men and women. And then the mind acts upon the body, as perhaps it
always does. Drunkenness and debauchery shake the nerves. Paralysis and
lunacy tread hard on the footsteps of excess. Experience knows no reason
for denying that when wickedness conquers the soul it will also deal
hardly with the body.

But we must not stop here. For the Gospels do not countenance the popular
notion that special wickedness was the cause of the fearful wretchedness
of the possessed. Young children suffered. Jesus often cautioned a
sufferer to sin no more lest worse results should follow than those He had
removed; but He is never known to have addressed this warning to
demoniacs. They suffered from the tyranny of Satan, rather than from his
seduction; and the analogies which make credible so frightful an outrage
upon human nature, are the wrongs done by despots and mobs, by invading
armies and persecuting religionists. Yet people who cannot believe that a
demon could throw a child upon the fire, are not incredulous of Attila,
Napoleon, and the Inquisition.

Thus it appears that such a narrative need startle no believer in God, and
in moral good and evil, who considers the unquestionable facts of life.
And how often will the observant Christian be startled at the wild
insurrection and surging up of evil thought and dark suggestions, which he
cannot believe to be his own, which will not be gainsaid nor repulsed. How
easily do such experiences fall in with the plain words of Scripture, by
which the veil is drawn aside, and the mystery of the spiritual world laid
bare. Then we learn that man is not only fallen but assaulted, not only
feeble but enslaved, not only a wandering sheep but led captive by the
devil at his will.

We turn to the narrative before us. They are still wondering at our Lord’s
authoritative manner, when “straightway,” for opportunities were countless
until unbelief arose, a man with an unclean spirit attracts attention. We
can only conjecture the special meaning of this description. A recent
commentator assumes that “like the rest, he had his dwelling among the
tombs: an overpowering influence had driven him away from the haunts of
men.” (Canon Luckock, _in loco_). To others this feature in the
wretchedness of the Gadarene may perhaps seem rather to be exceptional,
the last touch in the appalling picture of his misery. It may be that
nothing more outrageous than morbid gloom or sullen mutterings had
hitherto made it necessary to exclude this sufferer from the synagogue. Or
the language may suggest that he rushed abruptly in, driven by the frantic
hostility of the fiend, or impelled by some mysterious and lingering hope,
as the demoniac of Gadara ran to Christ.

What we know is that the sacred Presence provoked a crisis. There is an
unbelief which never can be silent, never wearies railing at the faith,
and there is a corruption which resents goodness and hates it as a
personal wrong. So the demons who possessed men were never able to
confront Jesus calmly. They resent His interference; they cry out; they
disclaim having anything to do with Him; they seem indignant that He
should come to destroy them who have destroyed so many. There is something
weird and unearthly in the complaint. But men also are wont to forget
their wrong doing when they come to suffer, and it is recorded that even
Nero had abundance of compassion for himself. Weird also and terrible is
it, that this unclean spirit should choose for his confession that pure
and exquisite epithet, the Holy One of God. The phrase only recurs in the
words of St. Peter, “We have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One
of God” (John vi. 69, R.V.). Was it not a mournful association of ideas
which then led Jesus to reply, “Have I not chosen you the Twelve, and one
of you is a devil?(4)” But although the phrase is beautiful, and possibly
“wild with all regret,” there is no relenting, no better desire than to be
“let alone.” And so Jesus, so gentle with sinful men, yet sometime to be
their judge also, is stern and cold. “Hold thy peace—be muzzled,” He
answers, as to a wild beast, “and come out of him.” Whereupon the evil
spirit exhibits at once his ferocity and his defeat. Tearing and
screaming, he came out, but we read in St. Luke that he did the man no
harm.

And the spectators drew the proper inference. A new power implied a new
revelation. Something far-reaching and profound might be expected from Him
who commanded even the unclean spirits with authority, and was obeyed.

It is the custom of unbelievers to speak as if the air of Palestine were
then surcharged with belief in the supernatural. Miracles were everywhere.
Thus they would explain away the significance of the popular belief that
our Lord wrought signs and wonders. But in so doing they set themselves a
worse problem than they evade. If miracles were so very common, it would
be as easy to believe that Jesus wrought them as that He worked at His
father’s bench. But also it would be as inconclusive. And how then are we
to explain the astonishment which all the evangelists so constantly
record? On any conceivable theory, these writers shared the beliefs of
that age. And so did the readers who accepted their assurance that all
were amazed, and that His report “went out straightway everywhere into all
the region of Galilee.” These are emphatic words, and both the author and
his readers must have considered a miracle to be more surprising than
modern critics believe they did.

Yet we do not read that any one was converted by this miracle. All were
amazed, but wonder is not self-surrender. They were content to let their
excitement die out, as every violent emotion must, without any change of
life, any permanent devotion to the new Teacher and His doctrine.




A Group Of Miracles.


    “And straightway, when they were come out of the synagogue, they
    came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now
    Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever; and straightway they
    tell Him of her: and He came and took her by the hand, and raised
    her up; and the fever left her, and she ministered unto them. And
    at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him all that were
    sick, and them that were possessed with devils. And all the city
    was gathered together at the door. And He healed many that were
    sick with divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and He
    suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew Him.”—MARK i.
    29-34 (R.V.).


St. Matthew tells us that on leaving the synagogue they entered into
Peter’s house. St. Mark, with his peculiar sources of information, is
aware that Andrew shared the house with his brother.

Especial interest attaches to the mention of the mother-in-law of Peter,
as proving that Jesus chose a married man to be an apostle, the very
apostle from whom the celibate ministry of Rome professes to have received
the keys. The evidence does not stand alone. When St. Paul’s apostolic
authority was impugned, he insisted that he had the same right to bring
with him in his travels a believing wife, which Peter exercised. And
Clement of Alexandria tells us that Peter’s wife acted as his coadjutor,
ministering to women in their own homes, by which means the gospel of
Christ penetrated without scandal the privacy of women’s apartments. Thus
the notion of a Zenana mission is by no means modern.

The mother of such a wife is afflicted by fever of a kind which still
haunts that district. “And they tell Him of her.” Doubtless there was
solicitude and hope in their voices, even if desire did not take the shape
of formal prayer. We are just emerging from that early period when belief
in His power to heal might still be united with some doubt whether free
application might be made to Him. His disciples might still be as unwise
as those modern theologians who are so busy studying the miracles as a
sign that they forget to think of them as works of love. Any such
hesitation was now to be dispelled for ever.

It is possible that such is the meaning of the expression, and if so, it
has a useful lesson. Sometimes there are temporal gifts which we scarce
know whether we should pray for, so complex are our feelings, so entangled
our interests with those of others, so obscure and dubious the springs
which move our desire. Is it presumptuous to ask? Yet can it be right to
keep anything back, in our communion with our Father?

Now there is a curious similarity between the expression “they tell Jesus
of her” and that phrase which is only applied to prayer when St. Paul bids
us pray for all that is in our hearts. “In nothing be anxious, but in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests
be made known unto God.” So shall the great benediction be fulfilled: “The
peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and
your thoughts” (Phil. iv. 6, 7). All that is unholy shall be purified, all
that is unwise subdued, all that is expedient granted.

If this be indeed the force of St. Mark’s phrase, Jesus felt their modest
reticence to be a strong appeal, for St. Luke says “they besought Him,”
while St. Matthew merely writes that He saw her lying. The “Interpreter of
St. Peter” is most likely to have caught the exact shade of anxiety and
appeal by which her friends drew His attention, and which was indeed a
prayer.

The gentle courtesy of our Lord’s healings cannot be too much studied by
those who would know His mind and love Him. Never does He fling a careless
blessing as coarse benefactors fling their alms; we shall hereafter see
how far He was from leaving fallen bread to be snatched as by a dog, even
by one who would have welcomed a boon thus contemptuously given to her;
and in the hour of His arrest, when He would heal the ear of a persecutor,
His courtesy appeals to those who had laid hold on Him, “Suffer ye thus
far.” Thus He went to this woman and took her by the hand and raised her
up, laying a cool touch upon her fevered palm, bestowing His strength upon
her weakness, healing her as He would fain heal humanity. For at His touch
the disease was banished; with His impulse her strength returned.

We do not read that she felt bound thereupon to become an obtrusive public
witness to His powers: that was not her function; but in her quiet home
she failed not to minister unto Him who had restored her powers. Would
that all whose physical powers Jesus renews from sickness, might devote
their energies to Him. Would that all for whom He has calmed the fever of
earthly passion, might arise and be energetic in His cause.

Think of the wonder, the gladness and gratitude of their humble feast. But
if we felt aright the sickness of our souls, and the grace which heals
them, equal gratitude would fill our lives as He sups with us and we with
Him.

Tidings of the two miracles have quickly gone abroad, and as the sun sets,
and the restraint of the sabbath is removed, all the city gathers all the
sick around His door.

Now here is a curious example of the peril of pressing too eagerly our
inferences from the expressions of an evangelist. St. Mark tells us that
they brought “all their sick and them that were possessed with devils. And
He healed” (not all, but) “many that were sick, and cast out many devils.”
How easily we might distinguish between the “all” who came, and the “many”
who were healed. Want of faith would explain the difference, and spiritual
analogies would be found for those who remained unhealed at the feet of
the good Physician. These lessons might be very edifying, but they would
be out of place, for St. Matthew tells us that He healed them all.

But who can fail to contrast this universal movement, the urgent quest of
bodily health, and the willingness of friends and neighbours to convey
their sick to Jesus, with our indifference to the health of the soul, and
our neglect to lead others to the Saviour. Disease being the cold shadow
of sin, its removal was a kind of sacrament, an outward and visible sign
that the Healer of souls was nigh. But the chillness of the shadow
afflicts us more than the pollution of the substance, and few professing
Christians lament a hot temper as sincerely as a fever.

As Jesus drove out the demons, He suffered them not to speak because they
knew Him. We cannot believe that His rejection of their impure testimony
was prudential only, whatever possibility there may have been of that
charge of complicity which was afterwards actually brought. Any help which
might have come to Him from the lips of hell was shocking and revolting to
our Lord. And this is a lesson for all religious and political partisans
who stop short of doing evil themselves, but reject no advantage which the
evil deeds of others may bestow. Not so cold and negative is the morality
of Jesus. He regards as contamination whatever help fraud, suppressions of
truth, injustice, by whomsoever wrought, can yield. He rejects them by an
instinct of abhorrence, and not only because shame and dishonour have
always befallen the purest cause which stooped to unholy alliances.

Jesus that day showed Himself powerful alike in the congregation, in the
home, and in the streets, and over evil spirits and physical disease
alike.




Jesus In Solitude.


    “And in the morning, a great while before day, He rose up and went
    out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed. And Simon
    and they that were with him followed after Him; and they found
    Him, and say unto Him, All are seeking Thee. And He saith unto
    them, Let us go elsewhere into the next towns, that I may preach
    there also; for to this end came I forth. And He went into their
    synagogues throughout all Galilee, and preaching casting out
    devils.”—MARK i. 35-39 (R.V.).


St. Mark is pre-eminently the historian of Christ’s activities. From him
chiefly we learn to add to our thought of perfect love and gentleness that
of One whom the zeal of God’s house ate up. But this evangelist does not
omit to tell us by what secret fountains this river of life was fed; how
the active labours of Jesus were inspired in secret prayers. Too often we
allow to one side of religion a development which is not excessive, but
disproportionate, and we are punished when contemplation becomes
nerveless, or energy burns itself away.

After feeding the five thousand, St. Mark tells us that Jesus, while the
storm gathered over His disciples on the lake, went up into a mountain to
pray. And St. Luke tells of a whole night of prayer before choosing His
disciples, and how it was to pray that He climbed the mountain of
transfiguration.

And we read of Him going into a desert place with His disciples, and to
Olivet, and oft-times resorting to the garden where Judas found Him,
where, in the dead of night, the traitor naturally sought Him.

Prayer was the spring of all His energies, and His own saying indicated
the habit of His mortal life as truly as the law of His mysterious
generation: “I live by the Father.”

His prayers impress nothing on us more powerfully than the reality of His
manhood. He, Who possesses all things, bends His knees to crave, and His
prayers are definite, no empty form, no homage without sense of need, no
firing of blank cartridge without an aim. He asks that His disciples may
be with Him where He is, that Simon’s strength may fail not, that He may
Himself be saved from a dreadful hour. “Such touches” said Godet “do not
look like an artificial apotheosis of Jesus, and they constitute a
striking difference between the gospel portrait and the legendary
caricature.”

The entire evening had been passed in healing the diseases of the whole
town; not the light and careless bestowal of a boon which cost nothing,
but wrought with so much sympathy, such draining of His own vital forces,
that St. Matthew found in it a fulfilment of the prophecy that He should
Himself bear our sicknesses. And thus exhausted, the frame might have been
forgiven for demanding some indulgence, some prolongation of repose.

But the course of our Lord’s ministry was now opening up before Him, and
the hindrances becoming visible. How much was to be hoped from the great
impression already made; how much to be feared from the weakness of His
followers, the incipient envy of priest and Pharisee, and the volatile
excitability of the crowd. At such a time, to relieve His burdened heart
with Divine communion was more to Jesus than repose, as, at another time,
to serve Him was meat to eat. And therefore, in the still fresh morning,
long before the dawn, while every earthly sight was dim but the abysses of
heaven were vivid, declaring without voice, amid the silence of earth’s
discord, the glory and the handiwork of His Father, Jesus went into a
solitary place and prayed.

What is it that makes solitude and darkness dreadful to some, and
oppressive to very many?

Partly the sense of physical danger, born of helplessness and uncertainty.
This He never felt, who knew that He must walk to-day and to-morrow, and
on the third day be perfected. And partly it is the weight of unwelcome
reflection, the searching and rebukes of memory, fears that come of guilt,
and inward distractions of a nature estranged from the true nature of the
universe. Jesus was agitated by no inward discords, upbraided by no
remorse. And He had probably no reveries; He is never recorded to
soliloquise; solitude to Him was but another name for communion with God
His Father; He was never alone, for God was with Him.

This retirement enabled Him to remain undisturbed until His disciples
found Him, long after the crowds had besieged their dwelling. They had not
yet learned how all true external life must rest upon the hidden life of
devotion, and there is an accent of regret in the words, “All are seeking
Thee,” as if Jesus could neglect in self-culture any true opportunity for
service.

The answer, noteworthy in itself, demands especial attention in these
times of missions, demonstrations, Salvation Armies, and other wise and
unwise attempts to gather excited crowds around the cross.

Mere sensation actually repelled Jesus. Again and again He charged men not
to make Him known, in places where He would stay; while in Gadara, which
He had to leave, His command to the demoniac was the reverse. Deep and
real convictions are not of kin with sight-seeing and the pursuit of
wonders. Capernaum has now heard His message, has received its full share
of physical blessing, is exalted unto heaven. Those who were looking for
redemption knew the gospel, and Jesus must preach it in other towns also.
Therefore, and not to be the centre of admiring multitudes, came He forth
from His quiet home.

Such is the sane and tranquil action of Jesus, in face of the excitement
caused by His many miracles. Now the miracles themselves, and all that
depends on them, are declared to be the creation of the wildest
fanaticism, either during His lifetime or developing His legend
afterwards. And if so, we have here, in the action of human mind, the
marvel of modern physicists, ice from a red-hot retort, absolute
moderation from a dream of frenzy. And this paradox is created in the act
of “explaining” the miracles. The explanation, even were it sustained by
any evidence, would be as difficult as any miracle to believe.




The Leper.


    “And there cometh to Him a leper, beseeching Him, and kneeling
    down to Him, and saying unto Him, If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me
    clean. And being moved with compassion, He stretched forth His
    hand, and touched him, and saith unto him I will; be thou made
    clean. And straightway the leprosy departed from him, and he was
    made clean. And He strictly charged him, and straightway sent him
    out, and saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go
    thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing
    the things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But
    he went out, and began to publish it much, and to spread abroad
    the matter insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a
    city, but was without in desert places: and they came to Him from
    every quarter.”—MARK i. 40-45 (R.V.).


The disease of leprosy was peculiarly fearful to a Jew. In its stealthy
beginning, its irresistible advance, the utter ruin which it wrought from
the blood outward until the flesh was corroded and fell away, it was a fit
type of sin, at first so trivial in its indications, but gradually
usurping all the nature and corrupting it. And the terrible fact, that the
children of its victims were also doomed, reminded the Israelite of the
transmission of the taint of Adam.

The story of Naaman and that of Gehazi make it almost certain that the
leprosy of Scripture was not contagious, for they were intimate with
kings. But apparently to complete the type, the law gave to it the
artificial contagion of ceremonial uncleanness, and banished the unhappy
sufferer from the dwellings of men. Thus he came to be regarded as under
an especial ban, and the prophecy which announced that the illustrious Man
of Sorrows would be esteemed “stricken of God,” was taken to mean that He
should be a leper. This banishment of the leper was indeed a remarkable
exception to the humanity of the ancient law, but when his distress began
to be extreme, and “the plague was turned into white,” he was released
from his uncleanness (Lev. xiii. 17). And this may teach us that sin is to
be dreaded most while it is yet insidious; when developed it gives a
sufficient warning against itself. And now such a sufferer appeals to
Jesus. The incident is one of the most pathetic in the Gospel; and its
graphic details, and the shining character which it reveals, make it very
perplexing to moderate and thoughtful sceptics.

Those who believe that the charm of His presence was “worth all the
resources of medicine,” agree that Christ may have cured even leprosy, and
insist that this story, as told by St. Mark, “must be genuine.” Others
suppose that the leper was already cured, and Jesus only urged him to
fulfil the requirements of the law. And why not deny the story boldly? Why
linger so longingly over the details, when credence is refused to what is
plainly the mainspring of the whole, the miraculous power of Jesus? The
answer is plain. Honest minds feel the touch of a great nature; the misery
of the suppliant and the compassion of his Restorer are so vivid as to
prove themselves; no dreamer of a myth, no process of legend-building,
ever wrought after this fashion. But then, the misery and compassion being
granted, the whole story is practically conceded. It only remains to ask,
whether the “presence of the Saintly Man” could work a chemical change in
tainted blood. For it must be insisted that the man was “full of leprosy,”
and not, as one suggests, already far advanced towards cure. The contrast
between his running and kneeling at the very feet of Jesus, and the
conduct of the ten lepers, not yet released from their exclusion, who
stood afar off while they cried out (Luke xvii. 12), is sufficient
evidence of this, even if the express statement of St. Luke were not
decisive.

Repulsive, and until now despairing, only tolerated among men through the
completeness of his plague, this man pushes through the crowd which
shrinks from him, kneels in an agony of supplication, and says “If Thou
wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” If Thou wilt! The cruelty of man has
taught him to doubt the heart, even though satisfied of the power of
Jesus. In a few years, men came to assume the love, and exult in the
reflection that He was “able to keep what ‘was’ committed to Him,” “able
to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” It did not
occur to St. Paul that any mention of His will was needed.

Nor did Jesus Himself ask a later suppliant, “Believest thou that I am
willing,” but “Believest thou that I am able to do this?”

But the charm of this delightful incident is the manner in which our Lord
grants the impassioned prayer. We might have expected a shudder, a natural
recoil from the loathsome spectacle, and then a wonder-working word. But
misery which He could relieve did not repel Jesus; it attracted Him. His
impulse was to approach. He not only answered “I will,”—and deep is the
will to remove all anguish in the wonderful heart of Jesus,—but He
stretched forth an unshrinking hand, and touched that death in life. It is
a parable of all His course, this laying of a clean hand on the sin of the
world to cleanse it. At His touch, how was the morbid frame thrilled with
delightful pulses of suddenly renovated health. And how was the
despairing, joyless heart, incredulous of any real will to help him,
soothed and healed by the pure delight of being loved.

This is the true lesson of the narrative. St. Mark treats the miraculous
cure much more lightly than the tender compassion and the swift movement
to relieve suffering. And He is right. The warm and generous nature
revealed by this fine narrative is what, as we have seen, most impresses
the doubter, and ought most to comfort the Church. For He is the same
yesterday and to-day. And perhaps, if the divinity of love impressed men
as much as that of power, there would be less denial of the true Godhead
of our Lord.

The touch of a leper made a Jew unclean. And there is a surprising theory,
that when Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, it was because the
leper had disobediently published what implied His ceremonial defilement.
As if our Lord were one to violate the law by stealth.

But is it very remarkable that Christ, Who was born under the law, never
betrayed any anxiety about cleanness. The law of impurity was in fact an
expression of human frailty. Sin spreads corruption far more easily than
virtue diffuses purity. The touch of goodness fails to reproduce goodness.
And the prophet Haggai has laid stress upon this contrast, that bread or
pottage or wine or oil or any meat will not become holy at the touch of
one who bears holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, but if one that is
unclean by a dead body touch any of these, it shall be unclean (ii. 12,
13). Our hearts know full well how true to nature is the ordinance.

But Christ brought among us a virtue more contagious than our vices are,
being not only a living soul, but a life-imparting Spirit. And thus He
lays His hand upon this leper, upon the bier at Nain, upon the corpse of
the daughter of Jairus, and as fire is kindled at the touch of fire, so
instead of pollution to Him, the pureness of healthful life is imparted to
the defiling and defiled.

And His followers also are to possess a religion that is vitalizing, to be
the light of the world, and the salt of the earth.

If we are thus to further His cause, we must not only be zealous but
obedient, Jesus strictly charged the leper not to fan the flame of an
excitement which already impeded His work. But there was an invaluable
service which he might render: the formal registration of his cure, the
securing its official recognition by the priests, and their consent to
offer the commanded sacrifices. In many a subsequent controversy, that
“testimony unto them” might have been embarrassing indeed. But the leper
lost his opportunity, and put them upon their guard. And as through his
impulsive clamour Jesus could no more openly enter into a city, but even
in desert places was beset by excited crowds, so is He deprived today of
many a tranquil ministration and lowly service, by the zeal which despises
order and quiet methods, by the undisciplined and ill-judged
demonstrations of men and women whom He has blessed.





CHAPTER II.




The Sick Of The Palsy.


    “And when He entered again into Capernaum after some days, it was
    noised that He was in the house.”—MARK ii. 1 (R.V.).


Jesus returns to Capernaum, and an eager crowd blocks even the approaches
to the house where He is known to be. St. Mark, as we should expect,
relates the course of events, the multitudes, the ingenious device by
which a miracle is obtained, the claim which Jesus advances to yet greater
authority than heretofore, and the impression produced. But St. Luke
explains that there were “sitting by,” having obtained the foremost places
which they loved, Pharisees and doctors of the law from every village of
Galilee and Judæa, and from Jerusalem itself. And this concourse,
evidently preconcerted and unfriendly, explains the first murmurs of
opposition recorded by St. Mark. It was the jealousy of rival teachers
which so readily pronounced Him a blasphemer.

The crowds besieged the very passages, there was no room, no, not around
the door, and even if one might struggle forward, four men bearing a
litter might well despair. But with palsied paralysis at stake, they would
not be repulsed. They gained the roof by an outer staircase, such as the
fugitives from Jerusalem should hereafter use, not going through the
house. Then they uncovered and broke up the roof, by which strong phrases
St. Mark means that they first lifted the tiles which lay in a bed of
mortar or mud, broke through this, and then tore up the poles and light
rafters by which all this covering was supported. Then they lowered the
sick man upon his pallet, in front of the Master as He taught.

It was an unceremonious act. However carefully performed, the audience
below must have been not only disturbed but inconvenienced, and doubtless
among the precise and unmerciful personages in the chief seats there was
many an angry glance, many a murmur, many a conjecture of rebukes
presently to be inflicted on the intruders.

But Jesus never in any circumstances rebuked for intrusion any suppliant.
And now He discerned the central spiritual impulse of these men, which was
not obtrusiveness nor disrespect. They believed that neither din while He
preached, nor rubbish falling among His audience, nor the strange
interruption of a patient and a litter intruded upon His discourse, could
weigh as much with Jesus as the appeal on a sick man’s face. And this was
faith. These peasants may have been far enough from intellectual
discernment of Christ’s Personality and the scheme of salvation. They had
however a strong and practical conviction that He would make whole their
palsied friend.

Now the preaching of faith is suspected of endangering good works. But was
this persuasion likely to make these men torpid? Is it not plain that all
spiritual apathy comes not from over-trust but from unbelief, either
doubting that sin is present death, or else that holiness is life, and
that Jesus has a gift to bestow, not in heaven, but promptly, which is
better to gain than all the world? Therefore salvation is linked with
faith, which earns nothing but elicits all, like the touch that evokes
electricity, but which no man supposes to have made it.

Because they knew the curse of palsy, and believed in a present remedy,
these men broke up the roof to come where Jesus was. They won their
blessing, but not the less it was His free gift.

Jesus saw and rewarded the faith of all the group. The principle of mutual
support and co-operation is the basis alike of the family, the nation, and
the Church. Thus the great Apostle desired obscure and long-forgotten men
and women to help together with him in their prayers. And He who visits
the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation, shows mercy unto many more, unto thousands, in them that love
Him. What a rebuke is all this to men who think it enough that they should
do no harm, and live inoffensive lives. Jesus now bestowed such a blessing
as awoke strange misgivings among the bystanders. He divined the true
burden of that afflicted heart, the dreary memories and worse fears which
haunted that sick bed,—and how many are even now preparing such remorse
and gloom for a bed of pain hereafter!—and perhaps He discerned the
consciousness of some guilty origin of the disease. Certainly He saw there
one whose thoughts went beyond his malady, a yearning soul, with hope
glowing like red sparks amid the ashes of his self-reproach, that a
teacher so gracious as men reported Jesus, might bring with Him a gospel
indeed. We know that he felt thus, for Jesus made him of good cheer by
pardon rather than by healing, and spoke of the cure itself as wrought
less for his sake than as evidence.

Surely that was a great moment when the wistful gaze of eyes which disease
had dimmed, met the eyes which were as a flame of fire, and knew that all
its sullied past was at once comprehended and forgiven.

Jesus said to him, “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.” The term of
endearment was new to his lips, and very emphatic; the same which Mary
used when she found Him in the temple, the same as when He argued that
even evil men give good gifts unto their children. Such a relation towards
Himself He recognised in this afflicted penitent. On the other hand, the
dry argumentative temper of the critics is well expressed by the short
crackling unemotional utterances of their orthodoxy: “Why doth this man
thus speak? He blasphemeth. Who can forgive sins but one, God.” There is
no zeal in it, no passion for God’s honour, no spiritual insight, it is as
heartless as a syllogism. And in what follows a fine contrast is implied
between their perplexed orthodoxy, and Christ’s profound discernment. For
as He had just read the sick man’s heart, so He “perceived in His spirit
that they so reasoned within themselves.” And He asks them the searching
question, “Whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say,
Arise and walk?” Now which is really easier? It is not enough to lay all
the emphasis upon “to say,” as if with Jesus the ease of an utterance
depended on the difficulty of testing it. There is indeed a certain irony
in the question. They doubtless imagined that Jesus was evading their
scrutiny by only bestowing what they could not test. To them forgiveness
seemed more easily offered than a cure. To the Christian, it is less to
heal disease, which is a mere consequence, than sin, which is the source
of all our woes. To the power of Jesus they were alike, and connected with
each other as the symptom and the true disease. In truth, all the
compassion which blesses our daily life is a pledge of grace; and He Who
healeth all our diseases forgiveth also all our iniquities. But since
healing was the severer test in their reckoning, Jesus does not evade it.
He restores the palsied man to health, that they might know that the Son
of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins. So then, pardon does not
lie concealed and doubtful in the councils of an unknown world, it is
pronounced on earth. The Son of man, wearing our nature and touched with
our infirmities, bestows it still, in the Scriptures, in the Sacraments,
in the ministrations of His servants. Wherever He discerns faith, He
responds with assurance of the absolution and remission of sins.

He claims to do this, as men had so lately observed that He both taught
and worked miracles, “with authority.” We then saw that this word
expressed the direct and personal mastery with which He wrought, and which
the apostles never claimed for themselves.

Therefore this text cannot be quoted in defence of priestly absolutions,
as long as these are hypothetical, and depend on the recipient’s
earnestness, or on any supposition, any uncertainty whatever. Christ did
not utter a hypothesis.

Fortunately, too, the argument that men, priestly men, must have authority
on earth to forgive sins, because the Son of man has such authority, can
be brought to an easy test. There is a passage elsewhere, which asserts
His authority, and upon which the claim to share it can be tried. The
words are, “The Father gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He
is the Son of man,” and they are immediately followed by an announcement
of the resurrection to judgment (John v. 27, 29). Is any one prepared to
contend that such authority as that is vested in other sons of men? And if
not that, why this?

But if priestly absolutions are not here, there remains the certainty that
Jesus brought to earth, to man, the gift of prompt effective pardon, to be
realized by faith.

The sick man is ordered to depart at once. Further discourse might perhaps
be reserved for others, but he may not linger, having received his own
bodily and spiritual medicine. The teaching of Christ is not for
curiosity. It is good for the greatly blessed to be alone. And it is
sometimes dangerous for obscure people to be thrust into the centre of
attention.

Hereupon, another touch of nature discovers itself in the narrative, for
it is now easy to pass through the crowd. Men who would not in their
selfishness give place for palsied misery, readily make room for the
distinguished person who has received a miraculous blessing.




The Son Of Man.


    “The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.”—MARK ii. 10.


When asserting His power to forgive sins, Jesus, for the first time in our
Gospel, called Himself the Son of man.

It is a remarkable phrase. The profound reverence which He from the first
inspired, restrained all other lips from using it, save only when the
first martyr felt such a rush of sympathy from above poured into his soul,
that the thought of Christ’s humanity was more moving than that of His
deity. So too it is then alone that He is said to be not enthroned in
heaven, but standing, “the Son of man, standing on the right hand of God”
(Acts vii. 56).(5)

What then does this title imply? Beyond doubt it is derived from Daniel’s
vision: “Behold there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a Son
of man, and He came even to the Ancient of Days” (vii. 13). And it was by
the bold and unequivocal appropriation of this verse that Jesus brought
upon Himself the judgment of the council (Matt. xxvi. 64; Mark xiv. 62).

Now the first impression which the phrase in Daniel produces is that of
strong and designed contrast between the Son of man and the Eternal God.
We wonder at seeing man “brought nigh” to Deity. Nor may we suppose that
to be “like unto a Son of man,” implies only an appearance of manhood. In
Daniel the Messiah can be cut off. When Jesus uses the epithet, and even
when He quotes the prophecy, He not only resembles a Son of man, He is
truly such; He is most frequently “_the_ Son of man,” the pre-eminent,
perhaps the only one.(6)

But while the expression intimates a share in the lowliness of human
nature, it does not imply a lowly rank among men.

Our Lord often suggested by its use the difference between His
circumstances and His dignity. “The Son of man hath not where to lay His
head:” “Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss,” in each of these we
feel that the title asserts a claim to different treatment. And in the
great verse, God “hath given Him authority to execute judgment, because He
is the Son of man,” we discern that although human hands are chosen as
fittest to do judgment upon humanity, yet His extraordinary dignity is
also taken into account. The title belongs to our Lord’s humiliation, but
is far from an additional abasement; it asserts His supremacy over those
whom He is not ashamed to call brethren.

We all are sons of men; and Jesus used the phrase when He promised that
all manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven to us. But there is a
higher sense in which, among thousands of the ignoble, we single out one
“real man;” and in this sense, as fulfilling the idea, Jesus was the
Second Man. What a difference exists between the loftiest sons of vulgar
men, and the Son of our complete humanity, of the race, “of Man.” The
pre-eminence even of our best and greatest is fragmentary and incomplete.
In their veins runs but a portion of the rich life-blood of the race: but
a share of its energy throbs in the greatest bosom. We seldom find the
typical thinker in the typical man of action. Originality of purpose and
of means are not commonly united. To know all that holiness embraces, we
must combine the energies of one saint with the gentler graces of a second
and the spiritual insight of a third. There is no man of genius who fails
to make himself the child of his nation and his age, so that Shakespeare
would be impossible in France, Hugo in Germany, Goethe in England. Two
great nations slay their kings and surrender their liberties to military
dictators, but Napoleon would have been unendurable to us, and Cromwell
ridiculous across the channel.

Large allowances are to be made for the Greek in Plato, the Roman in
Epictetus, before we can learn of them. Each and all are the sons of their
tribe and century, not of all mankind and all time. But who will point out
the Jewish warp in any word or institution of Jesus? In the new man which
is after His image there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and
uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, but Christ is all
and in all, something of Him represented by each, all of them concentrated
in Him. He alone speaks to all men without any foreign accent, and He
alone is recognised and understood as widely as the voices of nature, as
the sigh of waves and breezes, and the still endurance of the stars.
Reading the Gospels, we become aware that four writers of widely different
bias and temperament have all found an equally congenial subject, so that
each has given a portrait harmonious with the others, and yet unique. It
is because the sum total of humanity is in Christ, that no single writer
could have told His story.

But now consider what this implies. It demands an example from which
lonely women and heroic leaders of action should alike take fire. It
demands that He should furnish meditation for sages in the closet, and
should found a kingdom more brilliant than those of conquerors. It demands
that He should strike out new paths towards new objects, and be supremely
original without deviating from what is truly sane and human, for any
selfish or cruel or unwholesome joy. It demands the gentleness of a sheep
before her shearers, and such burning wrath as seven times over denounced
against the hypocrites of Jerusalem woe and the damnation of hell. It
demands the sensibilities which made Gethsemane dreadful, and the strength
which made Calvary sublime. It demands that when we approach Him we should
learn to feel the awe of other worlds, the nearness of God, the sinfulness
of sin, the folly of laying up much goods for many years; that life should
be made solemn and profound, but yet that it should not be darkened nor
depressed unduly; that nature and man should be made dear to us, little
children, and sinners who are scorned yet who love much, and lepers who
stand afar off—yes, and even the lilies of the field, and the fowls of the
air; that He should not be unaware of the silent processes of nature which
bears fruit of itself, of sunshine and rain, and the fury of storms and
torrents, and the leap of the lightning across all the sky. Thus we can
bring to Jesus every anxiety and every hope, for He, and only He, was
tempted in all points like unto us. Universality of power, of sympathy,
and of influence, is the import of this title which Jesus claims. And that
demand Jesus only has satisfied, Who is the Master of Sages, the Friend of
sinners, the Man of Sorrows, and the King of kings, the one perfect
blossom on the tree of our humanity, the ideal of our nature incarnate,
the Second Adam in Whom the fulness of the race is visible. The Second Man
is the Lord from Heaven. And this strange and solitary grandeur He
foretold, when He took to Himself this title, itself equally strange and
solitary, the Son of man.




The Call And Feast Of Levi.


    “And He went forth again by the sea side; and all the multitude
    resorted unto Him, and He taught them. And as He passed by, He saw
    Levi the _son_ of Alphæus sitting at the place of toll, and He
    saith unto him, Follow Me. And he arose and followed Him. And it
    came to pass, that He was sitting at meat in his house, and many
    publicans and sinners sat down with Jesus and His disciples: for
    there were many, and they followed Him. And the scribes of the
    Pharisees, when they saw that He was eating with the sinners and
    publicans, said unto His disciples, He eateth and drinketh with
    publicans and sinners. And when Jesus heard it, He saith unto
    them, They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they
    that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but
    sinners.”—MARK ii. 13-17 (R.V.).


Jesus loved the open air. His custom when teaching was to point to the
sower, the lily, and the bird. He is no pale recluse emerging from a
library to instruct, in the dim religious light of cloisters, a world
unknown except by books. Accordingly we find Him “again by the sea-side.”
And however the scribes and Pharisees may have continued to murmur, the
multitudes resorted to Him, confiding in the evidence of their experience,
which never saw it on this fashion.

That argument was perfectly logical; it was an induction, yet it led them
to a result curiously the reverse of theirs who reject miracles for being
contrary to experience. “Yes,” they said, “we appeal to experience, but
the conclusion is that good deeds which it cannot parallel must come
directly from the Giver of all good.”

Such good deeds continue. The creed of Christ has re-formed Europe, it is
awakening Asia, it has transformed morality, and imposed new virtues on
the conscience. It is the one religion for the masses, the lapsed, and
indeed for the sick in body as truly as in soul; for while science
discourses with enthusiasm upon progress by the rejection of the less fit,
our faith cherishes these in hospitals, asylums, and retreats, and
prospers by lavishing care upon the outcast and rejected of the world. Now
this transcends experience: we never saw it on this fashion; it is
supernatural. Or else let scientific atheism produce its reformed
magdalens, and its homes for the hopelessly diseased and imbecile, and all
“the weakest” who go, as she tenderly assures us, “to the wall.”

Jesus now gave a signal proof of His independence of human judgment, His
care for the despised and rejected. For such a one He completed the
rupture between Himself and the rulers of the people.

Sitting at the receipt of toll, in the act of levying from his own nation
the dues of the conqueror, Levi the publican received the call to become
an Apostle and Evangelist. It was a resolute defiance of the pharisaic
judgment. It was a memorable rebuke for those timid slaves of expediency
who nurse their influence, refuse to give offence, fear to “mar their
usefulness” by “compromising themselves,” and so make their whole life one
abject compromise, and let all emphatic usefulness go by.

Here is one upon whom the bigot scowls more darkly still than upon Jesus
Himself, by whom the Roman yoke is pressed upon Hebrew necks, an apostate
in men’s judgment from the national faith and hope. And such judgments
sadly verify themselves; a despised man easily becomes despicable.

But however Levi came by so strange and hateful an office, Jesus saw in
him no slavish earner of vile bread by doing the foreigner’s hateful work.
He was more willing than they who scorned him to follow the true King of
Israel. It is even possible that the national humiliations to which his
very office testified led him to other aspirations, longings after a
spiritual kingdom beyond reach of the sword or the exactions of Rome. For
his Gospel is full of the true kingdom of heaven, the spiritual
fulfilments of prophecy, and the relations between the Old Testament and
the Messiah.

Here then is an opportunity to show the sneering scribe and carping
Pharisee how little their cynical criticism weighs with Jesus. He calls
the despised agent of the heathen to His side, and is obeyed. And now the
name of the publican is engraven upon one of the foundations of the city
of God.

Nor did Jesus refuse to carry such condescension to its utmost limit,
eating and drinking in Levi’s house with many publicans and sinners, who
were already attracted by His teaching, and now rejoiced in His
familiarity. Just in proportion as He offended the pharisaic scribes, so
did He inspire with new hope the unhappy classes who were taught to
consider themselves castaway. His very presence was medicinal, a rebuke to
foul words and thoughts, an outward and visible sign of grace. It brought
pure air and sunshine into a fever-stricken chamber.

And this was His justification when assailed. He had borne healing to the
sick. He had called sinners to repentance. And therefore His example has a
double message. It rebukes those who look curiously on the intercourse of
religious people with the world, who are plainly of opinion that the
leaven should be hid anywhere but in the meal, who can never fairly
understand St. Paul’s permission to go to an idolater’s feast. But it
gives no licence to go where we cannot be a healing influence, where the
light must be kept in a dark lantern if not under a bushel, where, instead
of drawing men upward, we shall only confirm their indolent
self-satisfaction.

Christ’s reason for seeking out the sick, the lost, is ominous indeed for
the self-satisfied. The whole have no need of a physician; He came not to
call the righteous. Such persons, whatever else they be, are not
Christians until they come to a different mind.

In calling Himself the Physician of sick souls, Jesus made a startling
claim, which becomes more emphatic when we observe that He also quoted the
words of Hosea, “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” (Matt. ix. 13; Hos.
vi. 6). For this expression occurs in that chapter which tells how the
Lord Himself hath smitten and will bind us up. And the complaint is just
before it that when Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, then
went Ephraim to Assyria and sent to king Jareb, but he is not able to heal
you, neither shall he cure you of your wound (Hos. v. 13-vi. 1). As the
Lord Himself hath torn, so He must heal.

Now Jesus comes to that part of Israel which the Pharisees despise for
being wounded and diseased, and justifies Himself by words which must,
from their context, have reminded every Jew of the declaration that God is
the physician, and it is vain to seek healing elsewhere. And immediately
afterwards, He claims to be the Bridegroom, whom also Hosea spoke of as
divine. Yet men profess that only in St. John does He advance such claims
that we should ask, Whom makest Thou Thyself? Let them try the experiment,
then, of putting such words into the lips of any mortal.

The choice of the apostles, and most of all that of Levi, illustrates the
power of the cross to elevate obscure and commonplace lives. He was born,
to all appearance, to an uneventful, unobserved existence. We read no
remarkable action of the Apostle Matthew; as an Evangelist he is simple,
orderly and accurate, as becomes a man of business, but the graphic energy
of St. Mark, the pathos of St. Luke, the profundity of St. John are
absent. Yet his greatness will outlive the world.

Now as Christ provided nobility and a career for this man of the people,
so He does for all. “Are all apostles?” Nay, but all may become pillars in
the temple of eternity. The gospel finds men plunged in monotony, in the
routine of callings which machinery and the subdivision of labour make
ever more colourless, spiritless, and dull. It is a small thing that it
introduces them to a literature more sublime than Milton, more sincere and
direct than Shakespere. It brings their little lives into relationship
with eternity. It braces them for a vast struggle, watched by a great
cloud of witnesses. It gives meaning and beauty to the sordid present, and
to the future a hope full of immortality. It brings the Christ of God
nearer to the humblest than when of old He ate and drank with publicans
and sinners.




The Controversy Concerning Fasting.


    “And John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting: and they
    come and say unto Him, Why do John’s disciples and the disciples
    of the Pharisees fast, but Thy disciples fast not?”—MARK ii. 18
    (R.V.).


The Pharisees had just complained to the disciples that Jesus ate and
drank in questionable company. Now they join with the followers of the
ascetic Baptist in complaining to Jesus that His disciples eat and drink
at improper seasons, when others fast. And as Jesus had then replied, that
being a Physician, He was naturally found among the sick, so He now
answered, that being the Bridegroom, fasting in His presence is
impossible: “Can the sons of the bridechamber fast while the Bridegroom is
with them?” A new spirit is working in Christianity, far too mightily to
be restrained by ancient usages; if the new wine be put into such
wineskins it will spoil them, and itself be lost.

Hereupon three remarkable subjects call for attention: the immense
personal claim advanced; the view which Christ takes of fasting; and,
arising out of this, the principle which He applies to all external rites
and ceremonies.

I. Jesus does not inquire whether the fasts of other men were unreasonable
or not. In any case, He declares that His mere presence put everything on
a new footing for His followers who could not fast simply because He was
by. Thus He assumes a function high above that of any prophet or teacher:
He not only reveals duty, as a lamp casts light upon the compass by which
men steer; but He modifies duty itself, as iron deflects the needle.

This is because He is the Bridegroom.

The disciples of John would hereupon recall his words of self-effacement;
that He was only the friend of the Bridegroom, whose fullest joy was to
hear the Bridegroom’s exultant voice.

But no Jew could forget the Old Testament use of the phrase. It is clear
from St. Matthew that this controversy followed immediately upon the last,
when Jesus assumed a function ascribed to God Himself by the very passage
from Hosea which He then quoted. Then He was the Physician for the soul’s
diseases; now He is the Bridegroom, in Whom centre its hopes, its joys,
its affections, its new life. That position in the spiritual existence
cannot be given away from God without idolatry. The same Hosea who makes
God the Healer, gives to Him also, in the most explicit words, what Jesus
now claims for Himself. “I will betroth thee unto Me for ever.... I will
even betroth thee unto Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord”
(ii. 19, 20). Isaiah too declares “thy Maker is thy husband,” and “as the
bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee”
(liv. 5; lxii. 5). And in Jeremiah, God remembers the love of Israel’s
espousals, who went after Him in the wilderness, in a land that was not
sown (ii. 2). Now all this is transferred throughout the New Testament to
Jesus. The Baptist is not alone in this respect. St. John regards the
Bride as the wife of the Lamb (Rev. xxi. 9). St. Paul would fain present
his Corinthian Church as a pure virgin to Christ, as to one husband (2
Cor. xi. 2). For him, the absolute oneness of marriage is a mystery of the
union betwixt Christ and His Church (Eph. v. 32). If Jesus be not God,
then a relation hitherto exclusively belonging to Jehovah, to rob Him of
which is the adultery of the soul, has been systematically transferred by
the New Testament to a creature. His glory has been given to another.

This remarkable change is clearly the work of Jesus Himself. The marriage
supper of which He spoke is for the King’s son. At His return the cry will
be heard, Behold the Bridegroom cometh. In this earliest passage His
presence causes the joy of the Bride, who said to the Lord in the Old
Testament, Thou art my Husband (Hosea ii. 16).

There is not to be found in the Gospel of St. John a passage more
certainly calculated to inspire, when Christ’s dignity was assured by His
resurrection and ascension, the adoration which His Church has always paid
to the Lamb in the midst of the throne.

II. The presence of the Bridegroom dispenses with the obligation to fast.
Yet it is beyond denial that fasting as a religious exercise comes within
the circle of New Testament sanctions. Jesus Himself, when taking our
burdens upon Him, as He had stooped to the baptism of repentance,
condescended also to fast. He taught His disciples when they fasted to
anoint their head and wash their face. The mention of fasting is indeed a
later addition to the words “this kind (of demon) goeth not out but by
prayer” (Mark ix. 29), but we know that the prophets and teachers of
Antioch were fasting when bidden to consecrate Barnabas and Saul, and they
fasted again and prayed before they laid their hands upon them (Acts xiii.
2, 3).

Thus it is right to fast, at times and from one point of view; but at
other times, and from Jewish and formal motives, it is unnatural and
mischievous. It is right when the Bridegroom is taken away, a phrase which
certainly does not cover all this space between the Ascension and the
Second Advent, since Jesus still reveals Himself to His own though not
unto the world, and is with His Church all the days. Scripture has no
countenance for the notion that we lost by the Ascension in privilege or
joy. But when the body would fain rise up against the spirit, it must be
kept under and brought into subjection (1 Cor. ix. 27). When the closest
domestic joys would interrupt the seclusion of the soul with God, they may
be suspended, though but for a time (1 Cor. vii. 5). And when the supreme
blessing of intercourse with God, the presence of the Bridegroom, is
obscured or forfeited through sin, it will then be as inevitable that the
loyal heart should turn away from worldly pleasures, as that the first
disciples should reject these in the dread hours of their bereavement.

Thus Jesus abolished the superstition that grace may be had by a
mechanical observance of a prescribed regimen at an appointed time. He did
not deny, but rather implied the truth, that body and soul act and
counteract so that spiritual impressions may be weakened and forfeited by
untimely indulgence of the flesh.

By such teaching, Jesus carried forward the doctrine already known to the
Old Testament. There it was distinctly announced that the return from
exile abrogated those fasts which commemorated national calamities, so
that “the fast of the fourth month, and of the fifth, and of the seventh
and of the tenth shall be to the house of Israel joy and gladness,
cheerful feasts” (Zech. vii. 3, viii. 19). Even while these fasts had
lasted they had been futile, because they were only formal. “When ye
fasted and mourned, did ye at all fast unto me? And when ye eat, and when
ye drink, do ye not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves?” (Zech.
vii. 5, 6). And Isaiah had plainly laid down the great rule, that a fast
and an acceptable day unto the Lord was not a day to afflict the soul and
bow the head, but to deny and discipline our selfishness for some good
end, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and
to let the oppressed go free, to deal bread to the hungry, and to bring
home the poor that is cast out (Isa. lviii. 5-7).

The true spirit of fasting breathes an ampler breath in any of the
thousand forms of Christian self-denial, than in those petty abstinences,
those microscopic observances, which move our wonder less by the
superstition which expects them to bring grace than by the childishness
which expects them to have any effect whatever.

III. Jesus now applies a great principle to all external rites and
ceremonies. They have their value. As the wineskin retains the wine, so
are feelings and aspirations aided, and even preserved, by suitable
external forms. Without these, emotion would lose itself for want of
restraint, wasted, like spilt wine, by diffuseness. And if the forms are
unsuitable and outworn, the same calamity happens, the strong new feelings
break through them, “and the wine perisheth, and the skins.” In this
respect, how many a sad experience of the Church attests the wisdom of her
Lord; what losses have been suffered in the struggle between forms that
had stiffened into archaic ceremonialism and new zeal demanding scope for
its energy, between the antiquated phrases of a bygone age and the new
experience, knowledge and requirements of the next, between the frosty
precisions of unsympathetic age and the innocent warmth and freshness of
the young, too often, alas, lost to their Master in passionate revolt
against restraints which He neither imposed nor smiled upon.

Therefore the coming of a new revelation meant the repeal of old
observances, and Christ refused to sew His new faith like a patchwork upon
ancient institutions, of which it would only complete the ruin. Thus He
anticipated the decision of His apostles releasing the Gentiles from the
law of Moses. And He bestowed on His Church an adaptiveness to various
times and places, not always remembered by missionaries among the heathen,
by fastidious critics of new movements at home, nor by men who would
reduce the lawfulness of modern agencies to a question of precedent and
archæology.




The Sabbath.


    “And it came to pass, that He was going on the sabbath day through
    the cornfields; and His disciples began, as they went, to pluck
    the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto Him, Behold, why do
    they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? And He said unto
    them, Did ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was
    an hungred, he, and they that were with him? How he entered into
    the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and did eat the
    shewbread, which it is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and
    gave also to them that were with him? And He said unto them, The
    sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: so that the
    Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath.”—MARK ii. 23-28 (R.V.).


Twice in succession Christ had now asserted the freedom of the soul
against His Jewish antagonists. He was free to eat with sinners, for their
good, and His followers were free to disregard fasts, because the
Bridegroom was with them. A third attack in the same series is prepared.
The Pharisees now take stronger ground, since the law itself enforced the
obligation of the Sabbath. Even Isaiah, the most free-spirited of all the
prophets, in the same passage where he denounced the fasts of the
self-righteous, bade men to keep their foot from the Sabbath (Isa. lviii.
13, 14). Here they felt sure of their position; and when they found the
disciples, in a cornfield where the long stems had closed over the path,
“making a way,” which was surely forbidden labour, and this by “plucking
the ears,” which was reaping, and then rubbing these in their hands to
reject the chaff, which was winnowing, they cried out in affected horror,
Behold, why do they that which is not lawful? To them it mattered nothing
that the disciples really hungered, and that abstinence, rather than the
slight exertion which they condemned, would cause real inconvenience and
unrest.

Perhaps the answer of our Lord has been as much misunderstood as any other
words He ever spoke. It has been assumed that He spoke across the boundary
between the new dispensation and the old, as One from whose movements the
restraints of Judaism had entirely fallen away, to those who were still
entangled. And it has been inferred that the Fourth Commandment was no
more than such a restraint, now thrown off among the rest. But this is
quite a misapprehension both of His position and theirs. On earth He was a
minister of the circumcision. He bade His disciples to observe and do all
that was commanded from the seat of Moses. And it is by Old Testament
precedent, and from Old Testament principles, that He now refutes the
objection of the Pharisees. This is what gives the passage half its charm,
this discovery of freedom like our own in the heart of the stern old
Hebrew discipline, as a fountain and flowers on the face of a granite
crag, this demonstration that all we now enjoy is developed from what
already lay in germ enfolded in the law.

David and his followers, when at extremity, had eaten the shewbread which
it was not lawful for them to eat. It is a striking assertion. We should
probably have sought a softer phrase. We should have said that in other
circumstances it would have been unlawful, that only necessity made it
lawful; we should have refused to look straight in the face the naked ugly
fact that David broke the law. But Jesus was not afraid of any fact. He
saw and declared that the priests in the Temple itself profaned the
Sabbath when they baked the shewbread and when they circumcised children.
They were blameless, not because the Fourth Commandment remained
inviolate, but because circumstances made it right for them to profane the
Sabbath. And His disciples were blameless also, upon the same principle,
that the larger obligation overruled the lesser, that all ceremonial
observance gave way to human need, that mercy is a better thing than
sacrifice.

And thus it appeared that the objectors were themselves the transgressors;
they had condemned the guiltless.

A little reflection will show that our Lord’s bold method, His startling
admission that David and the priests alike did that which was not lawful,
is much more truly reverential than our soft modern compromises, our
shifty devices for persuading ourselves that in various permissible and
even necessary deviations from prescribed observances, there is no real
infraction of any law whatever.

To do this, we reduce to a minimum the demands of the precept. We train
ourselves to think, not of its full extension, but of what we can compress
it into. Therefore, in future, even when no urgency exists, the precept
has lost all beyond this minimum; its sharp edges are filed away. Jesus
leaves it to resume all its energy, when mercy no longer forbids the
sacrifice.

The text, then, says nothing about the abolition of a Day of Rest. On the
contrary, it declares that this day is not a Jewish but a universal
ordinance, it is made for man. At the same time, it refuses to place the
Sabbath among the essential and inflexible laws of right and wrong. It is
made for man, for his physical repose and spiritual culture; man was not
made for it, as he is for purity, truth, and godliness. Better for him to
die than outrage these; they are the laws of his very being; he is royal
by serving them; in obeying them he obeys his God. It is not thus with
anything external, ceremonial, any ritual, any rule of conduct, however
universal be its range, however permanent its sanctions. The Sabbath is
such a rule, permanent, far-reaching as humanity, made “for man.” But this
very fact, Jesus tells us, is the reason why He Who represented the race
and its interests, was “Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Let those who deny the Divine authority of this great institution ponder
well the phrase which asserts its universal range, and which finds it a
large assertion of the mastery of Christ that He is Lord “even of the
Sabbath.” But those who have scruples about the change of day by which
honour is paid to Christ’s resurrection, and those who would make
burdensome and dreary, a horror to the young and a torpor to the old, what
should be called a delight and honourable, these should remember that the
ordinance is blighted, root and branch, when it is forbidden to minister
to the physical or spiritual welfare of the human race.





CHAPTER III.




The Withered Hand.


    “And He entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man
    there which had his hand withered. And they watched Him, whether
    He would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse Him.
    And He saith unto the man that had his hand withered, Stand forth.
    And He saith unto them, Is it lawful on the sabbath day to do good
    or to do harm? to save a life, or to kill? But they held their
    peace. And when He had looked round about on them with anger,
    being grieved at the hardening of their heart, He saith unto the
    man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched it forth: and his
    hand was restored. And the Pharisees went out, and straightway
    with the Herodians took counsel against Him, how they might
    destroy Him.”—MARK iii. 1-6 (R.V.).


In the controversies just recorded, we have recognised the ideal Teacher,
clear to discern and quick to exhibit the decisive point at issue,
careless of small pedantries, armed with principles and precedents which
go to the heart of the dispute.

But the perfect man must be competent in more than theory; and we have now
a marvellous example of tact, decision and self-control in action. When
Sabbath observance is again discussed, his enemies have resolved to push
matters to extremity. They watch, no longer to cavil, but that they may
accuse Him. It is in the synagogue; and their expectations are sharpened
by the presence of a pitiable object, a man whose hand is not only
paralyzed in the sinews, but withered up and hopeless. St. Luke tells us
that it was the right hand, which deepened his misery. And St. Matthew
records that they asked Christ, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?
thus urging Him by a challenge to the deed which they condemned. What a
miserable state of mind! They believe that Jesus can work the cure, since
this is the very basis of their plot; and yet their hostility is not
shaken, for belief in a miracle is not conversion; to acknowledge a
prodigy is one thing, and to surrender the will is quite another. Or how
should we see around us so many Christians in theory, reprobates in life?
They long to see the man healed, yet there is no compassion in this
desire, hatred urges them to wish what mercy impels Christ to grant. But
while He relieves the sufferer, He will also expose their malice.
Therefore He makes His intention public, and whets their expectation, by
calling the man forth into the midst. And then He meets their question
with another: Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day or evil, to save
life or to kill? And when they preserved their calculated silence, we know
how He pressed the question home, reminding them that not one of them
would fail to draw His own sheep out of a pit upon the Sabbath day.
Selfishness made the difference, for a man was better than a sheep, but
did not, like the sheep, belong to them. They do not answer: instead of
warning Him away from guilt, they eagerly await the incriminating act: we
can almost see the spiteful subtle smile playing about their bloodless
lips; and Jesus marks them well. He looked round about them in anger, but
not in bitter personal resentment, for He was grieved at the hardness of
their hearts, and pitied them also, even while enduring such contradiction
of sinners against Himself. This is the first mention by St. Mark of that
impressive gaze, afterwards so frequent in every Gospel, which searched
the scribe who answered well, and melted the heart of Peter.

And now, by one brief utterance, their prey breaks through their meshes.
Any touch would have been a work, a formal infraction of the law.
Therefore there is no touch, neither is the helpless man bidden to take up
any burden, or instigated to the slightest ritual irregularity. Jesus only
bids him do what was forbidden to none, but what had been impossible for
him to perform; and the man succeeds, he does stretch forth his hand: he
is healed: the work is done. Yet nothing has been done; as a work of
healing not even a word has been said. For He who would so often defy
their malice has chosen to show once how easily He can evade it, and not
one of them is more free from any blame, however technical, than He. The
Pharisees are so utterly baffled, so helpless in His hands, so “filled
with madness” that they invoke against this new foe the help of their
natural enemies, the Herodians. These appear on the stage because the
immense spread of the Messianic movement endangers the Idumæan dynasty.
When first the wise men sought an infant King of the Jews, the Herod of
that day was troubled. That instinct which struck at His cradle is now
reawakened, and will not slumber again until the fatal day when the new
Herod shall set Him at nought and mock Him. In the meanwhile these strange
allies perplex themselves with the hard question, How is it possible to
destroy so acute a foe.

While observing their malice, and the exquisite skill which baffles it, we
must not lose sight of other lessons. It is to be observed that no offence
to hypocrites, no danger to Himself, prevented Jesus from removing human
suffering. And also that He expects from the man a certain co-operation
involving faith: he must stand forth in the midst; every one must see his
unhappiness; he is to assume a position which will become ridiculous
unless a miracle is wrought. Then he must make an effort. In the act of
stretching forth his hand the strength to stretch it forth is given; but
he would not have tried the experiment unless he trusted before he
discovered the power. Such is the faith demanded of our sin-stricken and
helpless souls; a faith which confesses its wretchedness, believes in the
good will of God and the promises of Christ, and receives the experience
of blessing through having acted on the belief that already the blessing
is a fact in the Divine volition.

Nor may we overlook the mysterious impalpable spiritual power which
effects its purposes without a touch, or even an explicit word of healing
import. What is it but the power of Him Who spake and it was done, Who
commanded and it stood fast?

And all this vividness of look and bearing, this innocent subtlety of
device combined with a boldness which stung His foes to madness, all this
richness and verisimilitude of detail, this truth to the character of
Jesus, this spiritual freedom from the trammels of a system petrified and
grown rigid, this observance in a secular act of the requirements of the
spiritual kingdom, all this wealth of internal evidence goes to attest one
of the minor miracles which sceptics declare to be incredible.




The Choice Of The Twelve.


    “And Jesus with His disciples withdrew to the sea: and a great
    multitude from Galilee followed: and from Judæa, and from
    Jerusalem, and from Idumæa, and beyond Jordan, and about Tyre and
    Sidon, a great multitude, hearing what great things He did, came
    unto Him. And He spake to His disciples, that a little boat should
    wait on Him because of the crowd, lest they should throng Him: for
    He had healed many; insomuch that as many as had plagues pressed
    upon Him that they might touch Him. And the unclean spirits,
    whensoever they beheld Him, fell down before Him, and cried,
    saying, Thou art the Son of God. And He charged them much that
    they should not make Him known. And He goeth up into the mountain,
    and calleth unto Him whom He Himself would: and they went unto
    Him. And He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and
    that He might send them forth to preach, and to have authority to
    cast out devils: and Simon he surnamed Peter; and James the _son_
    of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and them He surnamed
    Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder: and Andrew, and Philip, and
    Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the _son_ of
    Alphæus, and Thaddæus, and Simon the Cananæan, and Judas Iscariot,
    which also betrayed Him.”—MARK iii. 7-19 (R.V.).


We have reached a crisis in the labours of the Lord, when hatred which has
become deadly is preparing a blow. The Pharisees are aware, by a series of
experiences, that His method is destructive to their system, that He is
too fearless to make terms with them, that He will strip the mask off
their faces. Their rage was presently intensified by an immense extension
of His fame. And therefore He withdrew from the plots which ripen most
easily in cities, the hotbeds of intrigue, to the open coast. It is His
first retreat before opposition, and careful readers of the Gospels must
observe that whenever the pressure of His enemies became extreme, He
turned for safety to the simple fishermen, among whom they had no party,
since they had preached no gospel to the poor, and that He was frequently
conveyed by water from point to point, easily reached by followers, who
sometimes indeed outran Him upon foot, but where treason had to begin its
wiles afresh. Hither, perhaps camping along the beach, came a great
multitude not only from Galilee but also from Judæa, and even from the
capital, the headquarters of the priesthood, and by a journey of several
days from Idumæa, and from Tyre and Sidon, so that afterwards, even there,
He could not be hid. Many came to see what great things He did, but others
bore with them some afflicted friend, or were themselves sore stricken by
disease. And Jesus gave like a God, opening His hand and satisfying their
desires, “for power went out of Him, and healed them all.” Not yet had the
unbelief of man restrained the compassion of His heart, and forced Him to
exhibit another phase of the mind of God, by refusing to give that which
is holy to the dogs. As yet, therefore, He healeth all their diseases.
Then arose an unbecoming and irreverent rush of as many as had plagues to
touch Him. A more subtle danger mingled itself with this peril from undue
eagerness. For unclean spirits, who knew His mysterious personality,
observed that this was still a secret, and was no part of His teaching,
since His disciples could not bear it yet. Many months afterwards, flesh
and blood had not revealed it even to Peter. And therefore the demons made
malicious haste to proclaim Him the Son of God, and Jesus was obliged to
charge them much that they should not make Him known. This action of His
may teach His followers to be discreet. Falsehood indeed is always evil,
but at times reticence is a duty, because certain truths are a medicine
too powerful for some stages of spiritual disease. The strong sun which
ripens the grain in autumn, would burn up the tender germs of spring.

But it was necessary to teach as well as to heal. And Jesus showed his
ready practical ingenuity, by arranging that a little boat should wait on
Him, and furnish at once a pulpit and a retreat.

And now Jesus took action distinctly Messianic. The harvest of souls was
plenteous, but the appointed labourers were unfaithful, and a new
organisation was to take their place. The sacraments and the apostolate
are indeed the only two institutions bestowed upon His Church by Christ
Himself; but the latter is enough to show that, so early in His course, He
saw His way to a revolution. He appointed twelve apostles, in clear
allusion to the tribes of a new Israel, a spiritual circumcision, another
peculiar people. A new Jerusalem should arise, with their names engraven
upon its twelve foundation stones. But since all great changes arrive, not
by manufacture but by growth, and in co-operation with existing
circumstances, since nations and constitutions are not made but evolved,
so was it also with the Church of Christ. The first distinct and format
announcement of a new sheepfold, entered by a new and living Way, only
came when evoked by the action of His enemies in casting out the man who
was born blind. By that time, the apostles were almost ready to take their
place in it. They had learned much. They had watched the marvellous career
to which their testimony should be rendered. By exercise they had learned
the reality, and by failure the condition of the miraculous powers which
they should transmit. But long before, at the period we have now reached,
the apostles had been chosen under pressure of the necessity to meet the
hostility of the Pharisees with a counter-agency, and to spread the
knowledge of His power and doctrine farther than One Teacher, however
endowed, could reach. They were to be workers together with Him.

St. Mark tells us that He went up into the mountain, the well known hill
of the neighbourhood, as St. Luke also implies, and there called unto Him
whom He Himself would. The emphasis refutes a curious conjecture, that
Judas may have been urged upon Him with such importunity by the rest that
to reject became a worse evil than to receive him.(7) The choice was all
His own, and in their early enthusiasm not one whom He summoned refused
the call. Out of these He chose the Twelve, elect of the election.

We learn from St. Luke (v. 12) that His choice, fraught with such
momentous issues, was made after a whole night of prayer, and from St.
Matthew that He also commanded the whole body of His disciples to pray the
Lord of the Harvest, not that they themselves should be chosen, but that
He would send forth labourers into His harvest.

Now who were these by whose agency the downward course of humanity was
reversed, and the traditions of a Divine faith were poured into a new
mould?

It must not be forgotten that their ranks were afterwards recruited from
the purest Hebrew blood and ripest culture of the time. The addition of
Saul of Tarsus proved that knowledge and position were no more proscribed
than indispensable. Yet is it in the last degree suggestive, that Jesus
drew His personal followers from classes, not indeed oppressed by want,
but lowly, unwarped by the prejudices of the time, living in close contact
with nature and with unsophisticated men, speaking and thinking the words
and thoughts of the race and not of its coteries, and face to face with
the great primitive wants and sorrows over which artificial refinement
spreads a thin, but often a baffling veil.

With one exception the Nazarene called Galileans to His ministry; and the
Carpenter was followed by a group of fishermen, by a despised publican, by
a zealot whose love of Israel had betrayed him into wild and lawless
theories at least, perhaps into evil deeds, and by several whose previous
life and subsequent labours are unknown to earthly fame. Such are the
Judges enthroned over the twelve tribes of Israel.

A mere comparison of the lists refutes the notion that any one Evangelist
has worked up the materials of another, so diverse are they, and yet so
easily reconciled. Matthew in one is Levi in another. Thaddæus, Jude, and
Lebbæus, are interchangeable. The order of the Twelve differs in all the
four lists, and yet there are such agreements, even in this respect, as to
prove that all the Evangelists were writing about what they understood.
Divide the Twelve into three ranks of four, and in none of the four
catalogues will any name, or its equivalent, be found to have wandered out
of its subdivision, out of the first, second, or third rank, in which
doubtless that apostle habitually followed Jesus. Within each rank there
is the utmost diversity of place, except that the foremost name in each is
never varied; Peter, Philip, and the Lesser James, hold the first, fifth,
and ninth place in every catalogue. And the traitor is always last. These
are coincidences too slight for design and too striking for accident, they
are the natural signs of truth. For they indicate, without obtruding or
explaining, some arrangement of the ranks, and some leadership of an
individual in each.

Moreover, the group of the apostles presents a wonderfully lifelike
aspect. Fear, ambition, rivalry, perplexity, silence when speech is called
for, and speech when silence is befitting, vows, failures, and yet real
loyalty, alas! we know them all. The incidents which are recorded of the
chosen of Christ no inventor of the second century would have dared to
devise; and as we study them, we feel the touch of genuine life; not of
colossal statues such as repose beneath the dome of St. Peter’s, but of
men, genuine, simple and even somewhat childlike, yet full of strong,
fresh, unsophisticated feeling, fit therefore to become a great power, and
especially so in the capacity of witnesses for an ennobling yet
controverted fact.




Characteristics Of The Twelve.


    “And He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and that He
    might send them forth to preach, and to have authority to cast out
    devils: and Simon He surnamed Peter; and James the _son_ of
    Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and them He surnamed
    Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder: and Andrew, and Philip, and
    Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the _son_ of
    Alphæus, and Thaddæus, and Simon the Cananæan, and Judas Iscariot,
    which also betrayed Him.”—MARK iii. 14-19 (R.V.).


The pictures of the Twelve, then, are drawn from a living group. And when
they are examined in detail, this appearance of vitality is strengthened,
by the richest and most vivid indications of individual character, such
indeed as in several cases to throw light upon the choice of Jesus. To
invent such touches is the last attainment of dramatic genius, and the
artist rarely succeeds except by deliberate and palpable
character-painting. The whole story of Hamlet and of Lear is constructed
with this end in view, but no one has ever conjectured that the Gospels
were psychological studies. If, then, we can discover several well-defined
characters, harmoniously drawn by various writers, as natural as the
central figure is supernatural, and to be recognised equally in the common
and the miraculous narratives, this will be an evidence of the utmost
value.

We are all familiar with the impetuous vigour of St. Peter, a quality
which betrayed him into grave and well-nigh fatal errors, but when
chastened by suffering made him a noble and formidable leader of the
Twelve. We recognise it when He says, “Thou shalt never wash my feet,”
“Though all men should deny Thee, yet will I never deny Thee,” “Lord, to
whom should we go? Thou hast the words of everlasting life,” “Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God,” and in his rebuke of Jesus for
self-sacrifice, and in his rash blow in the garden. Does this, the best
established mental quality of any apostle, fail or grow faint in the
miraculous stories which are condemned as the accretions of a later time?
In such stories he is related to have cried out, “Depart from me, for I am
a sinful man, O Lord,” he would walk upon the sea to Jesus, he proposed to
shelter Moses and Elijah from the night air in booths (a notion so natural
to a bewildered man, so exquisite in its officious well-meaning absurdity
as to prove itself, for who could have invented it?), he ventured into the
empty sepulchre while John stood awe-stricken at the portal, he plunged
into the lake to seek his risen Master on the shore, and he was presently
the first to draw the net to land. Observe the restless curiosity which
beckoned to John to ask who was the traitor, and compare it with his
question, “Lord, and what shall this man do?” But the second of these was
after the resurrection, and in answer to a prophecy. Everywhere we find a
real person and the same, and the vehemence is everywhere that of a warm
heart, which could fail signally but could weep bitterly as well, which
could learn not to claim, though twice invited, greater love than that of
others, but when asked “Lovest thou Me” at all, broke out into the
passionate appeal, “Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I
love Thee.” Dull is the ear of the critic which fails to recognise here
the voice of Simon. Yet the story implies the resurrection.

The mind of Jesus was too lofty and grave for epigram; but He put the
wilful self-reliance which Peter had to subdue even to crucifixion, into
one delicate and subtle phrase: “When thou wast young, thou girdedst
thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest.” That self-willed stride,
with the loins girded, is the natural gait of Peter, when he was young.

St. James, the first apostolic martyr, seems to have over-topped for a
while his greater brother St. John, before whom he is usually named, and
who is once distinguished as “the brother of James.” He shares with him
the title of a Son of Thunder (Mark iii. 17). They were together in
desiring to rival the fiery and avenging miracle of Elijah, and to partake
of the profound baptism and bitter cup of Christ. It is an undesigned
coincidence in character, that while the latter of these events is
recorded by St. Matthew and St. Mark, the former, which, it will be
observed implies perfect confidence in the supernatural power of Christ,
is found in St. Luke alone, who has not mentioned the title it justifies
so curiously (Matt. xx. 20; Mark x. 35; Luke ix. 54). It is more
remarkable that he whom Christ bade to share his distinctive title with
another, should not once be named as having acted or spoken by himself.
With a fire like that of Peter, but no such power of initiative and of
chieftainship, how natural it is that his appointed task was martyrdom. Is
it objected that his brother also, the great apostle St. John, received
only a share in that divided title? But the family trait is quite as
palpable in him. The deeds of John were seldom wrought upon his own
responsibility, never if we except the bringing of Peter into the palace
of the high priest. He is a keen observer and a deep thinker. But he
cannot, like his Master, combine the quality of leader with those of
student and sage. In company with Andrew he found the Messiah. We have
seen James leading him for a time. It was in obedience to a sign from
Peter that He asked who was the traitor. With Peter, when Jesus was
arrested, he followed afar off. It is very characteristic that he shrank
from entering the sepulchre until Peter, coming up behind, went in first,
although it was John who thereupon “saw and believed.”(8)

With like discernment, he was the first to recognise Jesus beside the
lake, but then it was equally natural that he should tell Peter, and
follow in the ship, dragging the net to land, as that Peter should gird
himself and plunge into the lake. Peter, when Jesus drew him aside, turned
and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, with the same silent,
gentle, and sociable affection, which had so recently joined him with the
saddest and tenderest of all companions underneath the cross. At this
point there is a delicate and suggestive turn of phrase. By what incident
would any pen except his own have chosen to describe the beloved disciple
as Peter then beheld him? Assuredly we should have written, The disciple
whom Jesus loved, who also followed Him to Calvary, and to whom He
confided His mother. But from St. John himself there would have been a
trace of boastfulness in such a phrase. Now the author of the Fourth
Gospel, choosing rather to speak of privilege than service, wrote “The
disciple whom Jesus loved, which also leaned back on His breast at the
supper, and said, Lord, who is he that betrayeth Thee?”

St. John was again with St. Peter at the Beautiful Gate, and although it
was not he who healed the cripple, yet his co-operation is implied in the
words, “Peter, fastening his eyes on him, _with John_.” And when the
Council would fain have silenced them, the boldness which spoke in Peter’s
reply was “the boldness of Peter and John.”

Could any series of events justify more perfectly a title which implied
much zeal, yet zeal that did not demand a specific unshared epithet? But
these events are interwoven with the miraculous narratives.

Add to this the keenness and deliberation which so much of his story
exhibits, which at the beginning tendered no hasty homage, but followed
Jesus to examine and to learn, which saw the meaning of the orderly
arrangment of the graveclothes in the empty tomb, which was first to
recognise the Lord upon the beach, which before this had felt something in
Christ’s regard for the least and weakest, inconsistent with the
forbidding of any one to cast out devils, and we have the very qualities
required to supplement those of Peter, without being discordant or
uncongenial. And therefore it is with Peter, even more than with his
brother, that we have seen John associated. In fact Christ, who sent out
His apostles by two and two, joins these in such small matters as the
tracking a man with a pitcher into the house where He would keep the
Passover. And so, when Mary of Magdala would announce the resurrection,
she found the penitent Simon in company with this loving John, comforted,
and ready to seek the tomb where he met the Lord of all Pardons.

All this is not only coherent, and full of vital force, but it also
strengthens powerfully the evidence for his authorship of the Gospel,
written the last, looking deepest into sacred mysteries, and comparatively
unconcerned for the mere flow of narrative, but tender with private and
loving discourse, with thoughts of the protecting Shepherd, the sustaining
Vine, the Friend Who wept by a grave, Who loved John, Who provided amid
tortures for His mother, Who knew that Peter loved Him, and bade him feed
the lambs—and yet thunderous as becomes a Boanerges, with indignation half
suppressed against “the Jews” (so called as if he had renounced his
murderous nation), against the selfish high-priest of “that same year,”
and against the son of perdition, for whom certain astute worldlings have
surmised that his wrath was such as they best understand, personal, and
perhaps a little spiteful. The temperament of John, revealed throughout,
was that of August, brooding and warm and hushed and fruitful, with low
rumblings of tempest in the night.

It is remarkable that such another family resemblance as between James and
John exists between Peter and Andrew. The directness and self-reliance of
his greater brother may be discovered in the few incidents recorded of
Andrew also. At the beginning, and after one interview with Jesus, when he
finds his brother, and becomes the first of the Twelve to spread the
gospel, he utters the short unhesitating announcement, “We have found the
Messiah.” When Philip is uncertain about introducing the Greeks who would
see Jesus, he consults Andrew, and there is no more hesitation, Andrew and
Philip tell Jesus. And in just the same way, when Philip argues that two
hundred pennyworth of bread are not enough for the multitude, Andrew
intervenes with practical information about the five barley loaves and the
two small fishes, insufficient although they seem. A man prompt and ready,
and not blind to the resources that exist because they appear scanty.

Twice we have found Philip mentioned in conjunction with him. It was
Philip, apparently accosted by the Greeks because of his Gentile name, who
could not take upon himself the responsibility of telling Jesus of their
wish. And it was he, when consulted about the feeding of the five
thousand, who went off into a calculation of the price of the food
required—two hundred pennyworth, he says, would not suffice. Is it not
highly consistent with this slow deliberation, that he should have
accosted Nathanael with a statement so measured and explicit: “We have
found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of
Nazareth, the Son of Joseph.” What a contrast to Andrew’s terse
announcement, “We have found the Messiah.” And how natural that Philip
should answer the objection, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
with the passionless reasonable invitation, “Come and see.” It was in the
same unimaginative prosaic way that he said long after, “Lord, show us the
Father, and it sufficeth us.” To this comparatively sluggish temperament,
therefore, Jesus Himself had to address the first demand He made on any.
“Follow me,” He said, and was obeyed. It would not be easy to compress
into such brief and incidental notices a more graphic indication of
character.

Of the others we know little except the names. The choice of Matthew, the
man of business, is chiefly explained by the nature of his Gospel, so
explicit, orderly, and methodical, and until it approaches the
crucifixion, so devoid of fire.

But when we come to Thomas, we are once more aware of a defined and vivid
personality, somewhat perplexed and melancholy, of little hope but settled
loyalty.

All the three sayings reported of him belong to a dejected temperament:
“Let us also go, that we may die with Him”—as if there could be no
brighter meaning than death in Christ’s proposal to interrupt a dead man’s
sleep. “Lord, we know not whither Thou goest, and how can we know the
way?”—these words express exactly the same despondent failure to
apprehend. And so it comes to pass that nothing short of tangible
experience will convince him of the resurrection. And yet there is a warm
and devoted heart to be recognised in the proposal to share Christ’s
death, in the yearning to know whither He went, and even in that agony of
unbelief, which dwelt upon the cruel details of suffering, until it gave
way to one glad cry of recognition and of worship; therefore his demand
was granted, although a richer blessing was reserved for those who, not
having seen, believed.




The Apostle Judas.


    “And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed Him.”—MARK iii. 19.


The evidential value of what has been written about the apostles will, to
some minds, seem to be overborne by the difficulties which start up at the
name of Judas. And yet the fact that Jesus chose him—that awful fact which
has offended many—is in harmony with all that we see around us, with the
prodigious powers bestowed upon Napoleon and Voltaire, bestowed in full
knowledge of the dark results, yet given because the issues of human
freewill never cancel the trusts imposed on human responsibility.
Therefore the issues of the freewill of Judas did not cancel the trust
imposed upon his responsibility; and Jesus acted not on His foreknowledge
of the future, but on the mighty possibilities, for good as for evil,
which heaved in the bosom of the fated man as he stood upon the mountain
sward.

In the story of Judas, the principles which rule the world are made
visible. From Adam to this day men have been trusted who failed and fell,
and out of their very downfall, but not by precipitating it, the plans of
God have evolved themselves.

It is not possible to make such a study of the character of Judas as of
some others of the Twelve. A traitor is naturally taciturn. No word of his
draws our attention to the fact that he had gained possession of the bag,
even though one who had sat at the receipt of custom might more naturally
have become the treasurer. We do not hear his voice above the rest, until
St. John explains the source of the general discontent, which remonstrated
against the waste of ointment. He is silent even at the feast, in despite
of the words which revealed his guilty secret, until a slow and tardy
question is wrung from him, not “Is it I, Lord?” but “Rabbi, is it I?” His
influence is like that of a subtle poison, not discerned until its effects
betray it.

But many words of Jesus acquire new force and energy when we observe that,
whatever their drift beside, they were plainly calculated to influence and
warn Iscariot. Such are the repeated and urgent warnings against
covetousness, from the first parable, spoken so shortly after his
vocation, which reckons the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other
things among the tares that choke the seed, down to the declaration that
they who trust in riches shall hardly enter the kingdom. Such are the
denunciations against hypocrisy, spoken openly, as in the Sermon on the
Mount, or to His own apart, as when He warned them of the leaven of the
Pharisees which is hypocrisy, that secret vice which was eating out the
soul of one among them. Such were the opportunities given to retreat
without utter dishonour, as when He said, “Do ye also will to go away? ...
Did I not choose you the Twelve, and one of you is a devil?” (John vi. 67,
70). And such also were the awful warnings given of the solemn
responsibilities of special privileges. The exalted city which is brought
down to hell, the salt which is trodden under foot, the men whose sin
remained because they can claim to see, and still more plainly, the first
that shall be last, and the man for whom it were good that he had not been
born. In many besides the last of these, Judas must have felt himself
sternly because faithfully dealt with. And the exasperation which always
results from rejected warnings, the sense of a presence utterly repugnant
to his nature, may have largely contributed to his final and disastrous
collapse.

In the life of Judas there was a mysterious impersonation of all the
tendencies of godless Judaism, and his dreadful personality seems to
express the whole movement of the nation which rejected Christ. We see
this in the powerful attraction felt toward Messiah before His aims were
understood, in the deadly estrangement and hostility which were kindled by
the gentle and self-effacing ways of Jesus, in the treachery of Judas in
the garden and the unscrupulous wiliness of the priests accusing Christ
before the governor, in the fierce intensity of rage which turned his
hands against himself and which destroyed the nation under Titus. Nay the
very sordidness which made a bargain for thirty pieces of silver has ever
since been a part of the popular conception of the race. We are apt to
think of a gross love of money as inconsistent with intense passion, but
in Shylock, the compatriot of Judas, Shakespeare combines the two.

Contemplating this blighted and sinister career, the lesson is burnt in
upon the conscience, that since Judas by transgression fell, no place in
the Church of Christ can render any man secure. And since, falling, he was
openly exposed, none may flatter himself that the cause of Christ is bound
up with his reputation, that the mischief must needs be averted which his
downfall would entail, that Providence must needs avert from him the
natural penalties of evil-doing. Though one was as the signet upon the
Lord’s hand, yet was he plucked thence. There is no security for any soul
anywhere except where love and trust repose, upon the bosom of Christ.

Now if this be true, and if sin and scandal may conceivably penetrate even
the inmost circle of the chosen, how great an error is it to break,
because of these offences, the unity of the Church, and institute some new
communion, purer far than the Churches of Corinth and Galatia, which were
not abandoned but reformed, and more impenetrable to corruption than the
little group of those who ate and drank with Jesus.




Christ And Beelzebub.


    “And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not
    so much as eat bread. And when his friends heard it, they went out
    to lay hold on Him: for they said, He is beside Himself. And the
    scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub,
    and, By the prince of the devils casteth He out the devils. And He
    called them unto Him, and said unto them in parables, How can
    Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself,
    that kingdom cannot stand. And if an house be divided against
    itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan hath
    risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but
    hath an end. But no one can enter into the house of the strong
    _man_, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong _man_;
    and then he will spoil his house.”—MARK iii. 20-27 (R.V.).


While Christ was upon the mountain with His more immediate followers, the
excitement in the plain did not exhaust itself; for even when He entered
into a house, the crowds prevented Him and His followers from taking
necessary food. And when His friends heard of this, they judged Him as men
who profess to have learned the lesson of His life still judge, too often,
all whose devotion carries them beyond the boundaries of convention and of
convenience. For there is a curious betrayal of the popular estimate of
this world and the world to come, in the honour paid to those who cast
away life in battle, or sap it slowly in pursuit of wealth or honours, and
the contempt expressed for those who compromise it on behalf of souls, for
which Christ died. Whenever by exertion in any unselfish cause health is
broken, or fortune impaired, or influential friends estranged, the
follower of Christ is called an enthusiast, a fanatic, or even more
plainly a man of unsettled mind. He may be comforted by remembering that
Jesus was said to be beside Himself when teaching and healing left Him not
leisure even to eat.

To this incessant and exhausting strain upon His energies and sympathies,
St. Matthew applies the prophetic words, “Himself took our infirmities and
bare our diseases” (viii. 17). And it is worth while to compare with that
passage and the one before us, Renan’s assertion, that He traversed
Galilee “in the midst of a perpetual fête,” and that “joyous Galilee
celebrated in fêtes the approach of the well-beloved.” (_Vie de J._, pp.
197, 202). The contrast gives a fine illustration of the inaccurate
shallowness of the Frenchman’s whole conception of the sacred life.

But it is remarkable that while His friends could not yet believe His
claims, and even strove to lay hold on Him, no worse suspicion ever
darkened the mind of those who knew Him best than that His reason had been
disturbed. Not these called Him gluttonous and a winebibber. Not these
blasphemed His motives. But the envoys of the priestly faction, partisans
from Jerusalem, were ready with an atrocious suggestion. He was Himself
possessed with a worse devil, before whom the lesser ones retired. By the
prince of the devils He cast out the devils. To this desperate evasion,
St. Matthew tells us, they were driven by a remarkable miracle, the
expulsion of a blind and dumb spirit, and the perfect healing of his
victim. Now the literature of the world cannot produce invective more
terrible than Jesus had at His command for these very scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites. This is what gives majesty to His endurance. No
personal insult, no resentment at His own wrong, could ruffle the sublime
composure which, upon occasion, gave way to a moral indignation equally
sublime. Calmly He calls His traducers to look Him in the face, and
appeals to their own reason against their blasphemy. Neither kingdom nor
house divided against itself can stand. And if Satan be divided against
himself and his evil works, undoing the miseries and opening the eyes of
men, his kingdom has an end. All the experience of the world since the
beginning was proof enough that such a suicide of evil was beyond hope.
The best refutation of the notion that Satan had risen up against himself
and was divided was its clear expression. But what was the alternative? If
Satan were not committing suicide, he was overpowered. There is indeed a
fitful temporary reformation, followed by a deeper fall, which St. Matthew
tells us that Christ compared to the cleansing of a house from whence the
evil tenant has capriciously wandered forth, confident that it is still
his own, and prepared to return to it with seven other and worse fiends. A
little observation would detect such illusory improvement. But the case
before them was that of an external summons reluctantly obeyed. It
required the interference of a stronger power, which could only be the
power of God. None could enter into the strong man’s house, and spoil his
goods, unless the strong man were first bound, “and then he will spoil his
house.” No more distinct assertion of the personality of evil spirits than
this could be devised. Jesus and the Pharisees are not at all at issue
upon this point. He does not scout as a baseless superstition their belief
that evil spirits are at work in the world. But He declares that His own
work is the reversal of theirs. He is spoiling the strong man, whose
terrible ascendancy over the possessed resembles the dominion of a man in
his own house, among chattels without a will.

That dominion Christ declares that only a stronger can overcome, and His
argument assumes that the stronger must needs be the finger of God, the
power of God, come unto them. The supernatural exists only above us and
below.

Ages have passed away since then. Innumerable schemes have been devised
for the expulsion of the evils under which the world is groaning, and if
they are evils of merely human origin, human power should suffice for
their removal. The march of civilisation is sometimes appealed to. But
what blessings has civilisation without Christ ever borne to savage men?
The answer is painful: rum, gunpowder, slavery, massacre, small-pox,
pulmonary consumption, and the extinction of their races, these are all it
has been able to bestow. Education is sometimes spoken of, as if it would
gradually heal our passions and expel vice and misery from the world, as
if the worst crimes and most flagrant vices of our time were peculiar to
the ignorant and the untaught, as if no forger had ever learned to write.
And sometimes great things are promised from the advance of science, as if
all the works of dynamite and nitro-glycerine, were, like those of the
Creator, very good.

No man can be deceived by such flattering hopes, who rightly considers the
volcanic energies, the frantic rage, the unreasoning all-sacrificing
recklessness of human passions and desires. Surely they are set on fire of
hell, and only heaven can quench the conflagration. Jesus has undertaken
to do this. His religion has been a spell of power among the degraded and
the lost; and when we come to consider mankind in bulk, it is plain enough
that no other power has had a really reclaiming, elevating effect upon
tribes and races. In our own land, what great or lasting work of
reformation, or even of temporal benevolence, has ever gone forward
without the blessing of religion to sustain it? Nowhere is Satan cast out
but by the Stronger than he, binding him, overmastering the evil principle
which tramples human nature down, as the very first step towards spoiling
his goods. The spiritual victory must precede the removal of misery,
convulsion and disease. There is no golden age for the world, except the
reign of Christ.




“Eternal Sin.”


    “Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the
    sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall
    blaspheme: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit
    hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”—MARK
    iii. 28, 29 (R.V.).


Having first shown that His works cannot be ascribed to Satan, Jesus
proceeds to utter the most terrible of warnings, because they said, He
hath an unclean spirit.

“All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their
blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme, but whosoever shall
blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness; but is guilty of
an eternal sin.”

What is the nature of this terrible offence? It is plain that their
slanderous attack lay in the direction of it, since they needed warning;
and probable that they had not yet fallen into the abyss, because they
could still be warned against it. At least, if the guilt of some had
reached that depth, there must have been others involved in their offence
who were still within reach of Christ’s solemn admonition. It would seem
therefore that in saying, “He casteth out devils by Beelzebub.... He hath
an unclean spirit,” they approached the confines and doubtful boundaries
between that blasphemy against the Son of man which shall be forgiven, and
the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which hath never forgiveness.

It is evident also that any crime declared by Scripture elsewhere to be
incurable, must be identical with this, however different its guise, since
Jesus plainly and indisputably announces that all other sins but this
shall be forgiven.

Now there are several other passages of the kind. St. John bade his
disciples to pray, when any saw a brother sinning a sin not unto death,
“and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a
sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request”
(1 John v. 16). It is idle to suppose that, in the case of this sin unto
death, the Apostle only meant to leave his disciples free to pray or not
to pray. If death were not certain, it would be their duty, in common
charity, to pray. But the sin is so vaguely and even mysteriously referred
to, that we learn little more from that passage than that it was an overt
public act, of which other men could so distinctly judge the flagrancy
that from it they should withhold their prayers. It has nothing in common
with those unhappy wanderings of thought or affection which morbid
introspection broods upon, until it pleads guilty to the unpardonable sin,
for lapses of which no other could take cognizance. And in Christ’s words,
the very epithet, blasphemy, involves the same public, open revolt against
good.(9) And let it be remembered that every other sin shall be forgiven.

There are also two solemn passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews (vi. 4-6;
x. 26-31). The first of these declares that it is impossible for men who
once experienced all the enlightening and sweet influences of God, “and
then fell away,” to be renewed again unto repentance. But falling upon the
road is very different from thus falling away, or how could Peter have
been recovered? Their fall is total apostasy, “they crucify to themselves
the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.” They are not
fruitful land in which tares are mingled; they bear only thorns and
thistles, and are utterly rejected. And so in the tenth chapter, they who
sin wilfully are men who tread under foot the Son of God, and count the
blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and do despite (insult) unto the
Spirit of grace.

Again we read that in the last time there will arise an enemy of God so
unparalleled that his movement will outstrip all others, and be “_the_
falling away,” and he himself will be “the man of sin” and “the son of
perdition,” which latter title he only shares with Iscariot. Now the
essence of his portentous guilt is that “he opposeth and exalteth himself
against all that is called God or that is worshipped”: it is a monstrous
egotism, “setting himself forth as God,” and such a hatred of restraint as
makes him “the lawless one” (2 Thess. ii. 3-10).

So far as these passages are at all definite in their descriptions, they
are entirely harmonious. They describe no sin of the flesh, of impulse,
frailty or passion, nor yet a spiritual lapse of an unguarded hour, of
rash speculation, of erring or misled opinion. They speak not of sincere
failure to accept Christ’s doctrine or to recognise His commission, even
though it breathe out threats and slaughters. They do not even apply to
the dreadful sin of denying Christ in terror, though one should curse and
swear, saying, I know not the man. They speak of a deliberate and
conscious rejection of good and choice of evil, of the wilful aversion of
the soul from sacred influences, the public denial and trampling under
foot of Christ, the opposing of all that is called God.

And a comparison of these passages enables us to understand why this sin
never can be pardoned. It is because good itself has become the food and
fuel of its wickedness, stirring up its opposition, calling out its rage,
that the apostate cannot be renewed again unto repentance. The sin is
rather indomitable than unpardonable: it has become part of the sinner’s
personality; it is incurable, an eternal sin.

Here is nothing to alarm any mourner whose contrition proves that it has
actually been possible to renew him unto repentance. No penitent has ever
yet been rejected for this guilt, for no penitent has ever been thus
guilty.

And this being so, here is the strongest possible encouragement for all
who desire mercy. Every other sin, every other blasphemy shall be
forgiven. Heaven does not reject the vilest whom the world hisses at, the
most desperate and bloodstained whose life the world exacts in vengeance
for his outrages. None is lost but the hard and impenitent heart which
treasures up for itself wrath against the day of wrath.




The Friends Of Jesus.


    “And there come His mother and His brethren; and, standing
    without, they sent unto Him, calling Him. And a multitude was
    sitting about Him; and they say unto Him, Behold, Thy mother and
    Thy brethren without seek for Thee. And He answereth them, and
    saith, Who is My mother and My brethren? And looking round on them
    which sat round about Him He saith, Behold My mother and My
    brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My
    brother, and sister, and mother.”—MARK iii. 31-35 (R.V.).


We have lately read that the relatives of Jesus, hearing of His
self-sacrificing devotion, sought to lay hold on Him, because they said,
He is beside Himself. Their concern would not be lightened upon hearing of
His rupture with the chiefs of their religion and their nation. And so it
was, that while a multitude hung upon His lips, some unsympathizing
critic, or perhaps some hostile scribe, interrupted Him with their
message. They desired to speak with Him, possibly with rude intentions,
while in any case, to grant their wish might easily have led to a painful
altercation, offending weak disciples, and furnishing a scandal to His
eager foes.

Their interference must have caused the Lord a bitter pang. It was sad
that they were not among His hearers, but worse that they should seek to
mar His work. To Jesus, endowed with every innocent human instinct, worn
with labour and aware of gathering perils, they were an offence of the
same kind as Peter made himself when he became the mouthpiece of the
tempter. For their own sakes, whose faith He was yet to win, it was
needful to be very firm. Moreover, He was soon to make it a law of the
kingdom that men should be ready for His sake to leave brethren, or
sisters, or mother, and in so doing should receive back all these a
hundredfold in the present time (x. 29, 30). To this law it was now His
own duty to conform. Yet it was impossible for Jesus to be harsh and stern
to a group of relatives with His mother in the midst of them; and it would
be a hard problem for the finest dramatic genius to reconcile the
conflicting claims of the emergency, fidelity to God and the cause, a
striking rebuke to the officious interference of His kinsfolk, and a full
and affectionate recognition of the relationship which could not make Him
swerve. How shall He “leave” His mother and His brethren, and yet not deny
His heart? How shall He be strong without being harsh?

Jesus reconciles all the conditions of the problem, as pointing to His
attentive hearers, He pronounces these to be His true relatives, but yet
finds no warmer term to express what He feels for them than the dear names
of mother, sisters, brethren.

Observers whose souls were not warmed as He spoke, may have supposed that
it was cold indifference to the calls of nature which allowed His mother
and brethren to stand without. In truth, it was not that He denied the
claims of the flesh, but that He was sensitive to other, subtler,
profounder claims of the spirit and spiritual kinship. He would not
carelessly wound a mother’s or a brother’s heart, but the life Divine had
also its fellowships and its affinities, and still less could He throw
these aside. No cold sense of duty detains Him with His congregation while
affection seeks Him in the vestibule; no, it is a burning love, the love
of a brother or even of a son, which binds Him to His people.

Happy are they who are in such a case. And Jesus gives us a ready means of
knowing whether we are among those whom He so wonderfully condescends to
love. “Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven.”
Feelings may ebb, and self-confidence may be shaken, but obedience depends
not upon excitement, and may be rendered by a breaking heart.

It is important to observe that this saying declares that obedience does
not earn kinship; but only proves it, as the fruit proves the tree.
Kinship must go before acceptable service; none can do the will of the
Father who is not already the kinsman of Jesus, for He says, Whosoever
shall (_hereafter_) do the will of My Father, the same is (_already_) My
brother and sister and mother. There are men who would fain reverse the
process, and do God’s will in order to merit the brotherhood of Jesus.
They would drill themselves and win battles for Him, in order to be
enrolled among His soldiers. They would accept the gospel invitation as
soon as they refute the gospel warnings that without Him they can do
nothing, and that they need the creation of a new heart and the renewal of
a right spirit within them. But when homage was offered to Jesus as a
Divine teacher and no more, He rejoined, Teaching is not what is required:
holiness does not result from mere enlightenment: Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Because the new birth is the condition of all spiritual power and energy,
it follows that if any man shall henceforth do God’s will, he must already
be of the family of Christ.

Men may avoid evil through self-respect, from early training and
restraints of conscience, from temporal prudence or dread of the future.
And this is virtuous only as the paying of a fire-insurance is so. But
secondary motives will never lift any man so high as to satisfy this
sublime standard, the doing of the will of the Father. That can only be
attained, like all true and glorious service in every cause, by the heart,
by enthusiasm, by love. And Jesus was bound to all who loved His Father by
as strong a cord as united His perfect heart with brother and sister and
mother.

But as there is no true obedience without relationship, so is there no
true relationship unfollowed by obedience. Christ was not content to say,
Whoso doeth God’s will is My kinsman: He asked, Who is My kinsman? and
gave this as an exhaustive reply. He has none other. Every sheep in His
fold hears His voice and follows Him. We may feel keen emotions as we
listen to passionate declamations, or kneel in an excited prayer-meeting,
or bear our part in an imposing ritual; we may be moved to tears by
thinking of the dupes of whatever heterodoxy we most condemn; tender and
soft emotions may be stirred in our bosom by the story of the perfect life
and Divine death of Jesus; and yet we may be as far from a renewed heart
as was that ancient tyrant from genuine compassion, who wept over the
brevity of the lives of the soldiers whom he sent into a wanton war.

Mere feeling is not life. It moves truly; but only as a balloon moves,
rising by virtue of its emptiness, driven about by every blast that veers,
and sinking when its inflation is at an end. But mark the living creature
poised on widespread wings; it has a will, an intention, and an
initiative, and as long as its life is healthy and unenslaved, it moves at
its own good pleasure. How shall I know whether or not I am a true kinsman
of the Lord? By seeing whether I advance, whether I work, whether I have
real and practical zeal and love, or whether I have grown cold, and make
more allowance for the flesh than I used to do, and expect less from the
spirit. Obedience does not produce grace. But it proves it, for we can no
more bear fruit except we abide in Christ, than the branch that does not
abide in the vine.

Lastly, we observe the individual love, the personal affection of Christ
for each of His people. There is a love for masses of men and
philanthropic causes, which does not much observe the men who compose the
masses, and upon whom the causes depend. Thus, one may love his country,
and rejoice when her flag advances, without much care for any soldier who
has been shot down, or has won promotion. And so we think of Africa or
India, without really feeling much about the individual Egyptian or
Hindoo. Who can discriminate and feel for each one of the multitudes
included in such a word as Want, or Sickness, or Heathenism? And judging
by our own frailty, we are led to think that Christ’s love can mean but
little beyond this. As a statesman who loves the nation may be said, in
some vague way, to love and care for me, so people think of Christ as
loving and pitying us because we are items in the race He loves. But He
has eyes and a heart, not only for all, but for each one. Looking down the
shadowy vista of the generations, every sigh, every broken heart, every
blasphemy, is a separate pang to His all-embracing heart. “Before that
Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw _thee_,”
lonely, unconscious, undistinguished drop in the tide of life, one leaf
among the myriads which rustle and fall in the vast forest of existence.
St. Paul speaks truly of Christ “Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
He shall bring every secret sin to judgment, and shall we so far wrong Him
as to think His justice more searching, more penetrating, more
individualizing than His love, His memory than His heart? It is not so.
The love He offers adapts itself to every age and sex: it distinguishes
brother from sister, and sister again from mother. It is mindful of “the
least of these My brethren.” But it names no Father except One.





CHAPTER IV.




The Parables.


    “And again He began to teach by the sea side. And there is
    gathered unto Him a very great multitude, so that He entered into
    a boat, and sat in the sea; and all the multitude were by the sea
    on the land. And He taught them many things in parables, and said
    unto them in His teaching....

    “And when He was alone, they that were about Him with the twelve
    asked of Him the parables. And He said unto them, Unto you is
    given the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are
    without, all things are done in parables: that seeing they may
    see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not
    understand; lest haply they should turn again, and it should be
    forgiven them. And He saith unto them, Know ye not this parable?
    and how shall ye know all the parables?”—MARK iv. 1, 2, 10-13
    (R.V.).


As opposition deepened, and to a vulgar ambition, the temptation to retain
disciples by all means would have become greater, Jesus began to teach in
parables. We know that He had not hitherto done so, both by the surprise
of the Twelve, and by the necessity which He found, of giving them a clue
to the meaning of such teachings, and so to “all the parables.” His own
ought to have understood. But He was merciful to the weakness which
confessed its failure and asked for instruction.

And yet He foresaw that they which were without would discern no spiritual
meaning in such discourse. It was to have, at the same time, a revealing
and a baffling effect, and therefore it was peculiarly suitable for the
purposes of a Teacher watched by vindictive foes. Thus, when
cross-examined about His authority by men who themselves professed to know
not whence John’s baptism was, He could refuse to be entrapped, and yet
tell of One Who sent His own Son, His Beloved, to receive the fruit of the
vineyard.

This diverse effect is derived from the very nature of the parables of
Jesus. They are not, like some in the Old Testament, mere fables, in which
things occur that never happen in real life. Jotham’s trees seeking a
king, are as incredible as Æsop’s fox leaping for grapes. But Jesus never
uttered a parable which was not true to nature, the kind of thing which
one expects to happen. We cannot say that a rich man in hell actually
spoke to Abraham in heaven. But if he could do so, of which we are not
competent to judge, we can well believe that he would have spoken just
what we read, and that his pathetic cry, “Father Abraham,” would have been
as gently answered, “Son, remember.” There is no ferocity in the skies;
neither has the lost soul become a fiend. Everything commends itself to
our judgment. And therefore the story not only illustrates, but appeals,
enforces, almost proves.

God in nature does not arrange that all seeds should grow: men have
patience while the germ slowly fructifies, they know not how; in all
things but religion such sacrifices are made, that the merchant sells all
to buy one goodly pearl; an earthly father kisses his repentant prodigal;
and even a Samaritan can be neighbour to a Jew in his extremity. So the
world is constructed: such is even the fallen human heart. Is it not
reasonable to believe that the same principles will extend farther; that
as God governs the world of matter so He may govern the world of spirits,
and that human helpfulness and clemency will not outrun the graces of the
Giver of all good?

This is the famous argument from analogy, applied long before the time of
Butler, to purposes farther-reaching than his. But there is this
remarkable difference, that the analogy is never pressed, men are left to
discover it for themselves, or at least, to ask for an explanation,
because they are conscious of something beyond the tale, something
spiritual, something which they fain would understand.

Now this difference is not a mannerism; it is intended. Butler pressed
home his analogies because he was striving to silence gainsayers. His Lord
and ours left men to discern or to be blind, because they had already
opportunity to become His disciples if they would. The faithful among them
ought to be conscious, or at least they should now become conscious, of
the God of grace in the God of nature. To them the world should be
eloquent of the Father’s mind. They should indeed find tongues in trees,
books in the running brooks, sermons in stones. He spoke to the sensitive
mind, which would understand Him, as a wife reads her husband’s secret
joys and sorrows by signs no stranger can understand. Even if she fails to
comprehend, she knows there is something to ask about. And thus, when they
were alone, the Twelve asked Him of the parables. When they were
instructed, they gained not only the moral lesson, and the sweet pastoral
narrative, the idyllic picture which conveyed it, but also the assurance
imparted by recognizing the same mind of God which is revealed in His
world, or justified by the best impulses of humanity. Therefore, no
parable is sensational. It cannot root itself in the exceptional, the
abnormal events on which men do not reckon, which come upon us with a
shock. For we do not argue from these to daily life.

But while this mode of teaching was profitable to His disciples, and
protected Him against His foes, it had formidable consequences for the
frivolous empty followers after a sign. Because they were such they could
only find frivolity and lightness in these stories; the deeper meaning lay
farther below the surface than such eyes could pierce. Thus the light they
had abused was taken from them. And Jesus explained to His disciples that,
in acting thus, He pursued the fixed rule of God. The worst penalty of
vice is that it loses the knowledge of virtue, and of levity that it
cannot appreciate seriousness. He taught in parables, as Isaiah
prophesied, “that seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they
may hear, and not understand; lest haply they should turn again and it
should be forgiven them.” These last words prove how completely penal, how
free from all caprice, was this terrible decision of our gentle Lord, that
precautions must be taken against evasion of the consequences of crime.
But it is a warning by no means unique. He said, “The things which make
for thy peace ... are hid from thine eyes” (Luke xix. 42). And St. Paul
said, “If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that are perishing”;
and still more to the point, “The natural man receiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know
them, because they are spiritually discerned” (2 Cor. iv. 3; 1 Cor. ii.
14). To this law Christ, in speaking by parables, was conscious that He
conformed.

But now let it be observed how completely this mode of teaching suited our
Lord’s habit of mind. If men could finally rid themselves of His Divine
claim, they would at once recognise the greatest of the sages; and they
would also find in Him the sunniest, sweetest and most accurate
discernment of nature, and its more quiet beauties, that ever became a
vehicle for moral teaching. The sun and rain bestowed on the evil and the
good, the fountain and the trees which regulate the waters and the fruit,
the death of the seed by which it buys its increase, the provision for
bird and blossom without anxiety of theirs, the preference for a lily over
Solomon’s gorgeous robes, the meaning of a red sky at sunrise and sunset,
the hen gathering her chickens under her wing, the vine and its branches,
the sheep and their shepherd, the lightning seen over all the sky, every
one of these needed only to be re-set and it would have become a parable.

All the Gospels, including the fourth, are full of proofs of this rich and
attractive endowment, this warm sympathy with nature; and this fact is
among the evidences that they all drew the same character, and drew it
faithfully,




The Sower.


    “Hearken: Behold the sower went forth to sow: and it came to pass,
    as he sowed, some _seed_ fell by the way side, and the birds came
    and devoured it. And other fell on the rocky _ground_, where it
    had not much earth; and straightway it sprang up, because it had
    no deepness of earth: and when the sun was risen, it was scorched;
    and because it had no root, it withered away. And other fell among
    the thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded
    no fruit. And others fell into the good ground, and yielded fruit,
    growing up and increasing; and brought forth, thirtyfold, and
    sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. And He said, Who hath ears to hear,
    let him hear....

    “The sower soweth the word. And these are they by the wayside,
    where the word is sown; and when they have heard, straightway
    cometh Satan, and taketh away the word which hath been sown in
    them. And these in like manner are they that are sown upon the
    rocky _places_, who, when they have heard the word, straightway
    receive it with joy; and they have no root in themselves, but
    endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution ariseth
    because of the word, straightway they stumble. And others are they
    that are sown among the thorns; these are they that have heard the
    word, and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches,
    and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it
    becometh unfruitful. And those are they that were sown upon the
    good ground; such as hear the word, and accept it, and bear fruit,
    thirtyfold, and sixtyfold, and a hundredfold.”—MARK iv. 3-9, 14-20
    (R.V.).


“Hearken” Jesus said; willing to caution men against the danger of
slighting His simple story, and to impress on them that it conveyed more
than met their ears. In so doing He protested in advance against
fatalistic abuses of the parable, as if we were already doomed to be hard,
or shallow, or thorny, or fruitful soil. And at the close He brought out
still more clearly His protest against such doctrine, by impressing upon
all, that if the vitalising seed were the imparted word, it was their part
to receive and treasure it. Indolence and shallowness _must_ fail to bear
fruit: that is the essential doctrine of the parable; but it is not
necessary that we should remain indolent or shallow: “He that hath ears to
hear, let him hear.”

And when the Epistle to the Hebrews reproduces the image of land which
bringeth forth thorns and thistles, our Revised Version rightly brings out
the fact, on which indeed the whole exhortation depends, that the same
piece of land might have borne herbs meet for those for whose sake it is
tilled (vi. 7).

Having said “Hearken,” Jesus added, “Behold.” It has been rightly inferred
that the scene was before their eyes. Very possibly some such process was
within sight of the shore on which they were gathered; but in any case, a
process was visible, if they would but see, of which the tilling of the
ground was only a type. A nobler seed was being scattered for a vaster
harvest, and it was no common labourer, but the true sower, who went forth
to sow. “The sower soweth the word.” But who was he? St. Matthew tells us
“the sower is the Son of man,” and whether the words were expressly
uttered, or only implied, as the silence of St. Mark and St. Luke might
possibly suggest, it is clear that none of His disciples could mistake His
meaning. Ages have passed and He is the sower still, by whatever
instrument He works, for we are God’s husbandry as well as God’s building.
And the seed is the Word of God, so strangely able to work below the
surface of human life, invisible at first, yet vital, and grasping from
within and without, from secret thoughts and from circumstances, as from
the chemical ingredients of the soil and from the sunshine and the shower,
all that will contribute to its growth, until the field itself is
assimilated, spread from end to end with waving ears, a corn-field now.
This is why Jesus in His second parable did not any longer say “the seed
is the word,” but “the good seed are the sons of the kingdom” (Matt. xiii.
38). The word planted was able to identify itself with the heart.

And this seed, the Word of God, is sown broadcast as all our opportunities
are given. A talent was not refused to him who buried it. Judas was an
apostle. Men may receive the grace of God in vain, and this in more ways
than one. On some it produces no vital impression whatever; it lies on the
surface of a mind which the feet of earthly interests have trodden hard.
There is no chance for it to expand, to begin its operation by sending out
the smallest tendrils to grasp, to appropriate anything, to take root. And
it may well be doubted whether any soul, wholly indifferent to religious
truth, ever retained even its theoretic knowledge long. The foolish heart
is darkened. The fowls of the air catch away for ever the priceless seed
of eternity. Now it is of great importance to observe how Jesus explained
this calamity. We should probably have spoken of forgetfulness, the fading
away of neglected impressions, or at most of some judicial act of
providence hiding the truth from the careless. But Jesus said,
“straightway cometh Satan and taketh away the word which hath been sown in
them.” No person can fairly explain this text away, as men have striven to
explain Christ’s language to the demoniacs, by any theory of the use of
popular language, or the toleration of harmless notions. The introduction
of Satan into this parable is unexpected and uncalled for by any demand
save one, the necessity of telling all the truth. It is true therefore
that an active and deadly enemy of souls is at work to quicken the
mischief which neglect and indifference would themselves produce, that
evil processes are helped from beneath as truly as good ones from above;
that the seed which is left to-day upon the surface may be maliciously
taken thence long before it would have perished by natural decay; that men
cannot reckon upon stopping short in their contempt of grace, since what
they neglect the devil snatches quite away from them. And as seed is only
safe from fowls when buried in the soil, so is the word of life only safe
against the rapacity of hell when it has sunk down into our hearts.

In the story of the early Church, St. Paul sowed upon such ground as this
in Athens. Men who spent their time in the pursuit of artistic and
cultivated novelties, in hearing and telling some new thing, mocked the
gospel, or at best proposed to hear its preacher yet again. How long did
such a purpose last?

But there are other dangers to dread, besides absolute indifference to
truth. And the first of these is a too shallow and easy acquiescence. The
message of salvation is designed to affect the whole of human life
profoundly. It comes to bind a strong man armed, it summons easy and
indifferent hearts to wrestle against spiritual foes, to crucify the
flesh, to die daily. On these conditions it offers the noblest blessings.
But the conditions are grave and sobering. If one hears them without
solemn and earnest searching of heart, he has only, at the best,
apprehended half the message. Christ has warned us that we cannot build a
tower without sitting down to count our means, nor fight a hostile king
without reckoning the prospects of invasion. And it is very striking to
compare the gushing and impulsive sensationalism of some modern schools,
with the deliberate and circumspect action of St. Paul, even after God had
been pleased miraculously to reveal His Son in him. He went into
seclusion. He returned to Damascus to his first instructor. Fourteen years
afterwards he deliberately laid his gospel before the Apostles, lest by
any means he should be running or had run in vain. Such is the action of
one penetrated with a sense of reality and responsibility in his decision;
it is not the action likely to result from teaching men that it suffices
to “say you believe” and to be “made happy.” And in this parable, our
Saviour has given striking expression to His judgment of the school which
relies upon mere happiness. Next to those who leave the seed for Satan to
snatch away, He places them “who, when they have heard the word,
straightway receive it with joy.” They have taken the promises without the
precepts, they have hoped for the crown without the cross. Their type is
the thin layer of earth spread over a shelf of rock. The water, which
cannot sink down, and the heat reflected up from the stone, make it for a
time almost a hot bed. Straightway the seed sprang up, because it had no
deepness of earth. But the moisture thus detained upon the surface
vanished utterly in time of drought; the young roots, unable to penetrate
to any deeper supplies, were scorched; and it withered away. That
superficial heat and moisture was impulsive emotion, glad to hear of
heaven, and love, and privilege, but forgetful to mortify the flesh, and
to be partaker with Christ in His death. The roots of a real Christian
life must strike deeper down. Consciousness of sin and its penalty and of
the awful price by which that penalty has been paid, consciousness of what
life should have been and how we have degraded it, consciousness of what
it must yet be made by grace—these do not lead to joy so immediate, so
impulsive, as the growth of this shallow vegetation. A mature and settled
joy is among “the fruits of the spirit:” it is not the first blade that
shoots up.

Now because the sense of sin and duty and atonement have not done their
sobering work, the feelings, so easily quickened, are also easily
perverted: “When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word,
straightway they stumble.” These were not counted upon. Neither trouble of
mind nor opposition of wicked men was included in the holiday scheme of
the life Divine. And their pressure is not counter-weighted by that of any
deep convictions. The roots have never penetrated farther than temporal
calamities and trials can reach. In the time of drought they have _not_
enough. They endure, but only for a while.

St. Paul sowed upon just such soil in Galatia. There his hearers spoke of
such blessedness that they would have plucked out their eyes for him. But
he became their enemy because he told them all the truth, when only a part
was welcome. And as Christ said, Straightway they stumble, so St. Paul had
to marvel that they were so soon subverted.

If indifference be the first danger, and shallowness the second, mixed
motive is the third. Men there are who are very earnest, and far indeed
from slight views of truth, who are nevertheless in sore danger, because
they are equally earnest about other things; because they cannot resign
this world, whatever be their concern about the next; because the soil of
their life would fain grow two inconsistent harvests. Like seed sown among
thorns, “choked” by their entangling roots and light-excluding growths,
the word in such hearts, though neither left upon a hard surface nor
forbidden by rock to strike deep into the earth, is overmastered by an
unworthy rivalry. A kind of vegetation it does produce, but not such as
the tiller seeks: the word becometh unfruitful. It is the same lesson as
when Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters. Ye cannot serve God and
mammon.”

Perhaps it is the one most needed in our time of feverish religious
controversy and heated party spirit, when every one hath a teaching, hath
a revelation, hath a tongue, hath an interpretation, but scarcely any have
denied the world and taken in exchange a cross.

St. Paul found a thorny soil in Corinth which came behind in no gift, if
only gifts had been graces, but was indulgent, factious and selfish,
puffed up amid flagrant vices, one hungry and another drunken, while
wrangling about the doctrine of the resurrection.

The various evils of this parable are all of them worldliness, differently
manifested. The deadening effect of habitual forgetfulness of God,
treading the soil so hard that no seed can enter it; the treacherous
effect of secret love of earth, a buried obstruction refusing to admit the
gospel into the recesses of the life, however it may reach the feelings;
and the fierce and stubborn competition of worldly interests, wherever
they are not resolutely weeded out, against these Jesus spoke His earliest
parable. And it is instructive to review the foes by which He represented
His Gospel as warred upon. The personal activity of Satan; “tribulation or
persecution” from without, and within the heart “cares” rather for self
than for the dependent and the poor, “deceitfulness of riches” for those
who possess enough to trust in, or to replace with a fictitious importance
the only genuine value, which is that of character (although men are still
esteemed for being “worth” a round sum, a strange estimate, to be made by
Christians, of a being with a soul burning in him); and alike for rich and
poor, “the lusts of other things,” since none is too poor to covet, and
none so rich that his desires shall not increase, like some diseases, by
being fed.

Lastly, we have those on the good ground, who are not described by their
sensibilities or their enjoyments, but by their loyalty. They “hear the
word and accept it and bear fruit.” To accept is what distinguishes them
alike from the wayside hearers into whose attention the word never sinks,
from the rocky hearers who only receive it with a superficial welcome, and
from the thorny hearers who only give it a divided welcome. It is not
said, as if the word were merely the precepts, that they obey it. The
sower of this seed is not he who bade the soldier not to do violence, and
the publican not to extort: it is He who said, Repent, and believe the
gospel. He implanted new hopes, convictions, and affections, as the germ
which should unfold in a new life. And the good fruit is borne by those
who honestly “accept” His word.

Fruitfulness is never in the gospel the condition by which life is earned,
but it is always the test by which to prove it. In all the accounts of the
final judgment, we catch the principle of the bold challenge of St. James,
“Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my
works.” The talent must produce more talents, and the pound more pounds;
the servant must have his loins girt and a light in his hand; the blessed
are they who did unto Jesus the kindness they did unto the least of His
brethren, and the accursed are they who did it not to Jesus in His people.

We are not wrong in preaching that honest faith in Christ is the only
condition of acceptance, and the way to obtain strength for good works.
But perhaps we fail to add, with sufficient emphasis, that good works are
the only sufficient evidence of real faith, of genuine conversion. Lydia,
whose heart the Lord opened and who constrained the Apostle to abide in
her house, was converted as truly as the gaoler who passed through all the
vicissitudes of despair, trembling and astonishment, and belief.

“They bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and an hundredfold.” And all
are alike accepted. But the parable of the pounds shows that all are not
alike rewarded, and in equal circumstances superior efficiency wins a
superior prize. One star differeth from another star in glory, and they
who turn many to righteousness shall shine as the sun for ever.




Lamp And Stand.


    “And He said unto them, Is the lamp brought to be put under the
    bushel, or under the bed? and not to be put on the stand? For
    there is nothing hid, save that it should be manifested; neither
    was anything made secret, but that it should come to light. If any
    man hath ears to hear, let him hear. And He said unto them, Take
    heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete it shall be measured
    unto you: and more shall be given unto you. For he that hath, to
    him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken
    away even that which he hath.”—MARK iv. 21-25 (R.V.).


Jesus had now taught that the only good ground was that in which the good
seed bore fruit. And He adds explicitly, that men receive the truth in
order to spread it, and are given grace that they may become, in turn,
good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

“Is the lamp brought to be put under the bushel or under the bed, and not
to be put on the stand?” The language may possibly be due, as men have
argued, to the simple conditions of life among the Hebrew peasantry, who
possessed only one lamp, one corn-measure, and perhaps one bed. All the
greater marvel is it that amid such surroundings He should have announced,
and not in vain, that His disciples, His Church, should become the light
of all humanity, “the lamp.” Already He had put forward the same claim
even more explicitly, saying, “Ye are the light of the world.” And in each
case, He spoke not in the intoxication of pride or self-assertion, but in
all gravity, and as a solemn warning. The city on the hill could not be
hid. The lamp would burn dimly under the bed; it would be extinguished
entirely by the bushel. Publicity is the soul of religion, since religion
is light. It is meant to diffuse itself, to be, as He expressed it, like
leaven which may be hid at first, but cannot be concealed, since it will
leaven all the lump. And so, if He spoke in parables, and consciously hid
His meaning by so doing, this was not to withdraw His teaching from the
masses, it was to shelter the flame which should presently illuminate all
the house. Nothing was hid, save that it should be manifested, nor made
secret, but that it should come to light. And it has never been otherwise.
Our religion has no privileged inner circle, no esoteric doctrine; and its
chiefs, when men glorified one or another, asked, What then is Apollos?
And what is Paul? Ministers through whom ye believed. Agents only, for
conveying to others what they had received from God. And thus He Who now
spoke in parables, and again charged them not to make Him known, was able
at the end to say, In secret have I spoken nothing. Therefore He repeats
with emphasis His former words, frequent on His lips henceforward, and
ringing through the messages He spoke in glory to His Churches. If any man
hath ears to hear, let him hear. None is excluded but by himself.

Yet another caution follows. If the seed be the Word, there is sore danger
from false teaching; from strewing the ground with adulterated grain. St.
Mark, indeed, has not recorded the Parable of the Tares. But there are
indications of it, and the same thought is audible in this saying, “Take
heed what ye hear.” The added words are a little surprising: “With what
measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you, and more shall be given
unto you.” The last clause expresses exactly the principle on which the
forfeited pound was given to Him who had ten pounds already, the open hand
of God lavishing additional gifts upon him who was capable of using them.
But does not the whole statement seem to follow more suitably upon a
command to beware what we teach, and thus “mete” to others, than what we
hear? A closer examination finds in this apparent unfitness, a deeper
harmony of thought. To “accept” the genuine word is the same as to bring
forth fruit for God; it is to reckon with the Lord of the talents, and to
yield the fruit of the vineyard. And this is to “mete,” not indeed unto
man, but unto God, Who shows Himself froward with the froward, and from
him that hath not, whose possession is below his accountability, takes
away even that he hath, but gives exceeding abundantly above all they ask
or think to those who have, who are not disobedient to the heavenly
calling.

All this is most delicately connected with what precedes it; and the
parables, hiding the truth from some, giving it authority, and colour, and
effect to others, were a striking example of the process here announced

Never was the warning to be heedful what we hear, more needed than at
present. Men think themselves free to follow any teacher, especially if he
be eloquent, to read any book, if only it be in demand, and to discuss any
theory, provided it be fashionable, while perfectly well aware that they
are neither earnest inquirers after truth, nor qualified champions against
its assailants. For what then do they read and hear? For the pleasure of a
rounded phrase, or to augment the prattle of conceited ignorance in a
drawing-room.

Do we wonder when these players with edged tools injure themselves, and
become perverts or agnostics? It would be more wonderful if they remained
unhurt, since Jesus said, “Take heed what ye hear ... from him that hath
not shall be taken even that he hath.” A rash and uninstructed exposure of
our intellects to evil influences, is meting to God with an unjust
measure, as really as a wilful plunge into any other temptation, since we
are bidden to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the spirit as well
as of the flesh.




The Seed Growing Secretly.


    “And He said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast
    seed upon the earth; and should sleep and rise night and day, and
    the seed should spring up and grow, he knoweth not how. The earth
    beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the
    full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he
    putteth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come.”—MARK iv.
    26-29 (R.V.).


St. Mark alone records this parable of a sower who sleeps by night, and
rises for other business by day, and knows not how the seed springs up.
That is not the sower’s concern: all that remains for him is to put forth
the sickle when the harvest is come.

It is a startling parable for us who believe in the fostering care of the
Divine Spirit. And the paradox is forced on our attention by the words
“the earth beareth fruit of herself,” contrasting strangely as it does
with such other assertions, as that the branch cannot bear fruit of
itself, that without Christ we can do nothing, and that when we live it is
not we but Christ who liveth in us.

It will often help us to understand a paradox if we can discover another
like it. And exactly such an one as this will be found in the record of
creation. God rested on the seventh day from all His work, yet we know
that His providence never slumbers, that by Him all things consist, and
that Jesus defended His own work of healing on a Sabbath day by urging
that the Sabbath of God was occupied in gracious provision for His world.
“My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” Thus the rest of God from
creative work says nothing about His energies in that other field of
providential care. Exactly so Jesus here treats only of what may be called
the creative spiritual work, the deposit of the seed of life. And the
essence of this remarkable parable is the assertion that we are to expect
an orderly, quiet and gradual development from this principle of life, not
a series of communications from without, of additional revelations, of
semi-miraculous interferences. The life of grace is a natural process in
the supernatural sphere. In one sense it is all of God, who maketh His sun
to rise, and sendeth rain, without which the earth could bear no fruit of
herself. In another sense we must work out our own salvation all the more
earnestly because it is God that worketh in us.

Now this parable, thus explained, has been proved true in the wonderful
history of the Church. She has grown, not only in extent but by
development, as marvellously as a corn of wheat which is now a waving
wheat-stem with its ripening ear. When Cardinal Newman urged that an
ancient Christian, returning to earth, would recognise the services and
the Church of Rome, and would fail to recognise ours, he was probably
mistaken. To go no farther, there is no Church on earth so unlike the
Churches of the New Testament as that which offers praise to God in a
strange tongue. St. Paul apprehended that a stranger in such an assembly
would reckon the worshippers mad. But in any case the argument forgets
that the whole kingdom of God is to resemble seed, not in a drawer, but in
the earth, and advancing towards the harvest. It must “die” to much if it
will bring forth fruit. It must acquire strange bulk, strange forms,
strange organisms. It must become, to those who only knew it as it was,
quite as unrecognisable as our Churches are said to be. And yet the
changes must be those of logical growth, not of corruption. And this
parable tells us they must be accomplished without any special
interference such as marked the sowing time. Well then, the parable is a
prophecy. Movement after movement has modified the life of the Church.
Even its structure is not all it was. But these changes have every one
been wrought by human agency, they have come from within it, like the
force which pushes the germ out of the soil, and expands the bud into the
full corn in the ear. There has been no grafting knife to insert a new
principle of richer life; the gospel and the sacraments of our Lord have
contained in them the promise and potency of all that was yet to be
unfolded, all the gracefulness and all the fruit. And these words, “the
earth beareth fruit of herself, first the blade, then the ear, then the
full corn in the ear,” each so different, and yet so dependent on what
preceded, teach us two great ecclesiastical lessons. They condemn the
violent and revolutionary changes, which would not develop old germs but
tear them open or perhaps pull them up. Much may be distasteful to the
spirit of sordid utilitarianism; a mere husk, which nevertheless within it
shelters precious grain, otherwise sure to perish. If thus we learn to
respect the old, still more do we learn that what is new has also its
all-important part to play. The blade and the ear in turn are innovations.
We must not condemn those new forms of Christian activity, Christian
association, and Christian councils, which new times evoke, until we have
considered well whether they are truly expansions, in the light and heat
of our century, of the sacred life-germ of the ancient faith and the
ancient love.

And what lessons has this parable for the individual? Surely that of
active present faith, not waiting for future gifts of light or feeling,
but confident that the seed already sown, the seed of the word, has power
to develop into the rich fruit of Christian character. In this respect the
parable supplements the first one. From that we learned that if the soil
were not in fault, if the heart were honest and good, the seed would
fructify. From this we learn that these conditions suffice for a perfect
harvest. The incessant, all-important help of God, we have seen, is not
denied; it is taken for granted, as the atmospheric and magnetic
influences upon the grain. So should we reverentially and thankfully rely
upon the aid of God, and then, instead of waiting for strange visitations
and special stirrings of grace, account that we already possess enough to
make us responsible for the harvest of the soul. Multitudes of souls,
whose true calling is, in obedient trust, to arise and walk, are at this
moment lying impotent beside some pool which they expect an angel to stir,
and into which they fain would then be put by some one, they know not
whom—multitudes of expectant, inert, inactive souls, who know not that the
text they have most need to ponder is this: “the earth beareth fruit of
itself.” For want of this they are actually, day by day, receiving the
grace of God in vain.

We learn also to be content with gradual progress. St. John did not blame
the children and young men to whom he wrote, because they were not mature
in wisdom and experience. St. Paul exhorts us to grow up in all things
into Him which is the Head, even Christ. They do not ask for more than
steady growth; and their Master, as He distrusted the fleeting joy of
hearers whose hearts were shallow, now explicitly bids us not to be
content with any first attainment, not to count all done if we are
converted, but to develop first the blade, then the ear, and lastly the
full corn in the ear.

Does it seem a tedious weary sentence? Are we discontent for want of
conscious interferences of heaven? Do we complain that, to human
consciousness, the great Sower sleeps and rises up and leaves the grain to
fare He knows not how? It is only for a little while. When the fruit is
ripe, He will Himself gather it into His eternal garner.




The Mustard Seed.


    “And He said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God? or in what
    parable shall we set it forth? It is like a grain of mustard seed,
    which, when it is sown upon the earth, though it be less than all
    the seeds that are upon the earth, yet when it is sown, groweth
    up, and becometh greater than all the herbs, and putteth out great
    branches; so that the birds of the heaven can lodge under the
    shadow thereof. And with many such parables spake He the word unto
    them, as they were able to hear it: and without a parable spake He
    not unto them: but privately to His own disciples He expounded all
    things.”—MARK iv. 30-34 (R.V.).


St. Mark has recorded one other parable of this great cycle. Jesus now
invites the disciples to let their own minds play upon the subject. Each
is to ask himself a question: How shall we liken the kingdom of God? or in
what parable shall we set it forth?

A gentle pause, time for them to form some splendid and ambitious image in
their minds, and then we can suppose with what surprise they heard His own
answer, “It is like a grain of mustard seed.” And truly some Christians of
a later day might be astonished also, if they could call up a fair image
of their own conceptions of the kingdom of God, and compare it with this
figure, employed by Jesus.

But here one must observe a peculiarity in our Saviour’s use of images.
His illustrations of His first coming, and of His work of grace, which are
many, are all of the homeliest kind. He is a shepherd who seeks one sheep.
He is not an eagle that fluttereth over her young and beareth them on her
pinions, but a hen who gathereth her chickens under her wings. Never once
does He rise into that high and poetic strain with which His followers
have loved to sing of the Star of Bethlehem, and which Isaiah lavished
beforehand upon the birth of the Prince of Peace. There is no language
more intensely concentrated and glowing than He has employed to describe
the judgment of the hypocrites who rejected Him, of Jerusalem, and of the
world at last. But when He speaks of His first coming and its effects, it
is not of that sunrise to which all kings and nations shall hasten, but of
a little grain of mustard seed, which is to become “greater than all the
herbs,” and put forth great branches, “so that the birds of the heaven can
lodge under the shadow of them.” When one thinks of such an image for such
an event, of the founding of the kingdom of God, and its advance to
universal supremacy, represented by the small seed of a shrub which grows
to the height of a tree, and even harbours birds, he is conscious almost
of incongruity. But when one reconsiders it, he is filled with awe and
reverence. For this exactly expresses the way of thinking natural to One
who has stooped immeasurably down to the task which all others feel to be
so lofty. There is a poem of Shelley, which expresses the relative
greatness of three spirits by the less and less value which they set on
the splendours of the material heavens. To the first they are a
palace-roof of golden lights, to the second but the mind’s first chamber,
to the last only drops which Nature’s mighty heart drives through thinnest
veins. Now that which was to Isaiah the exalting of every valley and the
bringing low of every mountain, and to Daniel the overthrow of a mighty
image whose aspect was terrible, by a stone cut out without hands, was to
Jesus but the sowing of a grain of mustard seed. Could any other have
spoken thus of the founding of the kingdom of God? An enthusiast
over-values his work, he can think of nothing else; and he expects
immediate revolutions. Jesus was keenly aware that His work in itself was
very small, no more than the sowing of a seed, and even of the least,
popularly speaking, among all seeds. Clearly He did not over-rate the
apparent effect of His work on earth. And indeed, what germ of religious
teaching could be less promising than the doctrine of the cross, held by a
few peasants in a despised province of a nation already subjugated and
soon to be overwhelmed?

The image expresses more than the feeble beginning and victorious issue of
His work, more than even the gradual and logical process by which this
final triumph should be attained. All this we found in the preceding
parable. But here the emphasis is laid on the development of Christ’s
influence in unexpected spheres. Unlike other herbs, the mustard in
Eastern climates does grow into a tree, shoot out great branches from the
main stem, and give shelter to the birds of the air. So has the Christian
faith developed ever new collateral agencies, charitable, educational, and
social: so have architecture, music, literature, flourished under its
shade, and there is not one truly human interest which would not be
deprived of its best shelter if the rod of Jesse were hewn down. Nay, we
may urge that the Church itself has become the most potent force in
directions not its own: it broke the chains of the negro; it asserts the
rights of woman and of the poor; its noble literature is finding a
response in the breast of a hundred degraded races; the herb has become a
tree.

And so in the life of individuals, if the seed be allowed its due scope
and place to grow, it gives shelter and blessing to whatsoever things are
honest and lovely, not only if there be any virtue, but also if there be
any praise.

Well is it with the nation, and well with the soul, when the faith of
Jesus is not rigidly restricted to a prescribed sphere, when the leaves
which are for the healing of the nations cast their shadow broad and cool
over all the spaces in which all its birds of song are nestling.

A remarkable assertion is added. Although the parabolic mode of teaching
was adopted in judgment, yet its severe effect was confined within the
narrowest limits. His many parables were spoken “as they were able to
hear,” but only to His own disciples privately was all their meaning
expounded.




Four Miracles.


    “And there was a great calm.”—MARK iv. 39 (R.V.).

    “Behold, him that was possessed with devils, sitting, clothed and
    in his right mind, _even_ him that had the legion.”—v. 15 (R.V.).

    “Who touched Me?”—v. 31 (R.V.).

    “Talitha cumi.”—v. 41 (R.V.).


There are two ways, equally useful, of studying Scripture, as there are of
regarding the other book of God, the face of Nature. We may bend over a
wild flower, or gaze across a landscape; and it will happen that a
naturalist, pursuing a moth, loses sight of a mountain-range. It is a
well-known proverb, that one may fail to see the wood for the trees,
losing in details the general effect. And so the careful student of
isolated texts may never perceive the force and cohesion of a connected
passage.

The reader of a Gospel narrative thinks, that by pondering it as a whole,
he secures himself against any such misfortune. But a narrative
dislocated, often loses as much as a detached verse. The actions of our
Lord are often exquisitely grouped, as becometh Him Who hath made
everything not beautiful only, but especially beautiful in its season. And
we should not be content without combining the two ways of reading
Scripture, the detailed and the rapid,—lingering at times to apprehend the
marvellous force of a solitary verse, and again sweeping over a broad
expanse, like a surveyor, who, to map a country, stretches his triangles
from mountain peak to peak.

We have reached a point at which St. Mark records a special outshining of
miraculous power. Four striking works follow each other without a break,
and it must not for a moment be supposed that the narrative is thus
constructed, certain intermediate discourses and events being sacrificed
for the purpose, without a deliberate and a truthful intention. That
intention is to represent the effect, intense and exalting, produced by
such a cycle of wonders on the minds of His disciples. They saw them come
close upon each other: we should lose the impression as we read, if other
incidents were allowed to interpose themselves. It is one more example of
St. Mark’s desire to throw light, above all things, upon the energy and
power of the sacred life.

We have to observe therefore the bearing of these four miracles on each
other, and upon what precedes, before studying them one by one.

It was a time of trial. The Pharisees had decided that He had a devil. His
relatives had said He was beside Himself. His manner of teaching had
changed, because the people should see without perceiving, and hear
without understanding. They who understood His parables heard much of seed
that failed, of success a great way off, of a kingdom which would indeed
be great at last, but for the present weak and small. And it is certain
that there must have been heavy hearts among those who left, with Him, the
populous side of the lake, to cross over into remote and semi-pagan
retirement. To encourage them, and as if in protest against His rejection
by the authorities, Jesus enters upon this great cycle of miracles.

They find themselves, as the Church has often since been placed, and as
every human soul has had to feel itself, far from shore, and
tempest-beaten. The rage of human foes is not so deaf, so implacable, as
that of wind and wave. It is the stress of adverse circumstances in the
direst form. But Jesus proves Himself to be Master of the forces of nature
which would overwhelm them.

Nay, they learn that His seeming indifference is no proof that they are
neglected, by the rebuke He speaks to their over-importunate appeals, Why
are ye so fearful? have ye not yet faith? And they, who might have been
shaken by the infidelity of other men, fear exceedingly as they behold the
obedience of the wind and the sea, and ask, Who then is this?

But in their mission as His disciples, a worse danger than the enmity of
man or convulsions of nature awaits them. On landing, they are at once
confronted by one whom an evil spirit has made exceeding fierce, so that
no man could pass by that way. It is their way nevertheless, and they must
tread it. And the demoniac adores, and the evil spirits themselves are
abject in supplication, and at the word of Jesus are expelled. Even the
inhabitants, who will not receive Him, are awe-struck and deprecatory, and
if at their bidding Jesus turns away again, His followers may judge
whether the habitual meekness of such a one is due to feebleness or to a
noble self-command.

Landing once more, they are soon accosted by a ruler of the synagogue,
whom sorrow has purified from the prejudices of his class. And Jesus is
about to heal the daughter of Jairus, when another form of need is brought
to light. A slow and secret decline, wasting the vital powers, a silent
woe, speechless, stealthily approaching the Healer—over this grief also He
is Lord. And it is seen that neither the visible actions of Jesus nor the
audible praises of His petitioners can measure the power that goes out of
Him, the physical benefits which encompass the Teacher as a halo envelopes
flame.

Circumstances, and the fiends of the pit, and the woes that waste the
lives of men, over these He has been seen to triumph. But behind all that
we strive with here, there lurks the last enemy, and he also shall be
subdued. And now first an example is recorded of what we know to have
already taken place, the conquest of death by his predicted Spoiler. Youth
and gentle maidenhood, high hope and prosperous circumstances have been
wasted, but the call of Jesus is heard by the ear that was stopped with
dust, and the spirit obeys Him in the far off realm of the departed, and
they who have just seen such other marvels, are nevertheless amazed with a
great amazement.

No cycle of miracles could be more rounded, symmetrical and exhaustive;
none could better vindicate to His disciples His impugned authority, or
brace their endangered faith, or fit them for what almost immediately
followed, their own commission, and the first journey upon which they too
cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and
healed them.




The Two Storms.


    “And on that day, when even was come, He saith unto them, Let us
    go over unto the other side. And leaving the multitude, they take
    Him with them, even as He was, in the boat. And other boats were
    with Him. And there ariseth a great storm of wind, and the waves
    beat into the boat, insomuch that the boat was now filling. And He
    Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion: and they awake
    Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest Thou not that we perish? And
    He awoke, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be
    still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And He
    said unto them, Why are ye fearful? have ye not yet faith? And
    they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, Who then is
    this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”—MARK iv. 35-41
    (R.V.).

    “And when even was come, the boat was in the midst of the sea, and
    He alone on the land. And seeing them distressed in rowing, for
    the wind was contrary unto them, about the fourth watch of the
    night He cometh unto them, walking on the sea; and He would have
    passed by them: but they, when they saw Him walking on the sea,
    supposed that it was an apparition, and cried out: for they all
    saw Him, and were troubled. But He straightway spake with them,
    and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. And
    He went up unto them into the boat; and the wind ceased: and they
    were sore amazed in themselves. For they understood not concerning
    the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.”—MARK vi. 47-52
    (R.V.).


Few readers are insensible to the wonderful power with which the Gospels
tell the story of the two storms upon the lake. The narratives are
favourites in every Sunday school; they form the basis of countless hymns
and poems; and we always recur to them with fresh delight.

In the first account we see as in a picture the weariness of the great
Teacher, when, the long day being over and the multitude dismissed, He
retreats across the sea without preparation, and “as He was,” and sinks to
sleep on the one cushion in the stern, undisturbed by the raging tempest
or by the waves which beat into the boat. We observe the reluctance of the
disciples to arouse Him until the peril is extreme, and the boat is “now”
filling. We hear from St. Mark, the associate of St. Peter, the
presumptuous and characteristic cry which expresses terror, and perhaps
dread lest His tranquil slumbers may indicate a separation between His
cause and theirs, who perish while He is unconcerned. We admire equally
the calm and masterful words which quell the tempest, and those which
enjoin a faith so lofty as to endure the last extremities of peril without
dismay, without agitation in its prayers. We observe the strange incident,
that no sooner does the storm cease than the waters, commonly seething for
many hours afterwards, grow calm. And the picture is completed by the
mention of their new dread (fear of the supernatural Man replacing their
terror amid the convulsions of nature), and of their awestruck questioning
among themselves.

In the second narrative we see the ship far out in the lake, but watched
by One, Who is alone upon the land. Through the gloom He sees them
“tormented” by fruitless rowing; but though this is the reason why He
comes, He is about to pass them by. The watch of the night is remembered;
it is the fourth. The cry of their alarm is universal, for they all saw
Him and were troubled. We are told of the promptitude with which He
thereupon relieved their fears; we see Him climb up into the boat, and the
sudden ceasing of the storm, and their amazement. Nor is that
after-thought omitted in which they blamed themselves for their
astonishment. If their hearts had not been hardened, the miracle of the
loaves would have taught them that Jesus was the master of the physical
world.

Now all this picturesque detail belongs to a single Gospel. And it is
exactly what a believer would expect. How much soever the healing of
disease might interest St. Luke the physician, who relates all such events
so vividly, it would have impressed the patient himself yet more, and an
account of it by him, if we had it, would be full of graphic touches. Now
these two miracles were wrought for the rescue of the apostles themselves.
The Twelve took the place held in others by the lame, the halt and the
blind: the suspense, the appeal, and the joy of deliverance were all their
own. It is therefore no wonder that we find their accounts of these
especial miracles so picturesque. But this is a solid evidence of the
truth of the narratives; for while the remembrance of such actual events
should thrill with agitated life, there is no reason why a legend of the
kind should be especially clear and vivid. The same argument might easily
be carried farther. When the disciples began to reproach themselves for
their unbelieving astonishment, they were naturally conscious of having
failed to learn the lesson which had been taught them just before. Later
students and moralists would have observed that another miracle, a little
earlier, was a still closer precedent, but they naturally blamed
themselves most for being blind to what was immediately before their eyes.
Now when Jesus walked upon the waters and the disciples were amazed, it is
not said that they forgot how He had already stilled a tempest, but they
considered not the miracle of the loaves, for their heart was hardened. In
touches like this we find the influence of a bystander beyond denial.

Every student of Scripture must have observed the special significance of
those parables and miracles which recur a second time with certain
designed variations. In the miraculous draughts of fishes, Christ Himself
avowed an allusion to the catching of men. And the Church has always
discerned a spiritual intention in these two storms, in one of which
Christ slept, while in the other His disciples toiled alone, and which
express, between them, the whole strain exercised upon a devout spirit by
adverse circumstances. Dangers never alarmed one who realized both the
presence of Jesus and His vigilant care. Temptation enters only because
this is veiled. Why do adversities press hard upon me, if indeed I belong
to Christ? He must either be indifferent and sleeping, or else absent
altogether from my frail and foundering bark. It is thus that we let go
our confidence, and incur agonies of mental suffering, and the rebuke of
our Master, even though He continues to be the Protector of His unworthy
people.

On the voyage of life we may conceive of Jesus as our Companion, for He is
with us always, or as watching us from the everlasting hills, whither it
was expedient for us that He should go. Nevertheless, we are storm-tossed
and in danger. Although we are His, and not separated from Him by any
conscious disobedience, yet the conditions of life are unmitigated, the
winds as wild, the waves as merciless, the boat as cruelly “tormented” as
ever. And no rescue comes: Jesus is asleep: He cares not that we perish.
Then we pray after a fashion so clamorous, and with supplication so like
demands, that we too appear to have undertaken to awake our Lord. Then we
have to learn from the first of these miracles, and especially from its
delay. The disciples were safe, had they only known it, whether Jesus
would have interposed of His own accord, or whether they might still have
needed to appeal to Him, but in a gentler fashion. We may ask help,
provided that we do so in a serene and trustful spirit, anxious for
nothing, not seeking to extort a concession, but approaching with boldness
the throne of grace, on which our Father sits. It is thus that the peace
of God shall rule our hearts and minds, for want of which the apostles
were asked, Where is your faith? Comparing the narratives, we learn that
Jesus reassured their hearts even before He arose, and then, having first
silenced by His calmness the storm within them, He stood up and rebuked
the storm around.

St. Augustine gave a false turn to the application, when he said, “If
Jesus were not asleep within thee, thou wouldst be calm and at rest. But
why is He asleep? Because thy faith is asleep,” etc, (Sermon lxiii.) The
sleep of Jesus was natural and right; and it answers not to our spiritual
torpor, but to His apparent indifference and non-intervention in our time
of distress. And the true lesson of the miracle is that we should trust
Him Whose care fails not when it seems to fail, Who is able to save to the
uttermost, and Whom we should approach in the direst peril without panic.
It was fitly taught them first when all the powers of the State and the
Church were leagued against Him, and He as a blind man saw not and as a
dumb man opened not His mouth.

The second storm should have found them braver by the experience of the
first; but spiritually as well as bodily they were farther removed from
Christ. The people, profoundly moved by the murder of the Baptist, wished
to set Jesus on the throne, and the disciples were too ambitious to be
allowed to be present while He dismissed the multitudes. They had to be
sent away, and it was from the distant hillside that Jesus saw their
danger. Surely it is instructive, that neither the shades of night, nor
the abstracted fervour of His prayers, prevented him from seeing it, nor
the stormlashed waters from bringing aid. And significant also, that the
experience of remoteness, though not sinful, since He had sent them away,
was yet the result of their own worldliness. It is when we are out of
sympathy with Jesus that we are most likely to be alone in trouble. None
was in their boat to save them, and in heart also they had gone out from
the presence of their God. Therefore they failed to trust in His guidance
Who had sent them into the ship: they had no sense of protection or of
supervision; and it was a terrible moment when a form was vaguely seen to
glide over the waves. Christ, it would seem, would have gone before and
led them to the haven where they would be. Or perhaps He “would have
passed by them,” as He would afterwards have gone further than Emmaus, to
elicit any trustful half-recognition which might call to Him and be
rewarded. But they cried out for fear. And so it is continually with God
in His world, men are terrified at the presence of the supernatural,
because they fail to apprehend the abiding presence of the supernatural
Christ. And yet there is one point at least in every life, the final
moment, in which all else must recede, and the soul be left alone with the
beings of another world. Then, and in every trial, and especially in all
trials which press in upon us the consciousness of the spiritual universe,
well is it for him who hears the voice of Jesus saying, It is I, be not
afraid.

For only through Jesus, only in His person, has that unknown universe
ceased to be dreadful and mysterious. Only when He is welcomed does the
storm cease to rage around us.

It was the earlier of these miracles which first taught the disciples that
not only were human disorders under His control, and gifts and blessings
at His disposal, but also the whole range of nature was subject to Him,
and the winds and the sea obey Him.

Shall we say that His rebuke addressed to these was a mere figure of
speech? Some have inferred that natural convulsions are so directly the
work of evil angels that the words of Jesus were really spoken to them.
But the plain assertion is that He rebuked the winds and the waves, and
these would not become identical with Satan even upon the supposition that
he excites them. We ourselves continually personify the course of nature,
and even complain of it, wantonly enough, and Scripture does not deny
itself the use of ordinary human forms of speech. Yet the very peculiar
word employed by Jesus cannot be without significance. It is the same with
which He had already confronted the violence of the demoniac in the
synagogue, Be muzzled. At the least it expresses stern repression, and
thus it reminds us that creation itself is made subject to vanity, the
world deranged by sin, so that all around us requires readjustment as
truly as all within, and Christ shall at last create a new earth as well
as a new heaven.

Some pious people resign themselves much too passively to the mischiefs of
the material universe, supposing that troubles which are not of their own
making, must needs be a Divine infliction, calling only for submission.
But God sends oppositions to be conquered as well as burdens to be borne;
and even before the fall the world had to be subdued. And our final
mastery over the surrounding universe was expressed, when Jesus our Head
rebuked the winds, and stilled the waves when they arose.

As they beheld, a new sense fell upon His disciples of a more awful
presence than they had yet discerned. They asked not only what manner of
man this is? but, with surmises which went out beyond the limits of human
greatness, Who then is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?





CHAPTER V.




The Demoniac Of Gadara.


    “And they came to the other side of the sea, into the country of
    the Gerasenes. And when He was come out of the boat, straightway
    there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who
    had his dwelling in the tombs; and no man could any more bind him,
    no, not with a chain; because that he had been often bound with
    fetters and chains, and the chains had been rent asunder by him,
    and the fetters broken in pieces: and no man had strength to tame
    him. And always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains,
    he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones. And when he
    saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped Him; and crying out
    with a loud voice, he saith, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus,
    Thou Son of the Most High God? I adjure Thee by God, torment me
    not. For He said unto him, Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of
    the man. And He asked him, What is thy name? And he saith unto
    Him, My name is Legion; for we are many. And he besought Him much
    that He would not send them away out of the country. Now there was
    there on the mountain side a great herd of swine feeding. And they
    besought Him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter
    into them. And He gave them leave. And the unclean spirits came
    out, and entered into the swine: and the herd rushed down the
    steep into the sea, _in number_ about two thousand; and they were
    choked in the sea. And they that fed them fled, and told it in the
    city, and in the country. And they came to see what it was that
    had come to pass. And they come to Jesus, and behold him that was
    possessed with devils sitting, clothed and in his right mind,
    _even_ him that had the legion: and they were afraid. And they
    that saw it declared unto them how it befell him that was
    possessed with devils, and concerning the swine. And they began to
    beseech Him to depart from their borders. And as He was entering
    into the boat, he that had been possessed with devils besought Him
    that he might be with Him. And He suffered him not, but saith unto
    him, Go to thy house unto thy friends, and tell them how great
    things the Lord hath done for thee, and _how_ He had mercy on
    thee. And he went his way, and began to publish in Decapolis how
    great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.”—MARK
    v. 1-20 (R.V.).


Fresh from asserting His mastery over winds and waves, the Lord was met by
a more terrible enemy, the rage of human nature enslaved and impelled by
the cruelty of hell. The place where He landed was a theatre not unfit for
the tragedy which it revealed. A mixed race was there, indifferent to
religion, rearing great herds of swine, upon which the law looked askance,
but the profits of which they held so dear that they would choose to
banish a Divine ambassador, and one who had released them from an
incessant peril, rather than be deprived of these. Now it has already been
shown that the wretches possessed by devils were not of necessity stained
with special guilt. Even children fell into this misery. But yet we should
expect to find it most rampant in places where God was dishonoured, in
Gerasa and in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And it is so. All misery is
the consequence of sin, although individual misery does not measure
individual guilt. And the places where the shadow of sin has fallen
heaviest are always the haunts of direst wretchedness.

The first Gospel mentions two demoniacs, but one was doubtless so
pre-eminently fierce, and possibly so zealous afterward in proclaiming his
deliverance, that only St. Matthew learned the existence of another, upon
whom also Satan had wrought, if not his worst, enough to show his hatred,
and the woes he would fain bring upon humanity.

Among the few terrible glimpses given us of the mind of the fallen angels,
one is most significant and sinister. When the unclean spirit is gone out
of a man, to what haunts does he turn? He has no sympathy with what is
lovely or sublime; in search of rest he wanders through dry places,
deserts of arid sand in which his misery may be soothed by congenial
desolation. Thus the ruins of the mystic Babylon become an abode of
devils. And thus the unclean spirit, when he mastered this demoniac, drove
him to a foul and dreary abode among the tombs. One can picture the victim
in some lucid moment, awakening to consciousness only to shudder in his
dreadful home, and scared back again into that ferocity which is the child
of terror.


                “Is it not very like,
    The horrible conceit of death and night,
    Together with the terror of the place

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

    Oh! if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
    Environed with all these hideous fears?”

    _Romeo and Juliet_, iv. 3.


There was a time when he had been under restraint, but “now no man could
any more bind him” even with iron upon feet and wrists. The ferocity of
his cruel subjugator turned his own strength against himself, so that
night and day his howling was heard, as he cut himself with stones, and
his haunts in the tombs and in the mountains were as dangerous as the lair
of a wild breast, which no man dared pass by. What strange impulse drove
him thence to the feet of Jesus? Very dreadful is the picture of his
conflicting tendencies: the fiend within him struggling against something
still human and attracted by the Divine, so that he runs from afar, yet
cries aloud, and worships yet disowns having anything to do with Him; and
as if the fiend had subverted the true personality, and become the very
man, when ordered to come out he adjures Jesus to torment him not.

And here we observe the knowledge of Christ’s rank possessed by the evil
ones. Long before Peter won a special blessing for acknowledging the Son
of the living God, the demoniac called Him by the very name which flesh
and blood did not reveal to Cephas. For their chief had tested and
discovered Him in the wilderness, saying twice with dread surmise, If Thou
be the Son of God. It is also noteworthy that the phrase, the most High
God, is the name of Jehovah among the non-Jewish races. It occurs in both
Testaments in connection with Melchizedek the Canaanite. It is used
throughout the Babylonian proclamations in the book of Daniel. Micah puts
it into the lips of Balaam. And the damsel with a spirit of divination
employed it in Philippi. Except once, in a Psalm which tells of the return
of apostate Israel to the Most High God (lxxviii. 35), the epithet is used
only in relation with the nations outside the covenant. Its occurrence
here is probably a sign of the pagan influences by which Gadara was
infected, and for which it was plagued. By the name of God then, whose Son
He loudly confessed that Jesus was, the fiend within the man adjures Him
to torment Him not. But Jesus had not asked to be acknowledged: He had
bidden the devil to come out. And persons who substitute loud confessions
and clamorous orthodoxies for obedience should remember that so did the
fiend of Gadara. Jesus replied by asking, What is thy name? The question
was not an idle one, but had a healing tendency. For the man was beside
himself; it was part of his cure that he was found in his right mind; and
meanwhile his very consciousness was merged in that of the fiends who
tortured him, so that his voice was their voice, and they returned a
vaunting answer through His lips. Our Lord sought therefore both to calm
His excitement and to remind him of himself, and of what he once had been
before evil beings dethroned his will. These were not the man, but his
enemies by whom he was “carried about,” and “led captive at their will.”
And it is always sobering to think of “Myself,” the lonely individual,
apart from even those who most influence me, with a soul to lose or save.
With this very question the Church Catechism begins its work of arousing
and instructing the conscience of each child, separating him from his
fellows in order to lead him on to the knowledge of the individualising
grace of God.

It may be that the fiends within him dictated his reply, or that he
himself, conscious of their tyranny, cried out in agony, We are many; a
regiment like those of conquering Rome, drilled and armed to trample and
destroy, a legion. This answer distinctly contravened what Christ had just
implied, that he was one, an individual, and precious in his Maker’s eyes.
But there are men and women in every Christian land, whom it might startle
to look within, and see how far their individuality is oppressed and
overlaid by a legion of impulses, appetites, and conventionalities, which
leave them nothing personal, nothing essential and characteristic, nothing
that deserves a name. The demons, now conscious of the power which calls
them forth, besought Him to leave them a refuge in that country. St. Luke
throws light upon this petition, as well as their former complaint, when
he tells us they feared to be sent to “the abyss” of their final
retribution. And as we read of men who are haunted by a fearful looking
for of judgment and a fierceness of fire, so they had no hope of escape,
except until “the time.” For a little respite they prayed to be sent even
into the swine, and Jesus gave them leave.

What a difference there is between the proud and heroic spirits whom
Milton celebrated, and these malignant but miserable beings, haunting the
sepulchres like ghosts, truculent and yet dastardly, as ready to
supplicate as to rend, filled with dread of the appointed time and of the
abyss, clinging to that outlying country as a congenial haunt, and
devising for themselves a last asylum among the brutes. And yet they are
equally far from the materialistic superstitions of that age and place;
they are not amenable to fumigations or exorcisms, and they do not upset
the furniture in rushing out. Many questions have been asked about the
petition of the demons and our Lord’s consent. But none of them need much
distress the reverential enquirer, who remembers by what misty horizons
all our knowledge is enclosed. Most absurd is the charge that Jesus acted
indefensibly in destroying property. Is it then so clear that the owners
did not deserve their loss through the nature of their investments? Was it
merely as a man, or as the Son of the living God, that His consent was
felt to be necessary? And was it any part of His mission to protect brutes
from death?

The loss endured was no greater than when a crop is beaten down by hail,
or a vineyard devastated by insects, and in these cases an agency beyond
the control of man is sent or permitted by God, Who was in Christ.

A far harder question it is, How could devils enter into brute creatures?
and again, Why did they desire to do so? But the first of these is only a
subdivision of the vaster problem, at once inevitable and insoluble, How
does spirit in any of its forms animate matter, or even manipulate it? We
know not by what strange link a thought contracts a sinew, and transmutes
itself into words or deeds. And if we believe the dread and melancholy
fact of the possession of a child by a fiend, what reason have we, beyond
prejudice, for doubting the possession of swine? It must be observed also,
that no such possession is proved by this narrative to be a common event,
but the reverse. The notion is a last and wild expedient of despair,
proposing to content itself with the uttermost abasement, if only the
demons might still haunt the region where they had thriven so well. And
the consent of Jesus does not commit Him to any judgment upon the merit or
the possibility of the project. He leaves the experiment to prove itself,
exactly as when Peter would walk upon the water; and a laconic “Go” in
this case recalls the “Come” in that; an assent, without approval, to an
attempt which was about to fail. Not in the world of brutes could they
find shelter from the banishment they dreaded; for the whole herd, frantic
and ungoverned, rushed headlong into the sea and was destroyed. The second
victory of the series was thus completed. Jesus was Master over the evil
spirits which afflict humanity, as well as over the fierceness of the
elements which rise against us.




The Men Of Gadara.


    “And they that fed them fled, and told it in the city, and in the
    country. And they came to see what it was that had come to pass.
    And they come to Jesus, and behold him that was possessed with
    devils sitting, clothed and in his right mind, _even_ him that had
    the legion: and they were afraid. And they that saw it declared
    unto them how it befell him that was possessed with devils, and
    concerning the swine. And they began to beseech him to depart from
    their borders. And as He was entering into the boat, he that had
    been possessed with devils besought Him that he might be with Him.
    And He suffered him not but saith unto him, Go to thy house unto
    thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for
    thee, and _how_ He had mercy on thee. And he went his way, and
    began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for
    him: and all men did marvel.”—MARK v. 14-20 (R.V.).


The expulsion of the demons from the possessed, their entrance into the
herd, and the destruction of the two thousand swine, were virtually one
transaction, and must have impressed the swineherds in its totality. They
saw on the one hand the restoration of a dangerous and raging madman,
known to be actuated by evil spirits, the removal of a standing peril
which had already made one tract of country impassable, and (if they
considered such a thing at all) the calming of a human soul, and its
advent within the reach of all sacred influences. On the other side what
was there? The loss of two thousand swine; and the consciousness that the
kingdom of God was come nigh unto them. This was always an alarming
discovery. Isaiah said, Woe is me! when his eyes beheld God high and
lifted up. And Peter said, Depart from me, when he learned by the
miraculous draught of fish that the Lord was there. But Isaiah’s concern
was because he was a man of unclean lips, and Peter’s was because he was a
sinful man. Their alarm was that of an awakened conscience, and therefore
they became the heralds of Him Whom they feared. But these men were simply
scared at what they instinctively felt to be dangerous; and so they took
refuge in a crowd, that frequent resort of the frivolous and
conscience-stricken, and told in the city what they had seen. And when the
inhabitants came forth, a sight met them which might have won the
sternest, the man sitting, clothed (a nice coincidence, since St. Mark had
not mentioned that he “ware no clothes,”) and in his right mind, even him
that had the legion, as the narrative emphatically adds. And doubtless the
much debated incident of the swine had greatly helped to reassure this
afflicted soul; the demons were palpably gone, visibly enough they were
overmastered. But the citizens, like the swineherds, were merely
terrified, neither grateful nor sympathetic; uninspired with hope of pure
teaching, of rescue from other influences of the evil one, or of any
unearthly kingdom. Their formidable visitant was one to treat with all
respect, but to remove with all speed, “and they began to beseech Him to
depart from their borders.” They began, for it did not require long
entreaty; the gospel which was free to all was not to be forced upon any.
But how much did they blindly fling away, who refused the presence of the
meek and lowly Giver of rest unto souls; and chose to be denied, as
strangers whom He never knew, in the day when every eye shall see Him.

With how sad a heart must Jesus have turned away. Yet one soul at least
was won, for as He was entering into the boat, the man who owed all to Him
prayed Him that he might be with Him. Why was the prayer refused?
Doubtless it sprang chiefly from gratitude and love, thinking it hard to
lose so soon the wondrous benefactor, the Man at whose feet he had sat
down, Who alone had looked with pitiful and helpful eyes on one whom
others only sought to “tame.” Such feelings are admirable, but they must
be disciplined so as to seek, not their own indulgence, but their Master’s
real service. Now a reclaimed demoniac would have been a suspected
companion for One who was accused of league with the Prince of the devils.
There is no reason to suppose that he had any fitness whatever to enter
the immediate circle of our Lord’s intimate disciples. His special
testimony would lose all its force when he left the district where he was
known; but there, on the contrary, the miracle could not fail to be
impressive, as its extent and permanence were seen. This man was perhaps
the only missionary who could reckon upon a hearing from those who
banished Jesus from their coasts. And Christ’s loving and unresentful
heart would give this testimony to them in its fulness. It should begin at
his own house and among his friends, who would surely listen. They should
be told how great things the Lord had done for him, and Jesus expressly
added, how He had mercy upon thee, that so they might learn their mistake,
who feared and shrank from such a kindly visitant. Here is a lesson for
these modern days, when the conversion of any noted profligate is sure to
be followed by attempts to push him into a vagrant publicity, not only
full of peril in itself, but also removing him from the familiar sphere in
which his consistent life would be more convincing than all sermons, and
where no suspicion of self-interest could overcloud the brightness of his
testimony.

Possibly there was yet another reason for leaving him in his home. He may
have desired to remain close to Jesus, lest, when the Saviour was absent,
the evil spirits should resume their sway. In that case it would be
necessary to exercise his faith and convince him that the words of Jesus
were far-reaching and effectual, even when He was Himself remote. If so,
he learned the lesson well, and became an evangelist through all the
region of Decapolis. And where all did marvel, we may hope that some were
won. What a revelation of mastery over the darkest and most dreadful
forces of evil, and of respect for the human will (which Jesus never once
coerced by miracle, even when it rejected Him), what unwearied care for
the rebellious, and what a sense of sacredness in lowly duties, better for
the demoniac than the physical nearness of his Lord, are combined in this
astonishing narrative, which to invent in the second century would itself
have required miraculous powers.




With Jairus.


    “And when Jesus had crossed over again in the boat unto the other
    side, a great multitude was gathered unto Him: and He was by the
    sea. And there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus
    by name; and seeing Him, he falleth at His feet, and beseecheth
    Him much, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death: _I
    pray Thee_ that Thou come and lay Thy hands on her, that she may
    be made whole, and live. And He went with him; and a great
    multitude followed Him, and they thronged Him. And a woman, which
    had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things
    of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was
    nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, having heard the things
    concerning Jesus, came in the crowd behind, and touched His
    garment. For she said, If I touch but His garments, I shall be
    made whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried
    up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her plague.
    And straightway Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power
    _proceeding_ from Him had gone forth, turned Him about in the
    crowd, and said, Who touched My garments? And His disciples said
    unto Him, Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest
    Thou, Who touched Me? And He looked round about to see her that
    had done this thing. But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing
    what had been done to her, came and fell down before Him, and told
    Him all the truth. And He said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath
    made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague. While He
    yet spake, they come from the ruler of the synagogue’s _house_,
    saying, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any
    further? But Jesus not heeding the word spoken, saith unto the
    ruler of the synagogue, Fear not, only believe. And He suffered no
    man to follow with Him, save Peter, and James, and John the
    brother of James. And they come to the house of the ruler of the
    synagogue; and He beholdeth a tumult, and _many_ weeping and
    wailing greatly. And when He was entered in, He saith unto them,
    Why make ye a tumult, and weep? the child is not dead, but
    sleepeth. And they laughed Him to scorn. But He, having put them
    all forth, taketh the father of the child and her mother and them
    that were with Him, and goeth in where the child was. And taking
    the child by the hand, He saith unto her, Talitha cumi; which is,
    being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise. And straightway
    the damsel rose up, and walked; for she was twelve years old. And
    they were amazed straightway with a great amazement. And He
    charged them much that no man should know this; and He commanded
    that _something_ should be given her to eat.”—MARK v. 21-43
    (R.V.).


Repulsed from Decapolis, but consoled by the rescue and zeal of the
demoniac, Jesus returned to the western shore, and a great multitude
assembled. The other boats which were with Him had doubtless spread the
tidings of the preternatural calm which rescued them from deadly peril,
and it may be that news of the event of Gadara arrived almost as soon as
He Whom they celebrated. We have seen that St. Mark aims at bringing the
four great miracles of this period into the closest sequence. And so he
passes over a certain brief period with the words “He was by the sea.” But
in fact Jesus was reasoning with the Pharisees, and with the disciples of
John, who had assailed Him and His followers, when one of their natural
leaders threw himself at His feet.

The contrast is sharp enough, as He rises from a feast to go to the house
of mourning, from eating with publicans and sinners to accompany a ruler
of the synagogue. These unexpected calls, these sudden alternations all
found Him equally ready to bear the same noble part, in the most
dissimilar scenes, and in treating temperaments the most unlike. But the
contrast should also be observed between those harsh and hostile critics
who hated Him in the interests of dogma and of ceremonial, and Jairus,
whose views were theirs, but whose heart was softened by trouble. The
danger of his child was what drove him, perhaps reluctantly enough, to
beseech Jesus much. And nothing could be more touching than his prayer for
his “little daughter,” its sequence broken as if with a sob; wistfully
pictorial as to the process, “that Thou come and lay Thy hands upon her,”
and dilating wistfully too upon the effect, “that she may be made whole
and live.” If a miracle were not in question, the dullest critic in Europe
would confess that this exquisite supplication was not composed by an
evangelist, but a father. And he would understand also why the very words
in their native dialect were not forgotten, which men had heard awake the
dead.

As Jesus went with him, a great multitude followed Him, and they thronged
Him. It is quite evident that Jesus did not love these gatherings of the
idly curious. Partly from such movements He had withdrawn Himself to
Gadara; and partly to avoid exciting them He strove to keep many of His
miracles a secret. Sensationalism is neither grace nor a means of grace.
And it must be considered that the perfect Man, as far from mental apathy
or physical insensibility as from morbid fastidiousness, would find much
to shrink away from in the pressure of a city crowd. The contact of
inferior organizations, selfishness driving back the weak and gentle,
vulgar scrutiny and audible comment, and the desire for some miracle as an
idle show, which He would only work because His gentle heart was full of
pity, all these would be utterly distressing to Him who was


    “The first true gentleman that ever breathed,”


as well as the revelation of God in flesh. It is therefore noteworthy that
we have many examples of His grace and goodness amid such trying scenes,
as when He spoke to Zacchæus, and called Bartimæus to Him to be healed.
Jesus could be wrathful but He was never irritated. Of these examples one
of the most beautiful is here recorded, for as He went with Jairus, amidst
the rude and violent thronging of the crowds, moving alone (as men often
are in sympathy and in heart alone amid seething thoroughfares), He
suddenly became aware of a touch, the timid and stealthy touch of a
broken-hearted woman, pale and wasted with disease, but borne through the
crowd by the last effort of despair and the first energy of a newborn
hope. She ought not to have come thither, since her touch spread
ceremonial uncleanness far and wide. Nor ought she to have stolen a
blessing instead of praying for it. And if we seek to blame her still
further, we may condemn the superstitious notion that Christ’s gifts of
healing were not conscious and loving actions, but a mere contagion of
health, by which one might profit unfelt and undiscovered. It is urged
indeed that hers was not a faith thus clouded, but so majestic as to
believe that Christ would know and respond to the silent hint of a gentle
touch. And is it supposed that Jesus would have dragged into publicity
such a perfect lily of the vale as this? and what means her trembling
confession, and the discovery that she could not be hid? But when our
keener intellects have criticised her errors, and our clearer ethics have
frowned upon her misconduct, one fact remains. She is the only woman upon
whom Jesus is recorded to have bestowed any epithet but a formal one. Her
misery and her faith drew from His guarded lips, the tender and yet lofty
word Daughter.

So much better is the faith which seeks for blessing, however erroneous be
its means, than the heartless propriety which criticises with most
dispassionate clearness, chiefly because it really seeks nothing for
itself at all. Such faith is always an appeal, and is responded to, not as
she supposed, mechanically, unconsciously, nor, of course, by the _opus
operatum_ of a garment touched (or of a sacrament formally received), but
by the going forth of power from a conscious Giver, in response to the
need which has approached His fulness. He knew her secret and fearful
approach to Him, as He knew the guileless heart of Nathanael, whom He
marked beneath the fig-tree. And He dealt with her very gently. Doubtless
there are many such concealed woes, secret, untold miseries which eat deep
into gentle hearts, and are never spoken, and cannot, like Bartimæus, cry
aloud for public pity. For these also there is balm in Gilead, and if the
Lord requires them to confess Him publicly, He will first give them due
strength to do so. This enfeebled and emaciated woman was allowed to feel
in her body that she was healed of her plague, before she was called upon
for her confession. Jesus asked, Who touched my clothes? It was one thing
to press Him, driven forward by the multitude around, as circumstances
impel so many to become churchgoers, readers of Scripture, interested in
sacred questions and controversies until they are borne as by physical
propulsion into the closest contact with our Lord, but not drawn thither
by any personal craving or sense of want, nor expecting any blessed
reaction of “the power proceeding from Him.” It was another thing to reach
out a timid hand and touch appealingly even that tasselled fringe of His
garment which had a religious significance, whence perhaps she drew a
semi-superstitious hope. In the face of this incident, can any orthodoxy
forbid us to believe that the grace of Christ extends, now as of yore, to
many a superstitious and erring approach by which souls reach after
Christ?

The disciples wondered at His question: they knew not that “the flesh
presses but faith touches;” but as He continued to look around and seek
her that had done this thing, she fell down and told Him all the truth.
Fearing and trembling she spoke, for indeed she had been presumptuous, and
ventured without permission. But the chief thing was that she had
ventured, and so He graciously replied, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee
whole, go in peace and be whole of thy plague. Thus she received more than
she had asked or thought; not only healing for the body, but also a
victory over that self-effacing, fearful, half morbid diffidence, which
long and weakening disease entails. Thus also, instead of a secret cure,
she was given the open benediction of her Lord, and such confirmation in
her privilege as many more would enjoy if only with their mouth confession
were made unto salvation.

While He yet spoke, and the heart of Jairus was divided between joy at a
new evidence of the power of Christ, and impatience at every moment of
delay, not knowing that his Benefactor was the Lord of time itself, the
fatal message came, tinged with some little irony as it asked, Why
troublest thou the Teacher any more? It is quite certain that Jesus had
before now raised the dead, but no miracle of the kind had acquired such
prominence as afterwards to claim a place in the Gospel narratives.

One is led to suspect that the care of Jesus had prevailed, and they had
not been widely published. To those who brought this message, perhaps no
such case had travelled, certainly none had gained their credence. It was
in their eyes a thing incredible that He should raise the dead, and indeed
there is a wide difference between every other miracle and this. We
struggle against all else, but when death comes we feel that all is over
except to bury out of our sight what once was beautiful and dear. Death is
destiny made visible; it is the irrevocable. Who shall unsay the words of
a bleeding heart, I shall go to him but he shall not return to me? But
Christ came to destroy him that had the power of death. Even now, through
Him, we are partakers of a more intense and deeper life, and have not only
the hope but the beginning of immortality. And it was the natural seal
upon His lofty mission, that He should publicly raise up the dead. For so
great a task, shall we say that Jesus now gathers all His energies? That
would be woefully to misread the story; for a grand simplicity, the easy
bearing of unstrained and amply adequate resources, is common to all the
narratives of life brought back. We shall hereafter see good reason why
Jesus employed means for other miracles, and even advanced by stages in
the work. But lest we should suppose that effort was necessary, and His
power but just sufficed to overcome the resistance, none of these supreme
miracles is wrought with the slightest effort. Prophets and apostles may
need to stretch themselves upon the bed or to embrace the corpse; Jesus,
in His own noble phrase, awakes it out of sleep. A wonderful ease and
quietness pervade the narratives, expressing exactly the serene bearing of
the Lord of the dead and of the living. There is no holding back, no
toying with the sorrow of the bereaved, such as even Euripides, the
tenderest of the Greeks, ascribed to the demigod who tore from the grip of
death the heroic wife of Admetus. Hercules plays with the husband’s
sorrow, suggests the consolation of a new bridal, and extorts the angry
cry, “Silence, what have you said? I would not have believed it of you.”
But what is natural to a hero, flushed with victory and the sense of
patronage, would have ill become the absolute self-possession and gentle
grace of Jesus. In every case, therefore, He is full of encouragement and
sympathy, even before His work is wrought. To the widow of Nain He says,
“Weep not.” He tells the sister of Lazarus, “If thou wilt believe, thou
shalt see the salvation of God.” And when these disastrous tidings shake
all the faith of Jairus, Jesus loses not a moment in reassuring Him: “Fear
not, only believe,” He says, not heeding the word spoken; that is to say,
Himself unagitated and serene.(10)

In every case some co-operation was expected from the bystanders. The
bearers of the widow’s son halted, expectant, when this majestic and
tender Wayfarer touched the bier. The friends of Lazarus rolled away the
stone from the sepulchre. But the professional mourners in the house of
Jairus were callous and insensible, and when He interrupted their
clamorous wailing, with the question, Why make ye tumult and weep? they
laughed Him to scorn; a fit expression of the world’s purblind
incredulity, its reliance upon ordinary “experience” to disprove all
possibilities of the extraordinary and Divine, and its heartless
transition from conventional sorrow to ghastly laughter, mocking in the
presence of death—which is, in its view, so desperate—the last hope of
humanity. Laughter is not the fitting mood in which to contradict the
Christian hope, that our lost ones are not dead, but sleep. The new and
strange hope for humanity which Jesus thus asserted, He went on to prove,
but not for them. Exerting that moral ascendency, which sufficed Him twice
to cleanse the Temple, He put them all forth, as already He had shut out
the crowd, and all His disciples but “the elect of His election,” the
three who now first obtain a special privilege. The scene was one of
surpassing solemnity and awe; but not more so than that of Nain, or by the
tomb of _Lazarus_. Why then were not only the idly curious and the
scornful, but nine of His chosen ones excluded? Surely we may believe, for
the sake of the little girl, whose tender grace of unconscious maidenhood
should not, in its hour of reawakened vitality, be the centre of a gazing
circle. He kept with Him the deeply reverential and the loving, the ripest
apostles and the parents of the child, since love and reverence are ever
the conditions of real insight. And then, first, was exhibited the gentle
and profound regard of Christ for children. He did not arouse her, as
others, with a call only, but took her by the hand, while He spoke to her
those Aramaic words, so marvellous in their effect, which St. Peter did
not fail to repeat to St. Mark as he had heard them, Talitha cumi; Damsel,
I say unto thee, Arise. They have an added sweetness when we reflect that
the former word, though applied to a very young child, is in its root a
variation of the word for a little lamb. How exquisite from the lips of
the Good Shepherd, Who gave His life for the sheep. How strange to be thus
awakened from the mysterious sleep, and to gaze with a child’s fresh eyes
into the loving eyes of Jesus. Let us seek to realise such positions, to
comprehend the marvellous heart which they reveal to us, and we shall
derive more love and trust from the effort than from all such doctrinal
inference and allegorizing as would dry up, into a _hortus siccus_, the
sweetest blooms of the sweetest story ever told.

So shall we understand what happened next in all three cases. Something
preternatural and therefore dreadful, appeared to hang about the lives so
wondrously restored. The widow of Nain did not dare to embrace her son
until Christ “gave him to his mother.” The bystanders did not touch
Lazarus, bound hand and foot, until Jesus bade them “loose him and let him
go.” And the five who stood about this child’s bed, amazed straightway
with a great amazement, had to be reminded that being now in perfect
health, after an illness which left her system wholly unsupplied,
something should be given her to eat. This is the point at which Euripides
could find nothing fitter for Hercules to utter than the awkward boast,
“Thou wilt some day say that the son of Jove was a capital guest to
entertain.” What a contrast. For Jesus was utterly unflushed, undazzled,
apparently unconscious of anything to disturb His composure. And so far
was He from the unhappy modern notion, that every act of grace must be
proclaimed on the housetop, and every recipient of grace however young,
however unmatured, paraded and exhibited, that He charged them much that
no man should know this.

The story throughout is graphic and full of character; every touch, every
word reveals the Divine Man; and only reluctance to believe a miracle
prevents it from proving itself to every candid mind. Whether it be
accepted or rejected, it is itself miraculous. It could not have grown up
in the soil which generated the early myths and legends, by the working of
the ordinary laws of mind. It is beyond their power to invent or to dream,
supernatural in the strictest sense.

This miracle completes the cycle. Nature, distracted by the Fall, has
revolted against Him in vain. Satan, intrenched in his last stronghold,
has resisted, and humbled himself to entreaties and to desperate
contrivances, in vain. Secret and unspoken woes, and silent germs of
belief, have hidden from Him in vain. Death itself has closed its bony
fingers upon its prey, in vain. Nothing can resist the power and love,
which are enlisted on behalf of all who put their trust in Jesus.





CHAPTER VI.




Rejected In His Own Country.


    “And He went out from thence; and He cometh into His own country;
    and His disciples follow Him.”—MARK vi. 1-6 (R.V.).


We have seen how St. Mark, to bring out more vividly the connection
between four mighty signs, their ideal completeness as a whole, and that
mastery over nature and the spiritual world which they reveal, grouped
them resolutely together, excluding even significant incidents which would
break in upon their sequence. Bearing this in mind, how profoundly
instructive it is that our Evangelist shows us this Master over storm and
demons, over too-silent disease, and over death, too clamorously bewailed,
in the next place teaching His own countrymen in vain, and an offence to
them. How startling to read, at this juncture, when legend would surely
have thrown all men prostrate at his feet, of His homely family and His
trade, and how He Who rebuked the storm “could there do no mighty work.”

First of all, it is touching to see Jesus turning once more to “His own
country,” just at this crisis. They had rejected Him in a frenzy of rage,
at the outset of His ministry. And He had very lately repulsed the rude
attempt of His immediate relatives to interrupt His mission. But now His
heart leads Him thither, once again to appeal to the companions of His
youth, with the halo of His recent and surpassing works upon His forehead.
He does not abruptly interrupt their vocations, but waits as before for
the Sabbath, and the hushed assembly in the sacred place. And as He
teaches in the synagogue, they are conscious of His power. Whence could He
have these things? His wisdom was an equal wonder with His mighty works,
of the reality of which they could not doubt. And what excuse then had
they for listening to His wisdom in vain? But they went on to ask, Is not
this the carpenter? the Son of Mary? they knew His brothers, and His
sisters were living among them. And they were offended in Him, naturally
enough. It _is_ hard to believe in the supremacy of one, whom
circumstances marked as our equal, and to admit the chieftainship of one
who started side by side with us. In Palestine it was not disgraceful to
be a tradesman, but yet they could fairly claim equality with “the
carpenter.” And it is plain enough that they found no impressive or
significant difference from their neighbours in the “sisters” of Jesus,
nor even in her whom all generations call blessed. Why then should they
abase themselves before the claims of Jesus?

It is an instructive incident. First of all, it shows us the perfection of
our Lord’s abasement. He was not only a carpenter’s son, but what this
passage only declares to us explicitly, He wrought as an artizan, and
consecrated for ever a lowly trade, by the toil of those holy limbs whose
sufferings should redeem the world.

And we learn the abject folly of judging by mere worldly standards. We are
bound to give due honour and precedence to rank and station. Refusing to
do this, we virtually undertake to dissolve society, and readjust it upon
other principles, or by instincts and intuitions of our own, a grave task,
when it is realized. But we are not to be dazzled, much less to be misled,
by the advantages of station or of birth. Yet if, as it would seem,
Nazareth rejected Christ because He was not a person of quality, this is
only the most extreme and ironical exhibition of what happens every day,
when a noble character, self-denying, self-controlled and wise, fails to
win the respect which is freely and gladly granted to vice and folly in a
coronet.

And yet, to one who reflected, the very objection they put forward was an
evidence of His mission. His wisdom was confessed, and His miracles were
not denied; were they less wonderful or more amazing, more supernatural,
as the endowments of the carpenter whom they knew? Whence, they asked, had
He derived His learning, as if it were not more noble for being original.

Are we sure that men do not still make the same mistake? The perfect and
lowly humanity of Jesus is a stumbling block to some who will freely admit
His ideal perfections, and the matchless nobility of His moral teaching.
They will grant anything but the supernatural origin of Him to Whom they
attribute qualities beyond parallel. But whence had He those qualities?
What is there in the Galilee of the first century which prepares one for
discovering there and then the revolutionizer of the virtues of the world,
the most original, profound, and unique of all teachers, Him Whose example
is still mightier than His precepts, and only not more perfect, because
these also are without a flaw, Him Whom even unbelief would shrink from
saluting by so cold a title as that of the most saintly of the saints. To
ask with a clear scrutiny, whence the teaching of Jesus came, to realize
the isolation from all centres of thought and movement, of this Hebrew,
this provincial among Hebrews, this villager in Galilee, this carpenter in
a village, and then to observe His mighty works in every quarter of the
globe, is enough to satisfy all candid minds that His earthly
circumstances have something totally unlike themselves behind them. And
the more men give ear to materialism and to materialistic evolution
without an evolving mind, so much the more does the problem press upon
them, Whence hath this man this wisdom? and what mean these mighty works?

From our Lord’s own commentary upon their rejection we learn to beware of
the vulgarising effects of familiarity. They had seen His holy youth,
against which no slander was ever breathed. And yet, while His teaching
astonished them, He had no honour in his own house. It is the same result
which so often seems to follow from a lifelong familiarity with Scripture
and the means of grace. We read, almost mechanically, what melts and
amazes the pagan to whom it is a new word. We forsake, or submit to the
dull routine of, ordinances the most sacred, the most searching, the most
invigorating and the most picturesque.

And yet we wonder that the men of Nazareth could not discern the divinity
of “the carpenter,” whose family lived quiet and unassuming lives in their
own village.

It is St. Mark, the historian of the energies of Christ, who tells us that
He “could there do no mighty work,” with only sufficient exception to
prove that neither physical power nor compassion was what failed Him,
since “He laid His hands upon a few sick folk and healed them.” What then
is conveyed by this bold phrase? Surely the fearful power of the human
will to resist the will of man’s compassionate Redeemer. He would have
gathered Jerusalem under His wing, but she would not; and the temporal
results of her disobedience had to follow; siege, massacre and ruin. God
has no pleasure in the death of him who dieth, yet death follows, as the
inevitable wages of sin. Therefore, as surely as the miracles of Jesus
typified His gracious purposes for the souls of men, Who forgiveth all our
iniquities, Who healeth all our diseases, so surely the rejection and
defeat of those loving purposes paralysed the arm stretched out to heal
their sick.

Does it seem as if the words “He could not,” even thus explained, convey a
certain affront, throw a shadow upon the glory of our Master? And the
words “they mocked, scourged, crucified Him,” do these convey no affront?
The suffering of Jesus was not only physical: His heart was wounded; His
overtures were rejected; His hands were stretched out in vain; His pity
and love were crucified.

But now let this be considered, that men who refuse His Spirit continually
presume upon His mercy, and expect not to suffer the penalty of their evil
deeds. Alas, that is impossible. Where unbelief rejected His teaching, He
“could not” work the marvels of His grace. How shall they escape who
reject so great salvation?




The Mission Of The Twelve.


    “And He called unto Him the twelve, and began to send them forth
    by two and two; and He gave them authority over the unclean
    spirits; and He charged them that they should take nothing for
    _their_ journey, save a staff only; no bread, no wallet, no money
    in their purse; but _to go_ shod with sandals: and, _said He_, put
    not on two coats. And He said unto them, Wheresoever ye enter into
    a house, there abide till ye depart thence. And whatsoever place
    shall not receive you, and they hear you not, as ye go forth
    thence, shake off the dust that is under your feet for a testimony
    unto them. And they went out, and preached that _men_ should
    repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many
    that were sick, and healed them.”—MARK vi. 7-13 (R.V.).


Repulsed a second time from the cradle of His youth, even as lately from
Decapolis, with what a heavy heart must the Loving One have turned away.
Yet we read of no abatement of His labours. He did not, like the fiery
prophet, wander into the desert and make request that He might die. And it
helps us to realise the elevation of our Lord, when we reflect how utterly
the discouragement with which we sympathise in the great Elijah would ruin
our conception of Jesus.

It was now that He set on foot new efforts, and advanced in the training
of His elect. For Himself, He went about the villages, whither slander and
prejudice had not yet penetrated, and was content to break new ground
among the most untaught and sequestered of the people. The humblest field
of labour was not too lowly for the Lord, although we meet, every day,
with men who are “thrown away” and “buried” in obscure fields of
usefulness. We have not yet learned to follow without a murmur the
Carpenter, and the Teacher in villages, even though we are soothed in
grief by thinking, because we endure the inevitable, that we are followers
of the Man of Sorrows. At the same moment when democracies and priesthoods
are rejecting their Lord, a king had destroyed His forerunner. On every
account it was necessary to vary as well as multiply the means for the
evangelisation of the country. Thus the movement would be accelerated, and
it would no longer present one solitary point of attack to its
unscrupulous foes.

Jesus therefore called to Him the Twelve, and began to send them forth. In
so doing, His directions revealed at once His wisdom and His fears for
them.

Not even for unfallen man was it good to be alone. It was a bitter
ingredient in the cup which Christ Himself drank, that His followers
should be scattered to their own and leave Him alone. And it was at the
last extremity, when he could no longer forbear, that St. Paul thought it
good to be at Athens alone. Jesus therefore would not send His
inexperienced heralds forth for the first time except by two and two, that
each might sustain the courage and wisdom of his comrade. And His example
was not forgotten. Peter and John together visited the converts in
Samaria. And when Paul and Barnabas, whose first journey was together,
could no longer agree, each of them took a new comrade and departed.
Perhaps our modern missionaries lose more in energy than is gained in area
by neglecting so humane a precedent, and forfeiting the special presence
vouchsafed to the common worship of two or three.

St. Mark has not recorded the mission of the seventy evangelists, but this
narrative is clearly coloured by his knowledge of that event. Thus He does
not mention the gift of miraculous power, which was common to both, but He
does tell of the authority over unclean spirits, which was explicitly
given to the Twelve, and which the Seventy, returning with joy, related
that they also had successfully dared to claim. In conferring such power
upon His disciples, Jesus took the first step towards that marvellous
identification of Himself and His mastery over evil, with all His
followers, that giving of His presence to their assemblies, His honour to
their keeping, His victory to their experience, and His lifeblood to their
veins, which makes Him the second Adam, represented in all the newborn
race, and which finds its most vivid and blessed expression in the
sacrament where His flesh is meat indeed and His blood is drink indeed.
Now first He is seen to commit His powers and His honour into mortal
hands.

In doing this, He impressed on them the fact that they were not sent at
first upon a toilsome and protracted journey. Their personal connection
with Him was not broken but suspended for a little while. Hereafter, they
would need to prepare for hardship, and he that had two coats should take
them. It was not so now: sandals would suffice their feet; they should
carry no wallet; only a staff was needed for their brief excursion through
a hospitable land. But hospitality itself would have its dangers for them,
and when warmly received they might be tempted to be fêted by various
hosts, enjoying the first enthusiastic welcome of each, and refusing to
share afterwards the homely domestic life which would succeed. Yet it was
when they ceased to be strangers that their influence would really be
strongest; and so there was good reason, both for the sake of the family
they might win, and for themselves who should not become self-indulgent,
why they should not go from house to house.

These directions were not meant to become universal rules, and we have
seen how Jesus afterwards explicitly varied them. But their spirit is an
admonition to all who are tempted to forget their mission in personal
advantages which it may offer. Thus commissioned and endowed, they should
feel as they went the greatness of the message they conveyed. Wherever
they were rejected; no false meekness should forbid their indignant
protest, and they should refuse to carry even the dust of that evil and
doomed place upon their feet.

And they went forth and preached repentance, casting out many devils, and
healing many that were sick. In doing this, they anointed them with oil,
as St. James afterwards directed, but as Jesus never did. He used no
means, or when faith needed to be helped by a visible application, it was
always the touch of His own hand or the moisture of His own lip. The
distinction is significant. And also it must be remembered that oil was
never used by disciples for the edification of the dying, but for the
recovery of the sick.

By this new agency the name of Jesus was more than ever spread abroad,
until it reached the ears of a murderous tyrant, and stirred in his bosom
not the repentance which they preached, but the horrors of ineffectual
remorse.




Herod.


    “And king Herod heard _thereof;_ for His name had become known:
    and he said, John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and
    therefore do these powers work in him. But others said, It is
    Elijah. And others said, _It is_ a prophet, _even_ as one of the
    prophets. But Herod, when he heard _thereof_, said, John, whom I
    beheaded, he is risen. For Herod himself had sent forth and laid
    hold upon John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias,
    his brother Philip’s wife: for he had married her. For John said
    unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.
    And Herodias set herself against him, and desired to kill him; and
    she could not; for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a
    righteous man and a holy, and kept him safe. And when he heard
    him, he was much perplexed; and he heard him gladly. And when a
    convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper
    to his lords, and the high captains, and the chief men of Galilee;
    and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, she
    pleased Herod and them that sat at meat with him; and the king
    said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will
    give it thee. And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of
    me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. And she went
    out, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The
    head of John the Baptist. And she came in straightway with haste
    unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou forthwith give
    me in a charger the head of John the Baptist. And the king was
    exceeding sorry; but for the sake of his oaths, and of them that
    sat at meat, he would not reject her. And straightway the king
    sent forth a soldier of his guard, and commanded to bring his
    head: and he went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his
    head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel; and the damsel gave
    it to her mother. And when his disciples heard _thereof_, they
    came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb.”—MARK vi.
    14-29 (R.V.).


The growing influence of Jesus demanded the mission of the Twelve, and
this in its turn increased His fame until it alarmed the tetrarch Herod.
An Idumæan ruler of Israel was forced to dread every religious movement,
for all the waves of Hebrew fanaticism beat against the foreign throne.
And Herod Antipas was especially the creature of circumstances, a weak and
plastic man. He is the Ahab of the New Testament, and it is a curious
coincidence that he should have to do with its Elijah. As Ahab fasted when
he heard his doom, and postponed the evil by his submission, so Herod was
impressed and agitated by the teaching of the Baptist. But Ahab
surrendered his soul to the imperious Jezebel, and Herod was ruined by
Herodias. Each is the sport of strong influences from without, and warns
us that a man, no more than a ship, can hope by drifting to come safe to
haven.

No contrast could be imagined more dramatic than between the sleek seducer
of his brother’s wife and the imperious reformer, rude in garment and
frugal of fare, thundering against the generation of vipers who were the
chiefs of his religion.

How were these two brought together? Did the Baptist stride unsummoned
into the court? Did his crafty foemen contrive his ruin by inciting the
Tetrarch to consult him? Or did that restless religious curiosity, which
afterwards desired to see Jesus, lead Herod to consult his forerunner? The
abrupt words of John are not unlike an answer to some feeble question of
casuistry, some plea of extenuating circumstances such as all can urge in
mitigation of their worst deeds. He simply and boldly states the
inflexible ordinance of God: It is not lawful for thee to have her.

What follows may teach us much.

1. It warns us that good inclinations, veneration for holiness in others,
and ineffectual struggles against our own vices, do not guarantee
salvation. He who feels them is not God-forsaken, since every such emotion
is a grace. But he must not infer that he never may be forsaken, or that
because he is not wholly indifferent or disobedient, God will some day
make him all that his better moods desire. Such a man should be warned by
Herod Antipas. Ruggedly and abruptly rebuked, his soul recognised and did
homage to the truthfulness of his teacher. Admiration replaced the anger
in which he cast him into prison. As he stood between him and the
relentless Herodias, and “kept him safely,” he perhaps believed that the
gloomy dungeon, and the utter interruption of a great career, were only
for the Baptist’s preservation. Alas, there was another cause. He was
“much perplexed”: he dared not provoke his temptress by releasing the man
of God. And thus temporizing, and daily weakening the voice of conscience
by disobedience, he was lost.

2. It is distinctly a bad omen that he “heard him gladly,” since he had no
claim to well-founded religious happiness. Our Lord had already observed
the shallowness of men who immediately with joy receive the word, yet have
no root. But this guilty man, disquieted by the reproaches of memory and
the demands of conscience, found it a relief to hear stern truth, and to
see from far the beauteous light of righteousness. He would not reform his
life, but he would fain keep his sensibilities alive. It was so that
Italian brigands used to maintain a priest. And it is so that fraudulent
British tradesmen too frequently pass for religious men. People cry shame
on their hypocrisy. Yet perhaps they less often wear a mask to deceive
others than a cloke to keep their own hearts warm, and should not be
quoted to prove that religion is a deceit, but as witnesses that even the
most worldly soul craves as much of it as he can assimilate. So it was
with Herod Antipas.

3. But no man can serve two masters. He who refuses the command of God to
choose whom he will serve, in calmness and meditation, when the means of
grace and the guidance of the Spirit are with him, shall hear some day the
voice of the Tempter, derisive and triumphant, amid evil companions, when
flushed with guilty excitements and with sensual desires, and deeply
committed by rash words and “honour rooted in dishonour,” bidding him
choose now, and choose finally. Salome will tolerate neither weak
hesitation nor half measures; she must herself possess “forthwith” the
head of her mother’s foe, which is worth more than half the kingdom, since
his influence might rob them of it all. And the king was exceeding sorry,
but chose to be a murderer rather than be taken for a perjurer by the bad
companions who sat with him. What a picture of a craven soul, enslaved
even in the purple. And of the meshes for his own feet which that man
weaves, who gathers around him such friends that their influence will
surely mislead his lonely soul in its future struggles to be virtuous.
What a lurid light does this passage throw upon another and a worse scene,
when we meet Herod again, not without the tyrannous influence of his men
of war.

4. We learn the mysterious interconnection of sin with sin. Vicious luxury
and self-indulgence, the plastic feebleness of character which half yields
to John, yet cannot break with Herodias altogether, these do not seem
likely to end in murder. They have scarcely strength enough, we feel, for
a great crime. Alas, they have feebleness enough for it, for he who joins
in the dance of the graces may give his hand to the furies unawares.
Nothing formidable is to be seen in Herod, up to the fatal moment when
revelry, and the influence of his associates, and the graceful dancing of
a woman whose beauty was pitiless, urged him irresistibly forward to bathe
his shrinking hands in blood. And from this time forward he is a lost man.
When a greater than John is reported to be working miracles, he has a wild
explanation for the new portent, and his agitation is betrayed in his
broken words, “John, whom I beheaded, he is risen.” “For” St. Mark adds
with quiet but grave significance, “Herod himself had sent forth and laid
hold upon John, and bound him.” Others might speak of a mere teacher, but
the conscience of Herod will not suffer it to be so; it is his victim; he
has learnt the secret of eternity; “and therefore do these powers work in
him.” Yet Herod was a Sadducee.

5. These words are dramatic enough to prove themselves; it would have
tasked Shakespere to invent them. But they involve the ascription from the
first of unearthly powers to Jesus, and they disprove, what sceptics would
fain persuade us, that miracles were inevitably ascribed, by the credulity
of the age, to all great teachers, since John wrought none, and the
astonishing theory that he had graduated in another world, was invented by
Herod to account for those of Jesus. How inevitable it was that such a man
should set at nought our Lord. Dread, and moral repulsion, and the
suspicion that he himself was the mark against which all the powers of the
avenger would be directed, these would not produce a mood in which to
comprehend One who did not strive nor cry. To them it was a supreme relief
to be able to despise Christ.

Elsewhere we can trace the gradual cessation of the alarm of Herod. At
first he dreads the presence of the new Teacher, and yet dares not assail
Him openly. And so, when Jesus was advised to go thence or Herod would
kill Him, He at once knew who had instigated the crafty monition, and sent
back his defiance to that fox. But even fear quickly dies in a callous
heart, and only curiosity survives. Herod is soon glad to see Jesus, and
hopes that He may work a miracle. For religious curiosity and the love of
spiritual excitement often survive grace, just as the love of stimulants
survives the healthy appetite for bread. But our Lord, Who explained so
much for Pilate, spoke not a word to him. And the wretch, whom once the
forerunner had all but won, now set the Christ Himself at nought, and
mocked Him, So yet does the God of this world blind the eyes of the
unbelieving. So great are still the dangers of hesitation, since not to be
for Christ is to be against Him.

6. But the blood of the martyr was not shed before his work was done. As
the falling blossom admits the sunshine to the fruit, so the herald died
when his influence might have clashed with the growing influence of his
Lord, Whom the Twelve were at last trained to proclaim far and wide. At a
stroke, his best followers were naturally transferred to Jesus, Whose way
he had prepared. Rightly, therefore, has St. Mark placed the narrative at
this juncture, and very significantly does St. Matthew relate that his
disciples, when they had buried him, “came and told Jesus.”

Upon the path of our Lord Himself this violent death fell as a heavy
shadow. Nor was He unconscious of its menace, for after the
transfiguration He distinctly connected with a prediction of His own
death, the fact that they had done to Elias also whatsoever they listed.
Such connections of thought help us to realise the truth, that not once
only, but throughout His ministry, He Who bids us bear our cross while we
follow Him, was consciously bearing His own. We must not limit to “three
days” the sorrows which redeemed the world.




Bread In The Desert.


    “And the apostles gather themselves together unto Jesus; and they
    told Him all things, whatsoever they had done, and whatsoever they
    had taught. And He saith unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into
    a desert place, and rest awhile. For there were many coming and
    going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they went
    away in the boat to a desert place apart. And _the people_ saw
    them going, and many knew _them_, and they ran there together on
    foot from all the cities, and outwent them. And He came forth and
    saw a great multitude, and He had compassion on them, because they
    were as sheep not having a shepherd: and He began to teach them
    many things. And when the day was now far spent, His disciples
    came onto Him, and said, The place is desert, and the day is now
    far spent: send them away, that they may go into the country and
    villages round about, and buy themselves somewhat to eat. But He
    answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say
    unto Him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and
    give them to eat? And He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye?
    go _and_ see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes.
    And He commanded them that all should sit down by companies upon
    the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by
    fifties. And He took the five loaves and the two fishes, and
    looking up to heaven, He blessed, and brake the loaves; and He
    gave to the disciples to set before them; and the two fishes
    divided He among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled.
    And they took up broken pieces, twelve basketfuls, and also of the
    fishes. And they that ate the loaves were five thousand men. And
    straightway He constrained His disciples to enter into the boat,
    and to go before _Him_ unto the other side to Bethsaida, while He
    Himself sendeth the multitude away. And after He had taken leave
    of them He departed into the mountain to pray.”—MARK vi. 30-46
    (R.V.).


The Apostles, now first called by that name, because now first these
“Messengers” had carried the message of their Lord, returned and told Him
all, the miracles they had performed, and whatever they had taught. From
the latter clause it is plain that to preach “that men should repent,”
involved arguments, motives, promises, and perhaps threatenings which
rendered it no meagre announcement. It is in truth a demand which involves
free will and responsibility as its basis, and has hell or heaven for the
result of disobedience or compliance. Into what controversies may it have
led these first preachers of Jesus! All was now submitted to the judgment
of their Master. And happy are they still who do not shrink from the
healing pain of bringing all their actions and words to Him, and
hearkening what the Lord will speak.

Upon the whole, they brought a record of success, and around Him also were
so many coming and going that they had no leisure so much as to eat.
Whereupon Jesus draws them aside to rest awhile. For the balance must
never be forgotten between the outer and the inner life. The Lord Himself
spent the following night in prayer, until He saw the distress of His
disciples, and came to them upon the waves. And the time was at hand when
they, who now rejoiced that the devils were subject unto them, should
learn by sore humiliation and defeat that this kind goeth not forth except
by prayer. We may be certain that it was not bodily repose alone that
Jesus desired for his flushed and excited ambassadors, in the hour of
their success. And yet bodily repose also at such a time is healing, and
in the very pause, the silence, the cessation of the rush, pressure, and
excitement of every conspicuous career, there is an opportunity and even a
suggestion of calm and humble recollection of the soul. Accordingly they
crossed in the boat to some quiet spot, open and unreclaimed, but very far
from such dreariness as the mention of a desert suggests to us. But the
people saw Him, and watched His course, while outrunning him along the
coast, and their numbers were augmented from every town as they poured
through it, until He came forth and saw a great multitude, and knew that
His quest of solitude was baffled. Few things are more trying than the
world’s remorseless intrusion upon one’s privacy, and subversions of plans
which one has laid, not for himself alone. But Jesus was as thoughtful for
the multitude as He had just shown Himself to be for His disciples. Not to
petulance but to compassion did their urgency excite Him; for as they
streamed across the wilderness, far from believing upon Him, but yet
conscious of sore need, unsatisfied with the doctrine of their
professional teachers, and just bereaved of the Baptist, they seemed in
the desert like sheep that had no shepherd. And He patiently taught them
many things.

Nor was He careful only for their souls. We have now reached that
remarkable miracle which alone is related by all the four Evangelists. And
the narratives, while each has its individual and peculiar points,
corroborate each other very strikingly. All four mention the same kind of
basket, quite different from what appears in the feeding of the four
thousand. St. John alone tells us that it was the season of the Passover,
the middle of the Galilean spring-time; but yet this agrees exactly with
St. Mark’s allusion to the “green grass” which summer has not yet dried
up. All four have recorded that Jesus “blessed” or “gave thanks,” and
three of them that He looked up to heaven while doing so. What was there
so remarkable, so intense or pathetic in His expression, that it should
have won this three-fold celebration? If we remember the symbolical
meaning of what He did, and that as His hands were laid upon the bread
which He would break, so His own body should soon be broken for the relief
of the hunger of the world, how can we doubt that absolute self-devotion,
infinite love, and pathetic resignation were in that wonderful look, which
never could be forgotten?

There could have been but few women and children among the multitudes who
“outran Jesus,” and these few would certainly have been trodden down if a
rush of strong and hungry men for bread had taken place. Therefore St.
John mentions that while Jesus bade “the people” to be seated, it was the
men who were actually arranged (vi. 10 R.V.). Groups of fifty were easy to
keep in order, and a hundred of these were easily counted. And thus it
comes to pass that we know that there were five thousand men, while the
women and children remained unreckoned, as St. Matthew asserts, and St.
Mark implies. This is a kind of harmony which we do not find in two
versions of any legend. Nor could any legendary impulse have imagined the
remarkable injunction, which impressed all four Evangelists, to be frugal
when it would seem that the utmost lavishness was pardonable. They were
not indeed bidden to gather up fragments left behind upon the ground, for
thrift is not meanness; but the “broken pieces” which our Lord had
provided over and above should not be lost. “This union of economy with
creative power,” said Olshausen, “could never have been invented, and yet
Nature, that mirror of the Divine perfections, exhibits the same
combination of boundless munificence with truest frugality.” And Godet
adds the excellent remark, that “a gift so obtained was not to be
squandered.”

There is one apparent discord to set against these remarkable harmonies,
and it will at least serve to show that they are not calculated and
artificial.

St. John represents Jesus as the first to ask Philip, Whence are we to buy
bread? whereas the others represent the Twelve as urging upon Him the need
to dismiss the multitude, at so late an hour, from a place so ill
provided. The inconsistency is only an apparent one. It was early in the
day, and upon “seeing a great company come unto Him,” that Jesus
questioned Philip, who might have remembered an Old Testament precedent,
when Elisha said “Give unto the people that they may eat. And his servitor
said, What? shall I set this before an hundred men? He said, again, they
shall both eat and shall also leave thereof.” But the faith of Philip did
not respond, and if any hope of a miracle were excited, it faded as time
passed over. Hours later, when the day was far spent, the Twelve, now
perhaps excited by Philip’s misgiving, and repeating his calculation about
the two hundred pence, urge Jesus to dismiss the multitude. They took no
action until “the time was already past,” but Jesus saw the end from the
beginning. And surely the issue taught them not to distrust their Master’s
power. Now the same power is for ever with the Church; and our heavenly
Father knoweth that we have need of food and raiment.

Even in the working of a miracle, the scantiest means vouchsafed by
Providence are not despised. Jesus takes the barley-loaves and the fishes,
and so teaches all men that true faith is remote indeed from the
fanaticism which neglects any resources brought within the reach of our
study and our toil. And to show how really these materials were employed,
the broken pieces which they gathered are expressly said to have been
composed of the barley-loaves and of the fish.

Indeed it must be remarked that in no miracle of the Gospel did Jesus
actually create. He makes no new members of the body, but restores old
useless ones. “And so, without a substratum to work upon He creates
neither bread nor wine.” To do this would not have been a whit more
difficult, but it would have expressed less aptly His mission, which was
not to create a new system of things, but to renew the old, to recover the
lost sheep, and to heal the sick at heart.

Every circumstance of this miracle is precious. That vigilant care for the
weak which made the people sit down in groups, and await their turn to be
supplied, is a fine example of the practical eye for details which was
never, before or since, so perfectly united with profound thought, insight
into the mind of God and the wants of the human race.

The words, Give ye them to eat, may serve as an eternal rebuke to the
helplessness of the Church, face to face with a starving world, and
regarding her own scanty resources with dismay. In the presence of
heathenism, of dissolute cities, and of semi-pagan peasantries, she is
ever looking wistfully to some costly far-off supply. And her Master is
ever bidding her believe that the few loaves and fishes in her hand, if
blessed and distributed by Him, will satisfy the famine of mankind.

For in truth He is Himself this bread. All that the Gospel of St. John
explains, underlies the narratives of the four. And shame on us, with
Christ given to us to feed and strengthen us, if we think our resources
scanty, if we grudge to share them with mankind, if we let our thoughts
wander away to the various palliatives for human misery and salves for
human anguish, which from time to time gain the credence of an hour; if we
send the hungry to the country and villages round about, when Christ the
dispenser of the Bread of souls, for ever present in His Church, is
saying, They need not depart, give ye them to eat.

The sceptical explanations of this narrative are exquisitely ludicrous.
One tells us how, finding themselves in a desert, “thanks to their extreme
frugality they were able to exist, and this was naturally” (what,
naturally?) “regarded as a miracle.” This is called the legendary
explanation, and every one can judge for himself how much it succeeds in
explaining to him.

Another tells us that Jesus being greater than Moses, it was felt that He
must have outstripped him in miraculous power. And so the belief grew up
that as Moses fed a nation during forty years, with angels’ food, He, to
exceed this, must have bestowed upon five thousand men one meal of barley
bread.

This is called the mythical explanation, and the credulity which accepts
it must not despise Christians, who only believe their Bibles.

Jesus had called away His followers to rest. The multitude which beheld
this miracle was full of passionate hate against the tyrant, upon whose
hands the blood of the Baptist was still warm. All they wanted was a
leader. And now they would fain have taken Jesus by force to thrust this
perilous honour upon Him. Therefore He sent away His disciples first, that
ambition and hope might not agitate and secularise their minds; and when
He had dismissed the multitude He Himself ascended the neighbouring
mountain, to cool His frame with the pure breezes, and to refresh His Holy
Spirit by communion with His Father. Prayer was natural to Jesus; but
think how much more needful is it to us. And yet perhaps we have never
taken one hour from sleep for God.




Jesus Walking On The Water.


MARK vi. 47-52 (R.V.).

(See iv. 36, pp. 133-140.)




Unwashen Hands.


    “And when they had crossed over, they came to the land unto
    Gennesaret, and moored to the shore.... Making void the word of
    God by your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like
    things ye do.”—MARK vi. 53-vii. 13 (R.V.).


There is a condition of mind which readily accepts the temporal blessings
of religion, and yet neglects, and perhaps despises, the spiritual truths
which they ratify and seal. When Jesus landed on Gennesaret, He was
straightway known, and as He passed through the district, there was hasty
bearing of all the sick to meet Him, laying them in public places, and
beseeching Him that they might touch, if no more, the border of His
garment. By the faith which believed in so easy a cure, a timid woman had
recently won signal commendation. But the very fact that her cure had
become public, while it accounts for the action of these crowds, deprives
it of any special merit. We only read that as many as touched Him were
made whole. And we know that just now He was forsaken by many even of His
disciples, and had to ask His very apostles, Will ye also go away?

Thus we find these two conflicting movements: among the sick and their
friends a profound persuasion that He can heal them; and among those whom
He would fain teach, resentment and revolt against His doctrine. The
combination is strange, but we dare not call it unfamiliar. We see the
opposing tendencies even in the same man, for sorrow and pain drive to His
knees many a one who will not take upon His neck the easy yoke. Yet how
absurd it is to believe in Christ’s goodness and His power, and still to
dare to sin against Him, still to reject the inevitable inference that His
teaching must bring bliss. Men ought to ask themselves what is involved
when they pray to Christ and yet refuse to serve Him.

As Jesus moved thus around the district, and responded so amply to their
supplication that His very raiment was charged with health as if with
electricity, which leaps out at a touch, what an effect He must have
produced, even upon the ceremonial purity of the district. Sickness meant
defilement, not for the sufferer alone, but for his friends, his nurse,
and the bearers of his little pallet. By the recovery of one sick man, a
fountain of Levitical pollution was dried up. And the harsh and rigid
legalist ought to have perceived that from his own point of view the
pilgrimage of Jesus was like the breath of spring upon a garden, to
restore its freshness and bloom.

It was therefore an act of portentous waywardness when, at this juncture,
a complaint was made of His indifference to ceremonial cleanness. For of
course a charge against His disciples was really a complaint against the
influence which guided them so ill.

It was not a disinterested complaint. Jerusalem was alarmed at the new
movement resulting from the mission of the Twelve, their miracles, and the
mighty works which He Himself had lately wrought. And a deputation of
Pharisees and scribes came from this centre of ecclesiastical prejudice,
to bring Him to account. They do not assail His doctrine, nor charge Him
with violating the law itself, for He had put to shame their querulous
complaints about the sabbath day. But tradition was altogether upon their
side: it was a weapon ready sharpened for their use against one so free,
unconventional and fearless.

The law had imposed certain restrictions upon the chosen race,
restrictions which were admirably sanitary in their nature, while aiming
also at preserving the isolation of Israel from the corrupt and foul
nations which lay around. All such restrictions were now about to pass
away, because religion was to become aggressive, it was henceforth to
invade the nations from whose inroads it had heretofore sought a convert.
But the Pharisees had not been content even with the severe restrictions
of the law. They had not regarded these as a fence for themselves against
spiritual impurity, but as an elaborate and artificial substitute for love
and trust. And therefore, as love and spiritual religion faded out of
their hearts, they were the more jealous and sensitive about the letter of
the law. They “fenced” it with elaborate rules, and precautions against
accidental transgressions, superstitiously dreading an involuntary
infraction of its minutest details. Certain substances were unclean food.
But who could tell whether some atom of such substance, blown about in the
dust of summer, might adhere to the hand with which he ate, or to the cups
and pots whence his food was drawn? Moreover, the Gentile nations were
unclean, and it was not possible to avoid all contact with them in the
market-places, returning whence, therefore, every devout Jew was careful
to wash himself, which washing, though certainly not an immersion, is here
plainly called a baptism. Thus an elaborate system of ceremonial washing,
not for cleansing, but as a religious precaution, had grown up among the
Jews.

But the disciples of Jesus had begun to learn their emancipation. Deeper
and more spiritual conceptions of God and man and duty had grown up in
them. And the Pharisees saw that they ate their bread with unwashen hands.
It availed nothing that half a population owed purity and health to their
Divine benevolence, if in the process the letter of a tradition were
infringed. It was necessary to expostulate with Jesus, because they walked
not according to the tradition of the elders, that dried skin of an old
orthodoxy in which prescription and routine would ever fain shut up the
seething enthusiasms and insights of the present time.

With such attempts to restrict and cramp the free life of the soul, Jesus
could have no sympathy. He knew well that an exaggerated trust in any
form, any routine or ritual whatever, was due to the need of some stay and
support for hearts which have ceased to trust in a Father of souls. But He
chose to leave them without excuse by showing their transgression of
actual precepts which real reverence for God would have respected. Like
books of etiquette for people who have not the instincts of gentlemen; so
do ceremonial religions spring up where the instinct of respect for the
will of God is dull or dead. Accordingly Jesus quotes against these
Pharisees a distinct precept, a word not of their fathers, but of God,
which their tradition had caused them to trample upon. If any genuine
reverence for His commandment had survived, it would have been outraged by
such a collision between the text and the gloss, the precept and the
precautionary supplement. But they had never felt the incongruity, never
been jealous enough for the commandment of God to revolt against the
encroaching tradition which insulted it. The case which Jesus gave, only
as one of “many such like things,” was an abuse of the system of vows, and
of dedicated property. It would seem that from the custom of “devoting” a
man’s property, and thus putting it beyond his further control, had grown
up the abuse of consecrating it with such limitations, that it should
still be available for the owner, but out of his power to give to others.
And thus, by a spell as abject as the taboo of the South Sea islanders, a
man glorified God by refusing help to his father and mother, without being
at all the poorer for the so-called consecration of his means. And even if
he awoke up to the shameful nature of his deed, it was too late, for “ye
no longer suffer him to do ought for his father of his mother.” And yet
Moses had made it a capital offence to “speak evil of father or mother.”
Did they then allow such slanders? Not at all, and so they would have
refused to confess any aptness in the quotation. But Jesus was not
thinking of the letter of a precept, but of the spirit and tendency of a
religion, to which they were blind. With what scorn He regarded their
miserable subterfuges, is seen by His vigorous word, “full well do ye make
void the commandment of God that ye may keep your traditions.”

Now the root of all this evil was unreality. It was not merely because
their heart was far from God that they invented hollow formalisms;
indifference leads to neglect, not to a perverted and fastidious
earnestness. But while their hearts were earthly, they had learned to
honour God with their lips. The judgments which had sent their fathers
into exile, the pride of their unique position among the nations, and the
self-interest of privileged classes, all forbade them to neglect the
worship in which they had no joy, and which, therefore, they were unable
to follow as it reached out into infinity, panting after God, a living
God. There was no principle of life, growth, aspiration, in their dull
obedience. And what could it turn into but a routine, a ritual, a verbal
homage, and the honour of the lips only? And how could such a worship fail
to shelter itself in evasions from the heart-searching earnestness of a
law which was spiritual, while the worshipper was carnal and sold under
sin?

It was inevitable that collisions should arise. And the same results will
always follow the same causes. Wherever men bow the knee for the sake of
respectability, or because they dare not absent themselves from the
outward haunts of piety, yet fail to love God and their neighbour, there
will the form outrage the spirit, and in vain will they worship, teaching
as their doctrines the traditions of men.

Very completely indeed was the relative position of Jesus and His critics
reversed, since they had expressed pain at the fruitless effort of His
mother to speak with Him, and He had seemed to set the meanest disciple
upon a level with her. But He never really denied the voice of nature, and
they never really heard it. An affectation of respect would have satisfied
their heartless formality: He thought it the highest reward of
discipleship to share the warmth of His love. And therefore, in due time,
it was seen that His critics were all unconscious of the wickedness of
filial neglect which set His heart on fire.





CHAPTER VII.




Things Which Defile.


    “And He called to Him the multitude again, and said unto them,
    Hear Me all of you, and understand: there is nothing from without
    the man, that going into him can defile him: but the things which
    proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. And when He
    was entered into the house from the multitude, His disciples asked
    of Him the parable. And He saith unto them, Are ye so without
    understanding also? Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without
    goeth into the man, _it_ cannot defile him; because it goeth not
    into his heart, but into his belly, and goeth out into the
    draught? _This He said_, making all meats clean. And He said, That
    which proceeded out of the man, that defileth the man. For from
    within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed,
    fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings,
    wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride,
    foolishness: all these evil things proceed from within, and defile
    the man.”—MARK vii. 14-23 (R.V.).


When Jesus had exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, He took a bold and
significant step. Calling the multitude to Him, He publicly announced that
no diet can really pollute the soul; only its own actions and desires can
do that: not that which entereth into the man can defile him, but the
things which proceed out of the man.

He does not as yet proclaim the abolition of the law, but He surely
declares that it is only temporary, because it is conventional, not rooted
in the eternal distinctions between right and wrong, but artificial. And
He shows that its time is short indeed, by charging the multitude to
understand how limited is its reach, how poor are its effects.

Such teaching, addressed with marked emphasis to the public, the masses,
whom the Pharisees despised as ignorant of the law, and cursed, was a
defiance indeed. And the natural consequence was an opposition so fierce
that He was driven to betake Himself, for the only time, and like Elijah
in his extremity, to a Gentile land. And yet there was abundant evidence
in the Old Testament itself that the precepts of the law were not the life
of souls. David ate the shewbread. The priests profaned the sabbath.
Isaiah spiritualized fasting. Zechariah foretold the consecration of the
Philistines. Whenever the spiritual energies of the ancient saints
received a fresh access, they were seen to strive against and shake off
some of the trammels of a literal and servile legalism. The doctrine of
Jesus explained and justified what already was felt by the foremost
spirits in Israel.

When they were alone, “the disciples asked of Him the parable,” that is,
in other words, the saying which they felt to be deeper than they
understood, and full of far-reaching issues. But Jesus rebuked them for
not understanding what uncleanness really meant. For Him, defilement was
badness, a condition of the soul. And therefore meats could not defile a
man, because they did not reach the heart, but only the bodily organs. In
so doing, as St. Mark plainly adds, He made all meats clean, and thus
pronounced the doom of Judaism, and the new dispensation of the Spirit. In
truth, St. Paul did little more than expand this memorable saying.
“Nothing that goeth into a man can defile him,” here is the germ of all
the decision about idol meats—“neither if ‘one’ eat is he the better,
neither if he eat not is he the worse.” “The things which proceed out of
the man are those which defile the man,” here is the germ of all the
demonstration that love fulfils the law; and that our true need is to be
renewed inwardly, so that we may bring forth fruit unto God.

But the true pollution of the man comes from within; and the life is
stained because the heart is impure. For from within, out of the heart of
men, evil thoughts proceed, like the uncharitable and bitter judgments of
His accusers—and thence come also the sensual indulgences which men
ascribe to the flesh, but which depraved imaginations excite, and love of
God and their neighbour would restrain—and thence are the sins of violence
which men excuse by pleading sudden provocation, whereas the spark led to
a conflagration only because the heart was a dry fuel—and thence, plainly
enough, come deceit and railing, pride and folly.

It is a hard saying, but our conscience acknowledges the truth of it. We
are not the toy of circumstances, but such as we have made ourselves; and
our lives would have been pure if the stream had flowed from a pure
fountain. However modern sentiment may rejoice in highly coloured pictures
of the noble profligate and his pure minded and elegant victim; of the
brigand or the border ruffian full of kindness, with a heart as gentle as
his hands are red; and however true we may feel it to be that the worst
heart may never have betrayed itself by the worst actions, but many that
are first shall be last, it still continues to be the fact, and undeniable
when we do not sophisticate our judgment, that “all these evil things
proceed from within.”

It is also true that they “further defile the man.” The corruption which
already existed in the heart is made worse by passing into action; shame
and fear are weakened; the will is confirmed in evil; a gap is opened or
widened between the man who commits a new sin, and the virtue on which he
has turned his back. Few, alas! are ignorant of the defiling power of a
bad action, or even of a sinful thought deliberately harboured, and the
harbouring of which is really an action, a decision of the will.

This word which makes all meats clean, ought for ever to decide the
question whether certain drinks are in the abstract unlawful for a
Christian.

We must remember that it leaves untouched the question, what restrictions
may be necessary for men who have depraved and debased their own
appetites, until innocent indulgence _does_ reach the heart and pervert
it. Hand and foot are innocent, but men there are who cannot enter into
life otherwise than halt or maimed. Also it leaves untouched the question,
as long as such men exist, how far may I be privileged to share and so to
lighten the burden imposed on them by past transgressions? It is surely a
noble sign of religious life in our day, that many thousands can say, as
the Apostle said, of innocent joys, “Have we not a right? ... Nevertheless
we did not use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no
hindrance to the gospel of Christ.”

Nevertheless the rule is absolute: “Whatsoever from without goeth into the
man, it cannot defile him.” And the Church of Christ is bound to maintain,
uncompromised and absolute, the liberty of Christian souls.

Let us not fail to contrast such teaching as this of Jesus with that of
our modern materialism.

“The value of meat and drink is perfectly transcendental,” says one. “Man
is what he eats,” says another. But it is enough to make us tremble, to
ask what will issue from such teaching if it ever grasps firmly the mind
of a single generation. What will become of honesty, when the value of
what may be had by theft is transcendental? How shall armies be persuaded
to suffer hardness, and populations to famish within beleaguered walls,
when they learn that “man is what he eats,” so that his very essence is
visibly enfeebled, his personality starved out, as he grows pale and
wasted underneath his country’s flag? In vain shall such a generation
strive to keep alive the flame of generous self-devotion. Self-devotion
seemed to their fathers to be the noblest attainment; to them it can be
only a worn-out form of speech to say that the soul can overcome the
flesh. For to them the man is the flesh; he is the resultant of his
nourishment; what enters into the mouth makes his character, for it makes
him all.

There is that within us all which knows better; which sets against the
aphorism, “Man is what he eats;” the text “As a man thinketh in his heart
so is he;” which will always spurn the doctrine of the brute, when it is
boldly confronted with the doctrine of the Crucified.




The Children And The Dogs.


    “And from thence He arose, and went away into the borders of Tyre
    and Sidon. And He entered into a house, and would have no man know
    it: and He could not be hid. But straightway a woman, whose little
    daughter had an unclean spirit, having heard of Him, came and fell
    down at His feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophœnician by
    race. And she besought Him that He would cast forth the devil out
    of her daughter. And He said unto her, Let the children first be
    filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast
    it to the dogs. But she answered and saith unto Him, Yea, Lord:
    even the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. And He
    said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out
    of thy daughter. And she went away unto her house, and found the
    child laid upon the bed, and the devil gone out.”—MARK vii. 24-30
    (R.V.).


The ingratitude and perverseness of His countrymen have now driven Jesus
into retirement “on the borders” of heathenism. It it is not clear that He
has yet crossed the frontier, and some presumption to the contrary is
found in the statement that a woman, drawn by a fame which had long since
gone throughout all Syria, “came out of those borders” to reach Him. She
was not only “a Greek” (by language or by creed as conjecture may decide,
though very probably the word means little more than a Gentile), but even
of the especially accursed race of Canaan, the reprobate of reprobates.
And yet the prophet Zechariah had foreseen a time when the Philistine also
should be a remnant for our God, and as a chieftain in Judah, and when the
most stubborn race of all the Canaanites should be absorbed in Israel as
thoroughly as that which gave Araunah to the kindliest intercourse with
David, for Ekron should be as a Jebusite (ix. 7). But the hour for
breaking down the middle wall of partition was not yet fully come. Nor did
any friend plead for this unhappy woman, that she loved the nation and had
built a synagogue; nothing as yet lifted her above the dead level of that
paganism to which Christ, in the days of His flesh and upon earth, had no
commission. Even the great champion and apostle of the Gentiles confessed
that his Lord was a minister of the circumcision by the grace of God, and
it was by His ministry to the Jews that the Gentiles were ultimately to be
won. We need not be surprised therefore at His silence when she pleaded,
for this might well be calculated to elicit some expression of faith,
something to separate her from her fellows, and so enable Him to bless her
without breaking down prematurely all distinctions. Also it must be
considered that nothing could more offend His countrymen than to grant her
prayer, while as yet it was impossible to hope for any compensating
harvest among her fellows, such as had been reaped in Samaria. What is
surprising is the apparent harshness of expression which follows that
silence, when even His disciples are induced to intercede for her. But
theirs was only the softness which yields to clamour, as many people give
alms, not to silent worth but to loud and pertinacious importunity. And
they even presumed to throw their own discomfort into the scale, and urge
as a reason for this intercession, that she crieth after _us_. But Jesus
was occupied with His mission, and unwilling to go farther than He was
sent.

In her agony she pressed nearer still to Him when He refused, and
worshipped Him, no longer as the Son of David, since what was Hebrew in
His commission made against her; but simply appealed to His compassion,
calling Him Lord. The absence of these details from St. Mark’s narrative
is interesting, and shows the mistake of thinking that his Gospel is
simply the most graphic and the fullest. It is such when our Lord Himself
is in action; its information is derived from one who pondered and told
all things, not as they were pictorial in themselves, but as they
illustrated the one great figure of the Son of man. And so the answer of
Jesus is fully given, although it does not appear as if grace were poured
into His lips. “Let the children first be filled, for it is not meet to
take the children’s bread, and to cast it to the dogs.” It might seem that
sterner words could scarcely have been spoken, and that His kindness was
only for the Jews, who even in their ingratitude were to the best of the
Gentiles as children compared with dogs. Yet she does not contradict Him.
Neither does she argue back,—for the words “Truth, Lord, but ...” have
rightly disappeared from the Revised Version, and with them a certain
contentious aspect which they give to her reply. On the contrary she
assents, she accepts all the seeming severity of His view, because her
penetrating faith has detected its kindly undertone, and the triple
opportunity which it offers to a quick and confiding intelligence. It is
indeed touching to reflect how impregnable was Jesus in controversy with
the keenest intellects of Judaism, with how sharp a weapon He rent their
snares, and retorted their arguments to their confusion, and then to
observe Him inviting, tempting, preparing the way for an argument which
would lead Him, gladly won, captive to a heathen’s and a woman’s
importunate and trustful sagacity. It is the same Divine condescension
which gave to Jacob his new name of Israel because he had striven with God
and prevailed.

And let us reverently ponder the fact that this pagan mother of a
demoniacal child, this woman whose name has perished, is the only person
who won a dialectical victory in striving with the Wisdom of God; such a
victory as a father allows to his eager child, when he raises gentle
obstacles, and even assumes a transparent mask of harshness, but never
passes the limit of the trust and love which he is probing.

The first and most obvious opportunity which He gives to her is
nevertheless hard to show in English. He might have used an epithet
suitable for those fierce creatures which prowl through Eastern streets at
night without any master, living upon refuse, a peril even to men who are
unarmed. But Jesus used a diminutive word, not found elsewhere in the New
Testament, and quite unsuitable to those fierce beasts, a word “in which
the idea of uncleanness gives place to that of dependence, of belonging to
man and to the family.” No one applies our colloquial epithet “doggie” to
a fierce or rabid brute. Thus Jesus really domesticated the Gentile world.
And nobly, eagerly, yet very modestly she used this tacit concession, when
she repeated His carefully selected word, and inferred from it that her
place was not among those vile “dogs” which are “without,” but with the
domestic dogs, the little dogs underneath the table.

Again, she observed the promise which lurked under seeming refusal, when
He said, “Let the children first be filled,” and so implied that her turn
should come, that it was only a question of time. And so she answers that
such dogs as He would make of her and hers do not fast utterly until their
mealtime after the children have been satisfied; they wait under the
table, and some ungrudged fragments reach them there, some “crumbs.”

Moreover, and perhaps chiefly, the bread she craves need not be torn from
hungry children. Their Benefactor has had to wander off into concealment,
they have let fall, unheeding, not only crumbs, although her noble tact
expresses it thus lightly to their countryman, but far more than she
divined, even the very Bread of Life. Surely His own illustration has
admitted her right to profit by the heedlessness of “the children.” And He
_had_ admitted all this: He had meant to be thus overcome. One loves to
think of the first flush of hope in that trembling mother’s heavy heart,
as she discerned His intention and said within herself, “Oh, surely I am
not mistaken; He does not really refuse at all; He wills that I should
answer Him and prevail.” One supposes that she looked up, half afraid to
utter the great rejoinder, and took courage when she met His questioning
inviting gaze.

And then comes the glad response, no longer spoken coldly and without an
epithet: “O woman, great is thy faith.” He praises not her adroitness nor
her humility, but the faith which would not doubt, in that dark hour, that
light was behind the cloud; and so He sets no other limit to His reward
than the limit of her desires: “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”

Let us learn that no case is too desperate for prayer, and perseverance
will surely find at last that our Lord delighteth to be gracious. Let us
be certain that the brightest and most confiding view of all His dealings
is the truest, and man, if only he trusts aright, shall live by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Thus did Jesus declare, in action as in word, the fading out of all
distinction between the ceremonially clean and unclean. He crossed the
limits of the Holy Land: He found great faith in a daughter of the
accursed race; and He ratified and acted upon her claim that the bread
which fell neglected from the table of the Jew was not forbidden to the
hunger of the Gentile. The history of the Acts of the Apostles is already
here in spirit.




The Deaf And Dumb Man.


    “And again He went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through
    Sidon unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the borders of
    Decapolis. And they bring unto Him one that was deaf, and had an
    impediment in his speech; and they beseech Him to lay His hand
    upon him. And He took him aside from the multitude privately, and
    put His fingers into his ears, and He spat, and touched His
    tongue; and looking up to heaven, He sighed, and saith unto him,
    Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And his ears were opened, and the
    bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And He charged
    them that they should tell no man: but the more He charged them,
    so much the more a great deal they published it. And they were
    beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well:
    He maketh even the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.”—MARK vii.
    31-37 (R.V.).


There are curious and significant varieties in the methods by which our
Saviour healed. We have seen Him, when watched on the sabbath by eager and
expectant foes, baffling all their malice by a miracle without a deed, by
refusing to cross the line of the most rigid and ceremonial orthodoxy, by
only commanding an innocent gesture, Stretch forth thine hand. In sharp
contrast with such a miracle is the one which we have now reached. There
is brought to Him a man who is deaf, and whose speech therefore could not
have been more than a babble, since it is by hearing that we learn to
articulate; but of whom we are plainly told that he suffered from organic
inability to utter as well as to hear, for he had an impediment in his
speech, the string of his tongue needed to be loosed, and Jesus touched
his tongue as well as his ears, to heal him.

It should be observed that no unbelieving theory can explain the change in
our Lord’s method. Some pretend that all the stories of His miracles grew
up afterward, from the sense of awe with which He was regarded. How does
that agree with effort, sighing, and even gradation in the stages of
recovery, following after the most easy, astonishing and instantaneous
cures? Others believe that the enthusiasm of His teaching and the charm of
His presence conveyed healing efficacy to the impressible and the nervous.
How does this account for the fact that His earliest miracles were the
prompt and effortless ones, and as time passes on, He secludes the patient
and uses agencies, as if the resistance to His power were more
appreciable? Enthusiasm would gather force with every new success.

All becomes clear when we accept the Christian doctrine. Jesus came in the
fulness of the love of God, with both hands filled with gifts. On His part
there is no hesitation and no limit. But on the part of man there is
doubt, misconception, and at last open hostility. A real chasm is opened
between man and the grace He gives, so that, although not straitened in
Him, they are straitened in their own affections. Even while they believe
in Him as a healer, they no longer accept Him as their Lord.

And Jesus makes it plain to them that the gift is no longer so easy,
spontaneous and of public right as formerly. In His own country He could
not do many mighty works. And now, returning by indirect routes, and
privately, from the heathen shores whither Jewish enmity had driven Him,
He will make the multitude feel a kind of exclusion, taking the patient
from among them, as He does again presently in Bethsaida (chap. viii. 23).
There is also, in the deliberate act of seclusion and in the means
employed, a stimulus for the faith of the sufferer, which would scarcely
have been needed a little while before.

The people were unconscious of any reason why this cure should differ from
former ones. And so they besought Jesus to lay His hand on him, the usual
and natural expression for a conveyance of invisible power. But even if no
other objection had existed, this action would have meant little to the
deaf and dumb man, living in a silent world, and needing to have his faith
aroused by some yet plainer sign. Jesus therefore removes him from the
crowd whose curiosity would distract his attention—even as by affliction
and pain He still isolates each of us at times from the world, shutting us
up with God.

He speaks the only language intelligible to such a man, the language of
signs, putting His fingers into his ears as if to break a seal, conveying
the moisture of His own lip to the silent tongue, as if to impart its
faculty, and then, at what should have been the exultant moment of
conscious and triumphant power, He sighed deeply.

What an unexpected revelation of the man rather than the wonder worker.
How unlike anything that theological myth or heroic legend would have
invented. Perhaps, as Keble sings, He thought of those moral defects for
which, in a responsible universe, no miracle may be wrought, of “the deaf
heart, the dumb by choice.” Perhaps, according to Stier’s ingenious guess,
He sighed because, in our sinful world, the gift of hearing is so doubtful
a blessing, and the faculty of speech so apt to be perverted. One can
almost imagine that no human endowment is ever given by Him Who knows all,
without a touch of sadness. But it is more natural to suppose that He Who
is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and Who bare our sickness,
thought upon the countless miseries of which this was but a specimen, and
sighed for the perverseness by which the fulness of His compassion was
being restrained. We are reminded by that sigh, however we explain it,
that the only triumphs which made Him rejoice in Spirit were very
different from displays of His physical ascendancy.

It is interesting to observe that St. Mark, informed by the most ardent
and impressible of the apostles, by him who reverted, long afterwards, to
the voice which he heard in the holy mount, has recorded several of the
Aramaic words which Jesus uttered at memorable junctures. “Ephphatha, Be
opened,” He said, and the bond of his tongue was loosed, and his speech,
hitherto incoherent, became plain. But the Gospel which tells us the first
word he heard is silent about what he said. Only we read, and this is
suggestive enough, that the command was at once given to him, as well as
to the bystanders, to keep silent. Not copious speech, but wise restraint,
is what the tongue needs most to learn. To him, as to so many whom Christ
had healed, the injunction came, not to preach without a commission, not
to suppose that great blessings require loud announcement, or unfit men
for lowly and quiet places. Legend would surely have endowed with special
eloquence the lips which Jesus unsealed. He charged them that they should
tell no man.

It was a double miracle, and the latent unbelief became clear of the very
men who had hoped for some measure of blessing. For they were beyond
measure astonished, saying He doeth all things well, celebrating the power
which restored the hearing and the speech together. Do we blame their
previous incredulity? Perhaps we also expect some blessing from our Lord,
yet fail to bring Him all we have and all we are for blessing. Perhaps we
should be astonished beyond measure if we received at the hands of Jesus a
sanctification that extended to all our powers.





CHAPTER VIII.




The Four Thousand.


    “In those days, when there was again a great multitude, and they
    had nothing to eat, He called unto Him His disciples, and saith
    unto them, I have compassion on the multitude, because they
    continue with Me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and if I
    send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way;
    and some of them are come from far. And His disciples answered
    Him, Whence shall one be able to fill these men with bread here in
    a desert place? And He asked them, How many loaves have ye? And
    they said, Seven. And He commandeth the multitude to sit down on
    the ground: and He took the seven loaves, and having given thanks,
    He brake, and gave to His disciples, to set before them; and they
    set them before the multitude. And they had a few small fishes:
    and having blessed them, He commanded to set these also before
    them. And they did eat, and were filled: and they took up, of
    broken pieces that remained over, seven baskets. And they were
    about four thousand: and He sent them away. And straightway He
    entered into the boat with His disciples, and came into the parts
    of Dalmanutha.”—MARK viii. 1-10 (R.V.).


We now come upon a miracle strangely similar to that of the Feeding of the
Five Thousand. And it is worth while to ask what would have been the
result, if the Gospels which contain this narrative had omitted the former
one. Scepticism would have scrutinized every difference between the two,
regarding them as variations of the same story, to discover traces of the
growth of the myth or legend, and entirely to discredit it. Now however it
is plain that the events are quite distinct; and we cannot doubt but that
information as full would clear away as completely many a perplexity which
still entangles us. Archbishop Trench has well shown that the later
narrative cannot have grown out of the earlier, because it has not grown
at all, but fallen away. A new legend always “outstrips the old, but here
... the numbers fed are smaller, the supply of food is greater, and the
fragments that remain are fewer.” The latter point is however doubtful. It
is likely that the baskets, though fewer, were larger, for in such a one
St. Paul was lowered down over the wall of Damascus (Acts ix. 25). In all
the Gospels the Greek word for baskets in the former miracle is different
from the latter. And hence arises an interesting coincidence; for when the
disciples had gone into a desert place, and there gathered the fragments
into wallets, each of them naturally carried one of these, and accordingly
twelve were filled. But here they had recourse apparently to the large
baskets of persons who sold bread, and the number seven remains
unaccounted for. Scepticism indeed persuades itself that the whole story
is to be spiritualized, the twelve baskets answering to the twelve
apostles who distributed the Bread of Life, and the seven to the seven
deacons. How came it then that the sorts of baskets are so well
discriminated, that the inferior ministers are represented by the larger
ones, and that the bread is not dealt out from these baskets but gathered
into them?

The second repetition of such a work is a fine proof of that genuine
kindness of heart, to which a miracle is not merely an evidence, nor
rendered useless as soon as the power to work it is confessed. Jesus did
not shrink from thus repeating Himself, even upon a lower level, because
His object was not spectacular but beneficent. He sought not to astonish
but to bless.

It is plain that Jesus strove to lead His disciples, aware of the former
miracle, up to the notion of its repetition. With this object He
marshalled all the reasons why the people should be relieved. “I have
compassion on the multitude, because they continue with Me now three days,
and have nothing to eat: and if I send them away fasting to their home,
they will faint in the way; and some of them are come from far.” It is the
grand argument from human necessity to the Divine compassion. It is an
argument which ought to weigh equally with the Church. For if it is
promised that “nothing shall be impossible” to faith and prayer, then the
deadly wants of debauched cities, of ignorant and brutal peasantries, and
of heathenisms festering in their corruptions—all these, by their very
urgency, are vehement appeals instead of the discouragements we take them
for. And whenever man is baffled and in need, there he is entitled to fall
back upon the resources of the Omnipotent.

It may be that the disciples had some glimmering hope, but they did not
venture to suggest anything; they only asked, Whence shall one be able to
fill these men with bread here in a desert place? It is the cry of
unbelief—_our_ cry, when we look at our resources, and declare our
helplessness, and conclude that possibly God may interpose, but otherwise
nothing can be done. We ought to be the priests of a famishing world (so
ignorant of any relief, so miserable), its interpreters and intercessors,
full of hope and energy. But we are content to look at our empty
treasuries, and ineffective organizations, and to ask, Whence shall a man
be able to fill these men with bread?

They have ascertained however what resources are forthcoming, and these He
proceeds to use, first demanding the faith which He will afterwards
honour, by bidding the multitudes to sit down. And then His loving heart
is gratified by relieving the hunger which it pitied, and He promptly
sends the multitude away, refreshed and competent for their journey.




The Leaven Of The Pharisees.


    “And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with Him,
    seeking of Him a sign from heaven, tempting Him. And He sighed
    deeply in His spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek a
    sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto
    this generation. And He left them, and again entering into _the
    boat_ departed to the other side. And they forgot to take bread;
    and they had not in the boat with them more than one loaf. And He
    charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the
    Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned one with
    another, saying, We have no bread. And Jesus perceiving it saith
    unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? do ye not yet
    perceive, neither understand? have ye your heart hardened? Having
    eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not
    remember? When I brake the five loaves among the five thousand,
    how many baskets full of broken pieces took ye up? They said unto
    Him, Twelve. And when the seven among the four thousand, how many
    basketfuls of broken pieces took ye up? And they said unto Him,
    Seven. And He said unto them, Do ye not yet understand?”—MARK
    viii. 11-21 (R.V.).


Whenever a miracle produced a deep and special impression, the Pharisees
strove to spoil its effect by some counter-demonstration. By so doing, and
at least appearing to hold the field, since Jesus always yielded this to
them, they encouraged their own faction, and shook the confidence of the
feeble and hesitating multitude. At almost every crisis they might have
been crushed by an appeal to the stormy passions of those whom the Lord
had blessed. Once He might have been made a king. Again and again His
enemies were conscious that an imprudent word would suffice to make the
people stone them. But that would have spoiled the real work of Jesus more
than to retreat before them, now across the lake, or, just before, into
the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. Doubtless it was this constant avoidance of
physical conflict, this habitual repression of the carnal zeal of His
supporters, this refusal to form a party instead of founding a Church,
which renewed incessantly the courage of His often-baffled foes, and led
Him, by the path of steady ceaseless self-depression, to the cross which
He foresaw, even while maintaining His unearthly calm, amid the
contradiction of sinners against Himself.

Upon the feeding of the four thousand, they demand of Him a sign from
heaven. He had wrought for the public no miracle of this peculiar kind.
And yet Moses had gone up, in the sight of all Israel, to commune with God
in the mount that burned; Samuel had been answered by thunder and rain in
the wheat harvest; and Elijah had called down fire both upon his sacrifice
and also upon two captains and their bands of fifty. Such a miracle was
now declared to be the regular authentication of a messenger from God, and
the only sign which evil spirits could not counterfeit.

Moreover the demand would specially embarrass Jesus, because He alone was
not accustomed to invoke heaven: His miracles were wrought by the exertion
of His own will. And perhaps the challenge implied some understanding of
what this peculiarity involved, such as Jesus charged them with, when
putting into their mouth the words, This is the heir, come, let us kill
Him. Certainly the demand ignored much. Conceding the fact of certain
miracles, and yet imposing new conditions of belief, they shut their eyes
to the unique nature of the works already wrought, the glory as of the
Only-begotten of the Father which they displayed. They held that thunder
and lightning revealed God more certainly than supernatural victories of
compassion, tenderness and love. What could be done for moral blindness
such as this? How could any sign be devised which unwilling hearts would
not evade? No wonder that hearing this demand, Jesus sighed deeply in His
spirit. It revealed their utter hardness; it was a snare by which others
would be entangled; and for Himself it foretold the cross.

St. Mark simply tells us that He refused to give them any sign. In St.
Matthew He justifies this decision by rebuking the moral blindness which
demanded it. They had material enough for judgment. The face of the sky
foretold storm and fair weather, and the process of nature could be
anticipated without miracles to coerce belief. And thus they should have
discerned the import of the prophecies, the course of history, the signs
of the times in which they lived, so plainly radiant with Messianic
promise, so menacing with storm-clouds of vengeance upon sin. The sign was
refused moreover to an evil and adulterous generation, as God, in the Old
Testament, would not be inquired of at all by such a people as this. This
indignant rejoinder St. Mark has compressed into the words, “There shall
no sign be given unto this generation”—this which has proof enough, and
which deserves none. Men there were to whom a sign from heaven was not
refused. At His baptism, on the Mount of Transfiguration, and when the
Voice answered His appeal, “Father, glorify Thy name,” while the multitude
said only that it thundered—at these times His chosen ones received a sign
from heaven. But from those who had not was taken away even that which
they seemed to have; and the sign of Jonah availed them not.

Once more Jesus “left them” and crossed the lake. The disciples found
themselves with but one loaf, approaching a wilder district, where the
ceremonial purity of food could not easily be ascertained. But they had
already acted on the principle which Jesus had formally proclaimed, that
all meats were clean. And therefore it was not too much to expect them to
penetrate below the letter of the words, “Take heed, beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees, and the leaven of Herod.” In giving them this enigma to
discover, He acted according to His usage, wrapping the spiritual truth in
earthly phrases, picturesque and impressive; and He treated them as life
treats every one of us, which keeps our responsibility still upon the
strain, by presenting new moral problems, fresh questions and trials of
insight, for every added attainment which lays our old tasks aside. But
they understood Him not. Some new ceremonial appeared to them to be
designed, in which everything would be reversed, and the unclean should be
those hypocrites, the strictest observers of the old code. Such a mistake,
however blameworthy, reveals the profound sense of an ever-widening chasm,
and an expectation of a final and hopeless rupture with the chiefs of
their religion. It prepares us for what is soon to come, the contrast
between the popular belief and theirs, and the selection of a rock on
which a new Church is to be built. In the meantime the dire practical
inconvenience of this announcement led to hot discussion, because they had
no bread. And Jesus, perceiving this, remonstrated in a series of
indignant questions. Personal want should not have disturbed their
judgment, remembering that twice over He had fed hungry multitudes, and
loaded them with the surplus of His gift. Their eyes and ears should have
taught them that He was indifferent to such distinctions, and His doctrine
could never result in a new Judaism. How was it that they did not
understand?

Thereupon they perceived that His warning was figurative. He had spoken to
them, after feeding the five thousand, of spiritual bread which He would
give, even His flesh to be their food. What then could He have meant by
the leaven of the Pharisees but the imparting of _their_ religious
tendencies, their teaching, and their insincerity?

Was there any real danger that these, His chosen ones, should be shaken by
the demand for a sign from heaven? Did not Philip presently, when Christ
spoke of seeing the Father, eagerly cry out that this, if it were granted,
would suffice them? In these words he confessed the misgiving which
haunted their minds, and the longing for a heavenly sign. And yet the
essence of the vision of God was in the life and the love which they had
failed to know. If they could not see Him in these, He must for ever
remain invisible to them.

We too require the same caution. When we long for miracles, neglecting
those standing miracles of our faith, the gospel and the Church: when our
reason is satisfied of a doctrine or a duty, and yet we remain irresolute,
sighing for the impulse of some rare spiritual enlightenment or
excitement, for a revival, or a mission, or an oration to lift us above
ourselves, we are virtually asking to be shown what we already confess, to
behold a sign, while we possess the evidence.

And the only wisdom of the languid, irresolute will, which postpones
action in hope that feeling may be deepened, is to pray. It is by the
effort of communion with the unfelt, but confessed Reality above us, that
healthy feeling is to be recovered.




Men As Trees.


    “And they come unto Bethsaida. And they bring to Him a blind man,
    and beseech Him to touch him. And He took hold of the blind man by
    the hand, and brought him out of the village; and when He had spit
    on his eyes, and laid His hands upon him, He asked him, Seest thou
    aught? And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I behold _them_
    as trees, walking. Then again He laid His hands upon his eyes; and
    he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw all things
    clearly. And He sent him away to his home, saying, Do not even
    enter into the village.”—MARK viii. 22-26 (R.V.).


When the disciples arrived at Bethsaida, they were met by the friends of a
blind man, who besought Him to touch him. And this gave occasion to the
most remarkable by far of all the progressive and tentative miracles, in
which means were employed, and the result was gradually reached. The
reasons for advancing to this cure by progressive stages have been much
discussed. St. Chrysostom and many others have conjectured that the blind
man had but little faith, since he neither found his own way to Jesus, nor
pleaded his own cause, like Bartimæus. Others brought him, and interceded
for him. This may be so, but since he was clearly a consenting party, we
can infer little from details which constitutional timidity would explain,
or helplessness (for the resources of the blind are very various), or the
zeal of friends or of paid servants, or the mere eagerness of a crowd,
pushing him forward in desire to see a marvel.

We cannot expect always to penetrate the motives which varied our
Saviour’s mode of action; it is enough that we can pretty clearly discern
some principles which led to their variety. Many of them, including all
the greatest, were wrought without instrumentality and without delay,
showing His unrestricted and underived power. Others were gradual, and
wrought by means. These connected His “signs” with nature and the God of
nature; and they could be so watched as to silence many a cavil; and they
exhibited, by the very disproportion of the means, the grandeur of the
Worker. In this respect the successive stages of a miracle were like the
subdivisions by which a skilful architect increases the effect of a
_façade_ or an interior. In every case the means employed were such as to
connect the result most intimately with the person as well as the will of
Christ.

It must be repeated also, that the need of secondary agents shows itself,
only as the increasing wilfulness of Israel separates between Christ and
the people. It is as if the first rush of generous and spontaneous power
had been frozen by the chill of their ingratitude.

Jesus again, as when healing the deaf and dumb, withdraws from idle
curiosity. And we read, what is very impressive when we remember that any
of the disciples could have been bidden to lead the blind man, that Jesus
Himself drew Him by the hand out of the village. What would have been
affectation in other cases was a graceful courtesy to the blind. And it
reveals to us the hearty human benignity and condescension of Him Whom to
see was to see the Father, that He should have clasped in His helpful hand
the hand of a blind suppliant for His grace. Moistening his eyes from His
own lips, and laying His hands upon him, so as to convey the utmost
assurance of power actually exerted, He asked, Seest thou aught?

The answer is very striking: it is such as the knowledge of that day could
scarcely have imagined; and yet it is in the closest accord with later
scientific discovery. What we call the act of vision is really a two-fold
process; there is in it the report of the nerves to the brain, and also an
inference, drawn by the mind, which previous experience has educated to
understand what that report implies. For want of such experience, an
infant thinks the moon as near him as the lamp, and reaches out for it.
And when Christian science does its Master’s work by opening the eyes of
men who have been born blind, they do not know at first what appearances
belong to globes and what to flat and square objects. It is certain that
every image conveyed to the brain reaches it upside down, and is corrected
there. When Jesus then restored a blind man to the perfect enjoyment of
effective intelligent vision, He wrought a double miracle; one which
instructed the intelligence of the blind man as well as opened his eyes.
This was utterly unknown to that age. But the scepticism of our century
would complain that to open the eyes was not enough, and that such a
miracle would have left the man perplexed; and it would refuse to accept
narratives which took no account of this difficulty, but that the cavil is
anticipated. The miracle now before us refutes it in advance, for it
recognises, what no spectator and no early reader of the marvel could have
understood, the middle stage, when sight is gained but is still
uncomprehended and ineffective. The process is shown as well as the
completed work. Only by their motion could he at first distinguish living
creatures from lifeless things of far greater bulk. “He looked up,” (mark
this picturesque detail,) “and said, I see men; for I behold them as
trees, walking.”

But Jesus leaves no unfinished work: “Then again laid He His hands upon
his eyes, and he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw all things
clearly.”

In this narrative there is a deep significance. That vision, forfeited
until grace restores it, by which we look at the things which are not
seen, is not always quite restored at once. We are conscious of great
perplexity, obscurity and confusion. But a real work of Christ may have
begun amid much that is imperfect, much that is even erroneous. And the
path of the just is often a haze and twilight at the first, yet is its
light real, and one that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.




The Confession And The Warning.


    “And Jesus went forth, and His disciples, into the villages of
    Cæsarea Philippi: and in the way He asked His disciples, saying
    unto them, Who do men say that I am? And they told Him, saying,
    John the Baptist: and others, Elijah; but others, One of the
    prophets. And He asked them, But Who say ye that I am? Peter
    answereth and saith unto Him, Thou art the Christ. And He charged
    them that they should tell no man of Him. And He began to teach
    them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected
    by the elders, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be
    killed, and after three days rise again. And He spake the saying
    openly.”—MARK viii. 27-32 (R.V.).


We have now reached an important stage in the Gospel narrative, the
comparative withdrawal from evangelistic effort, and the preparation of
the disciples for an approaching tragedy. We find them in the wild country
to the north of the Lake of Galilee, and even as far withdrawn as to the
neighbourhood of the sources of the Jordan. Not without a deliberate
intention has Jesus led them thither. He wishes them to realise their
separation. He will fix upon their consciousness the failure of the world
to comprehend Him, and give them the opportunity either to acknowledge
Him, or sink back to the lower level of the crowd.

This is what interests St. Mark; and it is worthy of notice that he, the
friend of Peter, mentions not the special honour bestowed upon him by
Christ, nor the first utterance of the memorable words “My Church.”

“Who do men say that I am?” Jesus asked. The answer would tell of
acceptance or rejection, the success or failure of His ministry, regarded
in itself, and apart from ultimate issues unknown to mortals. From this
point of view it had very plainly failed. At the beginning there was a
clear hope that this was He that should come, the Son of David, the Holy
One of God. But now the pitch of men’s expectation was lowered. Some said,
John the Baptist, risen from the dead, as Herod feared; others spoke of
Elijah, who was to come before the great and notable day of the Lord; in
the sadness of His later days some had begun to see a resemblance to
Jeremiah, lamenting the ruin of his nation; and others fancied a
resemblance to various of the prophets. Beyond this the apostles confessed
that men were not known to go. Their enthusiasm had cooled, almost as
rapidly as in the triumphal procession, where they who blessed both Him,
and “the kingdom that cometh,” no sooner felt the chill of contact with
the priestly faction, than their confession dwindled into “This is Jesus,
the prophet of Nazareth.” “But Who say ye that I am?” He added; and it
depended on the answer whether or not there should prove to be any solid
foundation, any rock, on which to build His Church. Much difference, much
error may be tolerated there, but on one subject there must be no
hesitation. To make Him only a prophet among others, to honour Him even as
the first among the teachers of mankind, is to empty His life of its
meaning, His death of its efficacy, and His Church of its authority. And
yet the danger was real, as we may see by the fervent blessing (unrecorded
in our Gospel) which the right answer won. For it was no longer the bright
morning of His career, when all bare Him witness and wondered; the noon
was over now, and the evening shadows were heavy and lowering. To confess
Him then was to have learned what flesh and blood could not reveal.

But Peter did not hesitate. In answer to the question, “Who say _ye_? Is
your judgment like the the world’s?” He does not reply, “We believe, we
say,” but with all the vigour of a mind at rest, “Thou art the Christ;”
that is not even a subject of discussion: the fact is so.

Here one pauses to admire the spirit of the disciples, so unjustly treated
in popular exposition because they were but human, because there were
dangers which could appal them, and because the course of providence was
designed to teach them how weak is the loftiest human virtue.
Nevertheless, they could part company with all they had been taught to
reverence and with the unanimous opinion of their native land, they could
watch the slow fading out of public enthusiasm, and continue faithful,
because they knew and revered the Divine life, and the glory which was
hidden from the wise and prudent.

The confession of Peter is variously stated in the Gospels. St. Matthew
wrote for Jews, familiar with the notion of a merely human Christ, and St.
Luke for mixed Churches. Therefore the first Gospel gives the explicit
avowal not only of Messiahship, but of divinity; and the third Gospel
implies this. “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”—“the Christ
of God.” But St. Mark wrote for Gentiles, whose first and only notion of
the Messiah was derived from Christian sources, and steeped in Christian
attributes, so that, for their intelligence, all the great avowal was
implied in the title itself, Thou art the Christ. Yet it is instructive to
see men insisting on the difference, and even exaggerating it, who know
that this Gospel opens with an assertion of the Divine sonship of Jesus,
and whose theory is that its author worked with the Gospel of St. Matthew
before his eyes. How then, or why, do they suppose the confession to have
been weakened?

This foundation of His Church being secured, His Divine Messiahship being
confessed in the face of an unbelieving world, Jesus lost no time in
leading His apostles forward. They were forbidden to tell any man of Him:
the vain hope was to be absolutely suppressed of winning the people to
confess their king. The effort would only make it harder for themselves to
accept that stern truth which they were now to learn, that His matchless
royalty was to be won by matchless suffering. Never hitherto had Jesus
proclaimed this truth, as He now did, in so many words. It had been,
indeed, the secret spring of many of His sayings; and we ought to mark
what loving ingenuity was lavished upon the task of gradually preparing
them for the dread shock of this announcement. The Bridegroom was to be
taken away from them, and then they should fast. The temple of His body
should be destroyed, and in three days reared again. The blood of all the
slaughtered prophets was to come upon this generation. It should suffice
them when persecuted unto death, that the disciple was as His Master. It
was still a plainer intimation when He said, that to follow Him was to
take up a cross. His flesh was promised to them for meat and His blood for
drink. (Chap. ii. 20; John ii. 19; Luke xi. 50; Matt. x. 21, 25; 38; John
vi. 54.) Such intimations Jesus had already given them, and doubtless many
a cold shadow, many a dire misgiving had crept over their sunny hopes. But
these it had been possible to explain away, and the effort, the attitude
of mental antagonism thus forced upon them, would make the grief more
bitter, the gloom more deadly, when Jesus spoke openly the saying,
thenceforth so frequently repeated, that He must suffer keenly, be
rejected formally by the chiefs of His creed and nation, and be killed.
When He recurs to the subject (ix. 31), He adds the horror of being
“delivered into the hands of men.” In the tenth chapter we find Him
setting His face toward the city outside which a prophet could not perish,
with such fixed purpose and awful consecration in His bearing that His
followers were amazed and afraid. And then He reveals the complicity of
the Gentiles, who shall mock and spit upon and scourge and kill Him.

But in every case, without exception, He announced that on the third day
He should arise again. For neither was He Himself sustained by a sullen
and stoical submission to the worst, nor did He seek so to instruct His
followers. It was for the joy that was set before Him that He endured the
cross. And all the faithful who suffer with Him shall also reign together
with Him, and are instructed to press toward the mark for the prize of
their high calling. For we are saved by hope.

But now, contrast with the utmost courage of the martyrs, who braved the
worst, when it emerged at the last suddenly from the veil which mercifully
hides our future, and which hope can always gild with starry pictures,
this courage that looked steadily forward, disguising nothing, hoping for
no escape, living through all the agony so long before it came, seeing His
wounds in the breaking of bread, and His blood when wine was poured.
Consider how marvellous was the love, which met with no real sympathy, nor
even comprehension, as He spoke such dreadful words, and forced Himself to
repeat what must have shaken the barb He carried in His heart, that
by-and-by His followers might be somewhat helped by remembering that He
had told them.

And yet again, consider how immediately the doctrine of His suffering
follows upon the confession of His Christhood, and judge whether the
crucifixion was merely a painful incident, the sad close of a noble life
and a pure ministry, or in itself a necessary and cardinal event, fraught
with transcendent issues.




The Rebuke Of Peter.


    “And He spake the saying openly. And Peter took Him, and began to
    rebuke Him.” ... “And He said unto them, Verily I say unto you,
    There be some here of them that stand by, which shall in no wise
    taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with
    power.”—MARK viii. 32-ix. 1 (R.V.).


The doctrine of a suffering Messiah was strange in the time of Jesus. And
to the warm-hearted apostle the announcement that his beloved Master
should endure a shameful death was keenly painful. Moreover, what had just
passed made it specially unwelcome then. Jesus had accepted and applauded
a confession which implied all honour. He had promised to build a new
Church upon a rock; and claimed, as His to give away, the keys of the
kingdom of heaven. Hopes were thus excited which could not brook His stern
repression; and the career which the apostle promised himself was very
unlike that defence of a lost cause, and a persecuted and martyred leader,
which now threatened him. The rebuke of Jesus clearly warns Peter, that he
had miscalculated his own prospect as well as that of his Lord, and that
he must prepare for the burden of a cross. Above all, it is plain that
Peter was intoxicated by the great position just assigned to him, and
allowed himself an utterly strange freedom of interference with his
Master’s plans. He “took Him and began to rebuke Him,” evidently drawing
Him aside for the purpose, since Jesus “turned about” in order to see the
disciples whom He had just addressed. Thus our narrative implies that
commission of the keys to him which it omits to mention, and we learn how
absurd is the infidel contention that each evangelist was ignorant of all
that he did not record. Did the appeal against those gloomy forebodings of
Jesus, the protest that such evil must not be, the refusal to recognise a
prophecy in His fears, awaken any answer in the sinless heart? Sympathy
was not there, nor approval, nor any shade of readiness to yield. But
innocent human desire for escape, the love of life, horror of His fate,
more intense as it vibrated in the apostle’s shaken voice, these He
assuredly felt. For He tells us in so many words that Peter was a
stumbling-block to Him, although He, walking in the clear day, stumbled
not. Jesus, let us repeat it again and again, endured not like a Stoic,
deadening the natural impulses of humanity. Whatever outraged His tender
and perfect nature was not less dreadful to Him than to us; it was much
more so, because His sensibilities were unblunted and exquisitely strung.
At every thought of what lay before Him, his soul shuddered like a rudely
touched instrument of most delicate structure. And it was necessary that
He should throw back the temptation with indignation and even vehemence,
with the rebuke of heaven set against the presumptuous rebuke of flesh,
“Get thee behind Me ... for thou art mindful not of the things of God, but
the things of men.”

But what shall we say to the hard word, “Satan”? Assuredly Peter, who
remained faithful to Him, did not take it for an outbreak of bitterness,
an exaggerated epithet of unbridled and undisciplined resentment. The very
time occupied in looking around, the “circumspection” which was shown,
while it gave emphasis, removed passion from the saying.

Peter would therefore understand that Jesus heard, in his voice, the
prompting of the great tempter, to whom He had once already spoken the
same words. He would be warned that soft and indulgent sentiment, while
seeming kind, may become the very snare of the destroyer.

And the strong word which sobered him will continue to be a warning to the
end of time.

When love of ease or worldly prospects would lead us to discourage the
self-devotion, and repress the zeal of any convert; when toil or
liberality beyond the recognised level seems a thing to discountenance,
not because it is perhaps misguided, but only because it is exceptional;
when, for a brother or a son, we are tempted to prefer an easy and
prosperous life rather than a fruitful but stern and even perilous course,
then we are in the same danger as Peter of becoming the mouthpiece of the
Evil One.

Danger and hardness are not to be chosen for their own sake; but to reject
a noble vocation, because these are in the way, is to mind not the things
of God but the things of men. And yet the temptation is one from which men
are never free, and which intrudes into what seems most holy. It dared to
assail Jesus; and it is most perilous still, because it often speaks to
us, as then to Him, through compassionate and loving lips.

But now the Lord calls to Himself all the multitude, and lays down the
rule by which discipleship must to the end be regulated.

The inflexible law is, that every follower of Jesus must deny himself and
take up his cross. It is not said, Let him devise some harsh and ingenious
instrument of self-torture: wanton self-torture is cruelty, and is often
due to the soul’s readiness rather to endure any other suffering than that
which God assigns. Nor is it said, Let him take up My cross, for the
burden Christ bore devolves upon no other: the fight He fought is over.

But it speaks of some cross allotted, known, but not yet accepted, some
lowly form of suffering, passive or active, against which nature pleads,
as Jesus heard His own nature pleading when Peter spoke. In taking up this
cross we must deny self, for it will refuse the dreadful burden. What it
is, no man can tell his neighbour, for often what seems a fatal besetment
is but a symptom and not the true disease; and the angry man’s
irritability, and the drunkard’s resort to stimulants, are due to remorse
and self-reproach for a deeper-hidden evil gnawing the spiritual life
away. But the man himself knows it. Our exhortations miss the mark when we
bid him reform in this direction or in that, but conscience does not err;
and he well discerns the effort or the renouncement, hateful to him as the
very cross itself, by which alone he can enter into life.

To him, that life seems death, the death of all for which he cares to
live, being indeed the death of selfishness. But from the beginning, when
God in Eden set a barrier against lawless appetite, it was announced that
the seeming life of self-indulgence and of disobedience was really death.
In the day when Adam ate of the forbidden fruit he surely died. And thus
our Lord declared that whosoever is resolved to save his life—the life of
wayward, isolated selfishness—he shall lose all its reality, the sap, the
sweetness, and the glow of it. And whosoever is content to lose all this
for the sake of the Great Cause, the cause of Jesus and His gospel, he
shall save it.

It was thus that the great apostle was crucified with Christ, yet lived,
and yet no longer he, for Christ Himself inspired in his breast a nobler
and deeper life than that which he had lost, for Jesus and the gospel. The
world knows, as the Church does, how much superior is self-devotion to
self-indulgence, and that one crowded hour of glorious life is worth an
age without a name. Its imagination is not inflamed by the picture of
indolence and luxury, but by resolute and victorious effort. But it knows
not how to master the rebellious senses, nor how to insure victory in the
struggle, nor how to bestow upon the masses, plunged in their monotonous
toils, the rapture of triumphant strife. That can only be done by
revealing to them the spiritual responsibilities of life, and the beauty
of His love Who calls the humblest to walk in His own sacred footsteps.

Very striking is the moderation of Jesus, Who does not refuse discipleship
to self-seeking wishes but only to the self-seeking will, in which wishes
have ripened into choice, nor does He demand that we should welcome the
loss of the inferior life, but only that we should accept it. He can be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

And striking also is this, that He condemns not the vicious life only: not
alone the man whose desires are sensual and depraved; but all who live for
self. No matter how refined and artistic the personal ambitions be, to
devote ourselves to them is to lose the reality of life, it is to become
querulous or jealous or vain or forgetful of the claims of other men, or
scornful of the crowd. Not self-culture but self-sacrifice is the vocation
of the child of God.

Many people speak as if this text bade us sacrifice the present life in
hope of gaining another life beyond the grave. That is apparently the
common notion of saving our “souls.” But Jesus used one word for the
“life” renounced and gained. He spoke indeed of saving it unto life
eternal, but His hearers were men who trusted that they had eternal life,
not that it was a far-off aspiration (John vi. 47, 54).

And it is doubtless in the same sense, thinking of the freshness and joy
which we sacrifice for worldliness, and how sadly and soon we are
disillusionised, that He went on to ask, What shall it profit a man to
gain the whole world and forfeit His life? Or with what price shall he buy
it back when he discovers his error? But that discovery is too often
postponed beyond the horizon of mortality. As one desire proves futile,
another catches the eye, and somewhat excites again the often baffled
hope. But the day shall come when the last self-deception shall be at an
end. The cross of the Son of man, that type of all noble sacrifice, shall
then be replaced by the glory of His Father with the holy angels; and
ignoble compromise, aware of Jesus and His words, yet ashamed of them in a
vicious and self-indulgent age, shall in turn endure His averted face.
What price shall they offer then, to buy back what they have forfeited?

Men who were standing there should see the beginning of the end, the
approach of the kingdom of God with power, in the fall of Jerusalem, and
the removal of the Hebrew candlestick out of its place.





CHAPTER IX.




The Transfiguration.


    “And after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, and
    John, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by
    themselves: and He was transfigured before them: and His garments
    became glistering, exceeding white: so as no fuller on earth can
    whiten them. And there appeared unto them Elijah with Moses: and
    they were talking with Jesus. And Peter answered and saith to
    Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three
    tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
    For He wist not what to answer; for they became sore afraid. And
    there came a cloud overshadowing them: and there came a voice out
    of the cloud, This is My beloved Son: hear ye Him. And suddenly
    looking round about, they saw no one any more, save Jesus only
    with themselves.”—MARK ix. 2-8 (R.V.).


The Transfiguration is an event without a parallel in all the story of our
Lord. This breaking forth of unearthly splendour in a life of
self-negation, this miracle wrought without suffering to be relieved or
want supplied, and in which He seems to be not the Giver of Help but the
Receiver of Glory, arrests our attention less by the greatness of the
marvel than by its loneliness.

But if myth or legend had to do with the making of our Gospels, we should
have had wonders enough which bless no suppliant, but only crown the
sacred head with laurels. They are as plentiful in the false Gospels as in
the later stories of Mahomed or Gautama. Can we find a sufficient
difference between these romantic tales and this memorable event—causes
enough to lead up to it, and ends enough for it to serve?

An answer is hinted by the stress laid in all three narratives upon the
date of the Transfiguration. It was “after six days” according to the
first two. St. Luke reckons the broken portions of the first day and the
last, and makes it “about eight days after these sayings.” A week has
passed since the solemn announcement that their Lord was journeying to a
cruel death, that self pity was discordant with the things of God, that
all His followers must in spirit endure the cross, that life was to be won
by losing it. Of that week no action is recorded, and we may well believe
that it was spent in profound searchings of heart. The thief Iscariot
would more than ever be estranged. The rest would aspire and struggle and
recoil, and explain away His words in such strange ways, as when they
presently failed to understand what the rising again from the dead should
mean (ver. 10). But in the deep heart of Jesus there was peace, the same
which He bequeathed to all His followers, the perfect calm of an
absolutely surrendered will. He had made the dread announcement and
rejected the insidious appeal; the sacrifice was already accomplished in
his inner self, and the word spoken, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. We
must steadily resist the notion that the Transfiguration was required to
confirm His consecration; or, after six days had passed since He bade
Satan get behind Him, to complete and perfect His decision. Yet doubtless
it had its meaning for Him also. Such times of more than heroic
self-devotion make large demands upon the vital energies. And He whom the
angels more than once sustained, now sought refreshment in the pure air
and solemn silence of the hills, and above all in communion with His
Father, since we read in St. Luke that He went up to pray. Who shall say
how far-reaching, how all-embracing such a prayer would be? What age, what
race may not hope to have shared its intercessions, remembering how He
once expressly prayed not for His immediate followers alone. But we need
not doubt that now, as in the Garden, He prayed also for Himself, and for
support in the approaching death-struggle. And the Twelve, so keenly
tried, would be especially remembered in this season. And even among these
there would be distinctions; for we know His manner, we remember that when
Satan claimed to have them all, Jesus prayed especially for Peter, because
his conversion would strengthen his brethren. Now this principle of
benefit to all through the selection of the fittest, explains why three
were chosen to be the eye-witnesses of His glory. If the others had been
there, perhaps they would have been led away into millennarian day-dreams.
Perhaps the worldly aspirations of Judas, thus inflamed, would have spread
far. Perhaps they would have murmured against that return to common life,
which St. Peter was so anxious to postpone. Perhaps even the chosen three
were only saved from intoxicating and delusive hopes by the sobering
knowledge that what they had seen was to remain a secret until some
intervening and mysterious event. The unripeness of the others for special
revelations was abundantly shown, on the morrow, by their failure to cast
out a devil. It was enough that their leaders should have this grand
confirmation of their faith. There was among them, henceforth, a secret
fountain of encouragement and trust, amid the darkest circumstances. The
panic in which all forsook Him might have been final, but for this vision
of His glory. For it is noteworthy that these three are the foremost
afterwards in sincere though frail devotion: one offering to die with Him,
and the others desiring to drink of His cup and to be baptized with His
baptism.

While Jesus prays for them, He is Himself made the source of their
revival. He had lately promised that they who willed to lose their life
should find it unto life eternal. And now, in Him who had perfectly so
willed, they beheld the eternal glory beaming forth, until His very
garments were steeped in light. There is no need of proof that the spirit
has power over the body; the question is only of degree. Vile passions can
permanently degrade human comeliness. And there is a beauty beyond that of
line or colour, seen in vivid hours of emotion, on the features of a
mother beside her sleeping babe, of an orator when his soul burns within
him, of a martyr when his face is as the face of an angel, and often
making fairer than youthful bloom the old age that has suffered long and
been kind. These help us, however faintly, to believe that there is a
spiritual body, and that we may yet bear the image of the heavenly. And so
once, if only once, it is given to sinful men to see how a perfect spirit
can illuminate its fleshly tabernacle, as a flame illuminates a lamp, and
what the life is like in which self-crucifixion issues. In this hour of
rapt devotion His body was steeped in the splendour which was natural to
holiness, and which would never have grown dim but that the great
sacrifice had still to be carried out in action. We shall best think of
the glories of transfiguration not as poured over Jesus, but as a
revelation from within. Moreover, while they gaze, the conquering chiefs
of the Old Testament approach the Man of Sorrows. Because the spirit of
the hour is that of self-devotion, they see not Abraham, the prosperous
friend of God, nor Isaiah whose burning words befit the lips that were
touched by fire from an unearthly altar, but the heroic law-giver and the
lion-hearted prophet, the typical champions of the ancient dispensation.
Elijah had not seen death; a majestic obscurity veiled the ashes of Moses
from excess of honour; yet these were not offended by the cross which
tried so cruelly the faith of the apostles. They spoke of His decease, and
their word seems to have lingered in the narrative as strangely
appropriate to one of the speakers; it is Christ’s “exodus.”(11)

But St. Mark does not linger over this detail, nor mention the drowsiness
with which they struggled; he leans all the weight of his vivid narrative
upon one great fact, the evidence now given of our Lord’s absolute
supremacy.

For, at this juncture Peter interposed. He “answered,” a phrase which
points to his consciousness that he was no unconcerned bystander, that the
vision was in some degree addressed to him and his companions. But he
answers at random, and like a man distraught. “Lord, it is good for us to
be here,” as if it were not always good to be where Jesus led, even though
men should bear a cross to follow Him. Intoxicated by the joy of seeing
the King in His beauty, and doubtless by the revulsion of new hope in the
stead of his dolorous forebodings, he proposes to linger there. He will
have more than is granted, just as, when Jesus washed his feet, he said
“not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” And if this might be,
it was fitting that these superhuman personages should have tabernacles
made for them. No doubt the assertion that he wist not what to say, bears
specially upon this strange offer to shelter glorified bodies from the
night air, and to provide for each a place of separate repose. The words
are incoherent, but they are quite natural from one who has so impulsively
begun to speak that now he must talk on, because he knows not how to stop.
They are the words of the very Peter whose actions we know so well. As he
formerly walked upon the sea, before considering how boisterous were the
waves, and would soon afterwards smite with the sword, and risk himself in
the High Priest’s palace, without seeing his way through either adventure,
exactly so in this bewildering presence he ventures into a sentence
without knowing how to close it.

Now this perfect accuracy of character, so dramatic and yet so unaffected,
is evidence of the truth of this great miracle. To a frank student who
knows human nature, it is a very admirable evidence. To one who knows how
clumsily such effects are produced by all but the greatest masters of
creative literature, it is almost decisive.

In speaking thus, he has lowered his Master to the level of the others,
unconscious that Moses and Elijah were only attendants upon Jesus, who
have come from heaven because He is upon earth, and who speak not of their
achievements but of His sufferings. If Peter knew it, the hour had struck
when their work, the law of Moses and the utterances of the prophets whom
Elijah represented, should cease to be the chief impulse in religion, and
without being destroyed, should be “fulfilled,” and absorbed in a new
system. He was there to whom Moses in the law, and the prophets bore
witness, and in His presence they had no glory by reason of the glory that
excelleth. Yet Peter would fain build equal tabernacles for all alike.

Now St. Luke tells us that he interposed just when they were departing,
and apparently in the hope of staying them. But all the narratives convey
a strong impression that his words hastened their disappearance, and
decided the manner of it. For while he yet spake, as if all the vision
were eclipsed on being thus misunderstood, a cloud swept over the
three—bright, yet overshadowing them—and the voice of God proclaimed their
Lord to be His beloved Son (not faithful only, like Moses, as a steward
over the house), and bade them, instead of desiring to arrest the flight
of rival teachers, hear Him.

Too often Christian souls err after the same fashion. We cling to
authoritative teachers, familiar ordinances, and traditional views, good
it may be, and even divinely given, as if they were not intended wholly to
lead us up to Christ. And in many a spiritual eclipse, from many a cloud
which the heart fears to enter, the great lesson resounds through the
conscience of the believer, Hear Him!

Did the words remind Peter how he had lately begun to rebuke his Lord? Did
the visible glory, the ministration of blessed spirits and the voice of
God, teach him henceforth to hear and to submit? Alas, he could again
contradict Jesus, and say Thou shalt never wash my feet. I never will deny
Thee. And we, who wonder and blame him, as easily forget what we are
taught.

Let it be observed that the miraculous and Divine Voice reveals nothing
new to them. For the words, This is My beloved Son, and also their drift
in raising Him above all rivalry, were involved in the recent confession
of this very Peter that He was neither Elijah nor one of the prophets, but
the Son of the Living God. So true is it that we may receive a truth into
our creed, and even apprehend it with such vital faith as makes us
“blessed,” long before it grasps and subdues our nature, and saturates the
obscure regions where impulse and excitement are controlled. What we all
need most is not clearer and sounder views, but the bringing of our
thoughts into subjection to the mind of Jesus.




The Descent From The Mount.


    “And as they were coming down from the mountain, He charged them
    that they should tell no man what things they had seen, save when
    the Son of man should have risen again from the dead. And they
    kept the saying, questioning among themselves what the rising
    again from the dead should mean. And they asked Him, saying, The
    scribes say that Elijah must first come. And He said unto them,
    Elijah indeed cometh first, and restoreth all things: and how is
    it written of the Son of man, that He should suffer many things
    and be set at nought? But I say unto you, that Elijah is come, and
    they have also done unto him whatsoever they listed, even as it is
    written of Him.”—MARK ix. 9-13 (R.V.).


In what state of mind did the apostles return from beholding the glory of
the Lord, and His ministers from another world? They seem to have been
excited, demonstrative, ready to blaze abroad the wonderful event which
ought to put an end to all men’s doubts.

They would have been bitterly disappointed, if they had prematurely
exposed their experience to ridicule, cross-examination, conjectural
theories, and all the controversy which reduces facts to logical form, but
strips them of their freshness and vitality. In the first age as in the
nineteenth, it was possible to be witnesses for the Lord without exposing
to coarse and irreverent handling all the delicate and secret experiences
of the soul with Christ.

Therefore Jesus charged them that they should tell no man. Silence would
force back the impression upon the depths of their own spirits, and spread
its roots under the surface there.

Nor was it right to make such a startling demand upon the faith of others
before public evidence had been given, enough to make scepticism
blameworthy. His resurrection from the dead would suffice to unseal their
lips. And the experience of all the Church has justified that decision.
The resurrection is, in fact, the centre of all the miraculous narratives,
the sun which keeps them in their orbit. Some of them, as isolated events,
might have failed to challenge credence. But authority and sanction are
given to all the rest by this great and publicly attested marvel, which
has modified history, and the denial of which makes history at once
untrustworthy and incoherent. When Jesus rose from the dead, the whole
significance of His life and its events was deepened.

This mention of the resurrection called them away from pleasant
day-dreams, by reminding them that their Master was to die. For Him there
was no illusion. Coming back from the light and voices of heaven, the
cross before Him was as visible as ever to His undazzled eyes, and He was
still the sober and vigilant friend to warn them against false hopes. They
however found means of explaining the unwelcome truth away. Various
theories were discussed among them, what the rising from the dead should
mean, what should be in fact the limit to their silence. This very
perplexity, and the chill upon their hopes, aided them to keep the matter
close.

One hope was too strong not to be at least hinted to Jesus. They had just
seen Elias. Surely they were right in expecting his interference, as the
scribes had taught. Instead of a lonely road pursued by the Messiah to a
painful death, should not that great prophet come as a forerunner and
restore all things? How then was murderous opposition possible?

And Jesus answered that one day this should come to pass. The herald
should indeed reconcile all hearts, before the great and notable day of
the Lord come. But for the present time there was another question. That
promise to which they clung, was it their only light upon futurity? Was
not the assertion quite as plain that the Son of Man should suffer many
things and be set at nought? So far was Jesus from that state of mind in
which men buoy themselves up with false hope. No apparent prophecy, no
splendid vision, deceived His unerring insight. And yet no despair
arrested His energies for one hour.

But, He added, Elias had already been offered to this generation in vain;
they had done to him as they listed. They had re-enacted what history
recorded of his life on earth.

Then a veil dropped from the disciples’ eyes. They recognised the dweller
in lonely places, the man of hairy garment and ascetic life, persecuted by
a feeble tyrant who cowered before his rebuke, and by the deadlier hatred
of an adulterous queen. They saw how the very name of Elias raised a
probability that the second prophet should be treated “as it is written
of” the first.

If then they had so strangely misjudged the preparation of His way, what
might they not apprehend of the issue? So should also the Son of man
suffer of them.

Do we wonder that they had not hitherto recognised the prophet? Perhaps,
when all is made clear at last, we shall wonder more at our own refusals
of reverence, our blindness to the meaning of noble lives, our moderate
and qualified respect for men of whom the world is not worthy.

How much solid greatness would some of us overlook, if it went with an
unpolished and unattractive exterior? Now the Baptist was a rude and
abrupt person, of little culture, unwelcome in kings’ houses. Yet no
greater had been born of woman.




The Demoniac Boy.


    “And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great multitude
    about them, and scribes questioning with them. And straightway all
    the multitude, when they saw Him, were greatly amazed, and running
    to Him saluted Him. And He asked them, What question ye with them?
    And one of the multitude answered Him, Master, I brought unto Thee
    my son, which hath a dumb spirit; and wheresoever it taketh him,
    it dasheth him down: and he foameth, and grindeth his teeth, and
    pineth away: and I spake to Thy disciples that they should cast it
    out; and they were not able. And He answered them and saith, O
    faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall
    I bear with you? bring him unto Me. And they brought him unto Him:
    and when He saw him, straightway the spirit tare him grievously;
    and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. And He asked his
    father, How long time is it since this hath come unto him? And he
    said, From a child. And oft-times it hath cast him both into the
    fire and into the waters, to destroy him: but if Thou canst do
    anything, have compassion on us, and help us. And Jesus said unto
    him, If thou canst! All things are possible to him that believeth.
    Straightway the father of the child cried out, and said, I
    believe; help Thou mine unbelief. And when Jesus saw that a
    multitude came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit,
    saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee, come
    out of him, and enter no more into him. And having cried out, and
    torn him much, he came out: and _the child_ became as one dead;
    insomuch that the more part said, He is dead. But Jesus took Him
    by the hand, and raised him up; and he arose! And when He was come
    into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, _saying_, We
    could not cast it out. And He said unto them, This kind can come
    out by nothing, save by prayer.”—MARK ix. 14-29 (R.V.).


Peter soon had striking evidence that it would not have been “good” for
them to linger too long upon the mountain. And our Lord was recalled with
painful abruptness from the glories of transfiguration to the scepticism
of scribes, the failure and shame of disciples, and the triumph of the
powers of evil.

To the Twelve He had explicitly given authority over devils, and even the
Seventy, venturing by faith to cast them out, had told Him of their
success with joy. But now, in the sorrow and fear of these latter days,
deprived of their Master and of their own foremost three, oppressed with
gloomy forebodings, and infected with the worldliness which fails to pray,
the nine had striven in vain. It is the only distinct repulse recorded,
and the scribes attacked them keenly. Where was their Master at this
crisis? Did not they profess equally to have the necessary power? Here was
a test, and some failed, and the others did not present themselves. We can
imagine the miserable scene, contrasting piteously with what passed on the
summit of the hill. And in the centre was an agonized father and a
tortured lad.

At this moment the crowds, profoundly moved, rushed to meet the Lord, and
on seeing Him, became aware that failure was at an end. Perhaps the
exceeding brightness lingered still upon His face; perhaps it was but the
unearthly and victorious calm of His consecration, visible in His mien;
what is certain is that they were greatly amazed, and ran to Him and did
homage.

Jesus at once challenged a renewal of the attack which had been too much
for His apostles. “What question ye with them?” But awe has fallen upon
the scribes also, and misery is left to tell its own tale. Their attack by
preference upon the disciples is very natural, and it by no means stands
alone. They did not ask Him, but His followers, why He ate and drank with
sinners, nor whether He paid the half-shekel (Mark ii. 16; Matt. xvii.
24). When they did complain to the Master Himself, it was commonly of some
fault in His disciples: Why do Thy disciples fast not? Why they do on the
Sabbath day that which is not lawful? Why do they eat with defiled hands?
(Mark ii. 18, 24; vii. 5). Their censures of Himself were usually muttered
or silent murmurings, which He discerned, as when He forgave the sins of
the palsied man; when the Pharisee marvelled that He had not washed His
hands; when He accepted the homage of the sinful woman, and again when He
spoke her pardon (Mark ii. 8; Luke xi. 38; vii. 39-49). When He healed the
woman whom a spirit of infirmity had bent down for eighteen years, the
ruler of the synagogue spoke to the people, without venturing to address
Jesus. (Luke xiii. 14).

It is important to observe such indications, unobtrusive, and related by
various evangelists, of the majesty and impressiveness which surrounded
our Lord, and awed even His bitter foes.

The silence is broken by an unhappy father, who had been the centre of the
group, but whom the abrupt movement to meet Jesus has merged in the crowd
again. The case of his son is among those which prove that demoniacal
possession did not imply the exceptional guilt of its victims, for though
still young, he has suffered long. The demon which afflicts him is dumb;
it works in the guise of epilepsy, and as a disease it is affected by the
changes of the moon; a malicious design is visible in frequent falls into
fire and water, to destroy him. The father had sought Jesus with him, and
since He was absent had appealed to His followers, but in vain. Some
consequent injury to his own faith, clearly implied in what follows, may
possibly be detected already, in the absence of any further petition, and
in the cold epithet, “Teacher,” which he employs.

Even as an evidence the answer of Jesus is remarkable, being such as human
ingenuity would not have invented, nor the legendary spirit have
conceived. It would have seemed natural that He should hasten to vindicate
His claims and expose the folly of the scribes, or else have reproached
His followers for the failure which had compromised Him.

But the scribes were entirely set aside from the moment when the Good
Physician was invoked by a bleeding heart. Yet the physical trouble is
dealt with deliberately, not in haste, as by one whose mastery is assured.
The passing shadow which has fallen on His cause only concerns Him as a
part of the heavy spiritual burden which oppresses Him, which this
terrible scene so vividly exhibits.

For the true importance of His words is this, that they reveal sufferings
which are too often forgotten, and which few are pure enough even to
comprehend. The prevalent evil weighed upon Him. And here the visible
power of Satan, the hostility of the scribes, the failure of His own, the
suspense and agitation of the crowd, all breathed the spirit of that evil
age, alien and harsh to Him as an infected atmosphere. He blames none more
than others; it is the “generation,” so faithless and perverse, which
forces Him to exclaim: “How long shall I be with you? how long shall I
bear with you?” It is the cry of the pain of Jesus. It bids us to consider
Him Who endured such contradiction of sinners, who were even sinners
against Himself. So that the distress of Jesus was not that of a mere
eye-witness of evil or sufferer by it. His priesthood established a closer
and more agonizing connection between our Lord and the sins which tortured
Him.

Do the words startle us, with the suggestion of a limit to the forbearance
of Jesus, well-nigh reached? There _was_ such a limit. The work of His
messenger had been required, lest His coming should be to smite the world.
His mind was the mind of God, and it is written, Kiss the Son, lest He be
angry.

Now if Jesus looked forward to shame and anguish with natural shrinking,
we here perceive another aspect in which His coming Baptism of Blood was
viewed, and we discover why He was straitened until it was accomplished.
There is an intimate connection between this verse and His saying in St.
John, “If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I go unto My Father.”

But swiftly the mind of Jesus recurs to the misery which awaits help; and
He bids them bring the child to Him. Now the sweet influence of His
presence would have soothed and mitigated any mere disease. It is to such
influence that sceptical writers are wont to turn for an explanation, such
as it is, of the works He wrought. But it was the reverse in cases of
possession. There a wild sense of antagonism and revolt was wont to show
itself. And we might learn that this was something more than epilepsy,
even were it left doubtful otherwise, by the outburst of Satanic rage.
When he saw Him, straightway the spirit convulsed him grievously, and he
fell wallowing and foaming.

Yet Jesus is neither hurried nor agitated. In not one of His miracles does
precipitation, or mere impulse, mingle with His grave and self-contained
compassion. He will question the scribes while the man with a withered
hand awaits His help. He will rebuke the disciples before quelling the
storm. At Nain He will touch the bier and arrest the bearers. When He
feeds the multitude, He will first command a search for loaves. He will
stand still and call Bartimæus to Him. He will evoke, even by seeming
harshness, the faith of the woman of Canaan. He will have the stone rolled
away from the sepulchre of Lazarus. When He Himself rises, the
grave-clothes are found folded up, and the napkin which bound His head
laid in a place by itself, the last tribute of mortals to His mortality
not being flung contemptuously aside. All His miracles are authenticated
by the stamp of the same character—serene, not in haste nor tardy, since
He saw the end from the beginning. In this case delay is necessary, to
arouse the father, if only by interrogation, from his dull disappointment
and hopelessness. He asks therefore “How long time is it since this came
upon him?” and the answer shows that he was now at least a stripling, for
he had suffered ever since he was a child. Then the unhappy man is swept
away by his emotions: as he tells their sorrows, and thinks what a
wretched life or miserable death lies before his son, he bursts into a
passionate appeal. If Thou canst do anything, do this. Let pity for such
misery, for the misery of father as well as child, evoke all Thy power to
save. The form is more disrespectful than the substance of his cry; its
very vehemence is evidence that some hope is working in his breast; and
there is more real trust in its wild urgency than in many a reverential
and carefully weighed prayer.

Yet how much rashness, self-assertion, and wilfulness (which is really
unbelief) were mingled with his germinant faith and needed rebuke.
Therefore Christ responded with his own word: “If _thou_ canst: thou
sayest it to Me, but I retort the condition upon thyself: with thee are
indeed the issues of thine own application, for all things are possible to
him that believeth.”

This answer is in two respects important. There was a time when popular
religion dealt too much with internal experience and attainment. But
perhaps there are schools among us now which verge upon the opposite
extreme. Faith and love are generally strongest when they forget
themselves, and do not say “I am faithful and loving,” but “Christ is
trustworthy, Christ is adorable.” This is true, and these virtues are
becoming artificial, and so false, as soon as they grow self-complacent.
Yet we should give at least enough attention to our own attainments to
warn us of our deficiencies. And wherever we find a want of blessedness,
we may seek for the reason within ourselves. Many a one is led to doubt
whether Christ “can do anything” practical for him, since private prayer
and public ordinances help him little, and his temptations continue to
prevail, whose true need is to be roused up sharply to the consciousness
that it is not Christ who has failed; it is he himself: his faith is dim,
his grasp on his Lord is half hearted, he is straitened in his own
affections. Our personal experiences should never teach us confidence, but
they may often serve to humble and warn us.

This answer also impresses upon us the dignity of Him who speaks. Failure
had already come through the spiritual defects of His disciples, but for
Him, though “meek and lowly of heart,” no such danger is even
contemplated. No appeal to Him can be frustrated except through fault of
the suppliant, since all things are possible to him that believeth.

Now faith is in itself nothing, and may even be pernicious; all its effect
depends upon the object. Trust reposed in a friend avails or misleads
according to his love and his resources; trust in a traitor is ruinous,
and ruinous in proportion to its energy. And since trust in Jesus is
omnipotent, Who and what is He?

The word pierces like a two-edged sword, and reveals to the agitated
father the conflict, the impurity of his heart. Unbelief is there, and of
himself he cannot conquer it. Yet is he not entirely unbelieving, else
what drew him thither? What impulse led to that passionate recital of his
griefs, that over-daring cry of anguish? And what is now this burning
sense within him of a great and inspiring Presence, which urges him to a
bolder appeal for a miracle yet more spiritual and Divine, a cry well
directed to the Author and Finisher of our faith? Never was medicine
better justified by its operation upon disease, than the treatment which
converted a too-importunate clamour for bodily relief into a contrite
prayer for grace. “I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.” The same sense of
mixed imperfect and yet real trust should exist in every one of us, or
else our belief being perfect should be irresistible in the moral sphere,
and in the physical world so resigned, so confident in the Love which
governs, as never to be conscious of any gnawing importunate desire. And
from the same sense of need, the same cry for help should spring.

Miraculous legends have gathered around the lives of many good and
gracious men within Christendom and outside it. But they cannot claim to
weigh against the history of Jesus, until at least one example can be
produced of such direct spiritual action, so profound, penetrating and
effectual, inextricably interwoven in the tissue of any fable.

All this time the agitation of the people had increased. A multitude was
rushing forward, whose excitement would do more to distract the father’s
mind than further delay to help him. And Jesus, even in the midst of His
treatment of souls, was not blind to such practical considerations, or to
the influence of circumstances. Unlike modern dealers in sensation, He can
never be shown to have aimed at religious excitement, while it was His
custom to discourage it. Therefore He now rebuked the unclean spirit in
the lad, addressing it directly speaking as a superior. “Thou deaf and
dumb spirit, I command thee, come out of him,” and adding, with
explicitness which was due perhaps to the obstinate ferocity of “this
kind,” or perhaps was intended to help the father’s lingering unbelief,
“enter no more into him.” The evil being obeys, yet proves his reluctance
by screaming and convulsing his victim for the last time, so that he,
though healed, lies utterly prostrate, and “the more part said, He is
dead.” It was a fearful exhibition of the disappointed malice of the pit.
But it only calls forth another display of the power and love of Jesus,
Who will not leave the sufferer to a gradual recovery, nor speak, as to
the fiend, in words of mere authority, but reaches forth His benign hand,
and raises him, restored. Here we discover the same heart which provided
that the daughter of Jairus should have food, and delivered her son to the
widow of Nain, and was first to remind others that Lazarus was encumbered
by his grave-clothes. The good works of Jesus were not melodramatic
marvels for stage effect: they were the natural acts of supernatural power
and love.




Jesus And The Disciples.


    “And when He was come into the house, His disciples asked Him
    privately, _saying_, We could not cast it out. And He said unto
    them, This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer. And they
    went forth from thence, and passed through Galilee; and He would
    not that any man should know it. For He taught His disciples, and
    said unto them, The Son of man is delivered up into the hands of
    men, and they shall kill Him; and when He is killed, after three
    days He shall rise again. But they understood not the saying, and
    were afraid to ask Him. And they came to Capernaum: and when He
    was in the house He asked them, What were ye reasoning in the way?
    But they held their peace: for they had disputed one with another
    in the way, who was the greatest. And He sat down, and called the
    twelve; and He saith unto them, If any man would be first, he
    shall be last of all, and minister of all. And He took a little
    child, and set him in the midst of them: and taking him in His
    arms, He said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such
    little children in My name, receiveth Me; and whosoever receiveth
    Me, receiveth not Me but Him that sent Me.”—MARK ix. 28-37 (R.V.).


When the apostles had failed to expel the demon from the child, they gave
a very natural expression to their disappointment. Waiting until Jesus was
in private and in the house, they said, “We for our parts were unable to
cast it out.” They take no blame to themselves. The tone is rather of
perplexity and complaint because the commission formerly received had not
held good. And it implies the question which is plainly expressed by St.
Matthew, Why could we not cast it out? Their very unconsciousness of
personal blame is ominous, and Jesus replies that the fault is entirely
their own. They ought to have stimulated, as He did afterwards, what was
flagging but not absent in the father, what their failure must have
daunted further in him. Want of faith had overcome them, says the fuller
account: the brief statement in St. Mark is, “This kind (of demon) can
come out by nothing but by prayer”; to which fasting was added as a second
condition by ancient copyists, but without authority. What is important is
to observe the connection between faith and prayer; so that while the
devil would only have gone out if they had prayed, or even perhaps only if
they had been men of prayer, yet their failure was through unbelief. It
plainly follows that prayer is the nurse of faith, and would have
strengthened it so that it should prevail. Only in habitual communion with
God can we learn to trust Him aright. There, as we feel His nearness, as
we are reminded that He bends to hear our cry, as the sense of eternal and
perfect power blends with that of immeasurable love, and His sympathy
becomes a realized abiding fact, as our vainglory is rebuked by
confessions of sin, and of dependence, it is made possible for man to
wield the forces of the spiritual world and yet not to be intoxicated with
pride. The nearness of God is inconsistent with boastfulness of man. For
want of this, it was better that the apostles should fail and be humbled,
than succeed and be puffed up.

There are promises still unenjoyed, dormant and unexercised powers at the
disposal of the Church to-day. If in many Christian families the children
are not practically holy, if purity and consecration are not leavening our
Christian land, where after so many centuries license is but little
abashed and the faith of Jesus is still disputed, if the heathen are not
yet given for our Lord’s inheritance nor the uttermost parts of the earth
for His possession—why are we unable to cast out the devils that afflict
our race? It is because our efforts are so faithless. And this again is
because they are not inspired and elevated by sufficient communion with
our God in prayer.

Further evidences continued to be given of the dangerous state of the mind
of His followers, weighed down by earthly hopes and fears, wanting in
faith and prayer, and therefore open to the sinister influences of the
thief who was soon to become the traitor. They were now moving for the
last time through Galilee. It was a different procession from those glad
circuits, not long before, when enthusiasm everywhere rose high, and
sometimes the people would have crowned Him. Now He would not that any man
should know it. The word which tells of His journey seems to imply that He
avoided the main thoroughfares, and went by less frequented by-ways.
Partly no doubt His motives were prudential, resulting from the treachery
which He discerned. Partly it was because His own spirit was heavily
weighed upon, and retirement was what He needed most. And certainly most
of all because crowds and tumult would have utterly unfitted the apostles
to learn the hard lesson, how vain their daydreams were, and what a trial
lay before their Master.

We read that “He taught them” this, which implies more than a single
utterance, as also perhaps does the remarkable phrase in St. Luke, “Let
these sayings sink into your ears.” When the warning is examined, we find
it almost a repetition of what they had heard after Peter’s great
confession. Then they had apparently supposed the cross of their Lord to
be such a figurative one as all His followers have to bear. Even after the
Transfiguration, the chosen three had searched for a meaning for the
resurrection from the dead. But now, when the words were repeated with a
naked, crude, resolute distinctness, marvellous from the lips of Him Who
should endure the reality, and evidently chosen in order to beat down
their lingering evasive hopes, when He says “They shall kill Him, and when
He is killed, after three days He shall rise again,” surely they ought to
have understood.

In fact they comprehended enough to shrink from hearing more. They did not
dare to lift the veil which covered a mystery so dreadful; they feared to
ask Him. It is a natural impulse, not to know the worst. Insolvent
tradesmen leave their books unbalanced. The course of history would have
run in another channel, if the great Napoleon had looked in the face the
need to fortify his own capital while plundering others. No wonder that
these Galileans recoiled from searching what was the calamity which
weighed so heavily upon the mighty spirit of their Master. Do not men
stifle the voice of conscience, and refuse to examine themselves whether
they are in the faith, in the same abject dread of knowing the facts, and
looking the inevitable in the face? How few there are, who bear to think,
calmly and well, of the certainties of death and judgment?

But at the appointed time, the inevitable arrived for the disciples. The
only effect of their moral cowardice was that it found them unready,
surprised and therefore fearful, and still worse, prepared to forsake
Jesus by having already in heart drawn away from Him, by having refused to
comprehend and share His sorrows. It is easy to blame them, to assume that
in their place we should not have been partakers in their evil deeds, to
make little of the chosen foundation stones upon which Christ would build
His New Jerusalem. But in so doing we forfeit the sobering lessons of
their weakness, who failed, not because they were less than we, but
because they were not more than mortal. And we who censure them are
perhaps indolently refusing day by day to reflect, to comprehend the
meaning of our own lives and of their tendencies, to realize a thousand
warnings, less terrible only because they continue to be conditional, but
claiming more attention for that very reason.

Contrast with their hesitation the noble fortitude with which Christ faced
His agony. It was His, and their concern in it was secondary. Yet for
their sakes He bore to speak of what they could not bear to hear.
Therefore to Him there came no surprise, no sudden shock; His arrest found
Him calm and reassured after the conflict in the Garden, and after all the
preparation which had already gone forward through all these latter days.

One only ingredient in His cup of bitterness is now added to those which
had been already mentioned: “The Son of man is delivered up into the hands
of men.” And this is the same which He mentioned in the Garden: “The Son
of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”

It was that from which David recoiled when he said, “Let me fall into the
hands of God, but let me not fall into the hands of men.” Suffering has
not reached its height until conscious malice designs the pang, and says,
“So would we have it.” Especially true was this of the most tender of all
hearts. Yet this also Jesus foreknew, while He steadfastly set His face to
go toward Jerusalem.

Faithless inability to grapple with the powers of darkness, faithless
unreadiness to share the cross of Jesus, what was to be expected next?
Estrangement, jealousy and ambition, the passions of the world heaving in
the bosom of the Church. But while they fail to discern the spirit of
Judas, the Lord discerned theirs, and asked them in the house, What were
ye reasoning in the way? It was a sweet and gentle prudence, which had not
corrected them publicly nor while their tempers were still ruffled, nor in
the language of severe rebuke, for by the way they had not only reasoned
but disputed one with another, who was the greatest.

Language of especial honour had been addressed to Peter. Three had become
possessed of a remarkable secret on the Holy Mount, concerning which hints
on one side, and surmises on the other, may easily have excited jealousy.
The failure of the nine to cast out the devil would also, as they were not
humbled, render them irritable and self-asserting.

But they held their peace. No one asserted his right to answer on behalf
of all. Peter, who was so willingly their spokesman at other times, did
not vindicate his boasted pre-eminence now. The claim which seemed so
reasonable while they forgot Jesus, was a thing to blush for in His
presence. And they, who feared to ask Him of His own sufferings, knew
enough to feel the contrast between their temper, their thoughts and His.
Would that we too by prayer and self-examination, more often brought our
desires and ambitions into the searching light of the presence of the
lowly King of kings.

The calmness of their Lord was in strange contrast with their confusion.
He pressed no further His inquiry, but left them to weigh His silence in
this respect against their own. But importing by His action something
deliberate and grave, He sat down and called the Twelve, and pronounced
the great law of Christian rank, which is lowliness and the lowliest
service. “If any man would be the first, he shall be the least of all, and
the servant of all.” When Kaisers and Popes ostentatiously wash the feet
of paupers, they do not really serve, and therefore they exhibit no
genuine lowliness. Christ does not speak of the luxurious nursing of a
sentiment, but of that genuine humility which effaces itself that it may
really become a servant of the rest. Nor does He prescribe this as a
penance, but as the appointed way to eminence. Something similar He had
already spoken, bidding men sit down in the lowest room, that the Master
of the house might call them higher. But it is in the next chapter, when
despite this lesson the sons of Zebedee persisted in claiming the highest
places, and the indignation of the rest betrayed the very passion it
resented, that Jesus fully explains how lowly service, that wholesome
medicine for ambition, is the essence of the very greatness in pursuit of
which men spurn it.

To the precept, which will then be more conveniently examined, Jesus now
added a practical lesson of amazing beauty. In the midst of twelve rugged
and unsympathetic men, the same who, despite this action, presently
rebuked parents for seeking the blessing of Christ upon their babes, Jesus
sets a little child. What but the grace and love which shone upon the
sacred face could have prevented this little one from being utterly
disconcerted? But children have a strange sensibility for love. Presently
this happy child was caught up in His arms, and pressed to His bosom, and
there He seems to have lain while John, possibly conscience-stricken,
asked a question and received an unexpected answer. And the silent
pathetic trust of this His lamb found its way to the heart of Jesus, who
presently spoke of “these little ones who believe in Me” (v. 42).

Meanwhile the child illustrated in a double sense the rule of greatness
which He had laid down. So great is lowliness that Christ Himself may be
found in the person of a little child. And again, so great is service,
that in receiving one, even one, of the multitude of children who claim
our sympathies, we receive the very Master; and in that lowly Man, who was
among them as He that serveth, is manifested the very God: whoso receiveth
Me receiveth not Me but Him that sent me.




Offences.


    “John said unto Him, Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy
    Name: and we forbade him, because he followed not us. But Jesus
    said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a mighty
    work in My name, and be able quickly to speak evil of Me. For he
    that is not against us is for us. For whosoever shall give you a
    cup of water to drink, because ye are Christ’s, verily I say unto
    you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. And whosoever shall
    cause one of these little ones that believe on Me to stumble, it
    were better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his
    neck, and he were cast into the sea. And if thy hand cause thee to
    stumble, cut it off: it is good for thee to enter into life
    maimed, rather than having thy two hands to go into hell, into the
    unquenchable fire. And if thy foot cause thee to stumble, cut it
    off: it is good for thee to enter into life halt, rather than
    having thy two feet to be cast into hell. And if thine eye cause
    thee to stumble, cast it out: it is good for thee to enter into
    the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be
    cast into hell; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
    quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good:
    but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season
    it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with
    another.”—MARK ix. 38-50 (R.V.).


When Jesus spoke of the blessedness of receiving in His name even a little
child, the conscience of St. John became uneasy. They had seen one casting
out devils in that name, and had forbidden him, “because he followeth not
us.” The spirit of partizanship which these words betray is somewhat
softer in St. Luke, but it exists. He reports “because he followeth not
(Jesus) with us.”

The behaviour of the disciples all through this period is unsatisfactory.
From the time when Peter contradicted and rebuked Jesus, down to their
final desertion, there is weakness at every turn. And this is a curious
example of it, that immediately after having failed themselves,(12) they
should rebuke another for doing what their Master had once declared could
not possibly be an evil work. If Satan cast out Satan his house was
divided against itself: if the finger of God was there no doubt the
kingdom of God was come unto them.

It is interesting and natural that St. John should have introduced the
question. Others were usually more forward, but that was because he was
more thoughtful. Peter went first into the sepulchre; but he first, seeing
what was there, believed. And it was he who said “It is the Lord,”
although Peter thereupon plunged into the lake to reach Him. Discerning
and grave: such is the character from which his Gospel would naturally
come, and it belongs to him who first discerned the rebuke to their
conduct implied in the words of Jesus. He was right. The Lord answered,
“Forbid him not, for there is no man which shall do a mighty work in My
name, and be able quickly to speak evil of Me:” his own action would seal
his lips; he would have committed himself. Now this points out a very
serious view of human life, too often overlooked. The deed of to-day rules
to-morrow; one is half enslaved by the consequences of his own free will.
Let no man, hesitating between two lines of action, ask, What harm in
this? what use in that? without adding, And what future actions, good or
evil, may they carry in their train?

The man whom they had rebuked was at least certain to be for a time
detached from the opponents of truth, silent if not remonstrant when it
was assailed, diluting and enfeebling the enmity of its opponents. And so
Christ laid down the principle, “He that is not against us is for us.” In
St. Luke the words are more plainly pointed against this party spirit, “He
that is not against you is for you.”

How shall we reconcile this principle with Christ’s declaration elsewhere,
“He that is not with Me is against Me, and he that gathereth not with Me
scattereth”?

It is possible to argue that there is no contradiction whatever, for both
deny the existence of a neutral class, and from this it equally follows
that he who is not with is against, and he who is not against is with us.
But this answer only evades the difficulty, which is, that one passage
reckons seeming neutrality as friendship, while the other denounces it as
enmity.

A closer examination reveals a more profound reconciliation. In St.
Matthew, Christ announced His own personal claim; in St. Mark He declares
that His people must not share it. Towards Christ Himself, indifference is
practical rejection. The manifestation of God was not made to be
criticised or set aside: He loves them who love Him; He demands the hearts
He died for; and to give Him less is to refuse Him the travail of His
soul. Therefore He that is not with Christ is against Him. The man who
boasts that he does no harm but makes no pretence of religion, is
proclaiming that one may innocently refuse Christ. And it is very
noteworthy that St. Matthew’s aphorism was evoked, like this, by a
question about the casting out of devils. There the Pharisees had said
that He cast out devils by Beelzebub. And Jesus had warned all who heard,
that in such a controversy, to be indifferent was to deny him. Here, the
man had himself appealed to the power of Jesus. He had passed, long ago,
the stage of cool semi-contemptuous indifference. Whether he was a
disciple of the Baptist, not yet entirely won, or a later convert who
shrank from the loss of all things, what is plain is that he had come far
on the way towards Jesus. It does not follow that he enjoyed a saving
faith, for Christ will at last profess to many who cast out devils in His
name, that He never knew them. But intellectual persuasion and some active
reliance were there. Let them beware of crushing the germs, because they
were not yet developed. Nor should the disciples suppose that loyalty to
their organization, although Christ was with them, was the same as loyalty
to Him. “He that is not against _you_ is for you,” according to St. Luke.
Nay more, “He that is not against us is for us,” according to St. Mark.
But already He had spoken the stronger word, “He that is not for _Me_ is
against Me.”

No verse has been more employed than this in sectarian controversy. And
sometimes it has been pressed too far. The man whom St. John would have
silenced was not spreading a rival organization; and we know how the same
Apostle wrote, long afterwards, of those who did so: “If they had been of
us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might
be made manifest how all they are not of us” (1 John ii. 19). This was
simply a doer of good without ecclesiastical sanction, and the warning of
the text is against all who would use the name of discipline or of order
to bridle the zeal, to curb the energies, of any Christian soul. But it is
at least as often the new movement as the old organization that would
silence all who follow not with it.

But the energies of Christ and His gospel can never be monopolized by any
organization whatsoever. Every good gift and every perfect gift, wherever
we behold it, is from Him.

All help, then, is to be welcomed; not to hinder is to speed the cause.
And therefore Jesus, repeating a former saying, adds that whosoever, moved
by the name of Christ, shall give His followers one cup of water, shall be
rewarded. He may be and continue outside the Church; his after life may be
sadly inconsistent with this one action: that is not the question; the
sole condition is the genuine motive—one impulse of true respect, one
flicker of loyalty, only decided enough to speed the weary ambassador with
the simplest possible refreshment, should “in no wise lose its reward.”
Does this imply that the giver should assuredly enter heaven? Alas, no.
But this it says, that every spark of fire in the smoking flax is tended,
every gracious movement is answered by a gift of further grace, to employ
or to abuse. Not more surely is the thirsty disciple refreshed, than the
feverish worldliness of him who just attains to render this service is
fanned and cooled by breezes from heaven, he becomes aware of a deeper and
nobler life, he is melted and drawn towards better things. Very blessed,
or very miserable is he who cannot remember the holy shame, the yearning,
the sigh because he is not always thus, which followed naturally upon some
deed, small in itself perhaps, but good enough to be inconsistent with his
baser self. The deepening of spiritual capacity is one exceeding great
reward of every act of loyalty to Christ.

This was graciously said of a deed done to the apostles, despite their
failures, rivalries, and rebukes of those who would fain speed the common
cause. Not, however, because they were apostles, but “because ye are
Christ’s.” And so was the least, so was the child who clung to Him. But if
the slightest sympathy with these is thus laden with blessing, then to
hinder, to cause to stumble one such little one, how terrible was that.
Better to die a violent and shameful death, and never sleep in a peaceful
grave.

There is a worse peril than from others. We ourselves may cause ourselves
to stumble. We may pervert beyond recall things innocent, natural, all but
necessary, things near and dear and useful to our daily life as are our
very limbs. The loss of them may be so lasting a deprivation that we shall
enter heaven maimed. But if the moral evil is irrevocably identified with
the worldly good, we must renounce it.

The hand with its subtle and marvellous power may well stand for harmless
accomplishments now fraught with evil suggestiveness; for innocent modes
of livelihood which to relinquish means crippled helplessness, yet which
have become hopelessly entangled with unjust or at least questionable
ways; for the great possessions, honestly come by, which the ruler would
not sell; for all endowments which we can no longer hope to consecrate,
and which make one resemble the old Chaldeans, whose might was their god,
who sacrificed to their net and burned incense to their drag.

And the foot, with its swiftness in boyhood, its plodding walk along the
pavement in maturer age, may well represent the caprices of youth so hard
to curb, and also the half-mechanical habits which succeed to these, and
by which manhood is ruled, often to its destruction. If the hand be
capacity, resource, and possession, the foot is swift perilous impulse,
and also fixed habitude, monotonous recurrence, the settled ways of the
world.

Cut off hand and foot, and what is left to the mutilated trunk, the
ravaged and desolated life? Desire is left; the desire of the eyes. The
eyes may not touch the external world; all may now be correct in our
actions and intercourse with men. But yet greed, passion, inflamed
imagination may desecrate the temple of the soul. The eyes misled Eve when
she saw that the fruit was good, and David on his palace roof. Before the
eyes of Jesus, Satan spread his third and worst temptation. And our Lord
seems to imply that this last sacrifice of the worst because the deepest
evil must be made with indignant vehemence; hand and foot must be cut off,
but the eye must be cast out, though life be half darkened in the process.

These latter days have invented a softer gospel, which proclaims that even
the fallen err if they utterly renounce any good creature of God, which
ought to be received with thanksgiving; that the duty of moderation and
self-control can never be replaced by renunciation, and that distrust of
any lawful enjoyment revives the Manichean heresy. Is the eye a good
creature of God? May the foot be received with thanksgiving? Is the hand a
source of lawful enjoyment? Yet Jesus made these the types of what must,
if it has become an occasion of stumbling, be entirely cast away.

He added that in such cases the choice is between mutilation and the loss
of all. It is no longer a question of the full improvement of every
faculty, the doubling of all the talents, but a choice between living a
life impoverished and half spoiled, and going complete to Gehenna, to the
charnel valley where the refuse of Jerusalem was burned in a continual
fire, and the worm of corruption never died. The expression is too
metaphorical to decide such questions as that of the eternal duration of
punishment, or of the nature of the suffering of the lost. The metaphors
of Jesus, however, are not employed to exaggerate His meaning, but only to
express it. And what He said is this: The man who cherishes one dear and
excusable occasion of offence, who spares himself the keenest spiritual
surgery, shall be cast forth with everything that defileth, shall be
ejected with the offal of the New Jerusalem, shall suffer corruption like
the transgressors of whom Isaiah first used the tremendous phrase, “their
worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched,” shall endure at
once internal and external misery, as of decomposition and of burning.

Such is the most terrible menace that ever crossed the lips into which
grace was poured. And it was not addressed to the outcast or the Pharisee,
but to His own. They were called to the highest life; on them the
influences of the world was to be as constant and as disintegrating as
that of the weather upon a mountain top. Therefore they needed solemn
warning, and the counter-pressure of those awful issues known to be
dependent on their stern self-discipline. They could not, He said in an
obscure passage which has been greatly tampered with, they could not
escape fiery suffering in some form. But the fire which tried would
preserve and bless them if they endured it; every one shall be salted with
fire. But if they who ought to be the salt of the world received the grace
of God in vain, if the salt have lost its saltness, the case is desperate
indeed.

And since the need of this solemn warning sprang from their rivalry and
partizanship, Jesus concludes with an emphatic charge to discipline and
correct themselves and to beware of impeding others: to be searching in
the closet, and charitable in the church: to have salt in yourselves, and
be at peace with one another.





CHAPTER X.




Divorce.


    “And He arose from thence, and cometh into the borders of Judæa
    and beyond Jordan: and multitudes come together unto Him again;
    and, as He was wont, He taught them again. And there came unto Him
    Pharisees, and asked Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his
    wife? tempting Him. And He answered and said unto them, What did
    Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill
    of divorcement, and to put her away. But Jesus said unto them, For
    your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the
    beginning of the creation, Male and female made He them. For this
    cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to
    his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh: so that they are
    no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
    together, let no man put asunder. And in the house the disciples
    asked Him again of this matter. And He saith unto them, Whosoever
    shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery
    against her: and if she herself shall put away her husband, and
    marry another, she committeth adultery.”—MARK x. 1-12 (R.V.).


It is easy to read without emotion that Jesus arose from the scene of His
last discourse, and came into the borders of Judæa beyond Jordan. But not
without emotion did Jesus bid farewell to Galilee, to the home of His
childhood and sequestered youth, the cradle of His Church, the centre of
nearly all the love and faith He had awakened. When closer still to death,
His heart reverted to Galilee, and He promised that when He was risen He
would go thither before His disciples. Now He had to leave it. And we must
not forget that every step He took towards Jerusalem was a deliberate
approach to His assured and anticipated cross. He was not like other brave
men, who endure death when it arrives, but are sustained until the crisis
by a thousand flattering hopes and undefined possibilities. Jesus knew
precisely where and how He should suffer. And now, as He arose from
Galilee, every step said, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.

As soon as He entered Perea beyond Jordan, multitudes came to Him again.
Nor did His burdened heart repress His zeal: rather He found relief in
their importunity and in His Father’s business, and so, “as He was wont,
He taught them again.” These simple words express the rule He lived by,
the patient continuance in well-doing which neither hostilities nor
anxieties could chill.

Not long was He left undisturbed. The Pharisees come to Him with a
question dangerous in itself, because there is no conceivable answer which
will not estrange many, and especially dangerous for Jesus, because
already, on the Mount, He has spoken upon this subject words at seeming
variance with His free views concerning sabbath observance, fasting, and
ceremonial purity. Most perilous of all was the decision they expected
when given by a teacher already under suspicion, and now within reach of
that Herod who had, during the lifetime of his first wife, married the
wife of a living man. “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for
every cause?” It was a decision upon this very subject which had proved
fatal to the forerunner.

But Jesus spoke out plainly. In a question and answer which are variously
reported, what is clear is that He carefully distinguished between a
command and a permission of Moses. Divorce had been allowed; yes, but some
reason had been exacted, whatever disputes might exist about its needful
gravity, and deliberation had been enforced by demanding a legal document,
a writing of divorcement. Thus conscience was bidden to examine its
motives, and time was gained for natural relentings. But after all, Jesus
declared that divorce was only a concession to their hardness of heart.
Thus we learn that Old Testament institutions were not all and of
necessity an expression of the Divine ideal. They were sometimes a
temporary concession, meant to lead to better things; an expedient rather
than a revelation.

These words contain the germ of St. Paul’s doctrine that the law itself
was a schoolmaster, and its function temporary.

To whatever concessions Moses had been driven, the original and unshaken
design of God was that man and woman should find the permanent completion
of their lives each in the other. And this is shown by three separate
considerations. The first is the plan of the creation, making them male
and female, and such that body and soul alike are only perfect when to
each its complement is added, when the masculine element and the feminine
“each fulfils defect in each ... the two-celled heart beating with one
full stroke life.” Thus by anticipation Jesus condemned the tame-spirited
verdict of His disciples, that since a man cannot relieve himself from a
union when it proves galling, “it is not good” to marry at all. To this he
distinctly answered that such an inference could not prove even tolerable,
except when nature itself, or else some social wrong, or else absorbing
devotion to the cause of God, virtually cancelled the original design. But
already he had here shown that such prudential calculation degrades man,
leaves him incomplete, traverses the design of God Who from the beginning
of the creation made them male and female. In our own days, the relation
between the sexes is undergoing a social and legislative revolution. Now
Christ says not a word against the equal rights of the sexes, and in more
than one passage St. Paul goes near to assert it. But equality is not
identity, either of vocation or capacity. This text asserts the separate
and reciprocal vocation of each, and it is worthy of consideration, how
far the special vocation of womanhood is consistent with loud assertion of
her “separate rights.”

Christ’s second proof that marriage cannot be dissolved without sin is
that glow of heart, that noble abandonment, in which a man leaves even
father and mother for the joy of his youth and the love of his espousals.
In that sacred hour, how hideous and base a wanton divorce would be felt
to be. Now man is not free to live by the mean, calculating, selfish
afterthought, which breathes like a frost on the bloom of his noblest
impulses and aspirations. He should guide himself by the light of his
highest and most generous intuitions.

And the third reason is that no man, by any possibility, can undo what
marriage does. They two are one flesh; each has become part of the very
existence of the other; and it is simply incredible that a union so
profound, so interwoven with the very tissue of their being, should lie at
the mercy of the caprice or the calculations of one or other, or of both.
Such a union arises from the profoundest depths of the nature God created,
not from mean cravings of that nature in its degradation; and like waters
springing up from the granite underneath the soil, it may suffer stain,
but it is in itself free from the contamination of the fall. Despite of
monkish and of Manichean slanders, impure dreams pretending to especial
purity, God is He Who joins together man and woman in a bond which “no
man,” king or prelate, may without guilt dissolve.

Of what followed, St. Mark is content to tell us that in the house, the
disciples pressed the question further. How far did the relaxation which
Moses granted over-rule the original design? To what extent was every
individual bound in actual life? And the answer, given by Jesus to guide
His own people through all time, is clear and unmistakeable. The tie
cannot be torn asunder without sin. The first marriage holds, until actual
adultery poisons the pure life in it, and man or woman who breaks through
its barriers commits adultery. The Baptist’s judgment of Herod was
confirmed.

So Jesus taught. Ponder well that honest unshrinking grasp of solid
detail, which did not overlook the physical union whereof is one flesh,
that sympathy with high and chivalrous devotion forsaking all else for its
beloved one, that still more spiritual penetration which discerned a
Divine purpose and a destiny in the correlation of masculine and feminine
gifts, of strength and grace, of energy and gentleness, of courage and
long-suffering—observe with how easy and yet firm a grasp He combines all
these into one overmastering argument—remember that when He spoke, the
marriage tie was being relaxed all over the ancient world, even as godless
legislation is to-day relaxing it—reflect that with such relaxation came
inevitably a blight upon the family, resulting in degeneracy and ruin for
the nation, while every race which learned the lesson of Jesus grew strong
and pure and happy—and then say whether this was only a Judæan peasant, or
the Light of the World indeed.




Christ And Little Children.


    “And they brought unto Him little children, that He should touch
    them: and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, He
    was moved with indignation, and said unto them, Suffer the little
    children to come unto Me; forbid them not: for of such is the
    kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive
    the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter
    therein. And He took them in His arms, and blessed them, laying
    His hands upon them.”—MARK x. 13-16 (R.V.).


This beautiful story gains new loveliness from its context. The disciples
had weighed the advantages and disadvantages of marriage, and decided in
their calculating selfishness, that the prohibition of divorce made it
“not good for a man to marry.” But Jesus had regarded the matter from
quite a different position; and their saying could only be received by
those to whom special reasons forbade the marriage tie. It was then that
the fair blossom and opening flower of domestic life, the tenderness and
winning grace of childhood, appealed to them for a softer judgment. Little
children (St. Luke says “babes”) were brought to Him to bless, to touch
them. It was a remarkable sight. He was just departing from Perea on His
last journey to Jerusalem. The nation was about to abjure its King and
perish, after having invoked His blood to be not on them only, but on
their children. But here were some at least of the next generation led by
parents who revered Jesus, to receive His blessing. And who shall dare to
limit the influence exerted by that benediction on their future lives? Is
it forgotten that this very Perea was the haven of refuge for Jewish
believers when the wrath fell upon their nation? Meanwhile the fresh smile
of their unconscious, unstained, unforeboding infancy met the grave smile
of the all-conscious, death-boding Man of Sorrows, as much purer as it was
more profound.

But the disciples were not melted. They were occupied with grave
questions. Babes could understand nothing, and therefore could receive no
conscious intelligent enlightenment. What then could Jesus do for them?
Many wise persons are still of quite the same opinion. No spiritual
influences, they tell us, can reach the soul until the brain is capable of
drawing logical distinctions. A gentle mother may breathe softness and
love into a child’s nature, or a harsh nurse may jar and disturb its
temper, until the effects are as visible on the plastic face as is the
sunshine or storm upon the bosom of a lake; but for the grace of God there
is no opening yet. As if soft and loving influences are not themselves a
grace of God. As if the world were given certain odds in the race, and the
powers of heaven were handicapped. As if the young heart of every child
were a place where sin abounds (since he is a fallen creature, with an
original tendency towards evil), but where grace doth not at all abound.
Such is the unlovely theory. And as long as it prevails in the Church we
need not wonder at the compensating error of rationalism, denying evil
where so many of us deny grace. It is the more amiable error of the two.
Since then the disciples could not believe that edification was for babes,
they naturally rebuked those that brought them. Alas, how often still does
the beauty and innocence of childhood appeal to men in vain. And this is
so, because we see not the Divine grace, “the kingdom of heaven,” in
these. Their weakness chafes our impatience, their simplicity irritates
our worldliness, and their touching helplessness and trustfulness do not
find in us heart enough for any glad response.

In ancient times they had to pass through the fire to Moloch, and since
then through other fires: to fashion when mothers leave them to the hired
kindness of a nurse, to selfishness when their want appeals to our
charities in vain, and to cold dogmatism, which would banish them from the
baptismal font, as the disciples repelled them from the embrace of Jesus.
But He was moved with indignation, and reiterated, as men do when they
feel deeply, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me; forbid them
not.” And He added this conclusive reason, “for of such,” of children and
childlike men, “is the kingdom of God.”

What is the meaning of this remarkable assertion? To answer aright, let us
return in fancy to the morning of our days; let our flesh, and all our
primitive being, come back to us as those of a little child.

We were not faultless then. The theological dogma of original sin, however
unwelcome to many, is in harmony with all experience. Impatience is there,
and many a childish fault; and graver evils develop as surely as life
unfolds, just as weeds show themselves in summer, the germs of which were
already mingled with the better seed in spring. It is plain to all
observers that the weeds of human nature are latent in the early soil,
that this is not pure at the beginning of each individual life. Does not
our new-fangled science explain this fact by telling us that we have still
in our blood the transmitted influences of our ancestors the brutes?

But Christ never meant to say that the kingdom of heaven was only for the
immaculate and stainless. If converted men receive it, in spite of many a
haunting appetite and recurring lust, then the frailties of our babes
shall not forbid us to believe the blessed assurance that the kingdom is
also theirs.

How many hindrances to the Divine life fall away from us, as our fancy
recalls our childhood. What weary and shameful memories, base hopes,
tawdry splendours, envenomed pleasures, entangling associations vanish,
what sins need to be confessed no longer, how much evil knowledge fades
out that we never now shall quite unlearn, which haunts the memory even
though the conscience be absolved from it. The days of our youth are not
those evil days, when anything within us saith, My soul hath no pleasure
in the ways of God.

When we ask to what especial qualities of childhood did Jesus attach so
great value, two kindred attributes are distinctly indicated in Scripture.

One is humility. The previous chapter showed us a little child set in the
midst of the emulous disciples, whom Christ instructed that the way to be
greatest was to become like this little child, the least.

A child is not humble through affectation, it never professes nor thinks
about humility. But it understands, however imperfectly, that it is beset
by mysterious and perilous forces, which it neither comprehends nor can
grapple with. And so are we. Therefore all its instincts and experiences
teach it to submit, to seek guidance, not to put its own judgment in
competition with those of its appointed guides. To them, therefore, it
clings and is obedient.

Why is it not so with us? Sadly we also know the peril of self-will, the
misleading power of appetite and passion, the humiliating failures which
track the steps of self-assertion, the distortion of our judgments, the
feebleness of our wills, the mysteries of life and death amid which we
grope in vain. Milton anticipated Sir Isaac Newton in describing the
wisest


    “As children gathering pebbles on the shore.”

    _Par. Reg._, iv. 330.


And if this be so true in the natural world that its sages become as
little children, how much more in those spiritual realms for which our
faculties are still so infantile, and of which our experience is so
rudimentary. We should all be nearer to the kingdom, or greater in it, if
we felt our dependence, and like the child were content to obey our Guide
and cling to Him.

The second childlike quality to which Christ attached value was readiness
to receive simply. Dependence naturally results from humility. Man is
proud of his independence only because he relies on his own powers; when
these are paralysed, as in the sickroom or before the judge, he is willing
again to become a child in the hands of a nurse or of an advocate. In the
realm of the spirit these natural powers are paralysed. Learning cannot
resist temptation, nor wealth expiate a sin. And therefore, in the
spiritual world, we are meant to be dependent and receptive.

Christ taught, in the Sermon on the Mount, that to those who asked Him,
God would give His Spirit as earthly parents give good things to their
children. Here also we are taught to accept, to receive the kingdom as
little children, not flattering ourselves that our own exertions can
dispense with the free gift, not unwilling to become pensioners of heaven,
not distrustful of the heart which grants, not finding the bounties
irksome which are prompted by a Fathers’ love. What can be more charming
in its gracefulness than the reception of a favour by an affectionate
child. His glad and confident enjoyment are a picture of what ours might
be.

Since children receive the kingdom, and are a pattern for us in doing so,
it is clear that they do not possess the kingdom as a natural right, but
as a gift. But since they do receive it, they must surely be capable of
receiving also that sacrament which is the sign and seal of it. It is a
startling position indeed which denies admission into the visible Church
to those of whom is the kingdom of God. It is a position taken up only
because many, who would shrink from any such avowal, half-unconsciously
believe that God becomes gracious to us only when His grace is attracted
by skilful movements upon our part, by conscious and well-instructed
efforts, by penitence, faith and orthodoxy. But whatever soul is capable
of any taint of sin must be capable of compensating influences of the
Spirit, by Whom Jeremiah was sanctified, and the Baptist was filled, even
before their birth into this world (Jer. i. 5; Luke i. 15). Christ
Himself, in Whom dwelt bodily all the fulness of the Godhead, was not
therefore incapable of the simplicity and dependence of infancy.

Having taught His disciples this great lesson, Jesus let His affections
loose. He folded the children in His tender and pure embrace, and blessed
them much, laying His hands on them, instead of merely touching them. He
blessed them not because they were baptized. But we baptize our children,
because all such have received the blessing, and are clasped in the arms
of the Founder of the Church.




The Rich Inquirer.


    “And as He was going forth into the way, there ran one to Him, and
    kneeled to Him, and asked Him, Good Master, what shall I do that I
    may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest
    thou Me good? none is good save one, even God. Thou knowest the
    commandments, Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal,
    Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honour thy father and
    mother. And He said unto him, Master, all these things have I
    observed from my youth. And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and
    said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou
    hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
    heaven: and come, follow Me. But his countenance fell at the
    saying, and he went away sorrowful: for he was one that had great
    possessions.”—MARK x. 17-22 (R.V.).


The excitement stirred by our Lord’s teaching must often have shown itself
in a scene of eagerness like this which St. Mark describes so well. The
Saviour is just “going forth” when one rushes to overtake Him, and kneels
down to Him, full of the hope of a great discovery. He is so frank, so
innocent and earnest, as to win the love of Jesus. And yet he presently
goes away, not as he came, but with a gloomy forehead and a heavy heart,
and doubtless with slow reluctance.

The authorities were now in such avowed opposition that to be Christ’s
disciple was disgraceful if not dangerous to a man of mark. Yet no fear
withheld this young ruler who had so much to lose; he would not come by
night, like Nicodemus before the storm had gathered which was now so dark;
he openly avowed his belief in the goodness of the Master, and his own
ignorance of some great secret which Jesus could reveal.

There is indeed a charming frankness in his bearing, so that we admire
even his childlike assertion of his own virtues, while the heights of a
nobility yet unattained are clearly possible for one so dissatisfied, so
anxious for a higher life, so urgent in his questioning, What shall I do?
What lack I yet? That is what makes the difference between the Pharisee
who thanks God that he is not as other men, and this youth who has kept
all the commandments, yet would fain be other than he is, and readily
confesses that all is not enough, that some unknown act still awaits
achievement. The goodness which thinks itself upon the summit will never
toil much farther. The conscience that is really awake cannot be
satisfied, but is perplexed rather and baffled by the virtues of a dutiful
and well-ordered life. For a chasm ever yawns between the actual and the
ideal, what we have done and what we fain would do. And a spiritual glory,
undefined and perhaps undefinable, floats ever before the eyes of all men
whom the god of this world has not blinded. This inquirer honestly thinks
himself not far from the great attainment; he expects to reach it by some
transcendant act, some great deed done, and for this he has no doubt of
his own prowess, if only he were well directed. What shall I do that I may
have eternal life, not of grace, but as a debt—that I may inherit it? Thus
he awaits direction upon the road where heathenism and semi-heathen
Christianity are still toiling, and all who would purchase the gift of God
with money or toil or merit or bitterness of remorseful tears.

One easily foresees that the reply of Jesus will disappoint and humble
him, but it startles us to see him pointed back to works and to the law of
Moses.

Again, we observe that what this inquirer seeks he very earnestly believes
Jesus to have attained. And it is no mean tribute to the spiritual
elevation of our Lord, no doubtful indication that amid perils and
contradictions and on His road to the cross the peace of God sat visibly
upon His brow, that one so pure and yet so keenly aware that his own
virtue sufficed not, and that the kingdom of God was yet unattained,
should kneel in the dust before the Nazarene, and beseech this good Master
to reveal to him all his questioning. It was a strange request, and it was
granted in an unlooked for way. The demand of the Chaldean tyrant that his
forgotten dream should be interpreted was not so extravagant as this, that
the defect in an unknown career should be discovered. It was upon a lofty
pedestal indeed that this ruler placed our Lord.

And yet his question supplies the clue to that answer of Christ which has
perplexed so many. The youth is seeking for himself a purely human merit,
indigenous and underived. And the same, of course, is what he ascribes to
Jesus, to Him who is so far from claiming independent human attainment, or
professing to be what this youth would fain become, that He said, “The Son
can do nothing of Himself ... I can of Mine own self do nothing.” The
secret of His human perfection is the absolute dependence of His humanity
upon God, with Whom He is one. No wonder then that He repudiates any such
goodness as the ruler had in view.

The Socinian finds quite another meaning in His reply, and urges that by
these words Jesus denied His Deity. There is none good but one, That is
God, was a reason why He should not be called so. Jesus however does not
remonstrate absolutely against being called good, but against being thus
addressed from this ruler’s point of view, by one who regards Him as a
mere teacher and expects to earn the same title for himself. And indeed
the Socinian who appeals to this text grasps a sword by the blade. For if
it denied Christ’s divinity it must exactly to the same extent deny also
Christ’s goodness, which he admits. Now it is beyond question that Jesus
differed from all the saints in the serene confidence with which He
regarded the moral law, from the time when He received the baptism of
repentance only that He might fulfil all righteousness, to the hour when
He cried, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” and although deserted, claimed God
as still His God. The saints of to-day were the penitents of yesterday.
But He has finished the work that was given Him to do. He knows that God
hears Him always, and in Him the Prince of this world hath nothing. And
yet there is none good but God. Who then is He? If this saying does not
confess what is intolerable to a reverential Socinian, what Strauss and
Renan shrank from insinuating, what is alien to the whole spirit of the
Gospels, and assuredly far from the mind of the evangelists, then it
claims all that His Church rejoices to ascribe to Christ.

Moreover Jesus does not deny even to ordinary men the possibility of being
“good.”

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good
things. Some shall hear at last the words, Well done, good and faithful
servant. The children of the kingdom are good seed among the tares.
Clearly His repugnance is not to the epithet, but to the spirit in which
it is bestowed, to the notion that goodness can spring spontaneously from
the soil of our humanity. But there is nothing here to discourage the
highest aspirations of the trustful and dependent soul, who looks for more
grace.

The doctrinal importance of this remarkable utterance is what most affects
us, who look back through the dust of a hundred controversies. But it was
very secondary at the time, and what the ruler doubtless felt most was a
chill sense of repression and perhaps despair. It was indeed the
death-knell of his false hopes. For if only God is good, how can any
mortal inherit eternal life by a good deed? And Jesus goes on to deepen
this conviction by words which find a wonderful commentary in St. Paul’s
doctrine of the function of the law. It was to prepare men for the gospel
by a challenge, by revealing the standard of true righteousness, by saying
to all who seek to earn heaven, “The man that doeth these things shall
live by them.” The attempt was sure to end in failure, for, “by the law is
the knowledge of sin.” It was exactly upon this principle that Jesus said
“Keep the commandments,” spiritualizing them, as St. Matthew tells us, by
adding to the injunctions of the second table, “Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself,” which saying, we know, briefly comprehends them
all.

But the ruler knew not how much he loved himself: his easy life had met no
searching and stern demand until now, and his answer has a tone of relief,
after the ominous words he had first heard. “Master,” and he now drops the
questionable adjective, “all these have I kept from my youth;” these never
were so burdensome that he should despair; not these, he thinks, inspired
that unsatisfied longing for some good thing yet undone. We pity and
perhaps blame the shallow answer, and the dull perception which it
betrayed. But Jesus looked on him and loved him. And well it is for us
that no eyes fully discern our weakness but those which were so often
filled with sympathetic tears. He sees error more keenly than the sharpest
critic, but he sees earnestness too. And the love which desired all souls
was attracted especially by one who had felt from his youth up the
obligation of the moral law, and had not consciously transgressed it.

This is not the teaching of those vile proverbs which declare that wild
oats must be sown if one would reap good corn, and that the greater the
sinner the greater will be the saint.

Nay, even religionists of the sensational school delight in the past
iniquities of those they honour, not only to glorify God for their
recovery, nor with the joy which is in the presence of the angels over one
sinner that repenteth, but as if these possess through their former
wickedness some passport to special service now. Yet neither in Scripture
nor in the history of the Church will it appear that men of licentious
revolt against known laws have attained to usefulness of the highest
order. The Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb.
The Apostle of the Gentiles was blameless as touching the righteousness of
the law. And each Testament has a special promise for those who seek the
Lord early, who seek His kingdom and righteousness first. The undefiled
are nearest to the throne.

Now mark how endearing, how unlike the stern zeal of a propagandist, was
Christ’s tender and loving gaze; and hear the encouraging promise of
heavenly treasure, and offer of His own companionship, which presently
softened the severity of His demand; and again, when all failed, when His
followers doubtless scorned the deserter, ponder the truthful and
compassionate words, How hard it is!

Yet will Christ teach him how far the spirit of the law pierces, since the
letter has not wrought the knowledge of sin. If he loves his neighbour as
himself, let his needier neighbour receive what he most values. If he
loves God supremely, let him be content with treasure in the hands of God,
and with a discipleship which shall ever reveal to him, more and more
profoundly, the will of God, the true nobility of man, and the way to that
eternal life he seeks.

The socialist would justify by this verse a universal confiscation. But he
forgets that the spirit which seizes all is widely different from that
which gives all freely: that Zacchæus retained half his goods; that Joseph
of Arimathea was rich; that the property of Ananias was his own, and when
he sold it the price was in his own power; that St. James warned the rich
in this world only against trusting in riches instead of trusting God, who
gave them all richly, for enjoyment, although not to be confided in. Soon
after this Jesus accepted a feast from his friends in Bethany, and rebuked
Judas who complained that a costly luxury had not been sold for the
benefit of the poor. Why then is his demand now so absolute? It is simply
an application of his bold universal rule, that every cause of stumbling
must be sacrificed, be it innocent as hand or foot or eye. And affluent
indeed would be all the charities and missions of the Church in these
latter days, if the demand were obeyed in cases where it really applies,
if every luxury which enervates and all pomp which intoxicates were
sacrificed, if all who know that wealth is a snare to them corrected their
weakness by rigorous discipline, their unfruitfulness by a sharp pruning
of superfluous frondage.

The rich man neither remonstrated nor defended himself. His
self-confidence gave way. He felt that what he could not persuade himself
to do was a “good thing.” And he who came running went away sorrowful, and
with a face “lowering” like the sky which forebodes “foul weather.” That
is too often the issue of such vaunting offers. Yet feeling his weakness,
and neither resisting nor upbraiding the faithfulness which exposes him,
doubtless he was long disquieted by new desires, a strange sense of
failure and unworthiness, a clearer vision of that higher life which had
already haunted his reveries. Henceforward he had no choice but to sink to
a baser contentment, or else rise to a higher self-devotion. Who shall
say, because he failed to decide then, that he persisted for ever in the
great refusal? Yet was it a perilous and hardening experience, and it was
easier henceforward to live below his ideal, when once he had turned away
from Christ. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the inner circle of our
Lord’s immediate followers was then for ever closed against him.




Who Then Can Be Saved?


    “And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto His disciples, How
    hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
    And the disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answereth
    again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that
    trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for
    a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter
    into the kingdom of God. And they were astonished exceedingly,
    saying unto Him, Then who can be saved? Jesus looking upon them
    saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for all things
    are possible with God. Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have
    left all, and have followed thee. Jesus said, Verily I say unto
    you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or
    sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake,
    and for the gospel’s sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now
    in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and
    children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come
    eternal life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last
    first.”—MARK x. 23-31 (R.V.).


As the rich man turned away with the arrow in his breast, Jesus looked
round about on His disciples. The Gospels, and especially St. Mark, often
mention the gaze of Jesus, and all who know the power of an intense and
pure nature silently searching others, the piercing intuition, the calm
judgment which sometimes looks out of holy eyes, can well understand the
reason. Disappointed love was in His look, and that compassionate protest
against harsh judgments which presently went on to admit that the
necessary demand was hard. Some, perhaps, who had begun to scorn the ruler
in his defeat, were reminded of frailties of their own, and had to ask,
Shall I next be judged? And one was among them, pilfering from the bag
what was intended for the poor, to whom that look of Christ must have been
very terrible. Unless we remember Judas, we shall not comprehend all the
fitness of the repeated and earnest warnings of Jesus against
covetousness. Never was secret sin dealt with so faithfully as his.

And now Jesus, as He looks around, says, “How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God.” But the disciples were amazed. To
the ancient Jew, from Abraham to Solomon, riches appeared to be a sign of
the Divine favour, and if the pathetic figure of Job reminded him how much
sorrow might befall the just, yet the story showed even him at the end
more prosperous than at the beginning. In the time of Jesus, the chiefs of
their religion were greedily using their position as a means of amassing
enormous fortunes. To be told that wealth was a positive hindrance on the
way to God was wonderful indeed.

When Jesus modified His utterance, it was not to correct Himself, like one
who had heedlessly gone beyond His meaning. His third speech reiterated
the first, declaring that a manifest and proverbial physical impossibility
was not so hard as for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, here or
hereafter. But He interposed a saying which both explained the first one
and enlarged its scope. “Children” He begins, like one who pitied their
inexperience and dealt gently with their perplexities, “Children, how hard
is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God.” And
therefore is it hard for all the rich, since they must wrestle against
this temptation to trust in their possessions. It is exactly in this
spirit that St. James, who quoted Jesus more than any of the later writers
of Scripture, charges the rich that they be not high-minded, nor trust in
uncertain riches, but in the living God. Immediately before, Jesus had
told them how alone the kingdom might be entered, even by becoming as
little children; lowly, dependent, willing to receive all at the hands of
a superior. Would riches help them to do this? Is it easier to pray for
daily bread when one has much goods laid up for many years? Is it easier
to feel that God alone can make us drink of true pleasures as of a river,
when a hundred luxuries and indulgences lull us in sloth or allure us into
excess? Hereupon the disciples perceived what was more alarming still,
that not alone do rich men trust in riches, but all who confound
possessions with satisfaction, all who dream that to have much is to be
blessed, as if property were character. They were right. We may follow the
guidance of Mammon beckoning from afar, with a trust as idolatrous as if
we held his hand. But who could abide a principle so exacting? It was the
revelation of a new danger, and they were astonished exceedingly, saying,
Then who can be saved? Again Jesus looked upon them, with solemn but
reassuring gaze. They had learned the secret of the new life, the natural
impossibility throwing us back in helpless appeal to the powers of the
world to come. “With men it is impossible, but not with God, for all
things are possible with God.”

Peter, not easily nor long to be discouraged, now saw ground for hope. If
the same danger existed for rich and poor, then either might be encouraged
by having surmounted it, and the apostles had done what the rich man
failed to do—they had left all and followed Jesus. The claim has provoked
undue censure, as if too much were made out of a very trifling sacrifice,
a couple of boats and a paltry trade. But the objectors have missed the
point; the apostles really broke away from the service of the world when
they left their nets and followed Jesus. Their world was perhaps a narrow
one, but He Who reckoned two mites a greater offering than the total of
the gifts of many rich casting in much, was unlikely to despise a
fisherman or a publican who laid all his living upon the altar. The fault,
if fault there were, lay rather in the satisfaction with which Peter
contemplates their decision as now irrevocable and secure, so that nothing
remained except to claim the reward, which St. Matthew tells us he very
distinctly did. The young man should have had treasure in heaven: what
then should they have?

But in truth, their hardest battles with worldliness lay still before
them, and he who thought he stood might well take heed lest he fell. They
would presently unite in censuring a woman’s costly gift to Him, for Whom
they professed to have surrendered all. Peter himself would shrink from
his Master’s side. And what a satire upon this confident claim would it
have been, could the heart of Judas then and there have been revealed to
them.

The answer of our Lord is sufficiently remarkable. St. Matthew tells how
frankly and fully He acknowledged their collective services, and what a
large reward He promised, when they should sit with Him on thrones,
judging their nation. So far was that generous heart from weighing their
losses in a worldly scale, or criticizing the form of a demand which was
not all unreasonable.

But St. Mark lays exclusive stress upon other and sobering considerations,
which also St. Matthew has recorded.

There is a certain tone of egoism in the words, “Lo, we ... what shall we
have?” And Jesus corrects this in the gentlest way, by laying down such a
general rule as implies that many others will do the same, “there is no
man” whose self sacrifice shall go without its reward.

Secondary and lower motives begin to mingle with the generous ardour of
self-sacrifice as soon as it is careful to record its losses, and inquire
about its wages. Such motives are not absolutely forbidden, but they must
never push into the foremost place. The crown of glory animated and
sustained St. Paul, but it was for Christ, and not for this that he
suffered the loss of all things.

Jesus accordingly demands purity of motive. The sacrifice must not be for
ambition, even with aspirations prolonged across the frontiers of
eternity: it must be altogether “for My sake and for the gospel’s sake.”
And here we observe once more the portentous demand of Christ’s person
upon His followers. They are servants of no ethical or theological system,
however lofty. Christ does not regard Himself and them, as alike devoted
to some cause above and external to them all. To Him they are to be
consecrated, and to the gospel, which, as we have seen, is the story of
His Life, Death and Resurrection. For Him they are to break the dearest
and strongest of earthly ties. He had just proclaimed how indissoluble was
the marriage bond. No man should sever those whom God had joined. But St.
Luke informs us that to forsake even a wife for Christ’s sake, was a deed
worthy of being rewarded an hundredfold. Nor does He mention any higher
being in whose name the sacrifice is demanded. Now this is at least
implicitly the view of His own personality, which some profess to find
only in St. John.

Again, there was perhaps an undertone of complaint in Peter’s question, as
if no compensation for all their sacrifices were hitherto bestowed. What
should their compensation be? But Christ declares that losses endured for
Him are abundantly repaid on earth, in this present time, and even amid
the fires of persecution. Houses and lands are replaced by the
consciousness of inviolable shelter and inexhaustible provision. “Whither
wilt thou betake thyself to find covert?” asks the menacing cardinal; but
Luther answers, “Under the heaven of God.” And if dearest friends be
estranged, or of necessity abandoned, then, in such times of high
attainment and strong spiritual insight, membership in the Divine family
is felt to be no unreal tie, and earthly relationships are well recovered
in the vast fraternity of souls. Brethren, and sisters, and mothers, are
thus restored an hundredfold; but although a father is also lost, we do
not hear that a hundred fathers shall be given back, for in the spiritual
family that place is reserved for One.

Lastly, Jesus reminded them that the race was not yet over; that many
first shall be last and the last first. We know how Judas by transgression
fell, and how the persecuting Saul became not a whit behind the very
chiefest apostle. But this word remains for the warning and incitement of
all Christians, even unto the end of the world. There are “many” such.

Next after this warning, comes yet another prediction of His own
suffering, with added circumstances of horror. Would they who were now
first remain faithful? or should another take their bishopric?

With a darkening heart Judas heard, and made his choice.




[MARK x. 32-34. See MARK viii. 31, p. 219.]




Christ’s Cup And Baptism.


    “And there came near unto him James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
    saying unto him, Master, we would that Thou shouldst do for us
    whatsoever we shall ask of Thee. And He said unto them, What would
    ye I should do for you? And they said unto Him, Grant unto us that
    we may sit, one on Thy right hand, and one on _Thy_ left hand, in
    Thy glory. But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are
    ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the
    baptism that I am baptized with? And they said unto Him, We are
    able. And Jesus said unto them, The cup that I drink ye shall
    drink; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be
    baptized: but to sit on My right hand or on My left hand is not
    Mine to give: but _it is for them_ for whom it hath been
    prepared.”—MARK x. 35-40 (R.V.).


We learn from St. Matthew that Salome was associated with her sons, and
was indeed the chief speaker in the earlier part of this incident.

And her request has commonly been regarded as the mean and shortsighted
intrigue of an ambitious woman, recklessly snatching at an advantage for
her family, and unconscious of the stern and steep road to honour in the
kingdom of Jesus.

Nor can we deny that her prayer was somewhat presumptuous, or that it was
especially unbecoming to aim at entangling her Lord in a blindfold
promise, desiring Him to do something undefined, “whatsoever we shall ask
of Thee.” Jesus was too discreet to answer otherwise than, “What would ye
that I should do for you?” And when they asked for the chief seats in the
glory that was yet to be their Master’s, no wonder that the Ten hearing of
it, had indignation. But Christ’s answer, and the gentle manner in which
He explains His refusal, when a sharp rebuke is what we would expect to
read, alike suggest that there may have been some softening,
half-justifying circumstance. And this we find in the period at which the
daring request was made.

It was on the road, during the last journey, when a panic had seized the
company; and our Lord, apparently out of the strong craving for sympathy
which possesses the noblest souls, had once more told the Twelve what
insults and cruel sufferings lay before Him. It was a time for deep
searching of hearts, for the craven to go back and walk no more with Him,
and for the traitor to think of making His own peace, at any price, with
His Master’s foes.

But this dauntless woman could see the clear sky beyond the storm. Her
sons shall be loyal, and win the prize, whatever be the hazard, and
however long the struggle.

Ignorant and rash she may have been, but it was no base ambition which
chose such a moment to declare its unshaken ardour, and claim distinction
in the kingdom for which so much must be endured.

And when the stern price was plainly stated, she and her children were not
startled, they conceived themselves able for the baptism and the cup; and
little as they dreamed of the coldness of the waters, and the bitterness
of the draught, yet Jesus did not declare them to be deceived. He said, Ye
shall indeed share these.

Nor can we doubt that their faith and loyalty refreshed His soul amid so
much that was sad and selfish. He knew indeed on what a dreadful seat He
was soon to claim His kingdom, and who should sit upon His right hand and
His left. These could not follow Him now, but they should follow Him
hereafter—one by the brief pang of the earliest apostolic martyrdom, and
the other by the longest and sorest experience of that faithless and
perverse generation.

1. Very significant is the test of worth which Jesus propounds to them:
not successful service but endurance; not the active but the passive
graces. It is not our test, except in a few brilliant and conspicuous
martyrdoms. The Church, like the world, has crowns for learning,
eloquence, energy; it applauds the force by which great things are done.
The reformer who abolishes an abuse, the scholar who defends a doctrine,
the orator who sways a multitude, and the missionary who adds a new tribe
to Christendom,—all these are sure of honour. Our loudest plaudits are not
for simple men and women, but for high station, genius, and success. But
the Lord looketh upon the heart, not the brain or the hand; He values the
worker, not the work; the love, not the achievement. And, therefore, one
of the tests He constantly applied was this, the capability for noble
endurance. We ourselves, in our saner moments, can judge whether it
demands more grace to refute a heretic, or to sustain the long inglorious
agonies of some disease which slowly gnaws away the heart of life. And
doubtless among the heroes for whom Christ is twining immortal garlands,
there is many a pale and shattered creature, nerveless and unstrung,
tossing on a mean bed, breathing in imperfect English loftier praises than
many an anthem which resounds through cathedral arches, and laying on the
altar of burnt sacrifice all he has, even his poor frame itself, to be
racked and tortured without a murmur. Culture has never heightened his
forehead nor refined his face: we look at him, but little dream what the
angels see, or how perhaps because of such an one the great places which
Salome sought were not Christ’s to give away except only to them for whom
it was prepared. For these, at last, the reward shall be His to give, as
He said, “To him that overcometh will I give to sit down with Me upon My
throne.”

2. Significant also are the phrases by which Christ expressed the
sufferings of His people. Some, which it is possible to escape, are
voluntarily accepted for Christ’s sake, as when the Virgin mother bowed
her head to slander and scorn, and said, “Behold the servant of the Lord,
be it unto me according to Thy word.” Such sufferings are a cup
deliberately raised by one’s own hand to the reluctant lips. Into other
sufferings we are plunged: they are inevitable. Malice, ill-health, or
bereavement plies the scourge; they come on us like the rush of billows in
a storm; they are a deep and dreadful baptism. Or we may say that some
woes are external, visible, we are seen to be submerged in them; but
others are like the secret ingredients of a bitter draught, which the lips
know, but the eye of the bystander cannot analyze. But there is One Who
knows and rewards; even the Man of Sorrows Who said, The cup which My
heavenly Father giveth, shall I not drink it?

Now it is this standard of excellence, announced by Jesus, which shall
give high place to many of the poor and ignorant and weak, when rank shall
perish, when tongues shall cease, and when our knowledge, in the blaze of
new revelations, shall utterly vanish away, not quenched, but absorbed
like the starlight at noon.

3. We observe again that men are not said to drink of another cup as
bitter, or to be baptized in other waters as chill, as tried their Master;
but to share His very baptism and His cup. Not that we can add anything to
His all-sufficient sacrifice. Our goodness extendeth not to God. But
Christ’s work availed not only to reconcile us to the Father, but also to
elevate and consecrate sufferings which would otherwise have been penal
and degrading. Accepting our sorrows in the grace of Christ, and receiving
Him into our hearts, then our sufferings fill up that which is lacking of
the afflictions of Christ (Col. i. 24), and at the last He will say, when
the glories of heaven are as a robe around Him, “I was hungry, naked,
sick, and in prison in the person of the least of these.”

Hence it is that a special nearness to God has ever been felt in holy
sorrow, and in the pain of hearts which, amid all clamours and tumults of
the world, are hushed and calmed by the example of Him Who was led as a
lamb to the slaughter.

And thus they are not wrong who speak of the Sacrament of Sorrow, for
Jesus, in this passage, applies to it the language of both sacraments.

It is a harmless superstition even at the worst which brings to the
baptism of many noble houses water from the stream where Jesus was
baptized by John. But here we read of another and a dread baptism,
consecrated by the fellowship of Christ, in depths which plummet never
sounded, and into which the neophyte goes down sustained by no mortal
hand.

Here is also the communion of an awful cup. No human minister sets it in
our trembling hand; no human voice asks, “Are ye able to drink the cup
that I drink?” Our lips grow pale, and our blood is chill; but faith
responds, “We are able.” And the tender and pitying voice of our Master,
too loving to spare one necessary pang, responds with the word of doom:
“The cup that I drink ye shall drink; and with the baptism that I am
baptized withal shall ye be baptized.” Even so: it is enough for the
servant that he be as his Master.




The Law Of Greatness.


    “And when the ten heard it, they began to be moved with
    indignation concerning James and John. And Jesus called them to
    Him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to
    rule over the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great ones
    exercise authority over them. But it is not so among you; but
    whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister:
    and whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all.
    For verily the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
    minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”—MARK x. 41-45
    (R.V.).


When the Ten heard that James and John had asked for the chief places in
the kingdom, they proved, by their indignation, that they also nourished
the same ambitious desires which they condemned. But Jesus called them to
Him, for it was not there that angry passions had broken out. And happy
are they who hear and obey His summons to approach, when, removed from His
purifying gaze by carelessness or wilfulness, ambition and anger begin to
excite their hearts.

Now Jesus addressed them as being aware of their hidden emulation. And His
treatment of it is remarkable. He neither condemns, nor praises it, but
simply teaches them what Christian greatness means, and the conditions on
which it may be won.

The greatness of the world is measured by authority and lordliness. Even
there it is an uncertain test; for the most real power is often wielded by
some anonymous thinker, or by some crafty intriguer, content with the
substance of authority while his puppet enjoys the trappings. Something of
this may perhaps be detected in the words, “They which are accounted to
rule over the Gentiles lord it over them.” And it is certain that “their
great ones exercise authority over them.” But the Divine greatness is a
meek and gentle influence. To minister to the Church is better than to
command it, and whoever desires to be the chief must become the servant of
all. Thus shall whatever is vainglorious and egoistic in our ambition
defeat itself; the more one struggles to be great the more he is
disqualified: even benefits rendered to others with this object will not
really be service done for them but for self; nor will any calculated
assumption of humility help one to become indeed the least, being but a
subtle assertion that he is great, and like the last place in an
ecclesiastical procession, when occupied in a self-conscious spirit. And
thus it comes to pass that the Church knows very indistinctly who are its
greatest sons. As the gift of two mites by the widow was greater than that
of large sums by the rich, so a small service done in the spirit of
perfect self-effacement,—a service which thought neither of its merit nor
of its reward, but only of a brother’s need, shall be more in the day of
reckoning than sacrifices which are celebrated by the historians and sung
by the poets of the Church. For it may avail nothing to give all my goods
to feed the poor, and my body to be burned; while a cup of cold water,
rendered by a loyal hand, shall in no wise lose its reward.

Thus Jesus throws open to all men a competition which has no charms for
flesh and blood. And as He spoke of the entry upon His service, bearing a
cross, as being the following of Himself, so He teaches us, that the
greatness of lowliness, to which we are called, is His own greatness. “For
verily the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister.” Not
here, not in this tarnished and faded world, would He Who was from
everlasting with the Father have sought His own ease or honour. But the
physician came to them that were sick, and the good Shepherd followed His
lost sheep until He found it. Now this comparison proves that we also are
to carry forward the same restoring work, or else we might infer that,
because He came to minister to us, we may accept ministration with a good
heart. It is not so. We are the light and the salt of the earth, and must
suffer with Him that we may also be glorified together.

But He added another memorable phrase. He came “to give His life a ransom
in exchange for many.” It is not a question, therefore, of the inspiring
example of His life. Something has been forfeited which must be redeemed,
and Christ has paid the price. Nor is this done only on behalf of many,
but in exchange for them.

So then the crucifixion is not a sad incident in a great career; it is the
mark towards which Jesus moved, the power by which He redeemed the world.

Surely, we recognise here the echo of the prophet’s words, “Thou shalt
make His soul an offering for sin ... by His knowledge shall My righteous
servant justify many, and He shall bear their iniquities” (Isa. liii. 10,
11).

The elaborated doctrine of the atonement may not perhaps be here, much
less the subtleties of theologians who have, to their own satisfaction,
known the mind of the Almighty to perfection. But it is beyond reasonable
controversy that in this verse Jesus declared that His sufferings were
vicarious, and endured in the sinners’ stead.




Bartimæus.


    “And they come to Jericho: and as He went out from Jericho, with
    His disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timæus, Bartimæus,
    a blind beggar, was sitting by the way side. And when he heard
    that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say,
    Jesus, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him,
    that he should hold his peace: but he cried out the more a great
    deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still,
    and said, Call ye him. And they called the blind man, saying unto
    him, Be of good cheer; rise, He calleth thee. And he, casting away
    his garment, sprang up, and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered him,
    and said, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? And the blind
    man said unto Him, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus
    said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And
    straightway he received his sight, and followed Him in the
    way.”—MARK x. 46-52 (R.V.).


There is no miracle in the Gospels of which the accounts are so hard to
reconcile as those of the healing of the blind at Jericho.

It is a small thing that St. Matthew mentions two blind men, while St.
Mark and St. Luke are only aware of one. The same is true of the demoniacs
at Gadara, and it is easily understood that only an eyewitness should
remember the obscure comrade of a remarkable and energetic man, who would
have spread far and wide the particulars of his own cure. The fierce and
dangerous demoniac of Gadara was just such a man, and there is ample
evidence of energy and vehemence in the brief account of Bartimæus. What
is really perplexing is that St. Luke places the miracle at the entrance
to Jericho, but St. Matthew and St. Mark, as Jesus came out of it. It is
too forced and violent a theory which speaks of an old and a new town, so
close together that one was entered and the other left at the same time.

It is possible that there were two events, and the success of one sufferer
at the entrance to the town led others to use the same importunities at
the exit. And this would not be much more remarkable than the two miracles
of the loaves, or the two miraculous draughts of fish. It is also
possible, though unlikely, that the same supplicant who began his appeals
without success when Jesus entered, resumed His entreaties, with a
comrade, at the gate by which He left.

Such difficulties exist in all the best authenticated histories:
discrepancies of the kind arise continually between the evidence of the
most trustworthy witnesses in courts of justice. And the student who is
humble as well as devout will not shut his eyes against facts, merely
because they are perplexing, but will remember that they do nothing to
shake the solid narrative itself.

As we read St. Mark’s account, we are struck by the vividness of the whole
picture, and especially by the robust personality of the blind man. The
scene is neither Jerusalem, the city of the Pharisees nor Galilee, where
they have persistently sapped the popularity of Jesus. Eastward of the
Jordan, He has spent the last peaceful and successful weeks of His brief
and stormy career, and Jericho lies upon the borders of that friendly
district. Accordingly something is here of the old enthusiasm: a great
multitude moves along with His disciples to the gates, and the rushing
concourse excites the curiosity of the blind son of Timæus. So does many a
religious movement lead to inquiry and explanation far and wide. But when
he, sitting by the way, and unable to follow, knows that the great Healer
is at hand, but only in passing, and for a moment, his interest suddenly
becomes personal and ardent, and “he began to cry out” (the expression
implies that his supplication, beginning as the crowd drew near, was not
one utterance but a prolonged appeal), “and to say, Jesus, Thou Son of
David, have mercy on me.” To the crowd his outcry seemed to be only an
intrusion upon One Who was too rapt, too heavenly, to be disturbed by the
sorrows of a blind beggar. But that was not the view of Bartimæus, whose
personal affliction gave him the keenest interest in those verses of the
Old Testament which spoke of opening the blind eyes. If he did not
understand their exact force as prophecies, at least they satisfied him
that his petition could not be an insult to the great Prophet of Whom just
such actions were told, for Whose visit he had often sighed, and Who was
now fast going by, perhaps for ever. The picture is one of great
eagerness, bearing up against great discouragement. We catch the spirit of
the man as he inquires what the multitude means, as the epithet of his
informants, Jesus of Nazareth, changes on his lips into Jesus, Thou Son of
David, as he persists, without any vision of Christ to encourage him, and
amid the rebukes of many, in crying out the more a great deal, although
pain is deepening every moment in his accents, and he will presently need
cheering. The ear of Jesus is quick for such a call, and He stops. He does
not raise His own voice to summon him, but teaches a lesson of humanity to
those who would fain have silenced the appeal of anguish, and says, Call
ye him. And they obey with a courtier-like change of tone, saying, Be of
good cheer, rise, He calleth thee. And Bartimæus cannot endure even the
slight hindrance of his loose garment, but flings it aside, and rises and
comes to Jesus, a pattern of the importunity which prays and never faints,
which perseveres amid all discouragement, which adverse public opinion
cannot hinder. And the Lord asks of him almost exactly the same question
as recently of James and John, What wilt thou that I should do for thee?
But in his reply there is no aspiring pride: misery knows how precious are
the common gifts, the every-day blessings which we hardly pause to think
about; and he replies, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight. It is a glad
and eager answer. Many a petition he had urged in vain; and many a small
favour had been discourteously bestowed; but Jesus, Whose tenderness loves
to commend while He blesses, shares with him, so to speak, the glory of
his healing, as He answers, Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. By
thus fixing his attention upon his own part in the miracle, so utterly
worthless as a contribution, but so indispensable as a condition, Jesus
taught him to exercise hereafter the same gift of faith.

“Go thy way,” He said. And Bartimæus “followed Him on the road.” Happy is
that man whose eyes are open to discern, and his heart prompt to follow,
the print of those holy feet.





CHAPTER XI.




The Triumphant Entry.


    “And when they draw nigh unto Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and
    Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, He sendeth two of His disciples,
    and saith unto them, Go your way into the village that is over
    against you: and straightway as ye enter into it, ye shall find a
    colt tied, whereon no man ever yet sat; loose him, and bring him.
    And if any one say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye, The Lord hath
    need of him; and straightway He will send him back hither. And
    they went away, and found a colt tied at the door without in the
    open street; and they loose him. And certain of them that stood
    there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt? And they said
    unto them even as Jesus had said: and they let them go. And they
    bring the colt unto Jesus, and cast on him their garments; and He
    sat upon him. And many spread their garments upon the way; and
    others branches, which they had cut from the fields. And they that
    went before, and they that followed, cried, Hosanna: Blessed _is_
    He that cometh in the name of the Lord: Blessed is the kingdom
    that cometh, _the kingdom_ of our father David: Hosanna in the
    highest. And He entered into Jerusalem, into the temple; and when
    He had looked round about upon all things, it being now eventide,
    He went out unto Bethany with the twelve.”—MARK xi. 1-11 (R.V.).


Jesus had now come near to Jerusalem, into what was possibly the sacred
district of Bethphage, of which, in that case, Bethany was the border
village. Not without pausing here (as we learn from the fourth Gospel),
yet as the next step forward, He sent two of His disciples to untie and
bring back an ass, which was fastened with her colt at a spot which He
minutely described. Unless they were challenged they should simply bring
the animals away; but if any one remonstrated, they should answer, “The
Lord hath need of them,” and thereupon the owner would not only acquiesce,
but send them. In fact they are to make a requisition, such as the State
often institutes for horses and cattle during a campaign, when private
rights must give way to a national exigency. And this masterful demand,
this abrupt and decisive rejoinder to a natural objection, not arguing nor
requesting, but demanding, this title which they are bidden to give to
Jesus, by which, standing thus alone, He is rarely described in Scripture
(chiefly in the later Epistles, when the remembrance of His earthly style
gave place to the influence of habitual adoration), all this preliminary
arrangement makes us conscious of a change of tone, of royalty issuing its
mandates, and claiming its rights. But what a claim, what a requisition,
when He takes the title of Jehovah, and yet announces His need of the colt
of an ass. It is indeed the lowliest of all memorable processions which He
plans, and yet, in its very humility, it appeals to ancient prophecy, and
says unto Zion that her King cometh unto her. The monarchs of the East and
the captains of the West might ride upon horses as for war, but the King
of Sion should come unto her meek, and sitting upon an ass, upon a colt,
the foal of an ass. Yet there is fitness and dignity in the use of “a colt
whereon never man sat,” and it reminds us of other facts, such as that He
was the firstborn of a virgin mother, and rested in a tomb which
corruption had never soiled.

Thus He comes forth, the gentlest of the mighty, with no swords gleaming
around to guard Him, or to smite the foreigner who tramples Israel, or the
worse foes of her own household. Men who will follow such a King must lay
aside their vain and earthly ambitions, and awake to the truth that
spiritual powers are grander than any which violence ever grasped. But men
who will not follow Him shall some day learn the same lesson, perhaps in
the crash of their reeling commonwealth, perhaps not until the armies of
heaven follow Him, as He goes forth, riding now upon a white horse,
crowned with many diadems, smiting the nations with a sharp sword, and
ruling them with an iron rod.

Lowly though His procession was, yet it was palpably a royal one. When
Jehu was proclaimed king at Ramoth-Gilead, the captains hastened to make
him sit upon the garments of every one of them, expressing by this
national symbol their subjection. Somewhat the same feeling is in the
famous anecdote of Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth. And thus the
disciples who brought the ass cast on him their garments, and Jesus sat
thereon, and many spread their garments in the way. Others strewed the
road with branches; and as they went they cried aloud certain verses of
that great song of triumph, which told how the nations, swarming like
bees, were quenched like the light fire of thorns, how the right hand of
the Lord did valiantly, how the gates of righteousness should be thrown
open for the righteous, and, more significant still, how the stone which
the builders rejected should become the headstone of the corner. Often had
Jesus quoted this saying when reproached by the unbelief of the rulers,
and now the people rejoiced and were glad in it, as they sang of His
salvation, saying, “Hosanna, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the
Lord, Blessed is the kingdom that cometh, the Kingdom of our father David,
Hosanna in the highest.”

Such is the narrative as it impressed St. Mark. For his purpose it
mattered nothing that Jerusalem took no part in the rejoicings, but was
perplexed, and said, Who is this? or that, when confronted by this
somewhat scornful and affected ignorance of the capital, the voice of
Galilee grew weak, and proclaimed no longer the advent of the kingdom of
David, but only Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth; or that the Pharisees in
the temple avowed their disapproval, while contemptuously ignoring the
Galilean multitude, by inviting Him to reprove some children. What
concerned St. Mark was that now, at last, Jesus openly and practically
assumed rank as a monarch, allowed men to proclaim the advent of His
kingdom, and proceeded to exercise its rights by calling for the surrender
of property, and by cleansing the temple with a scourge. The same avowal
of kingship is almost all that he has cared to record of the remarkable
scene before His Roman judge.

After this heroic fashion did Jesus present Himself to die. Without a
misleading hope, conscious of the hollowness of His seeming popularity,
weeping for the impending ruin of the glorious city whose walls were
ringing with His praise, and predicting the murderous triumph of the
crafty faction which appears so helpless, He not only refuses to recede or
compromise, but does not hesitate to advance His claims in a manner
entirely new, and to defy the utmost animosity of those who still rejected
Him.

After such a scene there could be no middle course between crushing Him,
and bowing to Him. He was no longer a Teacher of doctrines, however
revolutionary, but an Aspirant to practical authority, Who must be dealt
with practically.

There was evidence also of His intention to proceed upon this new line,
when He entered into the temple, investigated its glaring abuses, and only
left it for the moment because it was now eventide. To-morrow would show
more of His designs.

Jesus is still, and in this world, King. And it will hereafter avail us
nothing to have received His doctrine, unless we have taken His yoke.




The Barren Fig-Tree.


    “And on the morrow, when they were come out from Bethany, He
    hungered. And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, He came,
    if haply He might find anything thereon: and when He came to it,
    He found nothing but leaves; for it was not the season of figs.
    And He answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit from thee
    henceforward for ever. And His disciples heard it.”

    “And as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig-tree
    withered away from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance
    saith unto Him, Rabbi, behold, the fig-tree which Thou cursedst is
    withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in
    God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this
    mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not
    doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to
    pass; he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, All things
    whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received
    them, and ye shall have them. And whensoever ye stand praying,
    forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your Father also
    which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”—MARK xi.
    12-14, 20-25 (R.V.).


No sooner has Jesus claimed His kingdom, than He performs His first and
only miracle of judgment. And it is certain that no mortal, informed that
such a miracle was impending, could have guessed where the blow would
fall. In this miracle an element is predominant which exists in all, since
it is wrought as an acted dramatized parable, not for any physical
advantage, but wholly for the instruction which it conveys. Jesus hungered
at the very outset of a day of toil, as He came out from Bethany. And this
was not due to poverty, since the disciples there had recently made Him a
great feast, but to His own absorbing ardour. The zeal of God’s house,
which He had seen polluted and was about to cleanse, had either left Him
indifferent to food until the keen air of morning aroused the sense of
need, or else it had detained Him, all night long, in prayer and
meditation out of doors. As He walks, He sees afar off a lonely fig-tree
covered with leaves, and comes if haply He might find anything thereon. It
is true that figs would not be in season for two months, but yet they
ought to present themselves before the leaves did; and since the tree was
precocious in the show and profusion of luxuriance, it ought to bear early
figs. If it failed, it would at least point a powerful moral; and,
therefore, when only leaves appeared upon it, Jesus cursed it with
perpetual barrenness, and passed on. Not in the dusk of that evening as
they returned, but when they passed by again in the morning the blight was
manifest, the tree was withered from its very roots.

It is complained that by this act Jesus deprived some one of his property.
But the same retributive justice of which this was an expression was
preparing to blight, presently, all the possessions of all the nation. Was
this unjust? And of the numberless trees that are blasted year by year,
why should the loss of this one only be resented? Every physical injury
must be intended to further some spiritual end; but it is not often that
the purpose is so clear, and the lesson so distinctly learned.

Others blame our Lord’s word of sentence, because a tree, not being a
moral agent, ought not to be punished. It is an obvious rejoinder that
neither could it suffer pain; that the whole action is symbolic; and that
we ourselves justify the Saviour’s method of expression as often as we
call one tree “good” and another “bad,” and say that a third “ought” to
bear fruit, while not much could be “expected of” a fourth. It should
rather be observed that in this word of sentence Jesus revealed His
tenderness. It would have been a false and cruel kindness never to work
any miracle except of compassion, and thus to suggest the inference that
He could never strike, whereas indeed, before that generation passed away,
He would break His enemies in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

Yet He came not to destroy men’s lives but to save them. And, therefore,
while showing Himself neither indifferent nor powerless against barren and
false pretensions, He did this only once, and then only by a sign wrought
upon an unsentient tree.

Retribution fell upon it not for its lack of fruit, since at that season
it shared this with all its tribe, but for ostentatious, much-professing
fruitlessness. And thus it pointed with dread significance to the
condition of God’s own people, differing from Greece and Rome and Syria,
not in the want of fruit, but in the show of luxuriant frondage, in the
expectation it excited and mocked. When the season of the world’s
fruitfulness was yet remote, only Israel put forth leaves, and made
professions which were not fulfilled. And the permanent warning of the
miracle is not for heathen men and races, but for Christians who have a
name to live, and who are called to bear fruit unto God.

While the disciples marvelled at the sudden fulfilment of its sentence,
they could not have forgotten the parable of a fig-tree in the vineyard,
on which care and labour were lavished, but which must be destroyed after
one year of respite if it continued to be a cumberer of the ground.

And Jesus drove the lesson home. He pointed to “this mountain” full in
front, with the gold and marble of the temple sparkling like a diadem upon
its brow, and declared that faith is not only able to smite barrenness
with death, but to remove into the midst of the sea, to plant among the
wild and stormswept races of the immeasurable pagan world, the glory and
privilege of the realized presence of the Lord. To do this was the purpose
of God, hinted by many a prophet, and clearly announced by Christ Himself.
But its accomplishment was left to His followers, who should succeed in
exact proportion to the union of their will and that of God, so that the
condition of that moral miracle, transcending all others in marvel and in
efficacy, was simple faith.

And the same rule covers all the exigencies of life. One who truly relies
on God, whose mind and will are attuned to those of the Eternal, cannot be
selfish, or vindictive, or presumptuous. As far as we rise to the grandeur
of this condition we enter into the Omnipotence of God, and no limit need
be imposed upon the prevalence of really and utterly believing prayer. The
wishes that ought to be refused will vanish as we attain that eminence,
like the hoar frost of morning as the sun grows strong.

To this promise Jesus added a precept, the admirable suitability of which
is not at first apparent. Most sins are made evident to the conscience in
the act of prayer. Drawing nigh to God, we feel our unfitness to be there,
we are made conscious of what He frowns upon, and if we have such faith as
Jesus spoke of, we at once resign what would grieve the Spirit of
adoption. No saint is ignorant of the convicting power of prayer. But it
is not of necessity so with resentment for real grievances. We may think
we do well to be angry. We may confound our selfish fire with the pure
flame of holy zeal, and begin, with confidence enough, yet not with the
mind of Christ, to remove mountains, not because they impede a holy cause,
but because they throw a shadow upon our own field. And, therefore, Jesus
reminds us that not only wonder-working faith, but even the forgiveness of
our sins requires from us the forgiveness of our brother. This saying is
the clearest proof of how much is implied in a truly undoubting heart. And
this promise is the sternest rebuke of the Church, endorsed with such
ample powers, and yet after nineteen centuries confronted by an
unconverted world.




The Second Cleansing Of The Temple.


    “And they come to Jerusalem: and He entered into the temple, and
    began to cast out them that sold and them that bought in the
    temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the
    seats of them that sold the doves; and He would not suffer that
    any man should carry a vessel through the temple. And He taught,
    and said unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a
    house of prayer for all the nations? but ye have made it a den of
    robbers. And the chief priests and the scribes heard it, and
    sought how they might destroy Him: for they feared Him, for all
    the multitude was astonished at His teaching. And every evening He
    went forth out of the city.”—MARK xi. 15-19. (R.V.).


With the authority of yesterday’s triumph still about Him, Jesus returned
to the temple, which He had then inspected. There at least the priesthood
were not thwarted by popular indifference or ignorance: they had power to
carry out fully their own views; they were solely responsible for whatever
abuses could be discovered. In fact, the iniquities which moved the
indignation of Jesus were of their own contrivance, and they enriched
themselves by a vile trade which robbed the worshippers and profaned the
holy house.

Pilgrims from a distance needed the sacred money, the half-shekel of the
sanctuary, still coined for this one purpose, to offer for a ransom of
their souls (Exod. xxx. 13). And the priests had sanctioned a trade in the
exchange of money under the temple roof, so fraudulent that the dealers’
evidence was refused in the courts of justice.

Doves were necessary for the purification of the poor, who could not
afford more costly sacrifices, and sheep and oxen were also in great
demand. And since the unblemished quality of the sacrifices should be
attested by the priests, they had been able to put a fictitious value upon
these animals, by which the family of Annas in particular had accumulated
enormous wealth.

To facilitate this trade, they had dared to bring the defilement of the
cattle market within the precincts of the House of God. Not indeed into
the place where the Pharisee stood in his pride and “prayed with himself,”
for that was holy; but the court of the Gentiles was profane; the din
which distracted and the foulness which revolted Gentile worship was of no
account to the average Jew. But Jesus regarded the scene with different
eyes. How could the sanctity of that holy place not extend to the court of
the stranger and the proselyte, when it was written, Thy house shall be
called a house of prayer for all the nations? Therefore Jesus had already,
at the outset of His ministry, cleansed His Father’s house. Now, in the
fulness of His newly asserted royalty, He calls it My House: He denounces
the iniquity of their traffic by branding it as a den of robbers; He casts
out the traders themselves, as well as the implements of their traffic;
and in so doing He fanned to a mortal heat the hatred of the chief priests
and the scribes, who saw at once their revenues threatened and their
reputation tarnished, and yet dared not strike, because all the multitude
was astonished at His teaching.

But the wisdom of Jesus did not leave Him within their reach at night;
every evening He went forth out of the city.

From this narrative we learn the blinding force of self-interest, for
doubtless they were no more sensible of their iniquity than many a modern
slavedealer. And we must never rest content because our own conscience
acquits us, unless we have by thought and prayer supplied it with light
and guiding.

We learn reverence for sacred places, since the one exercise of His royal
authority which Jesus publicly displayed was to cleanse the temple, even
though upon the morrow He would relinquish it for ever, to be “your
house”—and desolate.

We learn also how much apparent sanctity, what dignity of worship,
splendour of offerings, and pomp of architecture may go along with
corruption and unreality.

And yet again, by their overawed and abject helplessness we learn the
might of holy indignation, and the awakening power of a bold appeal to
conscience. “The people hung upon Him, listening,” and if all seemed vain
and wasted effort on the following Friday, what fruit of the teaching of
Jesus did not His followers gather in, as soon as He poured down on them
the gifts of Pentecost.

Did they now recall their own reflections after the earlier cleansing of
the temple? and their Master’s ominous words? They had then remembered how
it was written, The zeal of thine house shall eat Me up. And He had said,
Destroy this temple, and in three days I shall raise it up, speaking of
the temple of His Body, which was now about to be thrown down.




The Baptism Of John, Whence Was It?


    “And they come again to Jerusalem: and as He was walking in the
    temple, there come to Him the chief priests, and the scribes, and
    the elders; and they said unto Him, By what authority doest Thou
    these things? or who gave Thee this authority to do these things?
    And Jesus said unto them, I will ask of you one question, and
    answer Me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these
    things. The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men?
    answer Me. And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall
    say, From heaven: He will say, Why then did ye not believe him?
    But should we say, From men—they feared the people: for all verily
    held John to be a prophet. And they answered Jesus and say, We
    know not. And Jesus saith unto them, Neither tell I you by what
    authority I do these things.”—MARK xi. 27-33 (R.V.).


The question put to Jesus by the hierarchy of Jerusalem is recorded in all
the synoptic Gospels. But in some respects the story is most pointed in
the narrative of St. Mark. And it is natural that he, the historian
especially of the energies of Christ, should lay stress upon a challenge
addressed to Him, by reason of His masterful words and deeds. At the
outset, he had recorded the astonishment of the people because Jesus
taught with authority, because “Verily I say” replaced the childish and
servile methods by which the scribe and the Pharisee sustained their most
wilful innovations.

When first he relates a miracle, he tells how their wonder increased,
because with authority Jesus commanded the unclean spirits and they
obeyed, respecting His self-reliant word “I command thee to come out,”
more than the most elaborate incantations and exorcisms. St. Mark’s first
record of collision with the priests was when Jesus carried His claim
still farther, and said “The Son of man hath authority” (it is the same
word) “on earth to forgive sins.” Thus we find the Gospel quite conscious
of what so forcibly strikes a careful modern reader, the assured and
independent tone of Jesus; His bearing, so unlike that of a disciple or a
commentator; His consciousness that the Scriptures themselves are they
which testify of Him, and that only He can give the life which men think
they possess in these. In the very teaching of lowliness Jesus exempts
Himself, and forbids others to be Master and Lord, because these titles
belong to Him.

Impressive as such claims appear when we awake to them, it is even more
suggestive to reflect that we can easily read the Gospels and not be
struck by them. We do not start when He bids all the weary to come to Him,
and offers them rest, and yet declares Himself to be meek and lowly. He is
meek and lowly while He makes such claims. His bearing is that of the
highest rank, joined with the most perfect graciousness; His great claims
never irritate us, because they are palpably His due, and we readily
concede the astonishing elevation whence He so graciously bends down so
low. And this is one evidence of the truth and power of the character
which the Apostles drew.

How natural is this also, that immediately after Palm Sunday, when the
people have hailed their Messiah, royal and a Saviour, and when He has
accepted their homage, we find new indications of authority in His bearing
and His actions. He promptly took them at their word. It was now that He
wrought His only miracle of judgment, and although it was but the
withering of a tree (since He came not to destroy men’s lives but to save
them), yet was there a dread symbolical sentence involved upon all barren
and unfruitful men and Churches. In the very act of triumphal entry, He
solemnly pronounced judgment upon the guilty city which would not accept
her King.

Arrived at the temple, He surveyed its abuses and defilements, and
returned on the morrow (and so not spurred by sudden impulse, but of
deliberate purpose), to drive out them that sold and bought. Two years ago
He had needed to scourge the intruders forth, but now they are overawed by
His majesty, and obey His word. Then, too, they were rebuked for making
His Father’s house a house of merchandise, but now it is His own—“My
House,” but degraded yet farther into a den of thieves.

But while traffic and pollution shrank away, misery and privation were
attracted to Him; the blind and the lame came and were healed in the very
temple; and the centre and rallying-place of the priests and scribes
beheld His power to save. This drove them to extremities. He was carrying
the war into the heart of their territories, establishing Himself in their
stronghold, and making it very plain that since the people had hailed Him
King, and He had responded to their acclaims, He would not shrink from
whatever His view of that great office might involve.

While they watched, full of bitterness and envy, they were again
impressed, as at the beginning, by the strange, autocratic, spontaneous
manner in which He worked, making Himself the source of His blessings, as
no prophet had ever done since Moses expiated so dearly the offence of
saying, Must we fetch you water out of the rock? Jesus acted after the
fashion of Him Who openeth His hands and satisfieth the desire of every
living thing. Why did He not give the glory to One above? Why did He not
supplicate, nor invoke, but simply bestow? Where were the accustomed words
of supplication, “Hear me, O Lord God, hear me,” or, “Where is the Lord
God of Israel?”

Here they discerned a flaw, a heresy; and they would force Him either to
make a fatal claim, or else to moderate His pretensions at their bidding,
which would promptly restore their lost influence and leadership.

Nor need we shrink from confessing that our Lord was justly open to such
reproach, unless He was indeed Divine, unless He was deliberately
preparing His followers for that astonishing revelation, soon to come,
which threw the Church upon her knees in adoration of her God manifest in
flesh. It is hard to understand how the Socinian can defend his Master
against the charge of encroaching on the rights and honours of Deity, and
(to borrow a phrase from a different connection) sitting down at the right
hand of the Majesty of God, whereas every priest standeth ministering. If
He were a creature, He culpably failed to tell us the conditions upon
which He received a delegated authority, and the omission has made His
Church ever since idolatrous. It is one great and remarkable lesson
suggested by this verse: if Jesus were not Divine, what was He?

Thus it came to pass, in direct consequence upon the events which opened
the great week of the triumph and the cross of Jesus, that the whole rank
and authority of the temple system confronted Him with a stern question.
They sat in Moses’ seat. They were entitled to examine the pretensions of
a new and aspiring teacher. They had a perfect right to demand “Tell us by
what authority thou doest these things.” The works are not denied, but the
source whence they flow is questioned.

After so many centuries, the question is fresh to-day. For still the
spirit of Christ is working in His world, openly, palpably, spreading
blessings far and wide. It is exalting multitudes of ignoble lives by
hopes that are profound, far-reaching, and sublime. When savage realms are
explored, it is Christ Who hastens thither with His gospel, before the
trader in rum and gunpowder can exhibit the charms of a civilization
without a creed. In the gloomiest haunts of disease and misery, madness,
idiotcy, orphanage, and vice, there is Christ at work, the good Samaritan,
pouring oil and wine into the gaping wounds of human nature, acting quite
upon His own authority, careless who looks askance, not asking political
economy whether genuine charity is pauperisation, nor questioning the
doctrine of development, whether the progress of the race demands the
pitiless rejection of the unfit, and selection only of the strongest
specimens for survival. That iron creed may be natural; but if so, ours is
supernatural, it is a law of spirit and life, setting us free from that
base and selfish law of sin and death. The existence and energy of
Christian forces in our modern world is indisputable: never was Jesus a
more popular and formidable claimant of its crown; never did more Hosannas
follow Him into the temple. But now as formerly His credentials are
demanded: what is His authority and how has He come by it?

Now we say of modern as of ancient inquiries, that they are right;
investigation is inevitable and a duty.

But see how Jesus dealt with those men of old.

Let us not misunderstand Him. He did not merely set one difficulty against
another, as if we should start some scientific problem, and absolve
ourselves from the duty of answering any inquiry until science had
disposed of this. Doubtless it is logical enough to point out that all
creeds, scientific and religious alike, have their unsolved problems. But
the reply of Jesus was not a dexterous evasion, it went to the root of
things, and, therefore, it stands good for time and for eternity. He
refused to surrender the advantage of a witness to whom He was entitled:
He demanded that all the facts and not some alone should be investigated.
In truth their position bound His interrogators to examine His
credentials; to do so was not only their privilege but their duty. But
then they must begin at the beginning. Had they performed this duty for
the Baptist? Who or what was that mysterious, lonely, stern preacher of
righteousness who had stirred the national heart so profoundly, and whom
all men still revered? They themselves had sent to question him, and his
answer was notorious: he had said that he was sent before the Christ; he
was only a voice, but a voice which demanded the preparation of a way
before the Lord Himself, Who was approaching, and a highway for our God.
What was the verdict of these investigators upon that great movement? What
would they make of the decisive testimony of the Baptist?

As the perilous significance of this consummate rejoinder bursts on their
crafty intelligence, as they recoil confounded from the exposure they have
brought upon themselves, St. Mark tells how the question was pressed home,
“Answer Me!” But they dared not call John an impostor, and yet to confess
him was to authenticate the seal upon our Lord’s credentials. And Jesus is
palpably within His rights in refusing to be questioned of such
authorities as these. Yet immediately afterwards, with equal skill and
boldness, He declared Himself, and yet defied their malice, in the story
of the lord of a vineyard, who had vainly sent many servants to claim its
fruit, and at the last sent his beloved son.

Now apply the same process to the modern opponents of the faith, and it
will be found that multitudes of their assaults on Christianity imply the
negation of what they will not and dare not deny. Some will not believe in
miracles because the laws of nature work uniformly. But their uniformity
is undisturbed by human operations; the will of man wields, without
cancelling, these mighty forces which surround us. And why may not the
will of God do the same, if there be a God? Ask them whether they deny His
existence, and they will probably declare themselves Agnostics, which is
exactly the ancient answer, “We cannot tell.” Now as long as men avow
their ignorance of the existence or non-existence of a Deity, they cannot
assert the impossibility of miracles, for miracles are simply actions
which reveal God, as men’s actions reveal their presence.

Again, a demand is made for such evidence, to establish the faith, as
cannot be had for any fact beyond the range of the exact sciences. We are
asked, Why should we stake eternity upon anything short of demonstration?
Yet it will be found that the objector is absolutely persuaded, and acts
on his persuasion of many “truths which never can be proved”—of the
fidelity of his wife and children, and above all, of the difference
between right and wrong. That is a fundamental principle: deny it, and
society becomes impossible. And yet sceptical theories are widely diffused
which really, though unconsciously, sap the very foundations of morality,
or assert that it is not from heaven but of men, a mere expediency, a
prudential arrangement of society.

Such arguments may well “fear the people,” for the instincts of mankind
know well that all such explanations of conscience do really explain it
away.

And it is quite necessary in our days, when religion is impugned, to see
whether the assumptions of its assailants would not compromise time as
well as eternity, and to ask, What think ye of all those fundamental
principles which sustain the family, society, and the state, while they
bear testimony to the Church of Christ.





CHAPTER XII.




The Husbandmen.


    “And He began to speak unto them in parables. A man planted a
    vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the
    wine-press, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and
    went into another country. And at the season he sent to the
    husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of
    the fruits of the vineyard. And they took him, and beat him, and
    sent him away empty. And again he sent unto them another servant:
    and him they wounded in the head, and handled shamefully. And he
    sent another; and him they killed: and many others; beating some,
    and killing some. He had yet one, a beloved son: he sent him last
    unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those
    husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us
    kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him,
    and killed him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard. What,
    therefore, will the Lord of the vineyard do? He will come and
    destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.
    Have ye not read even this Scripture:

    The stone which the builders rejected,
    The same was made the head of the corner:
    This was from the Lord,
    And it is marvellous in our eyes?

    And they sought to lay hold on Him; and they feared the multitude;
    for they perceived that He spake the parable against them: and
    they left Him, and went away.”—MARK xii. 1-12 (R.V.).


The rulers of His people have failed to make Jesus responsible to their
inquisition. He has exposed the hollowness of their claim to investigate
His commission, and formally refused to tell them by what authority He did
these things. But what He would not say for an unjust cross-examination,
He proclaimed to all docile hearts; and the skill which disarmed His
enemies is not more wonderful than that which in their hearing answered
their question, yet left them no room for accusation. This was achieved by
speaking to them in parables. The indifferent might hear and not perceive:
the keenness of malice would surely understand but could not easily
impeach a simple story; but to His own followers it would be given to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of God.

His first words would be enough to arouse attention. The psalmist had told
how God brought a vine out of Egypt, and cast out the heathen and planted
it. Isaiah had carried the image farther, and sung of a vineyard in a very
fruitful hill. The Well-beloved, Whose it was, cleared the ground for it,
and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower, and hewed out a
wine-press, and looked that it should bring forth grapes, but it had
brought forth wild grapes. Therefore He would lay it waste. This
well-known and recognized type the Lord now adopted, but modified it to
suit His purpose. As in a former parable the sower slept and rose, and
left the earth to bring forth fruit of itself, so in this, the Lord of the
vineyard let it out to husbandmen and went into a far country. This is our
Lord’s own explanation of that silent time in which no special
interpositions asserted that God was nigh, no prophecies were heard, no
miracles startled the careless. It was the time when grace already granted
should have been peacefully ripening. Now we live in such a period.
Unbelievers desire a sign. Impatient believers argue that if our Master is
as near us as ever, the same portents must attest His presence; and,
therefore, they recognise the gift of tongues in hysterical clamour, and
stake the honour of religion upon faith-healing, and those various obscure
phenomena which the annals of every fanaticism can rival. But the sober
Christian understands that, even as the Lord of the vineyard went into
another country, so Christ His Son (Who in spiritual communion is ever
with His people) in another sense has gone into a far country to receive a
kingdom and to return. In the interval, marvels would be simply an
anachronism. The best present evidence of the faith lies in the superior
fruitfulness of the vineyard He has planted, in the steady advance to rich
maturity of the vine He has imported from another clime.

At this point Jesus begins to add a new significance to the ancient
metaphor. The husbandmen are mentioned. Men there were in the ancient
Church, who were specially responsible for the culture of the vineyard. As
He spoke, the symbol explained itself. The imposing array of chief priests
and scribes and elders stood by, who had just claimed as their prerogative
that He should make good His commission to their scrutiny; and none would
be less likely to mistake His meaning than these self-conscious lovers of
chief seats in the synagogues. The structure of the parable, therefore,
admits their official rank, as frankly as when Jesus bade His disciples
submit to their ordinances because they sit in Moses’ seat. But He passes
on, easily and as if unconsciously, to record that special messengers from
heaven had, at times, interrupted the self-indulgent quietude of the
husbandmen. Because the fruit of the vineyard had not been freely
rendered, a bondservant was sent to demand it. The epithet implies that
the messenger was lower in rank, although his direct mission gave him
authority even over the keepers of the vineyard. It expresses exactly the
position of the prophets, few of them of priestly rank, some of them very
humble in extraction, and very rustic in expression, but all sent in evil
days to faithless husbandmen, to remind them that the vineyard was not
their own, and to receive the fruits of righteousness. Again and again the
demand is heard, for He sent “many others;” and always it is rejected with
violence, which sometimes rises to murder. As they listened, they must
have felt that all this was true, that while prophet after prophet had
come to a violent end, not one had seen the official hierarchy making
common cause with him. And they must also have felt how ruinous was this
rejoinder to their own demand that the people should forsake a teacher
when they rejected him. Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees
believed on Him? was their scornful question. But the answer was plain, As
long as they built the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnished the tombs
of the righteous, and said, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we
would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets, they
confessed that men could not blindly follow a hierarchy merely as such,
since they were not the official successors of the prophets but of those
who slew them. The worst charge brought against them was only that they
acted according to analogy, and filled up the deeds of their fathers. It
had always been the same.

The last argument of Stephen, which filled his judges with madness, was
but the echo of this great impeachment. Which of the prophets did not your
fathers persecute? and they killed them which showed before of the coming
of the Righteous One, of Whom ye have now become the betrayers and
murderers.

That last defiance of heaven, which Stephen thus denounced, his Master
distinctly foretold. And He added the appalling circumstance, that however
they might deceive themselves and sophisticate their conscience, they
really knew Him Who He was. They felt, at the very least, that into His
hands should pass all the authority and power they had so long
monopolized: “This is the Heir; come let us kill Him and the inheritance
shall be ours.” If there were no more, the utterance of these words put
forth an extraordinary claim.

All that should have been rendered up to heaven and was withheld, all that
previous messengers had demanded on behalf of God without avail, all “the
inheritance” which these wicked husbandmen were intercepting, all this
Jesus announces to be His own, while reprehending the dishonesty of any
other claim upon it. And as a matter of fact, if Jesus be not Divine, He
has intercepted more of the worship due to the Eternal, has attracted to
Himself more of the homage of the loftiest and profoundest minds, than any
false teacher within the pale of monotheism has ever done. It is the
bounden duty of all who revere Jesus even as a teacher, of all who have
eyes to see that His coming was the greatest upward step in the progress
of humanity, to consider well what was implied, when, in the act of
blaming the usurpers of the heritage of God, Jesus declared that
inheritance to be His own. But this is not all, though it is what He
declares that the husbandmen were conscious of. The parable states, not
only that He is heir, but heir by virtue of His special relationship to
the Supreme. Others are bondservants or husbandmen, but He is the Son. He
does not inherit as the worthiest and most obedient, but by right of
birth; and His Father, in the act of sending Him, expects even these
bloodstained outlaws to reverence His Son. In such a phrase, applied to
such criminals, we are made to feel the lofty rank alike of the Father and
His Son, which ought to have overawed even them. And when we read that “He
had yet one, a beloved Son,” it seems as if the veil of eternity were
uplifted, to reveal a secret and awful intimacy, of which, nevertheless,
some glimmering consciousness should have controlled the most desperate
heart.

But they only reckoned that if they killed the Heir, the inheritance would
become their own. It seems the wildest madness, that men should know and
feel Who He was, and yet expect to profit by desecrating His rights. And
yet so it was from the beginning. If Herod were not fearful that the
predicted King of the Jews was indeed born, the massacre of the Innocents
was idle. If the rulers were not fearful that this counsel and work was of
God, they would not, at Gamaliel’s bidding, have refrained from the
Apostles. And it comes still closer to the point to observe that, if they
had attached no importance, even in their moment of triumph, to the
prediction of His rising from the dead, they would not have required a
guard, nor betrayed the secret recognition which Jesus here exposes. The
same blind miscalculation is in every attempt to obtain profit or pleasure
by means which are known to transgress the laws of the all-beholding Judge
of all. It is committed every day, under the pressure of strong
temptation, by men who know clearly that nothing but misery can result. So
true is it that action is decided, not by a course of logic in the brain,
but by the temperament and bias of our nature as a whole. We need not
suppose that the rulers roundly spoke such words as these, even to
themselves. The infamous motive lurked in ambush, too far in the back
ground of the mind perhaps even for consciousness. But it was there, and
it affected their decision, as lurking passions and self-interests always
will, as surely as iron deflects the compass. “They caught Him and killed
Him,” said the unfaltering lips of their victim. And He added a
circumstance of pain which we often overlook, but to which the great
minister of the circumcision was keenly sensitive, and often reverted, the
giving Him up to the Gentiles, to a death accursed among the Jews; “they
cast Him forth out of the vineyard.”

All evil acts are based upon an overestimate of the tolerance of God. He
had seemed to remain passive while messenger after messenger was beaten,
stoned, or slain. But now that they had filled up the iniquity of their
fathers, the Lord of the vineyard would come in person to destroy them,
and give the vineyard to others. This last phrase is strangely at variance
with the notion that the days of a commissioned ministry are over, as, on
the other hand, the whole parable is at variance with the notion that a
priesthood can be trusted to sit in exclusive judgment upon doctrine for
the Church.

At this point St. Mark omits an incident so striking, although small, that
its absence is significant. The by-standers said, “God forbid!” and when
the horrified exclamation betrayed their consciousness of the position,
Jesus was content, without a word, to mark their self-conviction by His
searching gaze. “He looked upon them.” The omission would be unaccountable
if St. Mark were simply a powerful narrator of graphic incidents; but it
is explained when we think that for him the manifestation of a mighty
Personage was all in all, and the most characteristic and damaging
admissions of the hierarchy were as nothing compared with a word of his
Lord. Thereupon he goes straight on to record that, besides refuting their
claim by the history of the past, and asserting His own supremacy in a
phrase at once guarded in form and decisive in import, Jesus also appealed
to Scripture. It was written that by special and marvellous interposition
of the Lord a stone which the recognized builders had rejected should
crown the building. And the quotation was not only decisive as showing
that their rejection could not close the controversy; it also compensated,
with a promise of final victory, the ominous words in which their malice
had seemed to do its worst. Jesus often predicted His death, but He never
despaired of His kingdom.

No wonder that the rulers sought to arrest Him, and perceived that He
penetrated and despised their schemes. And their next device is a natural
outcome from the fact that they feared the people, but did not discontinue
their intrigues; for this was a crafty and dangerous attempt to estrange
from Him the admiring multitude.




The Tribute Money.


    “And they send unto Him certain of the Pharisees and of the
    Herodians, that they might catch Him in talk. And when they were
    come, they say unto Him, Master, we know that Thou art true, and
    carest not for any one: for Thou regardest not the person of men,
    but of a truth teachest the way of God: Is it lawful to give
    tribute unto Cæsar, or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give?
    But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye Me?
    bring Me a penny, that I may see it. And they brought it. And He
    saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they
    said unto Him, Cæsar’s. And Jesus said unto them, Render unto
    Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that
    are God’s. And they marvelled greatly at Him.”—MARK xii. 13-17
    (R.V.).


The contrast is very striking between this incident and the last. Instead
of a challenge, Jesus is respectfully consulted; and instead of a formal
concourse of the authorities of His religion, He is Himself the authority
to Whom a few perplexed people profess to submit their difficulty.
Nevertheless, it is a new and subtle effort of the enmity of His defeated
foes. They have sent to Him certain Pharisees who will excite the popular
indignation if He yields anything to the foreigner, and Herodians who
will, if He refuses, bring upon Him the colder and deadlier vengeance of
Rome. They flatter, in order to stimulate, that fearless utterance which
must often have seemed to them so rash: “We know that Thou art true, and
carest not for any one, for Thou regardest not the person of men, but of a
truth teachest the way of God.” And they appeal to a higher motive by
representing the case to be one of practical and personal urgency, “Shall
we give, or shall we not give?”

Never was it more necessary to join the wisdom of the serpent to the
innocence of the dove, for it would seem that He must needs answer
directly, and that no direct answer can fail to have the gravest
consequences. But in their eagerness to secure this menacing position,
they have left one weak point in the attack. They have made the question
altogether a practical one. The abstract doctrine of the right to drive
out a foreign power, of the limits of authority and freedom, they have not
raised. It is simply a question of the hour, Shall we give or shall we not
give?

And Jesus baffled them by treating it as such. There was no longer a
national coinage, except only of the half shekel for the temple tax. When
He asked them for a smaller coin, they produced a Roman penny stamped with
the effigy of Cæsar. Thus they confessed the use of the Roman currency.
Now since they accepted the advantages of subjugation, they ought also to
endure its burdens: since they traded as Roman subjects, they ought to pay
the Roman tribute. Not He had preached submission, but they had avowed it;
and any consequent unpopularity would fall not upon Him but them. They had
answered their own question. And Jesus laid down the broad and simple
rule, “Render (pay back) unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto
God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled greatly at Him.” No
wonder they marvelled, for it would be hard to find in all the records of
philosophy so ready and practical a device to baffle such cunning
intriguers, such keenness in One Whose life was so far removed from the
schools of worldly wisdom, joined with so firm a grasp on principle, in an
utterance so brief, yet going down so far to the roots of action.

Now the words of Jesus are words for all time; even when He deals with a
question of the hour, He treats it from the point of view of eternal
fitness and duty; and this command to render unto Cæsar the things which
are Cæsar’s has become the charter of the state against all usurpations of
tyrannous ecclesiastics. A sphere is recognized in which obedience to the
law is a duty to God. But it is absurd to pretend that Christ taught blind
and servile obedience to all tyrants in all circumstances, for this would
often make it impossible to obey the second injunction, and to render unto
God the things which are God’s,—a clause which asserts in turn the right
of conscience and the Church against all secular encroachments. The point
to observe is, that the decision of Jesus is simply an inference, a
deduction. St. Matthew has inserted the word “therefore,” and it is
certainly implied: render unto Cæsar the things which you confess to be
his own, which bear his image upon their face.

Can we suppose that no such inference gives point to the second clause? It
would then become, like too many of our pious sayings, a mere supplement,
inappropriate, however excellent, a make weight, and a platitude. No
example of such irrelevance can be found in the story of our Lord. When,
finding the likeness of Cæsar on the coin, He said, Render, therefore,
unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that are
God’s, He at least suggested that the reason for both precepts ran
parallel, and the image of the higher and heavenlier Monarch could be
found on what He claims of us. And it is so. He claims all we have and all
we are. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof:” and “I have
made thee, thou art Mine.” And for us and ours alike the argument holds
good. All the visible universe bears deeply stamped into its substance His
image and superscription. The grandeur of mountains and stars, the
fairness of violet and harebell, are alike revelations of the Creator. The
heavens declare His glory: the firmament showeth His handiwork: the earth
is full of His riches: all the discoveries which expand our mastery over
nature and disease, over time and space, are proofs of His wisdom and
goodness, Who laid the amazing plan which we grow wise by tracing out.
Find a corner on which contrivance and benevolence have not stamped the
royal image, and we may doubt whether that bleak spot owes Him tribute.
But no desert is so blighted, no solitude so forlorn.

And we should render unto God the things which are God’s, seeing His
likeness in His world. “For the invisible things of Him since the creation
of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things which
are made, even His everlasting power and divinity.”

And if most of all He demands the love, the heart of man, here also He can
ask, “Whose image and superscription is this?” For in the image of God
made He man. It is sometimes urged that this image was quite effaced when
Adam fell. But it was not to protect the unfallen that the edict was
spoken “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in
the image of God made He man.” He was not an unfallen man of whom St. Paul
said that he “ought not to have his head veiled, forasmuch as he is the
image and glory of God;” neither were they unfallen, of whom St. James
said, “We curse men which are made after the likeness of God” (Gen. ix. 6;
1 Cor. xi. 7; James iii. 9). Common men, for whom the assassin lurks, who
need instruction how to behave in church, and whom others scorn and curse,
these bear upon them an awful likeness; and even when they refuse tribute
to their king, He can ask them, Whose is this image?

We see it in the intellect, ever demanding new worlds to conquer,
overwhelming us with its victories over time and space. “In apprehension
how like a God.” Alas for us! if we forget that the Spirit of knowledge
and wisdom is no other than the Spirit of the Lord God.

We see this likeness far more in our moral nature. It is true that sin has
spoiled and wasted this, yet there survives in man’s heart, as nowhere
else in our world, a strange sympathy with the holiness and love of God.
No other of His attributes has the same power to thrill us. Tell me that
He lit the stars and can quench them with a word, and I reverence, perhaps
I fear Him; yet such power is outside and beyond my sphere; it fails to
touch me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Even the rarer human gifts,
the power of a Czar, the wisdom of Bacon, are thus beyond me, I am
unkindled, they do not find me out. But speak of holiness, even the
stainless holiness of God, undefiled through all eternity, and you shake
the foundations of my being. And why does the reflection that God is pure
humble me more than the knowledge that God is omnipotent? Because it is my
spiritual nature which is most conscious of the Divine image, blurred and
defaced indeed, but not obliterated yet. Because while I listen I am dimly
conscious of my birthright, my destiny, that I was born to resemble this,
and all is lost if I come short of it. Because every child and every
sinner feels that it is more possible for him to be like his God than like
Newton, or Shakespere, or Napoleon. Because the work of grace is to call
in the worn and degraded coinage of humanity, and, as the mint restamps
and reissues the pieces which have grown thin and worn, so to renew us
after the image of Him that created us.




Christ And The Sadducees.


    “And there come unto Him Sadducees, which say that there is no
    resurrection: and they asked Him, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto
    us, If a man’s brother die, and leave a wife behind him, and leave
    no child, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed
    unto his brother. There were seven brethren: and the first took a
    wife, and dying left no seed; and the second took her, and died,
    leaving no seed behind him; and the third likewise: and the seven
    left no seed. Last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection
    whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.
    Jesus said unto them, Is it not for this cause that ye err, that
    ye know not the Scriptures, nor the power of God? For when they
    shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in
    marriage; but are as angels in heaven. But as touching the dead,
    that they are raised; have ye not read in the book of Moses, in
    _the place concerning_ the Bush, how God spake unto him, saying, I
    _am_ the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
    Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: ye do
    greatly err.”—MARK xii. 18-27 (R.V.).


Christ came that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed. And so it
was, that when He had silenced the examination of the hierarchy, and
baffled their craft, the Sadducees were tempted to assail Him. Like the
rationalists of every age, they stood coldly aloof from popular movements,
and we seldom find them interfering with Christ or His followers, until
their energies were roused by the preaching of His Resurrection, so
directly opposed to their fundamental doctrines.

Their appearance now is extremely natural. The repulse of every other
party left them the only champions of orthodoxy against the new movement,
with everything to win by success, and little to lose by failure. There is
a tone of quiet and confident irony in their interrogation, well befitting
an upper-class group, a secluded party of refined critics, rather than
practical teachers with a mission to their fellow-men. They break utterly
new ground by raising an abstract and subtle question, a purely
intellectual problem, but one which reduced the doctrine of a resurrection
to an absurdity, if only their premises can be made good. And this
peculiarity is often overlooked in criticism upon our Lord’s answer. Its
intellectual subtlety was only the adoption by Christ of the weapons of
his adversaries. But at the same time, He lays great and special stress
upon the authority of Scripture, in this encounter with the party which
least acknowledged it.

Their objection, stated in its simplest form, is the complication which
would result if the successive ties for which death makes room must all
revive together when death is abolished. If a woman has married a second
time, whose wife shall she be? But their statement of the case is
ingenious, not only because they push the difficulty to an absurd and
ludicrous extent, but much more so because they base it upon a Divine
ordinance. If there be a Resurrection, Moses must answer for all the
confusion that will ensue, for Moses gave the commandment, by virtue of
which a woman married seven times. No offspring of any union gave it a
special claim upon her future life. “In the Resurrection, whose wife shall
she be of them?” they ask, conceding with a quiet sarcasm that this absurd
event must needs occur.

For these controversialists the question was solely of the physical tie,
which had made of twain one flesh. They had no conception that the body
can be raised otherwise than as it perished, and they rightly enough felt
certain that on such a resurrection woeful complications must ensue.

Now Jesus does not rebuke their question with such stern words as He had
just employed to others, “Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?” They were
doubtless sincere in their conviction, and at least they had not come in
the disguise of perplexed inquirers and almost disciples. He blames them,
but more gently: “Is it not for this cause that ye err, because ye know
not the Scriptures, nor the power of God?” They could not know one and not
the other, but the boastful wisdom of this world, so ready to point a jibe
by quoting Moses, had never truly grasped the meaning of the writer it
appealed to.

Jesus, it is plain, does not quote Scripture only as having authority with
His opponents: He accepts it heartily: He declares that human error is due
to ignorance of its depth and range of teaching; and He recognizes the
full roll of the sacred books “the Scriptures.”

It has rightly been said, that none of the explicit statements, commonly
relied upon, do more to vindicate for Holy Writ the authority of our Lord,
than this simple incidental question.

Jesus proceeded to restate the doctrine of the Resurrection and then to
prove it; and the more His brief words are pondered, the more they will
expand and deepen.

St. Paul has taught us that the dead in Christ shall rise first (1 Thess.
iv. 16). Of such attainment it is written, Blessed and holy is he that
hath part in the first Resurrection (Rev. xx. 6).

Now since among the lost there could be no question of family ties, and
consequent embarrassments, Jesus confines His statement to these happy
ones, of whom the Sadducee could think no better than that their new life
should be a reproduction of their existence here,—a theory which they did
wisely in rejecting. He uses the very language taken up afterwards by His
apostle, and says, “When they shall rise from the dead.” And He asserts
that marriage is at an end, and they are as the angels in heaven. Here is
no question of the duration of pure and tender human affection, nor do
these words compromise in any degree the hopes of faithful hearts, which
cling to one another. Surely we may believe that in a life which is the
outcome and resultant of this life, as truly as the grain is of the seed,
in a life also where nothing shall be forgotten, but on the contrary we
shall know what we know not now, there, tracing back the flood of their
immortal energies to obscure fountains upon earth, and seeing all that
each has owed half unconsciously to the fidelity and wisdom of the other,
the true partners and genuine helpmeets of this world shall for ever drink
some peculiar gladness, each from the other’s joy. There is no reason why
the close of formal unions which include the highest and most perfect
friendships, should forbid such friendships to survive and flourish in the
more kindly atmosphere of heaven.

What Christ asserts is simply the dissolution of the tie, as an inevitable
consequence of such a change in the very nature of the blessed ones as
makes the tie incongruous and impossible. In point of fact, marriage as
the Sadducee thought of it, is but the counterpoise of death, renewing the
face which otherwise would disappear, and when death is swallowed up, it
vanishes as an anachronism. In heaven “they are as the angels,” the body
itself being made “a spiritual body,” set free from the appetites of the
flesh, and in harmony with the glowing aspirations of the Spirit, which
now it weighs upon and retards. If any would object that to be as the
angels is to be without a body, rather than to possess a spiritual body,
it is answer enough that the context implies the existence of a body,
since no person ever spoke of a resurrection of the soul. Moreover it is
an utterly unwarrantable assumption that angels are wholly without
substance. Many verses appear to imply the opposite, and the cubits of
measurement of the New Jerusalem were “according to the measure of a man,
that is of an angel” (Rev. xxi. 17), which seems to assert a very curious
similarity indeed.

The objection of the Sadducees was entirely obviated, therefore by the
broader, bolder, and more spiritual view of a resurrection which Jesus
taught. And by far the greater part of the cavils against this same
doctrine which delight the infidel lecturer and popular essayist of to-day
would also die a natural death, if the free and spiritual teaching of
Jesus, and its expansion by St. Paul, were understood. But we breathe a
wholly different air when we read the speculations even of so great a
thinker as St. Augustine, who supposed that we should rise with bodies
somewhat greater than our present ones, because all the hair and nails we
ever trimmed away must be diffused throughout the mass, lest they should
produce deformity by their excessive proportions (_De Civitate Dei_, xxii.
19). To all such speculation, he who said, To every seed his own body,
says, Thou fool, thou sowest not that body that shall be. But though Jesus
had met these questions, it did not follow that His doctrine was true,
merely because a certain difficulty did not apply. And, therefore, He
proceeded to prove it by the same Moses to whom they had appealed, and
whom Jesus distinctly asserts to be the author of the book of Exodus. God
said, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: ye do greatly
err.”

The argument is not based upon the present tense of the verb _to be_ in
this assertion, for in the Greek the verb is not expressed. In fact the
argument is not a verbal one at all; or else it would be satisfied by the
doctrine of the immortality of the spirit, and would not establish any
resurrection of the body. It is based upon the immutability of God, and,
therefore, the imperishability of all that ever entered into vital and
real relationship with Him. To cancel such a relationship would introduce
a change into the Eternal. And Moses, to whom they appealed, had heard God
expressly proclaim Himself the God of those who had long since passed out
of time. It was, therefore, clear that His relationship with them lived
on, and this guaranteed that no portion, even the humblest, of their true
personality should perish. Now the body is as real a part of humanity, as
the soul and spirit are, although a much lowlier part. And, therefore, it
must not really die.

It is solemn to observe how Jesus, in this second part of His argument,
passes from the consideration of the future of the blessed to that of all
mankind; “as touching the dead that they are raised.” With others than the
blessed, therefore, God has a real though a dread relationship. And it
will prove hard to reconcile this argument of Christ with the existence of
any time when any soul shall be extinguished.

“The body is for the Lord,” said St. Paul, arguing against the vices of
the flesh, “and the Lord for the body.” From these words of Christ he may
well have learned that profound and far-reaching doctrine, which will
never have done its work in the Church and in the world, until whatever
defiles, degrades, or weakens that which the Lord has consecrated is felt
to blaspheme by implication the God of our manhood, unto Whom all our life
ought to be lived; until men are no longer dwarfed in mines, nor poisoned
in foul air, nor massacred in battle, men whose intimate relationship with
God the Eternal is of such a kind as to guarantee the resurrection of the
poor frames which we destroy.

How much more does this great proclamation frown upon the sins by which
men dishonour their own flesh. “Know ye not,” asked the apostle, carrying
the same doctrine to its utmost limit, “that your bodies are the temples
of the Holy Ghost?” So truly is God our God.




The Discerning Scribe.


    “And one of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together,
    and knowing that He had answered them well, asked Him, What
    commandment is the first of all? Jesus answered, The first is,
    Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt
    love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
    and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. The second is
    this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none
    other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto
    Him, Of a truth, Master, Thou hast well said that He is one; and
    there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart,
    and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to
    love his neighbour as himself, is much more than all whole burnt
    offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered
    discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of
    God. And no man after that durst ask Him any question.”—MARK xii.
    28-34 (R.V.).


The praise which Jesus bestowed upon this lawyer is best understood when
we take into account the circumstances, the pressure of assailants with
ensnaring questions, the sullen disappointment or palpable exasperation of
the party to which the scribe belonged. He had probably sympathized in
their hostility; and had come expecting and desiring the discomfiture of
Jesus. But if so, he was a candid enemy; and as each new attempt revealed
more clearly the spiritual insight, the self-possession and balanced
wisdom of Him Who had been represented as a dangerous fanatic, his
unfriendly opinion began to waver. For he too was at issue with popular
views: he had learned in the Scriptures that God desireth not sacrifice,
that incense might be an abomination to Him, and new moons and sabbaths
things to do away with. And so, perceiving that He had answered them well,
the scribe asked, upon his own account, a very different question, not
rarely debated in their schools, and often answered with grotesque
frivolity, but which he felt to go down to the very root of things.
Instead of challenging Christ’s authority, he tries His wisdom. Instead of
striving to entangle Him in dangerous politics, or to assail with shallow
ridicule the problems of the life to come, he asks, What commandment is
the first of all? And if we may accept as complete this abrupt statement
of his interrogation, it would seem to have been drawn from him by a
sudden impulse, or wrenched by an over-mastering desire, despite of
reluctance and false shame.

The Lord answered him with great solemnity and emphasis. He might have
quoted the commandment only. But He at once supported the precept itself
and also His own view of its importance by including the majestic
prologue, “Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.”

The unity of God, what a massive and reassuring thought! Amid the
debasements of idolatry, with its deification of every impulse and every
force, amid the distractions of chance and change, seemingly so capricious
and even discordant, amid the complexities of the universe and its
phenomena, there is wonderful strength and wisdom in the reflection that
God is one. All changes obey His hand which holds the rein; by Him the
worlds were made. The exiled patriarch was overwhelmed by the majesty of
the revelation that his fathers’ God was God in Bethel even as in
Beer-sheba: it charmed away the bitter sense of isolation, it unsealed in
him the fountains of worship and trust, and sent him forward with a new
hope of protection and prosperity. The unity of God, really apprehended,
is a basis for the human will to repose upon, and to become
self-consistent and at peace. It was the parent of the fruitful doctrine
of the unity of nature which underlies all the scientific victories of the
modern world. In religion, St. Paul felt that it implies the equal
treatment of all the human race, when he asked, “Is He the God of Jews
only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also, if so be
that God is one” (Rom iii. 29 R.V.). To be one, he seems to say, implies
being universal also. And if it thus excludes the reprobation of races, it
disproves equally that of individual souls, and all thought of such
unequal and partial treatment as should inspire one with hope of
indulgence in guilt, or with fear that his way is hid from the Lord.

But if this be true, if there be one fountain of all life and loveliness
and joy, of all human tenderness and all moral glory, how are we bound to
love Him. Every other affection should only deepen our adoring loyalty to
Him Who gives it. No cold or formal service can meet His claim, Who gives
us the power to serve. No, we must love Him. And as all our nature comes
from Him, so must all be consecrated: that love must embrace all the
affections of “heart and soul” panting after Him, as the hart after the
waterbrooks; and all the deep and steady convictions of the “mind,” musing
on the work of His hand, able to give a reason for its faith; and all the
practical homage of the “strength,” living and dying to the Lord. How
easy, then, would be the fulfilment of His commandments in detail, and how
surely it would follow. All the precepts of the first table are clearly
implied in this.

In such another commandment were summed up also the precepts which
concerned our neighbour. When we love him as ourselves (neither
exaggerating his claims beyond our own, nor allowing our own to trample
upon his), then we shall work no ill to our neighbour, and so love shall
fulfil the law. There is none other commandment greater than these.

The questioner saw all the nobility of this reply; and the disdain, the
anger, and perhaps the persecution of his associates could not prevent him
from an admiring and reverent repetition of the Saviour’s words, and an
avowal that all the ceremonial observances of Judaism were as nothing
compared with this.

While he was thus judging, he was being judged. As he knew that Jesus had
answered well, so Jesus saw that he answered discreetly; and in view of
his unprejudiced judgment, his spiritual insight, and his frank approval
of One Who was then despised and rejected, He said, Thou art not far from
the kingdom of God. But he was not yet within it, and no man knows his
fate.

Sad yet instructive it is to think that he may have won the approval of
Christ, and heard His words, so full of discernment and of desire for his
adherence, and yet never crossed the invisible and mysterious boundary
which he then approached so nearly. But we also may know, and admire, and
confess the greatness and goodness of Jesus, without forsaking all to
follow Him.

His enemies had been defeated and put to shame, their murderous hate had
been denounced, and the nets of their cunning had been rent like cobwebs;
they had seen the heart of one of their own order kindled into open
admiration, and they henceforth renounced as hopeless the attempt to
conquer Jesus in debate. No man after that durst ask Him any questions.

He will now carry the war into their own country. It will be for them to
answer Jesus.




David’s Lord.


    “And Jesus answered and said, as He taught in the temple, How say
    the scribes that the Christ is the Son of David? David himself
    said in the Holy Spirit,—

    The Lord said unto my Lord,
    Sit Thou on my right hand,
    Till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet.

    David himself calleth Him Lord; and whence is He His son? And the
    common people heard Him gladly. And in His teaching He said,
    Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and _to
    have_ salutations in the marketplaces, and chief seats in the
    synagogues, and chief places at feasts: they which devour widows’
    houses, and for a pretence make long prayers; these shall receive
    greater condemnation.”—MARK xii. 35-40 (R.V.).


Jesus, having silenced in turn His official interrogators and the
Sadducees, and won the heart of His honest questioner, proceeded to submit
a searching problem to His assailants. Whose son was the Messiah? And when
they gave Him an obvious and shallow answer, He covered them with
confusion publicly. The event is full of that dramatic interest which St.
Mark is so well able to discern and reproduce. How is it then that he
passes over all this aspect of it, leaves us ignorant of the defeat and
even of the presence of the scribes, and free to suppose that Jesus stated
the whole problem in one long question, possibly without an opponent at
hand to feel its force?

This is a remarkable proof that his concern was not really for the
pictorial element in the story, but for the manifestation of the power of
his Master, the “authority” which resounds through his opening chapters,
the royalty which he exhibits at the close. To him the vital point is that
Jesus, upon openly claiming to be the Christ, and repelling the vehement
attacks which were made upon Him as such, proceeded to unfold the
astonishing greatness which this implied; and that after asserting the
unity of God and His claim upon all hearts, He demonstrated that the
Christ was sharer of His throne.

The Christ, they said, was the Son of David, and this was not false: Jesus
had wrought many miracles for suppliants who addressed Him by that title.
But was it all the truth? How then did David call Him Lord? A greater than
David might spring from among his descendants, and hold rule by an
original and not merely an ancestral claim: He might not reign as a son of
David. Yet this would not explain the fact that David, who died ages
before His coming, was inspired to call Him _My_ Lord. Still less would it
satisfy the assertion that God had bidden Him sit beside Him on His
throne. For the scribes there was a serious warning in the promise that
His enemies should be made His footstool, and for all the people a
startling revelation in the words which follow, and which the Epistle to
the Hebrews has unfolded, making this Son of David a priest for ever,
after another order than that of Aaron.

No wonder that the multitude heard with gladness teaching at once so
original, so profound, and so clearly justified by Scripture.

But it must be observed how remarkably this question of Jesus follows up
His conversation with the scribe. Then He had based the supreme duty of
love to God upon the supreme doctrine of the Divine Unity. He now proceeds
to show that the throne of Deity is not a lonely throne, and to demand,
Whose Son is He Who shares it, and Whom David in Spirit accosts by the
same title as his God?

St. Mark is now content to give the merest indication of the final
denunciation with which the Lord turned His back upon the scribes of
Jerusalem, as He previously broke with those of Galilee. But it is enough
to show how utterly beyond compromise was the rupture. The people were to
beware of them: their selfish objects were betrayed in their very dress,
and their desire for respectful salutations and seats of honour. Their
prayers were a pretence, and they devoured widows’ houses, acquiring under
the cloke of religion what should have maintained the friendless. But
their affected piety would only bring upon them a darker doom.

It is a tremendous impeachment. None is entitled to speak as Jesus did,
who is unable to read hearts as He did. And yet we may learn from it that
mere softness is not the meekness He demands, and that, when sinister
motives are beyond doubt, the spirit of Jesus is the spirit of burning.

There is an indulgence for the wrongdoer which is mere feebleness and half
compliance, and which shares in the guilt of Eli. And there is a dreadful
anger which sins not, the wrath of the Lamb.




The Widow’s Mite.


    “And He sat down over against the treasury, and beheld how the
    multitude cast money into the treasury: and how many that were
    rich cast in much. And there came a poor widow, and she cast in
    two mites, which make a farthing. And He called unto Him His
    disciples, and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, This poor
    widow cast in more than all they which are casting into the
    treasury; for they all did cast in of their superfluity; but she
    of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her
    living.”—MARK xii. 41-44 (R.V.).


With words of stern denunciation Jesus for ever left the temple. Yet He
lingered, as if reluctant, in the outer court; and while the storm of His
wrath was still resounding in all hearts, observed and pointed out an
action of the lowliest beauty, a modest flower of Hebrew piety in the vast
desert of formality. It was not too modest, however, to catch, even in
that agitating hour, the eye of Jesus; and while the scribes were
devouring widows’ houses, a poor widow could still, with two mites which
make a farthing, win honourable mention from the Son of God. Thus He ever
observes realities among pretences, the pure flame of love amid the sour
smoke which wreathes around it. What He saw was the last pittance, cast to
a service which in reality was no longer God’s, yet given with a noble
earnestness, a sacrifice pure from the heart.

1. His praise suggests to us the unknown observation, the unsuspected
influences which surround us. She little guessed herself to be the one
figure, amid a glittering group and where many were rich, who really
interested the all-seeing Eye. She went away again, quite unconscious that
the Lord had converted her two mites into a perennial wealth of
contentment for lowly hearts, and instruction for the Church, quite
ignorant that she was approved of Messiah, and that her little gift was
the greatest event of all her story. So are we watched and judged in our
least conscious and our most secluded hours.

2. We learn St. Paul’s lesson, that, “if the readiness is there, it is
acceptable according as a man hath, and not according as he hath not.”

In war, in commerce, in the senate, how often does an accident at the
outset blight a career for ever. One is taken in the net of circumstances,
and his dipped wings can never soar again. But there is no such disabling
accident in religion. God seeth the heart. The world was redeemed by the
blighted and thwarted career of One Who would fain have gathered His own
city under His wing, but was refused and frustrated. And whether we cast
in much, or only possess two mites, an offering for the rich to mock, He
marks, understands, and estimates aright.

And while the world only sees the quantity, He weighs the motive of our
actions. This is the true reason why we can judge nothing before the time,
why the great benefactor is not really pointed out by the splendid
benefaction, and why many that are last shall yet be first, and the first
last.

3. The poor widow gave not a greater proportion of her goods, she gave
all; and it has been often remarked that she had still, in her poverty,
the opportunity of keeping back one half. But her heart went with her two
mites. And, therefore, she was blessed. We may picture her return to her
sordid drudgery, unaware of the meaning of the new light and peace which
followed her, and why her heart sang for joy. We may think of the Spirit
of Christ which was in her, leading her afterwards into the Church of
Christ, an obscure and perhaps illiterate convert, undistinguished by any
special gift, and only loved as the first Christians all loved each other.
And we may think of her now, where the secrets of all hearts are made
known, followed by myriads of the obscure and undistinguished whom her
story has sustained and cheered, and by some who knew her upon earth, and
were astonished to learn that this was she. Then let us ask ourselves, Is
there any such secret of unobtrusive lowly service, born of love, which
the future will associate with me?





CHAPTER XIII.




Things Perishing And Things Stable.


    “And as He went forth out of the temple, one of His disciples
    saith unto Him, Master, behold, what manner of stones and what
    manner of buildings! And Jesus said unto him, Seest thou these
    great buildings? there shall not be left here one stone upon
    another, which shall not be thrown down. And as He sat on the
    Mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John
    and Andrew asked Him privately, Tell us, when shall these things
    be? and what _shall be_ the sign when these things are all about
    to be accomplished? And Jesus began to say unto them, Take heed
    that no man lead you astray. Many shall come in My name, saying, I
    am _He;_ and shall lead many astray. And when ye shall hear of
    wars and rumours of wars, be not troubled: _these things_ must
    needs come to pass: but the end is not yet.”—MARK xiii. 1-7
    (R.V.).


Nothing is more impressive than to stand before one of the great buildings
of the world, and mark how the toil of man has rivalled the stability of
nature, and his thought its grandeur. It stands up like a crag, and the
wind whistles through its pinnacles as in a grove, and the rooks float and
soar about its towers as they do among the granite peaks. Face to face
with one of these mighty structures, man feels his own pettiness,
shivering in the wind, or seeking a shadow from the sun, and thinking how
even this breeze may blight or this heat fever him, and how at the longest
he shall have crumbled into dust for ages, and his name, and possibly his
race, have perished, while this same pile shall stretch the same long
shadow across the plain.

No wonder that the great masters of nations have all delighted in
building, for thus they saw their power, and the immortality for which
they hoped, made solid, embodied and substantial, and it almost seemed as
if they had blended their memory with the enduring fabric of the world.

Such a building, solid, and vast, and splendid, white with marble, and
blazing with gold, was the temple which Jesus now forsook. A little
afterwards, we read that its Roman conqueror, whose race were the great
builders of the world, in spite of the rules of war, and the certainty
that the Jews would never remain quietly in subjection while it stood,
“was reluctant to burn down so vast a work as this, since this would be a
mischief to the Romans themselves, as it would be an ornament to their
government while it lasted.”

No wonder, then, that one of the disciples, who had seen Jesus weep for
its approaching ruin, and who now followed His steps as He left it
desolate, lingered, and spoke as if in longing and appeal, “Master, see
what manner of stones, and what manner of buildings.”

But to the eyes of Jesus all was evanescent as a bubble, doomed and about
to perish: “Seest thou these great buildings, there shall not be left here
one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.”

The words were appropriate to His solemn mood, for He had just denounced
its guilt and flung its splendour from Him, calling it no longer “My
house,” nor “My Father’s house,” but saying, “Your house is left unto you
desolate.” Little could all the solid strength of the very foundations of
the world itself avail against the thunderbolt of God. Moreover, it was a
time when He felt most keenly the consecration, the approaching surrender
of His own life. In such an hour no splendours distract the penetrating
vision; all the world is brief and frail and hollow to the man who has
consciously given himself to God. It was the fitting moment at which to
utter such a prophecy.

But, as He sat on the opposite slope, and gazed back upon the towers that
were to fall, His three favoured disciples and Andrew came to ask Him
privately when should these things be, and what would be the sign of their
approach.

It is the common assertion of all unbelievers that the prophecy which
followed has been composed since what passes for its fulfilment. When
Jesus was murdered, and a terrible fate befel the guilty city, what more
natural than to connect the two events? And how easily would a legend
spring up that the sufferer foretold the penalty? But there is an obvious
and complete reply. The prediction is too mysterious, its outlines are too
obscure; and the ruin of Jerusalem is too inexplicably complicated with
the final visitation of the whole earth, to be the issue of any vindictive
imagination working with the history in view.

We are sometimes tempted to complain of this obscurity. But in truth it is
wholesome and designed. We need not ask whether the original discourse was
thus ambiguous, or they are right who suppose that a veil has since been
drawn between us and a portion of the answer given by Jesus to His
disciples. We know as much as it is meant that we should know. And this at
least is plain, that any process of conscious or unconscious invention,
working backwards after Jerusalem fell, would have given us far more
explicit predictions than we possess. And, moreover, that what we lose in
gratification of our curiosity, we gain in personal warning to walk warily
and vigilantly.

Jesus did not answer the question, When shall these things be? But He
declared, to men who wondered at the overthrow of their splendid temple,
that all earthly splendours must perish. And He revealed to them where
true permanence may be discovered. These are two of the central thoughts
of the discourse, and they are worthy of much more attention from its
students than they commonly receive, being overlooked in the universal
eagerness “to know the times and the seasons.” They come to the surface in
the distinct words, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall
not pass away.”

Now, if we are to think of this great prophecy as a lurid reflection
thrown back by later superstition on the storm-clouds of the nation’s
fall, how shall we account for its solemn and pensive mood, utterly free
from vindictiveness, entirely suited to Jesus as we think of Him, when
leaving for ever the dishonoured shrine, and moving forward, as His
meditations would surely do, beyond the occasion which evoked them? Not
such is the manner of resentful controversialists, eagerly tracing
imaginary judgments. They are narrow, and sharp, and sour.

1. The fall of Jerusalem blended itself, in the thought of Jesus, with the
catastrophe which awaits all that appears to be great and stable. Nation
shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, so that, although
armies set their bodies in the gap for these, and heroes shed their blood
like water, yet they are divided among themselves and cannot stand. This
prediction, we must remember, was made when the iron yoke of Rome imposed
quiet upon as much of the world as a Galilean was likely to take into
account, and, therefore, was by no means so easy as it may now appear to
us.

Nature itself should be convulsed. Earthquakes should rend the earth,
blight and famine should disturb the regular course of seed-time and
harvest. And these perturbations should be the working out of a stern law,
and the sure token of sorer woes to come, the beginning of pangs which
should usher in another dispensation, the birth-agony of a new time. A
little later, and the sun should be darkened, and the moon should withdraw
her light, and the stars should “be falling” from heaven, and the powers
that are in the heavens should be darkened. Lastly, the course of history
should close, and the affairs of earth should come to an end, when the
elect should be gathered together to the glorified Son of Man.

2. It was in sight of the ruin of all these things that He dared to add,
My word shall not pass away.

Heresy should assail it, for many should come in the name of Christ,
saying, I am He, and should lead many astray. Fierce persecutions should
try His followers, and they should be led to judgment and delivered up.
The worse afflictions of the heart would wring them, for brother should
deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children should
rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. But all should
be too little to quench the immortality bestowed upon His elect. In their
sore need, the Holy Ghost should speak in them: when they were caused to
be put to death, he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.

Now these words were treasured up as the utterances of One Who had just
foretold His own approaching murder, and Who died accordingly amid
circumstances full of horror and shame. Yet His followers rejoiced to
think that when the sun grew dark, and the stars were falling, He should
be seen in the clouds coming with great glory.

It is the reversal of human judgment: the announcement that all is stable
which appears unsubstantial, and all which appears solid is about to melt
like snow.

And yet the world itself has since grown old enough to know that
convictions are stronger than empires, and truths than armed hosts. And
this is the King of Truth. He was born and came into the world to bear
witness to the truth, and every one that is of the truth heareth His
voice. He is the Truth become vital, the Word which was with God in the
beginning.




The Impending Judgment.


    “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
    kingdom; there shall be earthquakes in divers places; there shall
    be famines: these things are the beginning of travail. But take ye
    heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and
    in synagogues shall ye be beaten; and before governors and kings
    shall ye stand for My sake, for a testimony unto them. And the
    gospel must first be preached unto all the nations. And when they
    lead you _to judgment_, and deliver you up, be not anxious
    beforehand what ye shall speak: but whatsoever shall be given you
    in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the
    Holy Ghost. And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the
    father his child; and children shall rise up against parents, and
    cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men
    for My name’s sake; but he that endureth to the end, the same
    shall be saved. But when ye see the abomination of desolation
    standing where he ought not (let him that readeth understand),
    then let them that are in Judæa flee unto the mountains: and let
    him that is on the housetop not go down, nor enter in, to take
    anything out of his house: and let him that is in the field not
    return back to take his cloke.”—MARK xiii. 8-16 (R.V.).


When we perceive that one central thought in our Lord’s discourse about
the last things is the contrast between material things which are
fleeting, and spiritual realities which abide, a question naturally
arises, which ought not to be overlooked. Was the prediction itself
anything more than a result of profound spiritual insight? Are we certain
that prophecy in general was more than keenness of vision? There are
flourishing empires now which perhaps a keen politician, and certainly a
firm believer in retributive justice governing the world, must consider to
be doomed. And one who felt the transitory nature of earthly resources
might expect a time when the docks of London will resemble the lagoons of
Venice, and the State which now predominates in Europe shall become
partaker of the decrepitude Spain. But no such presage is a prophecy in
the Christian sense. Even when suggested by religion, it does not claim
any greater certainty than that of sagacious inference.

The general question is best met by pointing to such specific and detailed
prophecies, especially concerning the Messiah, as the twenty-second Psalm,
the fifty-third of Isaiah, and the ninth of Daniel.

But the prediction of the fall of Jerusalem, while we have seen that it
has none of the minuteness and sharpness of an after-thought, is also too
definite for a presentiment. The abomination which defiled the Holy Place,
and yet left one last brief opportunity for hasty flight, the persecutions
by which that catastrophe would be heralded, and the precipitating of the
crisis for the elect’s sake, were details not to be conjectured. So was
the coming of the great retribution, the beginning of His kingdom within
that generation, a limit which was foretold at least twice besides (Mark
ix. 1 and xiv. 62), with which the “henceforth” in Matthew xxvi. 64 must
be compared. And so was another circumstance which is not enough
considered: the fact that between the fall of Jerusalem and the Second
Coming, however long or short the interval, no second event of a similar
character, so universal in its effect upon Christianity, so epoch-making,
should intervene. The coming of the Son of man should be “in those days
after that tribulation.”

The intervening centuries lay out like a plain country between two
mountain tops, and did not break the vista, as the eye passed from the
judgment of the ancient Church, straight on to the judgment of the world.
Shall we say then that Jesus foretold that His coming would follow
speedily? and that He erred? Men have been very willing to bring this
charge, even in the face of His explicit assertions. “After a long time
the Lord of that servant cometh.... While the bridegroom tarried they all
slumbered and slept.... If that wicked servant shall say in his heart, My
Lord delayeth His coming.”

It is true that these expressions are not found in St Mark. But instead of
them stands a sentence so startling, so unique, that it has caused to
ill-instructed orthodoxy great searchings of heart. At least, however, the
flippant pretence that Jesus fixed an early date for His return, ought to
be silenced when we read, “Of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not
even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.”

These words are not more surprising than that He increased in wisdom; and
marvelled at the faith of some, and the unbelief of others (Luke ii. 52;
Matt. viii. 10; Mark vi. 6). They are involved in the great assertion,
that He not only took the form of a servant, but emptied Himself (Phil.
ii. 7). But they decide the question of the genuineness of the discourse;
for when could they have been invented? And they are to be taken in
connection with others, which speak of Him not in His low estate, but as
by nature and inherently, the Word and the Wisdom of God; aware of all
that the Father doeth; and Him in Whom dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily (John i. 1; Luke xi. 49; John v. 20; Col. ii. 9).

But these were “the days of His flesh;” and that expression is not meant
to convey that He has since laid aside His body, for He says, “A spirit
hath not flesh ... as ye see Me have” (Heb. v. 7; Luke xxiv. 39). It must
therefore express the limitations, now removed, by which He once
condescended to be trammelled. What forbids us, then, to believe that His
knowledge, like His power, was limited by a lowliness not enforced, but
for our sakes chosen; and that as He could have asked for twelve legions
of angels, yet chose to be bound and buffeted, so He could have known that
day and hour, yet submitted to ignorance, that He might be made like in
all points to His brethren? Souls there are for whom this wonderful
saying, “the Son knoweth not,” is even more affecting than the words, “The
Son of man hath not where to lay His head.”

But now the climax must be observed which made His ignorance more
astonishing than that of the angels in heaven. The recent discourse must
be remembered, which had asked His enemies to explain the fact that David
called Him Lord, and spoke of God as occupying no lonely throne. And we
must observe His emphatic expression, that His return shall be that of the
Lord of the House (ver. 35), so unlike the temper which He impressed on
every servant, and clearly teaching the Epistle to the Hebrews to speak of
His fidelity as that of a Son over His house, and to contrast it sharply
with that of the most honourable servant (iii. 6).

It is plain, however, that Jesus did not fix, and renounced the power to
fix, a speedy date for His second coming. He checked the impatience of the
early Church by insisting that none knew the time.

But He drew the closest analogy between that event and the destruction of
Jerusalem, and required a like spirit in those who looked for each.

Persecution should go before them. Signs would indicate their approach as
surely as the budding of the fig tree told of summer. And in each case the
disciples of Jesus must be ready. When the siege came, they should not
turn back from the field into the city, nor escape from the housetop by
the inner staircase. When the Son of man comes, their loins should be
girt, and their lights already burning. But if the end has been so long
delayed, and if there were signs by which its approach might be known, how
could it be the practical duty of all men, in all the ages, to expect it?
What is the meaning of bidding us to learn from the fig tree her parable,
which is the approach of summer when her branch becomes tender, and yet
asserting that we know not when the time is, that it shall come upon us as
a snare, that the Master will surely surprise us, but need not find us
unprepared, because all the Church ought to be always ready?

What does it mean, especially when we observe, beneath the surface, that
our Lord was conscious of addressing more than that generation, since He
declared to the first hearers, “What I say unto you I say unto all,
Watch?” It is a strange paradox. But yet the history of the Church
supplies abundant proof that in no age has the expectation of the Second
Advent disappeared, and the faithful have always been mocked by the
illusion, or else keen to discern the fact, that He is near, even at the
doors. It is not enough to reflect that, for each soul, dissolution has
been the preliminary advent of Him who has promised to come again and
receive us unto Himself, and the Angel of Death is indeed the Angel of the
Covenant. It must be asserted that for the universal Church, the feet of
the Lord have been always upon the threshold, and the time has been
prolonged only because the Judge _standeth_ at the door. The “birth pangs”
of which Jesus spoke have never been entirely stilled. And the march of
time has not been towards a far-off eternity, but along the margin of that
mysterious ocean, by which it must be engulfed at last, and into which,
fragment by fragment, the beach it treads is crumbling.

Now this necessity, almost avowed, for giving signs which should only make
the Church aware of her Lord’s continual nearness, without ever enabling
her to assign the date of His actual arrival, is the probable explanation
of what has been already remarked, the manner in which the judgment of
Jerusalem is made to symbolize the final judgment. But this symbolism
makes the warning spoken to that age for ever fruitful. As they were not
to linger in the guilty city, so we are to let no earthly interests arrest
our flight,—not to turn back, but promptly and resolutely to flee unto the
everlasting hills. As they should pray that their flight through the
mountains should not be in the winter, so should we beware of needing to
seek salvation in the winter of the soul, when the storms of passion and
appetite are wildest, when evil habits have made the road slippery under
foot, and sophistry and selfwill have hidden the gulfs in a treacherous
wreath of snow.

Heedfulness, a sense of surrounding peril and of the danger of the times,
is meant to inspire us while we read. The discourse opens with a caution
against heresy: “Take heed that no man deceive you.” It goes on to caution
them against the weakness of their own flesh: “Take heed to yourselves,
for they shall deliver you up.” It bids them watch, because they know not
when the time is. And the way to watchfulness is prayerfulness; so that
presently, in the Garden, when they could not watch with Him one hour,
they were bidden to watch and pray, that they enter not into temptation.

So is the expectant Church to watch and pray. Nor must her mood be one of
passive idle expectation, dreamful desire of the promised change, neglect
of duties in the interval. The progress of all art and science, and even
the culture of the ground, is said to have been arrested by the universal
persuasion that the year One Thousand should see the return of Christ. The
luxury of millennarian expectation seems even now to relieve some
consciences from the active duties of religion. But Jesus taught His
followers that on leaving His house, to sojourn in a far country, He
regarded them as His servants still, and gave them every one his work. And
it is the companion of that disciple to whom Jesus gave the keys, and to
whom especially He said, “What, couldest thou not watch with Me one hour?”
St. Mark it is who specifies the command to the porter that he should
watch. To watch is not to gaze from the roof across the distant roads. It
is to have girded loins and a kindled lamp; it is not measured by excited
expectation, but by readiness. Does it seem to us that the world is no
longer hostile, because persecution and torture are at an end? That the
need is over for a clear distinction between her and us? This very belief
may prove that we are falling asleep. Never was there an age to which
Jesus did not say Watch. Never one in which His return would be other than
a snare to all whose life is on the level of the world.

Now looking back over the whole discourse, we come to ask ourselves, What
is the spirit which it sought to breathe into His Church? Clearly it is
that of loyal expectation of the Absent One. There is in it no hint, that
because we cannot fail to be deceived without Him, therefore His
infallibility and His Vicar shall for ever be left on earth. His place is
empty until He returns. Whoever says, Lo, here is Christ, is a deceiver,
and it proves nothing that he shall deceive many. When Christ is
manifested again, it shall be as the blaze of lightning across the sky.
There is perhaps no text in this discourse which directly assails the
Papacy; but the atmosphere which pervades it is deadly alike to her
claims, and to the instincts and desires on which those claims rely.





CHAPTER XIV.




The Cruse Of Ointment.


    “Now after two days was _the feast of_ the passover and the
    unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how
    they might take Him with subtilty, and kill Him: for they said,
    Not during the feast, lest haply there shall be a tumult of the
    people. And while He was in Bethany in the house of Simon the
    leper, as He sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster
    cruse of ointment of spikenard very costly; _and_ she brake the
    cruse, and poured it over His head. But there were some that had
    indignation among themselves, _saying_, To what purpose hath this
    waste of the ointment been made? For this ointment might have been
    sold for above three hundred pence, and given to the poor. And
    they murmured against her. But Jesus said, Let her alone; why
    trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on Me. For ye have
    the poor always with you, and whensoever ye will ye can do them
    good: but Me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she
    hath anointed My body aforehand for the burying. And verily I say
    unto you, Wheresoever the gospel shall be preached throughout the
    whole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken
    of for a memorial of her.”—MARK xiv. 1-9 (R.V.).


Perfection implies not only the absence of blemishes, but the presence, in
equal proportions, of every virtue and every grace. And so the perfect
life is full of the most striking, and yet the easiest transitions. We
have just read predictions of trial more startling and intense than any in
the ancient Scripture. If we knew of Jesus only by the various reports of
that discourse, we should think of a recluse like Elijah or the Baptist,
and imagine that His disciples, with girded loins, should be more ascetic
than St. Anthony. We are next shown Jesus at a supper gracefully accepting
the graceful homage of a woman.

From St. John we learn that this feast was given six days before the
passover. The other accounts postponed the mention of it, plainly because
of an incident which occurred then, but is vitally connected with a
decision arrived at somewhat later by the priests. Two days before the
passover, the council finally determined that Jesus must be destroyed.
They recognised all the dangers of that course. It must be done with
subtlety; the people must not be aroused; and therefore they said, Not on
the feast-day. It is remarkable, however, that at the very time when they
so determined, Jesus clearly and calmly made to His disciples exactly the
opposite announcement. “After two days the passover cometh, and the Son of
man is delivered up to be crucified” (Matt. xxvi. 2). Thus we find at
every turn of the narrative that their plans are over-ruled, and they are
unconscious agents of a mysterious design, which their Victim comprehends
and accepts. On one side, perplexity snatches at all base expedients; the
traitor is welcomed, false witnesses are sought after, and the guards of
the sepulchre bribed. On the other side is clear foresight, the deliberate
unmasking of Judas, and at the trial a circumspect composure, a lofty
silence, and speech more majestic still.

Meanwhile there is a heart no longer light (for He foresees His burial),
yet not so burdened that He should decline the entertainment offered Him
at Bethany.

This was in the house of Simon the leper, but St. John tells us that
Martha served, Lazarus sat at meat, and the woman who anointed Jesus was
Mary. We naturally infer some relationship between Simon and this favoured
family; but the nature of the tie we know not, and no purpose can be
served by guessing. Better far to let the mind rest upon the sweet picture
of Jesus, at home among those who loved Him; upon the eager service of
Martha; upon the man who had known death, somewhat silent, one fancies, a
remarkable sight for Jesus, as He sat at meat, and perhaps suggestive of
the thought which found utterance a few days afterwards, that a banquet
was yet to come, when He also, risen from the grave, should drink new wine
among His friends in the kingdom of God. And there the adoring face of her
who had chosen the better part was turned to her Lord with a love which
comprehended His sorrow and His danger, while even the Twelve were
blind—an insight which knew the awful presence of One upon his way to the
sepulchre, as well as one who had returned thence. Therefore she produced
a cruse of very precious ointment, which had been “kept” for Him, perhaps
since her brother was embalmed. And as such alabaster flasks were commonly
sealed in making, and only to be opened by breaking off the neck, she
crushed the cruse between her hands and poured it on His head. On His feet
also, according to St. John, who is chiefly thinking of the embalming of
the body, as the others of the anointing of the head. The discovery of
contradiction here is worthy of the abject “criticism” which detects in
this account a variation upon the story of her who was a sinner. As if two
women who loved much might not both express their loyalty, which could not
speak, by so fair and feminine a device; or as if it were inconceivable
that the blameless Mary should consciously imitate the gentle penitent.

But even as this unworthy controversy breaks in upon the tender story, so
did indignation and murmuring spoil that peaceful scene. “Why was not this
ointment sold for much, and given to the poor?” It was not common that
others should be more thoughtful of the poor than Jesus.

He fed the multitudes they would have sent away; He gave sight to
Bartimæus whom they rebuked. But it is still true, that whenever generous
impulses express themselves with lavish hands, some heartless calculator
reckons up the value of what is spent, and especially its value to “the
poor;” the poor, who would be worse off if the instincts of love were
arrested and the human heart frozen. Almshouses are not usually built by
those who declaim against church architecture; nor is utilitarianism
famous for its charities. And so we are not surprised when St. John tells
us how the quarrel was fomented. Iscariot, the dishonest pursebearer, was
exasperated at the loss of a chance of theft, perhaps of absconding
without being so great a loser at the end of his three unrequited years.
True that the chance was gone, and speech would only betray his
estrangement from Jesus, upon Whom so much good property was wasted. But
evil tempers must express themselves at times, and Judas had craft enough
to involve the rest in his misconduct. It is the only indication in the
Gospels of intrigue among the Twelve which even indirectly struck at their
Master’s honour.

Thus, while the fragrance of the ointment filled the house, their
parsimony grudged the homage which soothed His heart, and condemned the
spontaneous impulse of Mary’s love.

It was for her that Jesus interfered, and His words went home.

The poor were always with them: opportunities would never fail those who
were so zealous; and whensoever they would they could do them
good,—whensoever Judas, for example, would. As for her, she had wrought a
good work (a high-minded and lofty work is implied rather than a useful
one) upon Him, Whom they should not always have. Soon His body would be in
the hands of sinners, desecrated, outraged. And she only had comprehended,
however dimly, the silent sorrow of her Master; she only had laid to heart
His warnings; and, unable to save Him, or even to watch with Him one hour,
she (and through all that week none other) had done what she could. She
had anointed His body beforehand for the burial, and indeed with clear
intention “to prepare Him for burial” (Matt. xxvi. 12).

It was for this that His followers had chidden her. Alas, how often do our
shrewd calculations and harsh judgments miss the very essence of some
problem which only the heart can solve, the silent intention of some deed
which is too fine, too sensitive, to explain itself except only to that
sympathy which understands us all. Men thought of Jesus as lacking
nothing, and would fain divert His honour to the poor; but this woman
comprehended the lonely heart, and saw the last inexorable need before
Him. Love read the secret in the eyes of love, and this which Mary did
shall be told while the world stands, as being among the few human actions
which refreshed the lonely One, the purest, the most graceful, and perhaps
the last.




The Traitor.


    “And Judas Iscariot, he that was one of the twelve, went away unto
    the chief priests, that he might deliver Him _unto them_. And
    they, when they heard it, were glad, and promised to give him
    money. And he sought how he might conveniently deliver Him unto
    them. And on the first day of unleavened bread, when they
    sacrificed the passover, His disciples say unto Him, Where wilt
    Thou that we go and make ready that Thou mayest eat the passover?
    And He sendeth two of His disciples, and saith unto them, Go into
    the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of
    water: follow him; and wheresoever he shall enter in, say to the
    goodman of the house, the Master saith, Where is My guest-chamber,
    where I shall eat the passover with My disciples? And he will
    himself shew you a large upper room furnished and ready: and there
    make ready for us. And the disciples went forth, and came into the
    city, and found as He had said unto them: and they made ready the
    passover.”—MARK xiv. 10-16 (R.V.).


It was when Jesus rebuked the Twelve for censuring Mary, that the patience
of Judas, chafing in a service which had grown hateful, finally gave way.
He offered a treacherous and odious help to the chiefs of his religion,
and these pious men, too scrupulous to cast blood-money into the treasury
or to defile themselves by entering a pagan judgment hall, shuddered not
at the contact of such infamy, warned him not that perfidy will pollute
the holiest cause, cared as little then for his ruin as when they asked
what to them was his remorseful agony; but were glad, and promised to give
him money. By so doing, they became accomplices in the only crime by which
it is quite certain that a soul was lost. The supreme “offence” was
planned and perpetrated by no desperate criminal. It was the work of an
apostle, and his accomplices were the heads of a divinely given religion.
What an awful example of the deadening power, palsying the conscience,
petrifying the heart, of religious observances devoid of real trust and
love.

The narrative, as we saw, somewhat displaced the story of Simon’s feast,
to connect this incident more closely with the betrayal. And it now
proceeds at once to the passover, and the final crisis. In so doing, it
pauses at a curious example of circumspection, intimately linked also with
the treason of Judas. The disciples, unconscious of treachery, asked where
they should prepare the paschal supper. And Jesus gave them a sign by
which to recognise one who had a large upper room prepared for that
purpose, to which he would make them welcome. It is not quite impossible
that the pitcher of water was a signal preconcerted with some disciple in
Jerusalem, although secret understandings are not found elsewhere in the
life of Jesus. What concerns us to observe is that the owner of the house
which the bearer entered was a believer. To him Jesus is “the Master,” and
can say “Where is My guest-chamber?”

So obscure a disciple was he, that Peter and John required a sign to guide
them to his house. Yet his upper room would now receive such a
consecration as the Temple never knew. With strange feelings would he
henceforth enter the scene of the last supper of his Lord. But now, what
if he had only admitted Jesus with hesitation and after long delay? We
should wonder; yet there are lowlier doors at which the same Jesus stands
and knocks, and would fain come in and sup. And cold is His welcome to
many a chamber which is neither furnished nor made ready.

The mysterious and reticent indication of the place is easily understood.
Jesus would not enable His enemies to lay hands upon Him before the time.
His nights had hitherto been spent at Bethany; now first it was possible
to arrest Him in the darkness, and hurry on the trial before the Galileans
at the feast, strangers and comparatively isolated, could learn the danger
of their “prophet of Galilee.” It was only too certain that when the blow
was struck, the light and fickle adhesion of the populace would transfer
itself to the successful party. Meanwhile, the prudence of Jesus gave Him
time for the Last Supper, and the wonderful discourse recorded by St.
John, and the conflict and victory in the Garden. When the priests
learned, at a late hour, that Jesus might yet be arrested before morning,
but that Judas could never watch Him any more, the necessity for prompt
action came with such surprise upon them, that the arrest was accomplished
while they still had to seek false witnesses, and to consult how a
sentence might best be extorted from the Governor. It is right to observe
at every point, the mastery of Jesus, the perplexity and confusion of His
foes.

And it is also right that we should learn to include, among the woes
endured for us by the Man of Sorrows, this haunting consciousness that a
base vigilance was to be watched against, that He breathed the air of
treachery and vileness.

Here then, in view of the precautions thus forced upon our Lord, we pause
to reflect upon the awful fall of Judas, the degradation of an apostle
into a hireling, a traitor, and a spy. Men have failed to believe that one
whom Jesus called to His side should sink so low.

They have not observed how inevitably great goodness rejected brings out
special turpitude, and dark shadows go with powerful lights; how, in this
supreme tragedy, all the motives, passions, moral and immoral impulses are
on the tragic scale; what gigantic forms of baseness, hypocrisy, cruelty,
and injustice stalk across the awful platform, and how the forces of hell
strip themselves, and string their muscles for a last desperate wrestle
against the powers of heaven, so that here is the very place to expect the
extreme apostasy. And so they have conjectured that Iscariot was only half
a traitor. Some project misled him of forcing his Master to turn to bay.
Then the powers which wasted themselves in scattering unthanked and
unprofitable blessings would exert themselves to crush the foe. Then he
could claim for himself the credit deserved by much astuteness, the
consideration due to the only man of political resource among the Twelve.
But this well-intending Judas is equally unknown to the narratives and the
prophecies, and this theory does not harmonise with any of the facts.
Profound reprobation and even contempt are audible in all the narratives;
they are quite as audible in the reiterated phrase, “which was one of the
Twelve,” and in almost every mention of his name, as in the round
assertion of St. John, that he was a thief and stole from the common
purse. Only the lowest motive is discernible in the fact that his project
ripened just when the waste of the ointment spoiled his last hope from
apostleship,—the hope of unjust gain, and in his bargaining for the
miserable price which he still carried with him when the veil dropped from
his inner eyes, when he awoke to the sorrow of the world which worketh
death, to the remorse which was not penitence.

One who desired that Jesus should be driven to counter-measures and yet
free to take them, would probably have favoured His escape when once the
attempt to arrest Him inflicted the necessary spur and certainly he would
have anxiously avoided any appearance of insult. But it will be seen that
Judas carefully closed every door against his Lord’s escape, and seized
Him with something very like a jibe on his recreant lips.

No, his infamy cannot be palliated, but it can be understood. For it is a
solemn and awful truth, that in every defeat of grace the reaction is
equal to the action; they who have been exalted unto heaven are brought
down far below the level of the world; and the principle is universal that
Israel cannot, by willing it, be as the nations that are round about, to
serve other gods. God Himself gives him statutes that are not good. He
makes fat the heart and blinds the eyes of the apostate. Therefore it
comes that religion without devotion is the mockery of honest worldlings;
that hypocrisy goes so constantly with the meanest and most sordid lust of
gain, and selfish cruelty; that publicans and harlots enter heaven before
scribes and pharisees; that salt which has lost its savour is fit neither
for the land nor for the dung-hill. Oh, then, to what place of shame shall
a recreant apostle be thrust down?

Moreover it must be observed that the guilt of Judas, however awful, is
but a shade more dark than that of his sanctimonious employers, who sought
false witnesses against Christ, extorted by menace and intrigue a sentence
which Pilate openly pronounced to be unjust, mocked His despairing agony,
and on the resurrection morning bribed a pagan soldiery to lie for the
Hebrew faith. It is plain enough that Jesus could not and did not choose
the apostles through foreknowledge of what they would hereafter prove, but
by His perception of what they then were, and what they were capable of
becoming, if faithful to the light they should receive.

Not one, when chosen first, was ready to welcome the purely spiritual
kingdom, the despised Messiah, the life of poverty and scorn. They had to
learn, and it was open to them to refuse the discipline. Once at least
they were asked, Will ye also go away? How severe was the trial may be
seen by the rebuke of Peter, and the petition of “Zebedee’s children” and
their mother. They conquered the same reluctance of the flesh which
overcame the better part in Judas. But he clung desperately to secular
hope, until the last vestige of such hope was over. Listening to the
warnings of Christ against the cares of this world, the lust of other
things, love of high places and contempt of lowly service, and watching
bright offers rejected and influential classes estranged, it was
inevitable that a sense of personal wrong, and a vindictive resentment,
should spring up in his gloomy heart. The thorns choked the good seed.
Then came a deeper fall. As he rejected the pure light of self-sacrifice,
and the false light of his romantic daydreams faded, no curb was left on
the baser instincts which are latent in the human heart. Self-respect
being already lost, and conscience beaten down, he was allured by low
compensations, and the apostle became a thief. What better than gain,
however sordid, was left to a life so plainly frustrated and spoiled? That
is the temptation of disillusion, as fatal to middle life as the passions
are to early manhood. And this fall reacted again upon his attitude
towards Jesus. Like all who will not walk in the light, he hated the
light; like all hirelings of two masters, he hated the one he left. Men
ask how Judas could have consented to accept for Jesus the bloodmoney of a
slave. The truth is that his treason itself yielded him a dreadful
satisfaction, and the insulting kiss, and the sneering “Rabbi,” expressed
the malice of his heart. Well for him if he had never been born. For when
his conscience awoke with a start and told him what thing he had become,
only self-loathing remained to him. Peter denying Jesus was nevertheless
at heart His own; a look sufficed to melt him. For Judas, Christ was
become infinitely remote and strange, an abstraction, “the innocent
blood,” no more than that. And so, when Jesus was passing into the holiest
through the rent veil which was His flesh, this first Antichrist had
already torn with his own hands the tissue of the curtain which hides
eternity.

Now let us observe that all this ruin was the result of forces continually
at work upon human hearts. Aspiration, vocation, failure, degradation—it
is the summary of a thousand lives. Only it is here exhibited on a vast
and dreadful scale (magnified by the light which was behind, as images
thrown by a lantern upon a screen) for the instruction and warning of the
world.




The Sop.


    “And when it was evening He cometh with the twelve. And as they
    sat and were eating, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you
    shall betray Me, _even_ he that eateth with Me. They began to be
    sorrowful, and to say unto Him one by one, Is it I? And He said
    unto them, _It is_ one of the twelve, he that dippeth with Me in
    the dish. For the Son of man goeth, even as it is written of Him:
    but woe unto that man through whom the Son of man is betrayed!
    good were it for that man if he had not been born.”—MARK xiv.
    17-21 (R.V.).


In the deadly wine which our Lord was made to drink, every ingredient of
mortal bitterness was mingled. And it shows how far is even His Church
from comprehending Him, that we think so much more of the physical than
the mental and spiritual horrors which gather around the closing scene.

But the tone of all the narratives, and perhaps especially of St. Mark’s,
is that of the exquisite Collect which reminds us that our Lord Jesus
Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked
men, as well as to suffer death on the cross. Treason and outrage, the
traitor’s kiss and the weakness of those who loved Him, the hypocrisy of
the priest and the ingratitude of the mob, perjury and a mock trial, the
injustice of His judges, the brutal outrages of the soldiers, the worse
and more malignant mockery of scribe and Pharisee, and last and direst,
the averting of the face of God, these were more dreadful to Jesus than
the scourging and the nails.

And so there is great stress laid upon His anticipation of the misconduct
of His own.

As the dreadful evening closes in, having come to the guest chamber “with
the Twelve”—eleven whose hearts should fail them and one whose heart was
dead, it was “as they sat and were eating” that the oppression of the
traitor’s hypocrisy became intolerable, and the outraged One spoke out.
“Verily I say unto you, One of you shall betray Me, even he that eateth
with Me.” The words are interpreted as well as predicted in the plaintive
Psalm which says, “Mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did
also eat of My bread, hath lifted up his heel against Me.” And perhaps
they are less a disclosure than a cry.

Every attempt to mitigate the treason of Judas, every suggestion that he
may only have striven too wilfully to serve our Lord by forcing Him to
take decided measures, must fail to account for the sense of utter wrong
which breathes in the simple and piercing complaint “one of you ... even
he that eateth with Me.” There is a tone in all the narratives which is at
variance with any palliation of the crime.

No theology is worth much if it fails to confess, at the centre of all the
words and deeds of Jesus, a great and tender human heart. He might have
spoken of teaching and warnings lavished on the traitor, and miracles
which he had beheld in vain. What weighs heaviest on His burdened spirit
is none of these; it is that one should betray Him who had eaten His
bread.

When Brutus was dying he is made to say—


    “My heart doth joy, that yet, in all my life,
    I found no man, but he was true to me.”


But no form of innocent sorrow was to pass Jesus by.

The vagueness in the words “one of you shall betray Me,” was doubtless
intended to suggest in all a great searching of heart. Coming just before
the institution of the Eucharistic feast, this incident anticipates the
command which it perhaps suggested: “Let a man examine himself, and so let
him eat.” It is good to be distrustful of one’s self. And if, as was
natural, the Eleven looked one upon another doubting of whom He spake,
they also began to say to Him, one by one (first the most timid, and then
others as the circle narrowed), Is it I? For the prince of this world had
something in each of them,—some frailty there was, some reluctance to bear
the yoke, some longing for the forbidden ways of worldliness, which
alarmed each at this solemn warning, and made him ask, Is it, can it be
possible, that it is I? Religious self-sufficiency was not then the
apostolic mood. Their questioning is also remarkable as a proof how little
they suspected Judas, how firmly he bore himself even as those
all-revealing words were spoken, how strong and wary was the temperament
which Christ would fain have sanctified. For between the Master and him
there could have been no more concealment.

The apostles were right to distrust themselves, and not to distrust
another. They were right, because they were so feeble, so unlike their
Lord. But for Him there is no misgiving: His composure is serene in the
hour of the power of darkness. And His perfect spiritual sensibility
discerned the treachery, unknown to others, as instinctively as the eye
resents the presence of a mote imperceptible to the hand.

The traitor’s iron nerve is somewhat strained as he feels himself
discovered, and when Jesus is about to hand a sop to him, he stretches
over, and their hands meet in the dish. That is the appointed sign: “It is
one of the Twelve, he that dippeth with Me in the dish,” and as he rushes
out into the darkness, to seek his accomplices and his revenge, Jesus
feels the awful contrast between the betrayer and the Betrayed. For
Himself, He goeth as it is written of Him. This phrase admirably expresses
the co-operation of Divine purpose and free human will, and by the woe
that follows He refutes all who would make of God’s fore-knowledge an
excuse for human sin. He then is not walking in the dark and stumbling,
though men shall think Him falling. But the life of the false one is worse
than utterly cast away: of him is spoken the dark and ominous word, never
indisputably certain of any other soul, “Good were it for him if that man
had not been born.”

“That man!” The order and emphasis are very strange. The Lord, who felt
and said that one of His chosen was a devil, seems here to lay stress upon
the warning thought, that he who fell so low was human, and his frightful
ruin was evolved from none but human capabilities for good and evil. In
“the Son of man” and “that man,” the same humanity was to be found.

For Himself, He is the same to-day as yesterday. All that we eat is His.
And in the most especial and far-reaching sense, it is His bread which is
broken for us at His table. Has He never seen traitor except one who
violated so close a bond? Alas, the night when the Supper of the Lord was
given was the same night when He was betrayed.




Bread And Wine.


    “And as they were eating, He took bread, and when He had blessed
    He brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take ye: this is My body.
    And He took a cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave to them,
    and they all drank of it. And He said unto them, This is My blood
    of the covenant, which is shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I
    will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I
    drink it new in the kingdom of God.”—MARK xiv. 22-25 (R.V.).


How much does the Gospel of St. Mark tell us about the Supper of the Lord?
He is writing to Gentiles. He is writing probably before the sixth chapter
of St. John was penned, certainly before it reached his readers. Now we
must not undervalue the reflected light thrown by one Scripture upon
another. Still less may we suppose that each account conveys all the
doctrine of the Eucharist. But it is obvious that St. Mark intended his
narrative to be complete in itself, even if not exhaustive. No serious
expositor will ignore the fulness of any word or action in which later
experience can discern meanings, truly involved, although not apparent at
the first. That would be to deny the inspiring guidance of Him who sees
the end from the beginning. But it is reasonable to omit from the
interpretation of St. Mark whatever is not either explicitly there, or
else there in germ, waiting underneath the surface for other influences to
develope it. For instance, the “remembrance” of Christ in St. Paul’s
narrative may (or it may not) mean a sacrificial memorial to God of His
Body and His Blood. If it be, this notion was to be conveyed to the
readers of this Gospel hereafter, as a quite new fact, resting upon other
authority. It has no place whatever here, and need only be mentioned to
point out that St. Mark did not feel bound to convey the slightest hint of
it. A communion, therefore, could be profitably celebrated by persons who
had no glimmering of any such conception. Nor does he rely, for an
understanding of his narrative, upon such familiarity with Jewish ritual
as would enable his readers to draw subtle analogies as they went along.
They were so ignorant of these observances that he had just explained to
them on what day the passover was sacrificed (ver. 12).

But this narrative conveys enough to make the Lord’s Supper, for every
believing heart, the supreme help to faith, both intellectual and
spiritual, and the mightiest of promises, and the richest gift of grace.

It is hard to imagine that any reader would conceive that the bread in
Christ’s hands had become His body, which still lived and breathed; or
that His blood, still flowing in His veins, was also in the cup He gave to
His disciples. No resort could be made to the glorification of the risen
Body as an escape from the perplexities of such a notion, for in whatever
sense the words are true, they were spoken of the body of His humiliation,
before which still lay the agony and the tomb.

Instinct would revolt yet more against such a gross explanation, because
the friends of Jesus are bidden to eat and drink. And all the analogy of
Christ’s language would prove that His vivid style refuses to be tied down
to so lifeless and mechanical a treatment. Even in this Gospel they could
discover that seed was teaching, and fowls were Satan, and that they were
themselves His mother and His brethren. Further knowledge of Scripture
would not impair this natural freedom of interpretation. For they would
discover that if animated language were to be frozen to such literalism,
the partakers of the Supper were themselves, though many, one body and one
loaf, that Onesimus was St. Paul’s very heart, that leaven is hypocrisy,
that Hagar is Mount Sinai, and that the veil of the temple is the flesh of
Christ (1 Cor. x. 17; Philem. ver. 12; Luke xii. 1; Gal. iv. 25; Heb. x.
20). And they would also find, in the analogous institution of the paschal
feast, a similar use of language (Exod. xii. 11).

But when they had failed to discern the doctrine of a transubstantiation,
how much was left to them. The great words remained, in all their spirit
and life, “Take ye, this is My Body ... this is My Blood of the Covenant,
which is shed for many.”

(1) So then, Christ did not look forward to His death as to ruin or
overthrow. The Supper is an institution which could never have been
devised at any later period. It comes to us by an unbroken line from the
Founder’s hand, and attested by the earliest witnesses. None could have
interpolated a new ordinance into the simple worship of the early Church,
and the last to suggest such a possibility should be those sceptics who
are deeply interested in exaggerating the estrangements which existed from
the first, and which made the Jewish Church a keen critic of Gentile
innovation, and the Gentiles of a Jewish novelty.

Nor could any genius have devised its vivid and pictorial earnestness, its
copious meaning, and its pathetic power over the heart, except His, Who
spoke of the Good Shepherd and of the Prodigal Son. And so it tells us
plainly what Christ thought about His own death. Death is to most of us
simply the close of life. To Him it was itself an achievement, and a
supreme one. Now it is possible to remember with exultation a victory
which cost the conqueror’s life. But on the Friday which we call Good,
nothing happened except the crucifixion. The effect on the Church, which
is amazing and beyond dispute, is produced by the death of her Founder,
and by nothing else. The Supper has no reference to Christ’s resurrection.
It is as if the nation exulted in Trafalgar, not in spite of the death of
our great Admiral, but solely because he died; as if the shot which slew
Nelson had itself been the overthrow of hostile navies. Now the history of
religions offers no parallel to this. The admirers of the Buddha love to
celebrate the long spiritual struggle, the final illumination, and the
career of gentle helpfulness. They do not derive life and energy from the
somewhat vulgar manner of his death. But the followers of Jesus find an
inspiration (very displeasing to some recent apostles of good taste) in
singing of their Redeemer’s blood. Remove from the Creed (which does not
even mention His three years of teaching) the proclamation of His death,
and there may be left, dimly visible to man, the outline of a sage among
the sages, but there will be no longer a Messiah, nor a Church. It is
because He was lifted up that He draws all men unto Him. The perpetual
nourishment of the Church, her bread and wine, are beyond question the
slain body of her Master and His blood poured out for man.

What are we to make of this admitted fact, that from the first she thought
less of His miracles, His teaching, and even of His revelation of the
Divine character in a perfect life, than of the doctrine that He who thus
lived, died for the men who slew Him? And what of this, that Jesus
Himself, in the presence of imminent death, when men review their lives
and set a value on their achievements, embodied in a solemn ordinance the
conviction that all He had taught and done was less to man than what He
was about to suffer? The Atonement is here proclaimed as a cardinal fact
in our religion, not worked out into doctrinal subtleties, but placed with
marvellous simplicity and force, in the forefront of the consciousness of
the simplest. What the Incarnation does for our bewildering thoughts of
God, the absolute and unconditioned, that does the Eucharist for our
subtle reasonings upon the Atonement.

(2) The death of Christ is thus precious, because He Who is sacrificed for
us can give Himself away. “Take ye” is a distinct offer. And so the
communion feast is not a mere commemoration, such as nations hold for
great deliverances. It is this, but it is much more, else the language of
Christ would apply worse to that first supper whence all our Eucharistic
language is derived, than to any later celebration. When He was absent,
the bread would very aptly remind them of His wounded body, and the wine
of His blood poured out. It might naturally be said, Henceforward, to your
loving remembrance this shall be my Body, as indeed, the words, As oft as
ye drink it, are actually linked with the injunction to do this in
remembrance. But scarcely could it have been said by Jesus, looking His
disciples in the face, that the elements were then His body and blood, if
nothing more than commemoration were in His mind. And so long as popular
Protestantism fails to look beyond this, so long will it be hard pressed
and harassed by the evident weight of the words of institution. These are
given in Scripture solely as having been spoken then, and no
interpretation is valid which attends chiefly to subsequent celebrations,
and only in the second place to the Supper of Jesus and the Eleven.

Now the most strenuous opponent of the doctrine that any change has passed
over the material substance of the bread and wine, need not resist the
palpable evidence that Christ appointed these to represent Himself. And
how? Not only as sacrificed for His people, but as verily bestowed upon
them. Unless Christ mocks us, “Take ye” is a word of absolute assurance.
Christ’s Body is not only slain, and His Blood shed on our behalf; He
gives Himself _to_ us as well as _for_ us; He is ours. And therefore
whoever is convinced that he may take part in “the sacrament of so great a
mystery” should realize that he there receives, conveyed to him by the
Author of that wondrous feast, all that is expressed by the bread and
wine.

(3) And yet this very word “Take ye,” demands our co-operation in the
sacrament. It requires that we should receive Christ, as it declares that
He is ready to impart Himself, utterly, like food which is taken into the
system, absorbed, assimilated, wrought into bone, into tissue and into
blood. And if any doubt lingered in our minds of the significance of this
word, it is removed when we remember how belief is identified with
feeding, in St. John’s Gospel. “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to
Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.... He
that believeth hath eternal life. I am the bread of life.” (John vi. 35,
47, 48.) If it follows that to feed upon Christ is to believe, it also
follows quite as plainly that belief is not genuine unless it really feeds
upon Christ.

It is indeed impossible to imagine a more direct and vigorous appeal to
man to have faith in Christ than this, that He formally conveys, by the
agency of His Church, to the hands and lips of His disciples, the
appointed emblem of Himself, and of Himself in the act of blessing them.
For the emblem is food in its most nourishing and in its most stimulating
form, in a form the best fitted to speak of utter self-sacrifice, by the
bruised corn of broken bread, and by the solemn resemblance to His sacred
blood. We are taught to see, in the absolute absorption of our food into
our bodily system, a type of the completeness wherewith Christ gives
Himself to us.

That gift is not to the Church in the gross, it is “divided among” us; it
individualizes each believer; and yet the common food expresses the unity
of the whole Church in Christ. Being many we are one bread.

Moreover, the institution of a meal reminds us that faith and emotion do
not always exist together. Times there are when the hunger and thirst of
the soul are like the craving of a sharp appetite for food. But the wise
man will not postpone his meal until such a keen desire returns, and the
Christian will seek for the Bread of life, however his emotions may flag,
and his soul cleave unto the dust. Silently and often unaware, as the
substance of the body is renovated and restored by food, shall the inner
man be strengthened and built up by that living Bread.

(4) We have yet to ask the great question, what is the specific blessing
expressed by the elements, and therefore surely given to the faithful by
the sacrament. Too many are content to think vaguely of Divine help, given
us for the merit of the death of Christ. But bread and wine do not express
an indefinite Divine help, they express the body and blood of Christ, they
have to do with His Humanity. We must beware, indeed, of limiting the
notion overmuch. At the Supper He said not “My flesh,” but “My body,”
which is plainly a more comprehensive term. And in the discourse when He
said “My Flesh is meat indeed,” He also said “I am the bread of life....
He that eateth Me, the same shall live by Me.” And we may not so carnalize
the Body as to exclude the Person, who bestows Himself. Yet is all the
language so constructed as to force the conviction upon us that His body
and blood, His Humanity, is the special gift of the Lord’s Supper. As man
He redeemed us, and as man He imparts Himself to man.

Thus we are led up to the sublime conception of a new human force working
in humanity. As truly as the life of our parents is in our veins, and the
corruption which they inherited from Adam is passed on to us, so truly
there is abroad in the world another influence, stronger to elevate than
the infection of the fall is to degrade; and the heart of the Church is
propelling to its utmost extremities the pure life of the Second Adam, the
Second Man, the new Father of the race. As in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive; and we who bear now the image of our
earthy progenitor shall hereafter bear the image of the heavenly.
Meanwhile, even as the waste and dead tissues of our bodily frame are
replaced by new material from every meal, so does He, the living Bread,
impart not only aid from heaven, but nourishment, strength to our poor
human nature, so weary and exhausted, and renovation to what is sinful and
decayed. How well does such a doctrine of the sacrament harmonize with the
declarations of St. Paul: “I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth
in me.” “The Head, from whom all the body being supplied and knit together
through the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of God” (Gal.
ii. 20; Col. ii. 19).

(5) In the brief narrative of St. Mark, there are a few minor points of
interest.

Fasting communions may possibly be an expression of reverence only. The
moment they are pressed further, or urged as a duty, they are strangely
confronted by the words, “While they were eating, Jesus took bread.”

The assertion that “they all drank,” follows from the express commandment
recorded elsewhere. And while we remember that the first communicants were
not laymen, yet the emphatic insistence upon this detail, and with
reference only to the cup, is entirely at variance with the Roman notion
of the completeness of a communion in one kind.

It is most instructive also to observe how the far-reaching expectation of
our Lord looks beyond the Eleven, and beyond His infant Church, forward to
the great multitude which no man can number, and speaks of the shedding of
His blood “for many.” He, who is to see of the travail of His soul and to
be satisfied, has already spoken of a great supper when the house of God
shall be filled. And now He will no more drink of the fruit of the vine
until that great day when the marriage of the Lamb having come, and His
Bride having made herself ready, He shall drink it new in the consummated
kingdom of God.

With the announcement of that kingdom He began His gospel: how could the
mention of it be omitted from the great gospel of the Eucharist? or how
could the Giver of the earthly feast be silent concerning the banquet yet
to come?




The Warning.


    “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the mount of
    Olives. And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended: for
    it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be
    scattered abroad. Howbeit, after I am raised up, I will go before
    you into Galilee. But Peter said unto Him, Although all shall be
    offended, yet will not I. And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say
    unto thee, that thou to-day, _even_ this night, before the cock
    crow twice, shalt deny me thrice. But he spake exceeding
    vehemently, If I must die with Thee, I will not deny Thee. And in
    like manner also said they all.”—MARK xiv. 26-31 (R.V.).


Some uncertainty attaches to the position of Christ’s warning to the
Eleven in the narrative of the last evening. Was it given at the supper,
or on Mount Olivet; or were there perhaps premonitory admonitions on His
part, met by vows of faithfulness on theirs, which at last led Him to
speak out so plainly, and elicited such vainglorious protestations, when
they sat together in the night air?

What concerns us more is the revelation of a calm and beautiful nature, at
every point in the narrative. Jesus knows and has declared that His life
is now closing, and His blood already “being shed for many.” But that does
not prevent Him from joining with them in singing a hymn. It is the only
time when we are told that our Saviour sang, evidently because no other
occasion needed mention; a warning to those who draw confident inferences
from such facts as that “none ever said He smiled,” or that there is no
record of His having been sick. It would surprise such theorists to
observe the number of biographies much longer than any of the Gospels,
which also mention nothing of the kind. The Psalms usually sung at the
close of the feast are cxv. and the three following. The first tells how
the dead praise not the Lord, but we will praise Him from this time forth
for ever. The second proclaims that the Lord hath delivered my soul from
death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. The third bids all
the nations praise the Lord, for His merciful kindness is great and His
truth endureth for ever. And the fourth rejoices because, although all
nations compassed me about, yet I shall not die, but live and declare the
works of the Lord; and because the stone which the builders rejected is
become the head stone of the corner. Memories of infinite sadness were
awakened by the words which had so lately rung around His path: “Blessed
is He that cometh in the name of the Lord;” but His voice was strong to
sing, “Bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar;” and
it rose to the exultant close, “Thou art my God, and I will praise Thee:
Thou art my God, I will exalt Thee. O give thanks unto the Lord for He is
good, for His mercy endureth for ever.”

This hymn, from the lips of the Perfect One, could be no “dying
swan-song.” It uplifted that more than heroic heart to the wonderful
tranquillity which presently said, “When I am risen, I will go before you
into Galilee.” It is full of victory. And now they go unto the Mount of
Olives.

Is it enough considered how much of the life of Jesus was passed in the
open air? He preached on the hill side; He desired that a boat should be
at His command upon the lake; He prayed upon the mountain; He was
transfigured beside the snows of Hermon; He oft-times resorted to a garden
which had not yet grown awful; He met His disciples on a Galilean
mountain; and He finally ascended from the Mount of Olives. His
unartificial normal life, a pattern to us, not as students but as men—was
spent by preference neither in the study nor the street.

In this crisis, most solemn and yet most calm, He leaves the crowded city
into which all the tribes had gathered, and chooses for His last
intercourse with His disciples, the slopes of the opposite hill side,
while overhead is glowing, in all the still splendour of an Eastern sky,
the full moon of Passover. Here then is the place for one more emphatic
warning. Think how He loved them. As His mind reverts to the impending
blow, and apprehends it in its most awful form, the very buffet of God Who
Himself will smite the Shepherd, He remembers to warn His disciples of
their weakness. We feel it to be gracious that He should think of them at
such a time. But if we drew a little nearer, we should almost hear the
beating of the most loving heart that ever broke. They were all He had. In
them He had confided utterly. Even as the Father had loved Him, He also
had loved them, the firstfruits of the travail of His soul. He had ceased
to call them servants and had called them friends. To them He had spoken
those affecting words, “Ye are they which have continued with me in My
temptations.” How intensely He clung to their sympathy, imperfect though
it was, is best seen by His repeated appeals to it in the Agony. And He
knew that they loved Him, that the spirit was willing, that they would
weep and lament for Him, sorrowing with a sorrow which He hastened to add
that He would turn into joy.

It is the preciousness of their fellowship which reminds Him how this,
like all else, must fail Him. If there is blame in the words, “Ye shall be
offended,” this passes at once into exquisite sadness when He adds that
He, Who so lately said, “Them that Thou gavest Me, I have guarded,” should
Himself be the cause of their offence, “All ye shall be caused to stumble
because of Me.” And there is an unfathomable tenderness, a marvellous
allowance for their frailty in what follows. They were His sheep, and
therefore as helpless, as little to be relied upon, as sheep when the
shepherd is stricken. How natural it was for sheep to be scattered.

The world has no parallel for such a warning to comrades who are about to
leave their leader, so faithful and yet so tender, so far from
estrangement or reproach.

If it stood alone it would prove the Founder of the Church to be not only
a great teacher, but a genuine Son of man.

For Himself, He does not share their weakness, nor apply to Himself the
lesson of distrustfulness which He teaches them; He is of another nature
from these trembling sheep, the Shepherd of Zechariah, “Who is My fellow,
saith the Lord of Hosts.” He does not shrink from applying to Himself this
text, which awakens against Him the sword of God (Zechariah xiii. 7).

Looking now beyond the grave to the resurrection, and unestranged by their
desertion, He resumes at once the old relation; for as the shepherd goeth
before his sheep, and they follow him, so He will go before them into
Galilee, to the familiar places, far from the city where men hate Him.

This last touch of quiet human feeling completes an utterance too
beautiful, too characteristic to be spurious, yet a prophecy, and one
which attests the ancient predictions, and which involves an amazing
claim.

At first sight it is surprising that the Eleven who were lately so
conscious of weakness that each asked was he the traitor, should since
have become too self-confident to profit by a solemn admonition. But a
little examination shows the two statements to be quite consistent. They
had wronged themselves by that suspicion, and never is self-reliance more
boastful than when it is reassured after being shaken. The institution of
the Sacrament had invested them with new privileges, and drawn them nearer
than ever to their Master. Add to this the infinite tenderness of the last
discourse in St. John, and the prayer which was for them and not for the
world. How did their hearts burn within them as He said, “Holy Father,
keep them in Thy name whom Thou hast given Me.” How incredible must it
then have seemed to them, thrilling with real sympathy and loyal
gratitude, that they should forsake such a Master.

Nor must we read in their words merely a loud and indignant
self-assertion, all unworthy of the time and scene. They were meant to be
a solemn vow. The love they professed was genuine and warm. Only they
forgot their weakness; they did not observe the words which declared them
to be helpless sheep entirely dependent on the Shepherd, whose support
would speedily seem to fail.

Instead of harsh and unbecoming criticism, which repeats almost exactly
their fault by implying that we should not yield to the same pressure, let
us learn the lesson, that religious exaltation, a sense of special
privilege, and the glow of generous emotions, have their own danger.
Unless we continue to be as little children, receiving the Bread of Life,
without any pretence to have deserved it, and conscious still that our
only protection is the staff of our Shepherd, then the very notion that we
are something, when we are nothing, will betray us to defeat and shame.

Peter is the loudest in his protestations; and there is a painful egoism
in his boast, that even if the others fail, he will never deny Him. So in
the storm, it is he who should be called across the waters. And so an
early reading makes him propose that he alone should build the tabernacles
for the wondrous Three.

Naturally enough, this egoism stimulates the rest. For them, Peter is
among those who may fail, while each is confident that he himself cannot.
Thus the pride of one excites the pride of many.

But Christ has a special humiliation to reveal for his special
self-assertion. That day, and even before that brief night was over,
before the second cock-crowing (“the cock-crow” of the rest, being that
which announced the dawn) he shall deny his Master twice. Peter does not
observe that his eager contradictions are already denying the Master’s
profoundest claims. The others join in his renewed protestations, and
their Lord answers them no more. Since they refuse to learn from Him, they
must be left to the stern schooling of experience. Even before the
betrayal, they had an opportunity to judge how little their good
intentions might avail. For Jesus now enters Gethsemane.




In The Garden.


    “And they come unto a place which was named Gethsemane: and He
    saith unto His disciples, Sit ye here, while I pray. And He taketh
    with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly amazed,
    and sore troubled. And He saith unto them, My soul is exceeding
    sorrowful even unto death: abide ye here, and watch. And He went
    forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it
    were possible, the hour might pass away from Him. And He said,
    Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee: remove this cup
    from Me: howbeit not what I will, but what Thou wilt. And He
    cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon,
    sleepest thou? couldest thou not watch one hour? Watch and pray,
    that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing,
    but the flesh is weak. And again He went away, and prayed, saying
    the same words. And again He came, and found them sleeping, for
    their eyes were very heavy; and they wist not what to answer Him.
    And He cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now,
    and take your rest: it is enough; the hour is come; behold, the
    Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be
    going: behold, he that betrayeth Me is at hand.”—MARK xiv. 32-42
    (R.V.).


All Scripture, given by inspiration of God, is profitable; yet must we
approach with reverence and solemn shrinking, the story of our Saviour’s
anguish. It is a subject for caution and for reticence, putting away all
over-curious surmise, all too-subtle theorizing, and choosing to say too
little rather than too much.

It is possible so to argue about the metaphysics of the Agony as to forget
that a suffering human heart was there, and that each of us owes his soul
to the victory which was decided if not completed in that fearful place.
The Evangelists simply tell us how He suffered.

Let us begin with the accessories of the scene, and gradually approach the
centre.

In the warning of Jesus to His disciples there was an undertone of deep
sorrow. God will smite Him, and they will all be scattered like sheep.
However dauntless be the purport of such words, it is impossible to lose
sight of their melancholy. And when the Eleven rejected His prophetic
warning, and persisted in trusting the hearts He knew to be so fearful,
their professions of loyalty could only deepen His distress, and intensify
His isolation.

In silence He turns to the deep gloom of the olive grove, aware now of the
approach of the darkest and deadliest assault.

There was a striking contrast between the scene of His first temptation
and His last; and His experience was exactly the reverse of that of the
first Adam, who began in a garden, and was driven thence into the desert,
because he failed to refuse himself one pleasure more beside ten thousand.
Jesus began where the transgression of men had driven them, in the desert
among the wild beasts, and resisted not a luxury, but the passion of
hunger craving for bread. Now He is in a garden, but how different from
theirs. Close by is a city filled with foemen, whose messengers are
already on His track. Instead of the attraction of a fruit good for food,
and pleasant, and to be desired to make one wise, there is the grim
repulsion of death, and its anguish, and its shame and mockery. He is now
to be assailed by the utmost terrors of the flesh and of the spirit. And
like the temptation in the wilderness, the assault is three times renewed.

As the dark “hour” approached, Jesus confessed the two conflicting
instincts of our human nature in its extremity—the desire of sympathy, and
the desire of solitude. Leaving eight of the disciples at some distance,
He led still nearer to the appointed place His elect of His election, on
whom He had so often bestowed special privilege, and whose faith would be
less shaken by the sight of His human weakness, because they had beheld
His Divine glory on the holy mount. To these He opened His heart. “My soul
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; abide ye here and watch.” And He
went from them a little. Their neighbourhood was a support in His dreadful
conflict, and He could at times return to them for sympathy; but they
might not enter with Him into the cloud, darker and deadlier than that
which they feared on Hermon. He would fain not be desolate, and yet He
must be alone.

But when He returned, they were asleep. As Jesus spoke of watching for one
hour, some time had doubtless elapsed. And sorrow is exhausting. If the
spirit do not seek for support from God, it will be dragged down by the
flesh into heavy sleep, and the brief and dangerous respite of oblivion.

It was the failure of Peter which most keenly affected Jesus, not only
because his professions had been so loud, but because much depended on his
force of character. Thus, when Satan had desired to have them, that he
might sift them all like wheat, the prayers of Jesus were especially for
Simon, and it was he when he was converted who should strengthen the rest.
Surely then he at least might have watched one hour. And what of John, His
nearest human friend, whose head had reposed upon His bosom? However keen
the pang, the lips of the Perfect Friend were silent; only He warned them
all alike to watch and pray, because they were themselves in danger of
temptation.

That is a lesson for all time. No affection and no zeal are a substitute
for the presence of God realised, and the protection of God invoked.
Loyalty and love are not enough without watchfulness and prayer, for even
when the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak, and needs to be upheld.

Thus, in His severest trial and heaviest oppression, there is neither
querulousness nor invective, but a most ample recognition of their good
will, a most generous allowance for their weakness, a most sedulous
desire, not that He should be comforted, but that they should escape
temptation.

With His yearning heart unsoothed, with another anxiety added to His heavy
burden, Jesus returned to His vigil. Three times He felt the wound of
unrequited affection, for their eyes were very heavy, and they wist not
what to answer Him when He spoke.

Nor should we omit to contrast their bewildered stupefaction, with the
keen vigilance and self-possession of their more heavily burdened Lord.

If we reflect that Jesus must needs experience all the sorrows that human
weakness and human wickedness could inflict, we may conceive of these
varied wrongs as circles with a common centre, on which the cross was
planted. And our Lord has now entered the first of these; He has looked
for pity but there was no man; His own, although it was grief which
pressed them down, slept in the hour of His anguish, and when He bade them
watch.

It is right to observe that our Saviour had not bidden them to pray with
Him. They should watch and pray. They should even watch with Him. But to
pray for Him, or even to pray with Him, they were not bidden. And this is
always so. Never do we read that Jesus and any mortal joined together in
any prayer to God. On the contrary, when two or three of them asked
anything in His name, He took for Himself the position of the Giver of
their petition. And we know certainly that He did not invite them to join
His prayers, for it was as He was praying in a certain place that when He
ceased, one of His disciples desired that they also might be taught to
pray (Luke xi. 1). Clearly then they were not wont to approach the mercy
seat hand in hand with Jesus. And the reason is plain. He came directly to
His Father; no man else came unto the Father but by Him; there was an
essential difference between His attitude towards God and ours.

Has the Socinian ever asked himself why, in this hour of His utmost
weakness, Jesus sought no help from the intercession of even the chiefs of
the apostles?

It is in strict harmony with this position, that St. Matthew tells us, He
now said not Our Father, but My Father. No disciple is taught, in any
circumstances to claim for himself a monopolized or special sonship. He
may be in his closet and the door shut, yet must he remember his brethren
and say, Our Father. That is a phrase which Jesus never addressed to God.
None is partaker of His Sonship; none joined with Him in supplication to
His Father.




The Agony.


    “And He saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto
    death: abide ye here, and watch. And He went forward a little, and
    fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour
    might pass away from Him. And He said, Abba, Father, all things
    are possible unto Thee; remove this cup from Me: howbeit not what
    I will, but what Thou wilt. And He cometh, and findeth them
    sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? couldest
    thou not watch one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into
    temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
    And again He went away, and prayed, saying the same words. And
    again He came, and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very
    heavy; and they wist not what to answer Him. And He cometh the
    third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest:
    it is enough; the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed
    into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going: behold, he that
    betrayeth Me is at hand.”—MARK xiv. 34-42 (R.V.).


Sceptics and believers have both remarked that St. John, the only
Evangelist who was said to have been present, gives no account of the
Agony.

It is urged by the former, that the serene composure of the discourse in
his Gospel leaves no room for subsequent mental conflict and recoil from
suffering, which are inconsistent besides with his conception of a Divine
man, too exalted to be the subject of such emotions.

But do not the others know of composure which bore to speak of His Body as
broken bread, and seeing in the cup the likeness of His Blood shed, gave
it to be the food of His Church for ever?

Was the resignation less serene which spoke of the smiting of the
Shepherd, and yet of His leading back the flock to Galilee? If the
narrative was rejected as inconsistent with the calmness of Jesus in the
fourth Gospel, it should equally have repelled the authors of the other
three.

We may grant that emotion, agitation, is inconsistent with unbelieving
conceptions of the Christ of the fourth Gospel. But this only proves how
false those conceptions are. For the emotion, the agitation, is already
there. At the grave of Lazarus the word which tells that when He groaned
in spirit He was troubled, describes one’s distress in the presence of
some palpable opposing force (John xi. 34). There was, however, a much
closer approach to His emotion in the garden, when the Greek world first
approached Him. Then He contrasted its pursuit of self-culture with His
own doctrine of self-sacrifice, declaring that even a grain of wheat must
either die or abide by itself alone. To Jesus that doctrine was no smooth,
easily announced theory, and so He adds, “Now is My soul troubled, and
what shall I say? Father save Me from this hour. But for this cause came I
unto this hour” (John xii. 27).

Such is the Jesus of the fourth Gospel, by no means that of its modern
analysts. Nor is enough said, when we remind them that the Speaker of
these words was capable of suffering; we must add that profound agitation
at the last was inevitable, for One so resolute in coming to this hour,
yet so keenly sensitive of its dread.

The truth is that the silence of St. John is quite in his manner. It is so
that he passes by the Sacraments, as being familiar to his readers,
already instructed in the gospel story. But he gives previous discourses
in which the same doctrine is expressed which was embodied in each
Sacrament,—the declaration that Nicodemus must be born of water, and that
the Jews must eat His flesh and drink His blood. It is thus that instead
of the agony, he records that earlier agitation. And this threefold
recurrence of the same expedient is almost incredible except by design.
St. John was therefore not forgetful of Gethsemane.

A coarser infidelity has much to say about the shrinking of our Lord from
death. Such weakness is pronounced unworthy, and the bearing of multitudes
of brave men and even of Christian martyrs, unmoved in the flames, is
contrasted with the strong crying and tears of Jesus.

It would suffice to answer that Jesus also failed not when the trial came,
but before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, and won upon the
cross the adoration of a fellow-sufferer and the confession of a Roman
soldier. It is more than enough to answer that His story, so far from
relaxing the nerve of human fortitude, has made those who love Him
stronger to endure tortures than were emperors and inquisitors to invent
them. What men call His weakness has inspired ages with fortitude.
Moreover, the censure which such critics, much at ease, pronounce on Jesus
expecting crucifixion, arises entirely from the magnificent and unique
standard by which they try Him; for who is so hard-hearted as to think
less of the valour of the martyrs because it was bought by many a lonely
and intense conflict with the flesh?

For us, we accept the standard; we deny that Jesus in the garden came
short of absolute perfection; but we call attention to the fact that much
is conceded to us, when a criticism is ruthlessly applied to our Lord
which would excite indignation and contempt if brought to bear on the
silent sufferings of any hero or martyr but Himself.

Perfection is exactly what complicates the problem here.

Conscious of our own weakness, we not only justify but enjoin upon
ourselves every means of attaining as much nobility as we may. We “steel
ourselves to bear,” and therefore we are led to expect the same of Jesus.
We aim at some measure of what, in its lowest stage, is callous
insensibility. Now that word is negative; it asserts the absence or
paralysis of a faculty, not its fulness and activity. Thus we attain
victory by a double process; in part by resolutely turning our mind away,
and only in part by its ascendancy over appreciated distress. We
administer anodynes to the soul. But Jesus, when he had tasted thereof,
would not drink. The horrors which were closing around Him were perfectly
apprehended, that they might perfectly be overcome.

Thus suffering, He became an example for gentle womanhood, and tender
childhood, as well as man boastful of his stoicism. Moreover, He
introduced into the world a new type of virtue, much softer and more
emotional than that of the sages. The stoic, to whom pain is no evil, and
the Indian laughing and singing at the stake, are partly actors and partly
perversions of humanity. But the good Shepherd is also, for His
gentleness, a lamb. And it is His influence which has opened our eyes to
see a charm unknown before, in the sensibility of our sister and wife and
child. Therefore, since the perfection of manhood means neither the
ignoring of pain nor the denying of it, but the union of absolute
recognition with absolute mastery of its fearfulness, Jesus, on the
approach of agony and shame, and who shall say what besides, yields
Himself beforehand to the full contemplation of His lot. He does so, while
neither excited by the trial, nor driven to bay by the scoffs of His
murderers, but in solitude, in the dark, with stealthy footsteps
approaching through the gloom.

And ever since, all who went farthest down into the dread Valley, and on
whom the shadow of death lay heaviest, found there the footsteps of its
conqueror. It must be added that we cannot measure the keenness of the
sensibility thus exposed to torture. A physical organization and a
spiritual nature fresh from the creative hand, undegraded by the
transmitted heritage of ages of artificial, diseased and sinful habit,
unblunted by one deviation from natural ways, undrugged by one excess, was
surely capable of a range of feeling as vast in anguish as in delight.

The sceptic supposes that a torrent of emotion swept our Saviour off His
feet. The only narratives he can go upon give quite the opposite
impression. He is seen to fathom all that depth of misery, He allows the
voice of nature to utter all the bitter earnestness of its reluctance, yet
He never loses self-control, nor wavers in loyalty to His Father, nor
renounces His submission to the Father’s will. Nothing in the scene is
more astonishing than its combination of emotion with self-government.
Time after time He pauses, gently and lovingly admonishes others, and
calmly returns to His intense and anxious vigil.

Thus He has won the only perfect victory. With a nature so responsive to
emotion, He has not refused to feel, nor abstracted His soul from
suffering, nor silenced the flesh by such an effort as when we shut our
ears against a discord. Jesus sees all, confesses that He would fain
escape, but resigns Himself to God.

In the face of all asceticisms, as of all stoicisms, Gethsemane is the
eternal protest that every part of human nature is entitled to be heard,
provided that the spirit retains the arbitration over all.

Hitherto nothing has been assumed which a reasonable sceptic can deny. Nor
should such a reader fail to observe the astonishing revelation of
character in the narrative, its gentle pathos, its intensity beyond what
commonly belongs to gentleness, its affection, its mastery over the
disciples, its filial submission. Even the rich imaginative way of
thinking, which invented the parables and sacraments, is in the word “this
cup.”

But if the story of Gethsemane can be vindicated from such a point of
view, what shall be said when it is viewed as the Church regards it? Both
Testaments declare that the sufferings of the Messiah were supernatural.
In the Old Testament it was pleasing to the Father to bruise Him. The
terrible cry of Jesus to a God who had forsaken Him is conclusive evidence
from the New Testament. And if we ask what such a cry may mean, we find
that He is a curse for us, and made to be sin for us, Who knew no sin.

If the older theology drew incredible conclusions from such words, that is
no reason why we should ignore them. It is incredible that God was angry
with His Son, or that in any sense the Omniscient One confused the Saviour
with the sinful world. It is incredible that Jesus ever endured
estrangement as of lost souls from the One Whom in Gethsemane He called
Abba Father, and in the hour of utter darkness, My God, and into whose
Fatherly hands He committed His Spirit. Yet it is clear that He is being
treated otherwise than a sinless Being, as such, ought to expect. His
natural standing-place is exchanged for ours. And as our exceeding misery,
and the bitter curse of all our sin fell on Him, Who bore it away by
bearing it, our pollution surely affected His purity as keenly as our
stripes tried His sensibility. He shuddered as well as agonized. The deep
waters in which He sank were defiled as well as cold. Only this can
explain the agony and bloody sweat. And as we, for whom He endured it,
think of this, we can only be silent and adore.

Once more, Jesus returns to His disciples, but no longer to look for
sympathy, or to bid them watch and pray. The time for such warnings is now
past: the crisis, “the hour” is come, and His speech is sad and solemn.
“Sleep on now and take your rest, it is enough.” Had the sentence stopped
there, none would ever have proposed to treat it as a question, “Do ye now
sleep on and take your rest?” It would plainly have meant, “Since ye
refuse My counsel and will none of my reproof, I strive no further to
arouse the torpid will, the inert conscience, the inadequate affection.
Your resistance prevails against My warning.”

But critics fail to reconcile this with what follows, “Arise, let us be
going.” They fail through supposing that words of intense emotion must be
interpreted like a syllogism or a lawyer’s parchment.

“For My part, sleep on; but your sleep is now to be rudely broken: take
your rest so far as respect for your Master should have kept you watchful;
but the traitor is at hand to break such repose, let him not find you
ignobly slumbering. ‘Arise, he is at hand that doth betray Me.’ ”

This is not sarcasm, which taunts and wounds. But there is a lofty and
profound irony in the contrast between their attitude and their
circumstances, their sleep and the eagerness of the traitor.

And so they lost the most noble opportunity ever given to mortals, not
through blank indifference nor unbelief, but by allowing the flesh to
overcome the spirit. And thus do multitudes lose heaven, sleeping until
the golden hours are gone, and He who said, “Sleep on now,” says, “He that
is unrighteous, let him be unrighteous still.”

Remembering that defilement was far more urgent than pain in our Saviour’s
agony, how sad is the meaning of the words, “the Son of man is betrayed
into the hands of sinners,” and even of “the sinners,” the representatives
of all the evil from which He had kept Himself unspotted.

The one perfect flower of humanity is thrown by treachery into the
polluted and polluting grasp of wickedness in its many forms; the traitor
delivers Him to hirelings; the hirelings to hypocrites; the hypocrites to
an unjust and sceptical pagan judge; the judge to his brutal soldiery; who
expose Him to all that malice can wreak upon the most sensitive
organization, or ingratitude upon the most tender heart.

At every stage an outrage. Every outrage an appeal to the indignation of
Him who held them in the hollow of His hand. Surely it may well be said,
Consider Him who endured such contradiction; and endured it from sinners
against Himself.




The Arrest.


    “And straightway, while He yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the
    twelve, and with him a multitude with swords and staves, from the
    chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now he that betrayed
    Him had given them a token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that
    is He; take Him, and lead Him away safely. And when he was come,
    straightway he came to Him, and saith, Rabbi; and kissed Him. And
    they laid hands on Him, and took Him. But a certain one of them
    that stood by drew his sword, and smote the servant of the high
    priest, and struck off his ear. And Jesus answered and said unto
    them, Are ye come out, as against a robber, with swords and staves
    to seize Me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye
    took Me not; but _this is done_ that the scriptures might be
    fulfilled. And they all left Him and fled. And a certain young man
    followed with Him, having a linen cloth cast about him, over _his_
    naked body: and they lay hold on him; but he left the linen cloth,
    and fled naked.”—MARK xiv. 43-52 (R.V.).


St. Mark has told this tragical story in the most pointed and the fewest
words. The healing of the ear of Malchus concerns him not, that is but one
miracle among many; and Judas passes from sight unfollowed: the thought
insisted on is of foul treason, pitiable weakness, brute force
predominant, majestic remonstrance and panic flight. From the central
events no accessories can distract him.

There cometh, he tells us, “Judas, one of the Twelve.” Who Judas was, we
knew already, but we are to consider how Jesus felt it now. Before His
eyes is the catastrophe which His death is confronted to avert—the death
of a soul, a chosen and richly dowered soul for ever lost—in spite of so
many warnings—in spite of that incessant denunciation of covetousness
which rings through so much of His teaching, which only the presence of
Judas quite explains, and which His terrible and searching gaze must have
made like fire, to sear since it could not melt—in spite of the outspoken
utterances of these last days, and doubtless in spite of many prayers, he
is lost: one of the Twelve.

And the dark thought would fall cold upon Christ’s heart, of the
multitudes more who should receive the grace of God, His own dying love,
in vain. And with that, the recollection of many an hour of
loving-kindness wasted on this familiar friend in whom He trusted, and who
now gave Him over, as he had been expressly warned, to so cruel a fate.
Even toward Judas, no unworthy bitterness could pollute that sacred heart,
the fountain of unfathomable compassions, but what speechless grief must
have been there, what inconceivable horror. For the outrage was dark in
form as in essence. Judas apparently conceived that the Eleven might, as
they had promised, rally around their Lord; and he could have no
perception how impossible it was that Messiah should stoop to escape under
cover of their devotion, how frankly the good Shepherd would give His life
for the sheep. In the night, he thought, evasion might yet be attempted,
and the town be raised. But he knew how to make the matter sure. No other
would as surely as himself recognise Jesus in the uncertain light. If he
were to lay hold on Him rudely, the Eleven would close in, and in the
struggle, the prize might yet be lost. But approaching a little in
advance, and peaceably, he would ostentatiously kiss his Master, and so
clearly point Him out that the arrest would be accomplished before the
disciples realized what was being done.

But at every step the intrigue is overmastered by the clear insight of
Jesus. As He foretold the time of His arrest, while yet the rulers said,
Not on the feast day, so He announced the approach of the traitor, who was
then contriving the last momentary deception of his polluting kiss.

We have already seen how impossible it is to think of Judas otherwise than
as the Church has always regarded him, an apostate and a traitor in the
darkest sense. The milder theory is at this stage shattered by one small
yet significant detail. At the supper, when conscious of being suspected,
and forced to speak, he said not, like the others, “Lord,” but “Rabbi, is
it I?” Now they meet again, and the same word is on his lips, whether by
design and in Satanic insolence, or in hysterical agitation and
uncertainty, who can say?

But no loyalty, however misled, inspired that halting and inadequate
epithet, no wild hope of a sudden blazing out of glories too long
concealed is breathed in the traitor’s Rabbi!

With that word, and his envenomed kiss, the “much kissing,” which took
care that Jesus should not shake him off, he passes from this great
Gospel. Not a word is here of his remorse, or of the dreadful path down
which he stumbled to his own place. Even the lofty remonstrance of the
Lord is not recorded: it suffices to have told how he betrayed the Son of
man with a kiss, and so infused a peculiar and subtle poison into Christ’s
draught of deadly wine. That, and not the punishment of that, is what St.
Mark recorded for the Church, the awful fall of an apostle, chosen of
Christ; the solemn warning to all privileged persons, richly endowed and
highly placed; the door to hell, as Bunyan has it, from the very gate of
Heaven.

A great multitude with swords and staves had come from the rulers.
Possibly some attempt at rescue was apprehended from the Galileans who had
so lately triumphed around Jesus. More probably the demonstration was
planned to suggest to Pilate that a dangerous political agitation had to
be confronted.

At all events, the multitude did not terrify the disciples: cries arose
from their little band, “Lord shall we smite with the sword?” and if Jesus
had consented, it seems that with two swords the Eleven whom declaimers
make to be so craven, would have assailed the multitude in arms.

Now this is what points the moral of their failure. Few of us would
confess personal cowardice by accepting a warning from the fears of the
fearful. But the fears of the brave must needs alarm us. It is one thing
to defy death, sword in hand, in some wild hour of chivalrous
effort—although the honours we shower upon the valiant prove that even
such fortitude is less common than we would fain believe. But there is a
deep which opens beyond this. It is a harder thing to endure the silent
passive anguish to which the Lamb, dumb before the shearers, calls His
followers. The victories of the spirit are beyond animal strength of
nerve. In their highest forms they are beyond the noble reach of
intellectual resolution. How far beyond it we may learn by contrasting the
excitement and then the panic of the Eleven with the sublime composure of
their Lord.

One of them, whom we know to have been the impulsive Simon, showed his
loss of self-control by what would have been a breach of discipline, even
had resistance been intended. While others asked should they smite with
the sword, he took the decision upon himself, and struck a feeble and
abortive blow, enough to exasperate but not to disable. In so doing he
added, to the sorrows of Jesus, disobedience, and the inflaming of angry
passion among His captors.

Strange it is, and instructive, that the first act of violence in the
annals of Christianity came not from her assailants but from her son. And
strange to think with what emotions Jesus must have beheld that blow.

St. Mark records neither the healing of Malchus nor the rebuke of Peter.
Throughout the events which now crowd fast upon us, we shall not find him
careful about fulness of detail. This is never his manner, though he loves
any detail which is graphic, characteristic, or intensifying. But his
concern is with the spirit of the Lord and of His enemies: he is blind to
no form of injustice or insult which heightened the sufferings of Jesus,
to no manifestation of dignity and self-control overmastering the rage of
hell. If He is unjustly tried by Caiaphas, it matters nothing that Annas
also wronged Him. If the soldiers of Pilate insulted Him, it matters
nothing that the soldiers of Herod also set Him at nought. Yet the flight
of a nameless youth is recorded, since it adds a touch to the picture of
His abandonment.

And therefore he records the indignant remonstrance of Jesus upon the
manner of His arrest. He was no man of violence and blood, to be arrested
with a display of overwhelming force. He needed not to be sought in
concealment and at midnight.

He had spoken daily in the temple, but then their malice was defeated,
their snares rent asunder, and the people witnessed their exposure. But
all this was part of His predicted suffering, for Whom not only pain but
injustice was foretold, Who should be taken from prison and from judgment.

It was a lofty remonstrance. It showed how little could danger and
betrayal disturb His consciousness, and how clearly He discerned the
calculation of His foes.

At this moment of unmistakable surrender, His disciples forsook Him and
fled. One young man did indeed follow Him, springing hastily from slumber
in some adjacent cottage, and wrapped only in a linen cloth. But he too,
when seized, fled away, leaving his only covering in the hands of the
soldiers.

This youth may perhaps have been the Evangelist himself, of whom we know
that, a few years later, he joined Paul and Barnabas at the outset, but
forsook them when their journey became perilous.

It is at least as probable that the incident is recorded as a picturesque
climax to that utter panic which left Jesus to tread the winepress alone,
deserted by all, though He never forsook any.




Before Caiaphas.


    “And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and there come
    together with him all the chief priests and the elders and the
    scribes. And Peter had followed Him afar off, even within, into
    the court of the high priest; and he was sitting with the
    officers, and warming himself in the light _of the fire_. Now the
    chief priests and the whole council sought witness against Jesus
    to put Him to death; and found it not. For many bare false witness
    against Him, and their witness agreed not together. And there
    stood up certain, and bare false witness against Him, saying, We
    heard Him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands,
    and in three days I will build another made without hands. And not
    even so did their witness agree together. And the high priest
    stood up in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest Thou
    nothing? what is it which these witness against Thee? But He held
    His peace and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked Him,
    and saith unto Him, Art Thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
    And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting at
    the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven. And
    the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What further need
    have we of witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye?
    And they all condemned Him to be worthy of death. And some began
    to spit on Him, and to cover His face, and to buffet Him, and to
    say unto Him, Prophesy: and the officers received Him with blows
    of their hands”—MARK xiv. 53-65 (R.V.).


We have now to see the Judge of quick and dead taken from prison and
judgment, the Preacher of liberty to the captives bound, and the Prince of
Life killed. It is the most solemn page in earthly story; and as we read
St. Mark’s account, it will concern us less to reconcile his statements
with those of the other three, than to see what is taught us by his
especial manner of regarding it. Reconciliation, indeed, is quite
unnecessary, if we bear in mind that to omit a fact is not to contradict
it. For St. Mark is not writing a history but a Gospel, and his readers
are Gentiles, for whom the details of Hebrew intrigue matter nothing, and
the trial before a Galilean Tetrarch would be only half intelligible.

St. John, who had been an eye-witness, knew that the private inquiry
before Annas was vital, for there the decision was taken which subsequent
and more formal assemblies did but ratify. He therefore, writing last,
threw this ray of explanatory light over all that the others had related.
St. Luke recorded in the Acts (iv. 27) that the apostles recognised, in
the consent of Romans and Jews, and of Herod and Pilate, what the Psalmist
had long foretold, the rage of the heathen and the vain imagination of the
peoples, and the conjunction of kings and rulers. His Gospel therefore
lays stress upon the part played by all of these. And St. Matthew’s
readers could appreciate every fulfilment of prophecy, and every touch of
local colour. St. Mark offers to us the essential points: rejection and
cruelty by His countrymen, rejection and cruelty over again by Rome, and
the dignity, the elevation, the lofty silence and the dauntless testimony
of his Lord. As we read, we are conscious of the weakness of His crafty
foes, who are helpless and baffled, and have no resort except to abandon
their charges and appeal to His own truthfulness to destroy Him.

He shows us first the informal assembly before Caiaphas, whither Annas
sent Him with that sufficient sign of his own judgment, the binding of His
hands, and the first buffet, inflicted by an officer, upon His holy face.
It was not yet daylight, and a formal assembly of the Sanhedrim was
impossible. But what passed now was so complete a rehearsal of the
tragedy, that the regular meeting could be disposed of in a single verse.

There was confusion and distress among the conspirators. It was not their
intention to have arrested Jesus on the feast day, at the risk of an
uproar among the people. But He had driven them to do so by the expulsion
of their spy, who, if they delayed longer, would be unable to guide their
officers. And so they found themselves without evidence, and had to play
the part of prosecutors when they ought to be impartial judges. There is
something frightful in the spectacle of these chiefs of the religion of
Jehovah suborning perjury as the way to murder; and it reminds us of the
solemn truth, that no wickedness is so perfect and heartless as that upon
which sacred influences have long been vainly operating, no corruption so
hateful as that of a dead religion. Presently they would cause the name of
God to be blasphemed among the heathen, by bribing the Roman guards to lie
about the corpse. And the heart of Jesus was tried by the disgraceful
spectacle of many false witnesses, found in turn and paraded against Him,
but unable to agree upon any consistent charge, while yet the shameless
proceedings were not discontinued. At the last stood up witnesses to
pervert what He had spoken at the first cleansing of the temple, which the
second cleansing had so lately recalled to mind. They represented Him as
saying, “I am able to destroy this temple made with hands,”—or perhaps, “I
will destroy” it, for their testimony varied on this grave point—“and in
three days I will build another made without hands.” It was for
blaspheming the Holy Place that Stephen died, and the charge was a grave
one; but His words were impudently manipulated to justify it. There had
been no proposal to substitute a different temple, and no mention of the
temple made with hands. Nor had Jesus ever proposed to destroy anything.
He had spoken of their destroying the Temple of His Body, and in the use
they made of the prediction they fulfilled it.

As we read of these repeated failures before a tribunal so unjust, we are
led to suppose that opposition must have sprung up to disconcert them; we
remember the councillor of honourable estate, who had not consented to
their counsel and deed, and we think, What if, even in that hour of evil,
one voice was uplifted for righteousness? What if Joseph confessed Him in
the conclave, like the penitent thief upon the cross?

And now the high priest, enraged and alarmed by imminent failure, rises in
the midst, and in the face of all law cross-questions the prisoner,
Answerest Thou nothing? What is it which these witness against Thee? But
Jesus will not become their accomplice; He maintains the silence which
contrasts so nobly with their excitement, which at once sees through their
schemes and leaves them to fall asunder. And the urgency of the occasion,
since hesitation now will give the city time to rise, drives them to a
desperate expedient. Without discussion of His claims, without considering
that some day there _must_ be some Messiah, (else what is their faith and
who are they?) they will treat it as blasphemous and a capital offence
simply to claim that title. Caiaphas adjures Him by their common God to
answer, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? So then they were not
utterly ignorant of the higher nature of the Son of David: they remembered
the words, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee. But the only
use they ever made of their knowledge was to heighten to the uttermost the
Messianic dignity which they would make it death to claim. And the
prisoner knew well the consequences of replying. But He had come into the
world to bear witness to the truth, and this was the central truth of all.
“And Jesus said, I am.” Now Renan tells us that He was the greatest
religious genius who ever lived, or probably ever shall live. Mill tells
us that religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on
this Man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity. And Strauss
thinks that we know enough of Him to assert that His consciousness was
unclouded by the memory of any sin. Well then, if anything in the life of
Jesus is beyond controversy, it is this, that the sinless Man, our ideal
representative and guide, the greatest religious genius of the race, died
for asserting upon oath that He was the Son of God. A good deal has been
said lately, both wise and foolish, about Comparative Religion: is there
anything to compare with this? Lunatics, with this example before their
eyes, have conceived wild and dreadful infatuations. But these are the
words of Him whose character has dominated nineteen centuries, and changed
the history of the world. And they stand alone in the records of mankind.

As Jesus spoke the fatal words, as malice and hatred lighted the faces of
His wicked judges with a base and ignoble joy, what was His own thought?
We know it by the warning that He added. They supposed themselves judges
and irresponsible, but there should yet be another tribunal, with justice
of a far different kind, and there they should occupy another place. For
all that was passing before His eyes, so false, hypocritical and
murderous, there was no lasting victory, no impunity, no escape: “Ye shall
see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the
clouds of heaven.” Therefore His apostle Peter tells us that in this hour,
when He was reviled and reviled not again, “He committed Himself to Him
that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter ii. 23).

He had now quoted that great vision in which the prophet Daniel saw Him
brought near unto the Ancient of Days, and invested with an everlasting
dominion (Dan. vii. 13, 14.). But St. Matthew adds one memorable word. He
did not warn them, and He was not Himself sustained, only by the mention
of a far-off judgment: He said they should behold Him thus “henceforth.”
And that very day they saw the veil of their temple rent, felt the world
convulsed, and remembered in their terror that He had foretold His own
death and His resurrection, against which they had still to guard. And in
the open sepulchre, and the supernatural vision told them by its keepers,
in great and notable miracles wrought by the name of Jesus, in the
desertion of a great multitude even of priests, and their own fear to be
found fighting against God, in all this the rise of that new power was
thenceforth plainly visible, which was presently to bury them and their
children under the ruins of their temple and their palaces. But for the
moment the high-priest was only relieved; and he proceeded, rending his
clothes, to announce his judgment, before consulting the court, who had no
further need of witnesses, and were quite content to become formally the
accusers before themselves. The sentence of this irregular and informal
court was now pronounced, to fit them for bearing part, at sunrise, in
what should be an unbiassed trial; and while they awaited the dawn Jesus
was abandoned to the brutality of their servants, one of whom He had
healed that very night. They spat on the Lord of Glory. They covered His
face, an act which was the symbol of a death sentence (Esther vii. 8), and
then they buffeted Him, and invited Him to prophesy who smote Him. And the
officers “received Him” with blows.

What was the meaning of this outburst of savage cruelty of men whom Jesus
had never wronged, and some of whose friends must have shared His
superhuman gifts of love? Partly it was the instinct of low natures to
trample on the fallen, and partly the result of partizanship. For these
servants of the priests must have seen many evidences of the hate and
dread with which their masters regarded Jesus. But there was doubtless
another motive. Not without fear, we may be certain, had they gone forth
to arrest at midnight the Personage of whom so many miraculous tales were
universally believed. They must have remembered the captains of fifty whom
Elijah consumed with fire. And in fact there was a moment when they all
fell prostrate before His majestic presence. But now their terror was at
an end: He was helpless in their hands; and they revenged their fears upon
the Author of them.

Thus Jesus suffered shame to make us partakers of His glory; and the veil
of death covered His head, that He might destroy the face of the covering
cast over all peoples, and the veil that was spread over all nations. And
even in this moment of bitterest outrage He remembered and rescued a soul
in the extreme of jeopardy, for it was now that the Lord turned and looked
upon Peter.




The Fall Of Peter.


    “And as Peter was beneath in the court, there cometh one of the
    maids of the high priest; and seeing Peter warming himself, she
    looked upon him, and saith, Thou also wast with the Nazarene,
    _even_ Jesus. But he denied, saying, I neither know, nor
    understand what thou sayest: and he went out into the porch; and
    the cock crew. And the maid saw him, and began again to say to
    them that stood by, This is _one_ of them. But he again denied it.
    And after a little while again they that stood by said to Peter,
    Of a truth thou art _one_ of them; for thou art a Galilæan. But he
    began to curse, and to swear, I know not this man of whom ye
    speak. And straightway the second time the cock crew. And Peter
    called to mind the word, how that Jesus said unto him, Before the
    cock crow twice, thou shalt deny Me thrice. And when he thought
    thereon, he wept”—MARK xiv. 66-72 (R.V.).


The fall of Peter has called forth the easy scorn of multitudes who never
ran any risk for Christ. But if he had been a coward, and his denial a
dastardly weakness, it would not be a warning for the whole Church, but
only for feeble natures. Whereas the lesson which it proclaims is this
deep and solemn one, that no natural endowments can bear the strain of the
spiritual life. Peter had dared to smite when only two swords were
forthcoming against the band of Roman soldiers and the multitude from the
chief priests. After the panic in which all forsook Jesus, and so
fulfilled the prediction “ye shall leave Me alone,” none ventured so far
as Peter. John indeed accompanied him; but John ran little risk, he had
influence and was therefore left unassailed, whereas Peter was friendless
and a mark for all men, and had made himself conspicuous in the garden. Of
those who declaim about his want of courage few indeed would have dared so
much. And whoever misunderstands him, Jesus did not. He said to him,
“Satan hath desired to have you (all) that he may sift you like wheat, but
I have prayed for thee (especially) that thy strength fail not.” Around
him the fiercest of the struggle was to rage, as around some point of
vantage on a battlefield; and it was he, when once he had turned again,
who should stablish his brethren (Luke xxii. 31, 32).

God forbid that we should speak one light or scornful word of this great
apostle! God grant us, if our footsteps slip, the heart to weep such tears
as his.

Peter was a loving, brave and loyal man. But the circumstances were not
such as human bravery could deal with. Resistance, which would have
kindled his spirit, had been forbidden to him, and was now impossible. The
public was shut out, and he was practically alone among his enemies. He
had come “to see the end,” and it was a miserable sight that he beheld.
Jesus was passive, silent, insulted: His foes fierce, unscrupulous and
confident. And Peter was more and more conscious of being alone, in peril,
and utterly without resource. Moreover sleeplessness and misery lead to
physical languor and cold,(13) and as the officers had kindled a fire, he
was drawn thither, like a moth, by the double wish to avoid isolation and
to warm himself. In thus seeking to pass for one of the crowd, he showed
himself ashamed of Jesus, and incurred the menaced penalty, “of him shall
the Son of man be ashamed, when He cometh.” And the method of
self-concealment which he adopted only showed his face, strongly
illuminated, as St. Mark tells us, by the flame.

If now we ask for the secret of his failing resolution, we can trace the
disease far back. It was self-confidence. He reckoned himself the one to
walk upon the waters. He could not be silent on the holy mount, when Jesus
held high communion with the inhabitants of heaven. He rebuked the Lord
for dark forebodings. When Jesus would wash his feet, although expressly
told that he should understand the act hereafter, he rejoined, Thou shalt
never wash my feet, and was only sobered by the peremptory announcement
that further rebellion would involve rejection. He was sure that if all
the rest were to deny Jesus, he never should deny Him. In the garden he
slept, because he failed to pray and watch. And then he did not wait to be
directed, but strove to fight the battle of Jesus with the weapons of the
flesh. Therefore he forsook Him and fled. And the consequences of that
hasty blow were heavy upon him now. It marked him for the attention of the
servants: it drove him to merge himself in the crowd. But his bearing was
too suspicious to enable him to escape unquestioned. The first assault
came very naturally, from the maid who kept the door, and had therefore
seen him with John. He denied indeed, but with hesitation, not so much
affirming that the charge was false as that he could not understand it.
And thereupon he changed his place, either to escape notice or through
mental disquietude; but as he went into the porch the cock crew. The girl
however was not to be shaken off: she pointed him out to others, and since
he had forsaken the only solid ground, he now denied the charge angrily
and roundly. An hour passed, such an hour of shame, perplexity and guilt,
as he had never known, and then there came a still more dangerous attack.
They had detected his Galilean accent, while he strove to pass for one of
them. And a kinsman of Malchus used words as threatening as were possible
without enabling a miracle to be proved, since the wound had vanished:
“Did I myself not see thee in the garden with Him?” Whereupon, to prove
that his speech had nothing to do with Jesus, he began to curse and swear,
saying, I know not the man. And the cock crew a second time, and Peter
remembered the warning of his Lord, which then sounded so harsh, but now
proved to be the means of his salvation. And the eyes of his Master, full
of sorrow and resolution, fell on him. And he knew that he had added a
bitter pang to the sufferings of the Blessed One. And the crowd and his
own danger were forgotten, and he went out and wept.

It was for Judas to strive desperately to put himself right with man: the
sorrow of Peter was for himself and God to know.

What lessons are we taught by this most natural and humbling story? That
he who thinketh he standeth must take heed lest he fall. That we are in
most danger when self-confident, and only strong when we are weak. That
the beginning of sin is like the letting out of water. That Jesus does not
give us up when we cast ourselves away, but as long as a pulse of love
survives, or a spark of loyalty, He will appeal to that by many a subtle
suggestion of memory and of providence, to recall His wanderer to Himself.

And surely we learn by the fall of this great and good apostle to restore
the fallen in the spirit of meekness, considering ourselves lest we also
be tempted, remembering also that to Peter, Jesus sent the first tidings
of His resurrection, and that the message found him in company with John,
and therefore in the house with Mary. What might have been the issue of
his anguish if these holy ones had cast Him off?





CHAPTER XV.




Pilate.


    “And straightway in the morning the chief priests with the elders
    and scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, and bound
    Jesus, and carried Him away, and delivered Him up to Pilate.”

    “... And they lead Him out to crucify Him.”—MARK xv. 1-20 (R.V.).


With morning came the formal assembly, which St. Mark dismisses in a
single verse. It was indeed a disgraceful mockery. Before the trial began
its members had prejudged the case, passed sentence by anticipation, and
abandoned Jesus, as one condemned, to the brutality of their servants. And
now the spectacle of a prisoner outraged and maltreated moves no
indignation in their hearts.

Let us, for whom His sufferings were endured, reflect upon the strain and
anguish of all these repeated examinations, these foregone conclusions
gravely adopted in the name of justice, these exhibitions of greed for
blood. Among the “unknown sufferings” by which the Eastern Church invokes
her Lord, surely not the least was His outraged moral sense.

As the issue of it all, they led Him away to Pilate, meaning, by the
weight of such an accusing array, to overpower any possible scruples of
the governor, but in fact fulfilling His words, “they shall deliver Him
unto the Gentiles.” And the first question recorded by St. Mark expresses
the intense surprise of Pilate. “Thou,” so meek, so unlike the numberless
conspirators that I have tried,—or perhaps, “Thou,” Whom no sympathising
multitude sustains, and for Whose death the disloyal priesthood thirsts,
“Art _Thou_ the King of the Jews?” We know how carefully Jesus
disentangled His claim from the political associations which the high
priests intended that it should suggest, how the King of Truth would not
exaggerate any more than understate the case, and explained that His
kingdom was not of this world, that His servants did not fight, that His
royal function was to uphold the truth, not to expel conquerors. The eyes
of a practised Roman governor saw through the accusation very clearly.
Before him, Jesus was accused of sedition, but that was a transparent
pretext; Jews did not hate Him for enmity to Rome: He was a rival teacher
and a successful one, and for envy they had delivered Him. So far all was
well. Pilate investigated the charge, arrived at the correct judgment, and
it only remained that he should release the innocent man. In reaching this
conclusion Jesus had given him the most prudent and skilful help, but as
soon as the facts became clear, He resumed His impressive and mysterious
silence. Thus, before each of his judges in turn, Jesus avowed Himself the
Messiah and then held His peace. It was an awful silence, which would not
give that which was holy to the dogs, nor profane the truth by unavailing
protests or controversies. It was, however, a silence only possible to an
exalted nature full of self-control, since the words actually spoken
redeem it from any suspicion or stain of sullenness. It is the conscience
of Pilate which must henceforth speak. The Romans were the lawgivers of
the ancient world, and a few years earlier their greatest poet had boasted
that their mission was to spare the helpless and to crush the proud. In no
man was an act of deliberate injustice, of complaisance to the powerful at
the cost of the good, more unpardonable than in a leader of that splendid
race, whose laws are still the favourite study of those who frame and
administer our own. And the conscience of Pilate struggled hard, aided by
superstitious fear. The very silence of Jesus amid many charges, by none
of which His accusers would stand or fall, excited the wonder of His
judge. His wife’s dream aided the effect. And he was still more afraid
when he heard that this strange and elevated Personage, so unlike any
other prisoner whom he had ever tried, laid claim to be Divine. Thus even
in his desire to save Jesus, his motive was not pure, it was rather an
instinct of self-preservation than a sense of justice. But there was
danger on the other side as well; since he had already incurred the
imperial censure, he could not without grave apprehensions contemplate a
fresh complaint, and would certainly be ruined if he were accused of
releasing a conspirator against Cæsar. And accordingly he stooped to mean
and crooked ways, he lost hold of the only clue in the perplexing
labyrinth of expediencies, which is principle, and his name in the creed
of Christendom is spoken with a shudder—“crucified under Pontius Pilate!”

It was the time for him to release a prisoner to them, according to an
obscure custom, which some suppose to have sprung from the release of one
of the two sacrificial goats, and others from the fact that they now
celebrated their own deliverance from Egypt. At this moment the people
began to demand their usual indulgence, and an evil hope arose in the
heart of Pilate. They would surely welcome One who was in danger as a
patriot: he would himself make the offer, and he would put it in this
tempting form, “Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?”
Thus would the enmity of the priests be gratified, since Jesus would
henceforth be a condemned culprit, and owe His life to their intercession
with the foreigner. But the proposal was a surrender. The life of Jesus
had not been forfeited; and when it was placed at their discretion, it was
already lawlessly taken away. Moreover, when the offer was rejected, Jesus
was in the place of a culprit who should not be released. To the priests,
nevertheless, it was a dangerous proposal, and they needed to stir up the
people, or perhaps Barabbas would not have been preferred.

Instigated by their natural guides, their religious teachers, the Jews
made the tremendous choice, which has ever since been heavy on their heads
and on their children’s. Yet if ever an error could be excused by the plea
of authority, and the duty of submission to constituted leaders, it was
this error. They followed men who sat in Moses’ seat, and who were thus
entitled, according to Jesus Himself, to be obeyed. Yet that authority has
not relieved the Hebrew nation from the wrath which came upon them to the
uttermost. The salvation they desired was not moral elevation or spiritual
life, and so Jesus had nothing to bestow upon them; they refused the Holy
One and the Just. What they wanted was the world, the place which Rome
held, and which they fondly hoped was yet to be their own. Even to have
failed in the pursuit of this was better than to have the words of
everlasting life, and so the name of Barabbas was enough to secure the
rejection of Christ. It would almost seem that Pilate was ready to release
both, if that would satisfy them, for he asks, in hesitation and
perplexity, “What shall I do then with Him Whom ye call the King of the
Jews?” Surely in their excitement for an insurgent, that title, given by
themselves, will awake their pity. But again and again, like the howl of
wolves, resounds their ferocious cry, Crucify Him, crucify Him.

The irony of Providence is known to every student of history, but it never
was so manifest as here. Under the pressure of circumstances upon men whom
principle has not made firm, we find a Roman governor striving to kindle
every disloyal passion of his subjects, on behalf of the King of the
Jews,—appealing to men whom he hated and despised, and whose charges have
proved empty as chaff, to say, What evil has He done? and even to tell
him, on his judgment throne, what he shall do with their King; we find the
men who accused Jesus of stirring up the people to sedition, now
shamelessly agitating for the release of a red-handed insurgent; forced
moreover to accept the responsibility which they would fain have devolved
on Pilate, and themselves to pronounce the hateful sentence of
crucifixion, unknown to their law, but for which they had secretly
intrigued; and we find the multitude fiercely clamouring for a defeated
champion of brute force, whose weapon has snapped in his hands, who has
led his followers to the cross, and from whom there is no more to hope.
What satire upon their hope of a temporal Messiah could be more bitter
than their own cry, “We have no king but Cæsar”? And what satire upon this
profession more destructive than their choice of Barabbas and refusal of
Christ? And all the while, Jesus looks on in silence, carrying out His
mournful but effectual plan, the true Master of the movements which design
to crush Him, and which He has foretold. As He ever receives gifts for the
rebellious, and is the Saviour of all men, though especially of them that
believe, so now His passion, which retrieved the erring soul of Peter, and
won the penitent thief, rescues Barabbas from the cross. His suffering was
made visibly vicarious.

One is tempted to pity the feeble judge, the only person who is known to
have attempted to rescue Jesus, beset by his old faults, which will make
an impeachment fatal, wishing better than he dares to act, hesitating,
sinking inch by inch, and like a bird with broken wing. No accomplice in
this frightful crime is so suggestive of warning to hearts not entirely
hardened.

But pity is lost in sterner emotion as we remember that this wicked
governor, having borne witness to the perfect innocence of Jesus, was
content, in order to save himself from danger, to watch the Blessed One
enduring all the horrors of a Roman scourging, and then to yield Him up to
die.

It is now the unmitigated cruelty of ancient paganism which has closed its
hand upon our Lord. When the soldiers led Him away within the court, He
was lost to His nation, which had renounced Him. It is upon this utter
alienation, even more than the locality where the cross was fixed, that
the Epistle to the Hebrews turns our attention, when it reminds us that
“the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the holy place by
the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned without the camp.
Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own
blood, suffered without the gate.” The physical exclusion, the material
parallel points to something deeper, for the inference is that of
estrangement. Those who serve the tabernacle cannot eat of our altar. Let
us go forth unto Him, bearing His reproach. (Heb. xii. 10-13).

Renounced by Israel, and about to become a curse under the law, He has now
to suffer the cruelty of wantonness, as He has already endured the cruelty
of hatred and fear. Now, more than ever perhaps, He looks for pity and
there is no man. None responded to the deep appeal of the eyes which had
never seen misery without relieving it. The contempt of the strong for the
weak and suffering, of coarse natures for sensitive ones, of Romans for
Jews, all these were blended with bitter scorn of the Jewish expectation
that some day Rome shall bow before a Hebrew conqueror, in the mockery
which Jesus now underwent, when they clad Him in such cast-off purple as
the Palace yielded, thrust a reed into His pinioned hand, crowned Him with
thorns, beat these into His holy head with the sceptre they had offered
Him, and then proceeded to render the homage of their nation to the
Messiah of Jewish hopes. It may have been this mockery which suggested to
Pilate the inscription for the cross. But where is the mockery now? In
crowning Him King of sufferings, and Royal among those who weep, they
secured to Him the adherence of all hearts. Christ was made perfect by the
things which He suffered; and it was not only in spite of insult and
anguish but by means of them that He drew all men unto Him.




Christ Crucified.


    “And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the
    country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to _go with them_,
    that he might bear His cross. And they bring Him unto the place
    Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. And
    they offered Him wine mingled with myrrh: but He received it not.
    And they crucify Him, and part His garments among them, casting
    lots upon them, what each should take. And it was the third hour,
    and they crucified Him. And the superscription of His accusation
    was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. And with Him they crucify
    two robbers; one on His right hand, and one on His left. And they
    that passed by railed on Him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ha!
    Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days,
    save Thyself, and come down from the cross. In like manner also
    the chief priests mocking _Him_ among themselves with the scribes
    said, He saved others; Himself He cannot save. Let the Christ, the
    King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and
    believe. And they that were crucified with Him reproached
    Him.”—MARK xv. 21-32 (R.V.).


At last the preparations were complete and the interval of mental agony
was over. They led Him away to crucify Him. And upon the road an event of
mournful interest took place. It was the custom to lay the two arms of the
cross upon the doomed man, fastening them together at such an angle as to
pass behind His neck, while his hands were bound to the ends in front. And
thus it was that Jesus went forth bearing His cross. Did He think of this
when He bade us take His yoke upon us? Did He wait for events to explain
the words, by making it visibly one and the same to take His yoke and to
take up our cross and follow Him?

On the road, however, they forced a reluctant stranger to go with them
that he might bear the cross. The traditional reason is that our
Redeemer’s strength gave way, and it became physically impossible for Him
to proceed; but this is challenged upon the ground that to fail would have
been unworthy of our Lord, and would mar the perfection of His example.
How so, when the failure was a real one? Is there no fitness in the belief
that He who was tempted in all points like as we are, endured this
hardness also, of struggling with the impossible demands of human cruelty,
the spirit indeed willing but the flesh weak? It is not easy to believe
that any other reason than manifest inability, would have induced his
persecutors to spare Him one drop of bitterness, one throb of pain. The
noblest and most delicately balanced frame, like all other exquisite
machines, is not capable of the rudest strain; and we know that Jesus had
once sat wearied by the well, while the hardy fishers went into the town,
and returned with bread. And this night our gentle Master had endured what
no common victim knew. Long before the scourging, or even the buffeting
began, His spiritual exhaustion had needed that an angel from heaven
should strengthen Him. And the utmost possibility of exertion was now
reached: the spot where they met Simon of Cyrene marks this melancholy
limit; and suffering henceforth must be purely passive.

We cannot assert with confidence that Simon and his family were saved by
this event. The coercion put upon him, the fact that he was seized and
“impressed” into the service, already seems to indicate sympathy with
Jesus. And we are fain to believe that he who received the honour, so
strange and sad and sacred, the unique privilege of lifting some little of
the crushing burden of the Saviour, was not utterly ignorant of what he
did. We know at least that the names of his children, Alexander and Rufus,
were familiar in the Church for which St. Mark was writing, and that in
Rome a Rufus was chosen in the Lord, and his mother was like a mother to
St. Paul (Rom. xvi. 13). With what feelings may they have recalled the
story, “him they compelled to bear His cross.”

They led Him to a place where the rounded summit of a knoll had its grim
name from some resemblance to a human skull, and prepared the crosses
there.

It was the custom of the daughters of Jerusalem, who lamented Him as He
went, to provide a stupefying draught for the sufferers of this atrocious
cruelty. “And they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He received it
not,” although that dreadful thirst, which was part of the suffering of
crucifixion, had already begun, for He only refused when He had tasted it.

In so doing He rebuked all who seek to drown sorrows or benumb the soul in
wine, all who degrade and dull their sensibilities by physical excess or
indulgence, all who would rather blind their intelligence than pay the
sharp cost of its exercise. He did not condemn the use of anodynes, but
the abuse of them. It is one thing to suspend the senses during an
operation, and quite another thing by one’s own choice to pass into
eternity without consciousness enough to commit the soul into its Father’s
hands.

“And they crucify Him.” Let the words remain as the Evangelist left them,
to tell their own story of human sin, and of Divine love which many waters
could not quench, neither could the depths drown it.

Only let us think in silence of all that those words convey.

In the first sharpness of mortal anguish, Jesus saw His executioners sit
down at ease, all unconscious of the dread meaning of what was passing by
their side, to part His garments among them, and cast lots for the raiment
which they had stripped from His sacred form. The Gospels are content thus
to abandon those relics about which so many legends have been woven. But
indeed all through these four wonderful narratives the self-restraint is
perfect. When the Epistles touch upon the subject of the crucifixion they
kindle into flame. When St. Peter soon afterwards referred to it, his
indignation is beyond question, and Stephen called the rulers betrayers
and murderers (Acts ii. 23, 24; iii. 13, 14; vii. 51-53) but not one
single syllable of complaint or comment mingles with the clear flow of
narrative in the four Gospels. The truth is that the subject was too
great, too fresh and vivid in their minds, to be adorned or enlarged upon.
What comment of St. Mark, what mortal comment, could add to the weight of
the words “they crucify Him”? Men use no figures of speech when telling
how their own beloved one died. But it was differently that the next age
wrote about the crucifixion; and perhaps the lofty self-restraint of the
Evangelists has never been attained again.

St. Mark tells us that He was crucified at the third hour, whereas we read
in St. John that it was “about the sixth hour” when Pilate ascended the
seat of judgment (xix. 14). It seems likely that St. John used the Roman
reckoning, and his computation does not pretend to be exact; while we must
remember that mental agitation conspired with the darkening of the sky, to
render such an estimate as he offers even more than usually vague.

It has been supposed that St. Mark’s “third hour” goes back to the
scourging, which, as being a regular part of Roman crucifixion, he
includes, although inflicted in this case before the sentence. But it will
prove quite as hard to reconcile this distribution of time with “the sixth
hour” in St. John, while it is at variance with the context in which St.
Mark asserts it.

The small and bitter heart of Pilate keenly resented his defeat and the
victory of the priests. Perhaps it was when his soldiers offered the
scornful homage of Rome to Israel and her monarch, that he saw the way to
a petty revenge. And all Jerusalem was scandalized by reading the
inscription over a crucified malefactor’s head, The King of the Jews.

It needs some reflection to perceive how sharp the taunt was. A few years
ago they had a king, but the sceptre had departed from Judah; Rome had
abolished him. It was their hope that soon a native king would for ever
sweep away the foreigner from their fields. But here the Roman exhibited
the fate of such a claim, and professed to inflict its horrors not upon
one whom they disavowed, but upon their king indeed. We know how angrily
and vainly they protested; and again we seem to recognise the solemn irony
of Providence. For this was their true King, and they, who resented the
superscription, had fixed their Anointed there.

All the more they would disconnect themselves from Him, and wreak their
passion upon the helpless One whom they hated. The populace mocked Him
openly: the chief priests, too cultivated to insult avowedly a dying man,
mocked Him “among themselves,” speaking bitter words for Him to hear. The
multitude repeated the false charge which had probably done much to
inspire their sudden preference for Barabbas, “Thou that destroyest the
temple and buildest it again in three days, save Thyself and come down
from the cross.”

They little suspected that they were recalling words of consolation to His
memory, reminding Him that all this suffering was foreseen, and how it was
all to end. The chief priests spoke also a truth full of consolation, “He
saved others, Himself He cannot save,” although it was no physical bar
which forbade Him to accept their challenge. And when they flung at Him
His favourite demand for faith, saying “Let the Christ, the King of
Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe” surely
they reminded Him of the great multitude who should not see, and yet
should believe, when He came back through the gates of death.

Thus the words they spoke could not afflict Him. But what horror to the
pure soul to behold these yawning abysses of malignity, these gulfs of
pitiless hate. The affronts hurled at suffering and defeat by prosperous
and exultant malice are especially Satanic. Many diseases inflict more
physical pain than torturers ever invented, but they do not excite the
same horror, because gentle ministries are there to charm away the despair
which human hate and execration conjure up.

To add to the insult of His disgraceful death, the Romans had crucified
two robbers, doubtless from the band of Barabbas, one upon each side of
Jesus. We know how this outrage led to the salvation of one of them, and
refreshed the heavy laden soul of Jesus, oppressed by so much guilt and
vileness, with the visible firstfruit of His passion, giving Him to see of
the travail of His soul, by which He shall yet be satisfied.

But in their first agony and despair, when all voices were unanimous
against the Blessed One, and they too must needs find some outlet for
their frenzy, they both reproached Him. Thus the circle of human wrong was
rounded.

The traitor, the deserters, the forsworn apostle, the perjured witnesses,
the hypocritical pontiff professing horror at blasphemy while himself
abjuring his national hope, the accomplices in a sham trial, the murderer
of the Baptist and his men of war, the abject ruler who declared Him
innocent yet gave Him up to die, the servile throng who waited on the
priests, the soldiers of Herod and of Pilate, the pitiless crowd which
clamoured for His blood, and they who mocked Him in His agony,—not one of
them whom Jesus did not compassionate, whose cruelty had not power to
wring His heart. Disciple and foeman, Roman and Jew, priest and soldier
and judge, all had lifted up their voice against Him. And when the
comrades of His passion joined the cry, the last ingredient of human
cruelty was infused into the cup which James and John had once proposed to
drink with Him.




The Death Of Jesus.


    “And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the
    whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried
    with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being
    interpreted, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? And some
    of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, He
    calleth Elijah. And one ran, and filling a sponge full of vinegar,
    put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink, saying, Let be; let us
    see whether Elijah cometh to take Him down. And Jesus uttered a
    loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was
    rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And when the centurion,
    which stood by over against Him, saw that He so gave up the ghost,
    he said, Truly this man was the Son of God. And there were also
    women beholding from afar: among whom _were_ both Mary Magdalene,
    and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
    who, when He was in Galilee, followed Him, and ministered unto
    Him; and many other women which came up with Him unto
    Jerusalem.”—MARK xv. 33-41 (R.V.).


Three hours of raging human passion, endured with Godlike patience, were
succeeded by three hours of darkness, hushing mortal hatred into silence,
and perhaps contributing to the penitence of the reviler at His side. It
was a supernatural gloom, since an eclipse of the sun was impossible
during the full moon of Passover. Shall we say that, as it shall be in the
last days, nature sympathized with humanity, and the angel of the sun hid
his face from his suffering Lord?

Or was it the shadow of a still more dreadful eclipse, for now the eternal
Father veiled His countenance from the Son in whom He was well pleased?

In some true sense God forsook Him. And we have to seek for a meaning of
this awful statement—inadequate no doubt, for all our thoughts must come
short of such a reality, but free from prevarication and evasion.

It is wholly unsatisfactory to regard the verse as merely the heading of a
psalm, cheerful for the most part, which Jesus inaudibly recited. Why was
only this verse uttered aloud? How false an impression must have been
produced upon the multitude, upon St. John, upon the penitent thief, if
Jesus were suffering less than the extreme of spiritual anguish. Nay, we
feel that never before can the verse have attained its fullest meaning, a
meaning which no experience of David could more than dimly shadow forth,
since we ask in our sorrows, Why have we forsaken God? but Jesus said, Why
hast Thou forsaken Me?

And this unconsciousness of any reason for desertion disproves the old
notion that He felt Himself a sinner, and “suffered infinite remorse, as
being the chief sinner in the universe, all the sins of mankind being
His.” One who felt thus could neither have addressed God as “My God,” nor
asked why He was forsaken.

Still less does it allow us to believe that the Father perfectly
identified Jesus with sin, so as to be “wroth” with Him, and even “to hate
Him to the uttermost.” Such notions, the offspring of theories carried to
a wild and irreverent extreme, when carefully examined impute to the Deity
confusion of thought, a mistaking of the Holy One for a sinner or rather
for the aggregate of sinners. But it is very different when we pass from
the Divine consciousness to the bearing of God toward Christ our
representative, to the outshining or eclipse of His favour. That this was
overcast is manifest from the fact that Jesus everywhere else addresses
Him as My Father, here only as My God. Even in the garden it was Abba
Father, and the change indicates not indeed estrangement of heart, but
certainly remoteness. Thus we have the sense of desertion, combined with
the assurance which once breathed in the words, O God, Thou art my God.

Thus also it came to pass that He who never forfeited the most intimate
communion and sunny smile of heaven, should yet give us an example at the
last of that utmost struggle and sternest effort of the soul, which trusts
without experience, without emotion, in the dark, because God is God, not
because I am happy.

But they who would empty the death of Jesus of its sacrificial import, and
leave only the attraction and inspiration of a sublime life and death,
must answer the hard questions, How came God to forsake the Perfect One?
Or, how came He to charge God with such desertion? His follower, twice
using this very word, could boast that he was cast down yet not forsaken,
and that at his first trial all men forsook him, yet the Lord stood by him
(2 Cor. iv. 9; 2 Tim. iv. 16, 17). How came the disciple to be above his
Master?

The only explanation is in His own word, that His life is a ransom in
exchange for many (Mark x. 45). The chastisement of our peace, not the
remorse of our guiltiness, was upon Him. No wonder that St. Mark, who
turns aside from his narrative for no comment, no exposition, was yet
careful to preserve this alone among the dying words of Christ.

And the Father heard His Son. At that cry the mysterious darkness passed
away; and the soul of Jesus was relieved from its burden, so that He
became conscious of physical suffering; and the mockery of the multitude
was converted into awe. It seemed to them that His Eloi might indeed bring
Elias, and the great and notable day, and they were willing to relieve the
thirst which no stoical hardness forbade that gentlest of all sufferers to
confess. Thereupon the anguish that redeemed the world was over; a loud
voice told that exhaustion was not complete; and yet Jesus “gave up the
ghost.”(14)

Through the veil, that is to say His flesh, we have boldness to enter into
the holy place; and now that He had opened the way, the veil of the temple
was rent asunder by no mortal hand, but downward from the top. The way
into the holiest was visibly thrown open, when sin was expiated, which had
forfeited our right of access.

And the centurion, seeing that His death itself was abnormal and
miraculous, and accompanied with miraculous signs, said, Truly this was a
righteous man. But such a confession could not rest there: if He was this,
He was all He claimed to be; and the mockery of His enemies had betrayed
the secret of their hate; He was the Son of God.

“When the centurion saw” ... “There were also many women beholding.” Who
can overlook the connection? Their gentle hearts were not to be utterly
overwhelmed: as the centurion saw and drew his inference, so they beheld,
and felt, however dimly, amid sorrows that benumb the mind, that still,
even in such wreck and misery, God was not far from Jesus.

When the Lord said, It is finished, there was not only an end of conscious
anguish, but also of contempt and insult. His body was not to see
corruption, nor was a bone to be broken, nor should it remain in hostile
hands.

Respect for Jewish prejudice prevented the Romans from leaving it to
moulder on the cross, and the approaching Sabbath was not one to be
polluted. And knowing this, Joseph of Arimathæa boldly went in to Pilate
and asked for the body of Jesus. It was only secretly and in fear that he
had been a disciple, but the deadly crisis had developed what was hidden,
he had opposed the crime of his nation in their council, and in the hour
of seeming overthrow he chose the good part. Boldly the timid one “went
in,” braving the scowls of the priesthood, defiling himself moreover, and
forfeiting his share in the sacred feast, in hope to win the further
defilement of contact with the dead.

Pilate was careful to verify so rapid a death; but when he was certain of
the fact, “he granted the corpse to Joseph,” as a worthless thing. His
frivolity is expressed alike in the unusual verb(15) and substantive: he
“freely-bestowed,” he “gave away” not “the body” as when Joseph spoke of
it, but “the corpse,” the fallen thing, like a prostrated and uprooted
tree that shall revive no more. Wonderful it is to reflect that God had
entered into eternal union with what was thus given away to the only man
of rank who cared to ask for it. Wonderful to think what opportunities of
eternal gain men are content to lose; what priceless treasures are given
away, or thrown away as worthless. Wonderful to imagine the feelings of
Joseph in heaven to-day, as he gazes with gratitude and love upon the
glorious Body which once, for a little, was consigned to his reverent
care.

St. John tells us that Nicodemus brought a hundred pound weight of myrrh
and aloes, and they together wrapped Him in these, in the linen which had
been provided; and Joseph laid Him in his own new tomb, undesecrated by
mortality.

And there Jesus rested. His friends had no such hope as would prevent them
from closing the door with a great stone. His enemies set a watch, and
sealed the stone. The broad moon of Passover made the night as clear as
the day, and the multitude of strangers, who thronged the city and its
suburbs, rendered any attempt at robbery even more hopeless than at
another season.

What indeed could the trembling disciples of an executed pretender do with
such an object as a dead body? What could they hope from the possession of
it? But if they did not steal it, if the moral glories of Christianity are
not sprung from deliberate mendacity, why was the body not produced, to
abash the wild dreams of their fanaticism? It was fearfully easy to
identify. The scourging, the cross, and the spear, left no slight evidence
behind, and the broken bones of the malefactors completed the absolute
isolation of the sacred body of the Lord.

The providence of God left no precaution unsupplied to satisfy honest and
candid inquiry. It remained to be seen, would He leave Christ’s soul in
Hades, or suffer His Holy One (such is the epithet applied to the body of
Jesus) to see corruption?

Meantime, through what is called three days and nights—a space which
touched, but only touched, the confines of a first and third day, as well
as the Saturday which intervened, Jesus shared the humiliation of common
men, the divorce of soul and body. He slept as sleep the dead, but His
soul was where He promised that the penitent should come, refreshed in
Paradise.





CHAPTER XVI.




Christ Risen.


    “And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
    _mother_ of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come
    and anoint Him. And very early on the first day of the week, they
    come to the tomb when the sun was risen. And they were saying
    among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door
    of the tomb? and looking up, they see that the stone is rolled
    back: for it was exceeding great. And entering into the tomb, they
    saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white
    robe, and they were amazed. And he saith unto them, Be not amazed;
    ye seek Jesus, the Nazarene, Which hath been crucified: He is
    risen; He is not here: behold, the place where they laid Him! But
    go, tell His disciples and Peter, He goeth before you into
    Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you. And they
    went out, and fled from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment
    had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one; for they
    were afraid. Now when He was risen early on the first day of the
    week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast
    out seven devils. She went and told them that had been with Him,
    as they mourned and wept. And they, when they heard that He was
    alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved. And after these
    things He was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they
    walked, on their way into the country. And they went away and told
    it unto the rest: neither believed they them. And afterward He was
    manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and He
    upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because
    they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen. And
    He said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel
    to the whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized shall be
    saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned. And these
    signs shall follow them that believe: in My name shall they cast
    out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up
    serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise
    hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall
    recover.”—MARK xvi. 1-18 (R.V.).


The Gospels were not written for the curious but for the devout. They are
most silent therefore where myth and legend would be most garrulous, and
it is instructive to seek, in the story of Jesus, for anything similar to
the account of the Buddha’s enlightenment under the Bo tree. We read
nothing of the interval in Hades; nothing of the entry of His crowned and
immortal body into the presence chamber of God; nothing of the
resurrection. Did He awake alone? Was He waited upon by the hierarchy of
heaven, who robed Him in raiment unknown to men? We are only told what
concerns mankind, the sufficient manifestation of Jesus to His disciples.

And to harmonise the accounts a certain effort is necessary, because they
tell of interviews with men and women who had to pass through all the
vicissitudes of despair, suspense, rapturous incredulity,(16) and faith.
Each of them contributes a portion of the tale.

From St. John we learn that Mary Magdalene came early to the sepulchre,
from St. Matthew that others were with her, from St. Mark that these
women, dissatisfied with the unskilful ministrations of men (and men whose
rank knew nothing of such functions), had brought sweet spices to anoint
Him Who was about to claim their adoration; St. John tells how Mary,
seeing the empty sepulchre, ran to tell Peter and John of its desecration;
the others, that in her absence an angel told the glad tidings to the
women; St. Mark, that Mary was the first to whom Jesus Himself appeared.
And thenceforth the narrative more easily falls into its place.

This confusion, however perplexing to thoughtless readers, is inevitable
in the independent histories of such events, derived from the various
parties who delighted to remember, each what had befallen himself.

But even a genuine contradiction would avail nothing to refute the
substantial fact. When the generals of Henry the Fourth strove to tell him
what passed after he was wounded at Aumale, no two of them agreed in the
course of events which gave them victory. Two armies beheld the battle of
Waterloo, but who can tell when it began? At ten o’clock, said the Duke of
Wellington. At half past eleven, said General Alava, who rode beside him.
At twelve according to Napoleon and Drouet; and at one according to Ney.

People who doubt the reality of the resurrection, because the harmony of
the narratives is underneath the surface, do not deny these facts. They
are part of history. Yet it is certain that the resurrection of Jesus
colours the history of the world more powerfully to-day, than the events
which are so much more recent.

If Christ were not risen, how came these despairing men and women by their
new hope, their energy, their success among the very men who slew Him? If
Christ be not risen, how has the morality of mankind been raised? Was it
ever known that a falsehood exercised for ages a quickening and purifying
power which no truth can rival?

From the ninth verse to the end of St. Mark’s account it is curiously
difficult to decide on the true reading. And it must be said that the note
in the Revised Version, however accurate, does not succeed in giving any
notion of the strength of the case in favour of the remainder of the
Gospel. It tells us that the two oldest manuscripts omit them, but we do
not read that in one of these a space is left for the insertion of
something, known by the scribe to be wanting there. Nor does it mention
the twelve manuscripts of almost equal antiquity in which they are
contained, nor the early date at which they were quoted.

The evidence appears to lean towards the belief that they were added in a
later edition, or else torn off in an early copy from which some
transcribers worked. But unbelief cannot gain anything by converting them
into a separate testimony, of the very earliest antiquity, to events
related in each of the other Gospels.

And the uncertainty itself will be wholesome if it reminds us that saving
faith is not to be reposed in niceties of criticism, but in a living
Christ, the power and wisdom of God. Jesus blamed men for thinking that
they had eternal life in their inspired Scriptures, and so refusing to
come for life to Him, of Whom those Scriptures testified. Has sober
criticism ever shaken for one hour that sacred function of Holy Writ?

What then is especially shown us in the closing words of St. Mark?

Readiness to requite even a spark of grace, and to bless with the first
tidings of a risen Redeemer the love which sought only to embalm His
corpse. Tender care for the fallen and disheartened, in the message sent
especially to Peter. Immeasurable condescension, such as rested formerly,
a Babe, in a peasant woman’s arms, and announced its Advent to shepherds,
now appearing first of all to a woman “out of whom He had cast seven
devils.”

A state of mind among the disciples, far indeed from that rapt and
hysterical enthusiasm which men have fancied, ready to be whirled away in
a vortex of religious propagandism (and to whirl the whole world after
it), upon the impulse of dreams, hallucinations, voices mistaken on a
misty shore, longings which begot convictions. Jesus Himself, and no
second, no messenger from Jesus, inspired the zeal which kindled mankind.
The disciples, mourning and weeping, found the glad tidings incredible,
while Mary who had seen Him, believed. When two, as they walked, beheld
Him in another shape, the rest remained incredulous, announcing indeed
that He had actually risen and appeared unto Peter, yet so far from a true
conviction that when He actually came to them, they supposed that they
beheld a spirit (Luke xxiv. 34, 37). Yet He looked in the face those pale
discouraged Galileans, and bade them go into all the world, bearing to the
whole creation the issues of eternal life and death. And they went forth,
and the power and intellect of the world are won. Whatever unbelievers
think about individual souls, it is plain that the words of the Nazarene
have proved true for communities and nations, He that believeth and is
baptised has been saved, He that believeth not has been condemned. The
nation and kingdom that has not served Christ has perished.

Nor does any one pretend that the agents in this marvellous movement were
insincere. If all this was a dream, it was a strange one surely, and
demands to be explained. If it was otherwise, no doubt the finger of God
has come unto us.




The Ascension.


    “So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken unto them, was
    received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
    And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working
    with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed.
    Amen.”—MARK xvi. 19-20 (R.V.)


We have reached the close of the great Gospel of the energies of Jesus,
His toils, His manner, His searching gaze, His noble indignation, His love
of children, the consuming zeal by virtue of which He was not more truly
the Lamb of God than the Lion of the tribe of Judah. St. Mark has just
recorded how He bade His followers carry on His work, defying the serpents
of the world, and renewing the plague-stricken race of Adam. In what
strength did they fulfil this commission? How did they fare without the
Master? And what is St. Mark’s view of the Ascension?

Here, as all through the Gospel, minor points are neglected. Details are
only valued when they carry some aid for the special design of the
Evangelist, who presses to the core of his subject at once and boldly. As
he omitted the bribes with which Satan tempted Jesus, and cared not for
the testimony of the Baptist when the voice of God was about to peal from
heaven over the Jordan, as on the holy mount he told not the subject of
which Moses and Elijah spoke, but how Jesus Himself predicted His death to
His disciples, so now He is silent about the mountain slope, the final
benediction, the cloud which withdrew Him from their sight and the angels
who sent back the dazed apostles to their homes and their duties. It is
not caprice nor haste that omits so much interesting information. His mind
is fixed on a few central thoughts; what concerns him is to link the
mighty story of the life and death of Jesus with these great facts, that
He was received up into Heaven, that He there sat down upon the right hand
of God, and that His disciples were never forsaken of Him at all, but
proved, by the miraculous spread of the early Church, that His power was
among them still. St. Mark does not record the promise, but he asserts the
fact that Christ was with them all the days. There is indeed a connection
between his two closing verses, subtle and hard to render into English,
and yet real, which suggests the notion of balance, of relation between
the two movements, the ascent of Jesus, and the evangelisation of the
world, such as exists, for example, between detachments of an army
co-operating for a common end, so that our Lord, for His part, ascended,
while the disciples, for their part, went forth and found Him with them
still.

But the link is plainer which binds the Ascension to His previous story of
suffering and conflict. It was “then,” and “after He had spoken unto
them,” that “the Lord Jesus was received up.” In truth His ascension was
but the carrying forward to completion of His resurrection, which was not
a return to the poor conditions of our mortal life, but an entrance into
glory, only arrested in its progress until He should have quite convinced
His followers that “it is I indeed,” and made them understand that “thus
it is written that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead
the third day,” and filled them with holy shame for their unbelief, and
with courage for their future course, so strange, so weary, so sublime.

There is something remarkable in the words, “He was received up into
heaven.” We habitually speak of Him as ascending, but Scripture more
frequently declares that He was the subject of the action of another, and
was taken up. St. Luke tells us that, “while they worshipped, He was
carried up into heaven,” and again “He was received up.... He was taken
up” (Luke xxiv. 51; Acts i. 2, 9). Physical interference is not implied:
no angels bore Him aloft; and the narratives make it clear that His
glorious Body, obedient to its new mysterious nature, arose unaided. But
the decision to depart, and the choice of a time, came not from Him: He
did not go, but was taken. Never hitherto had He glorified Himself. He had
taught His disciples to be contented in the lowest room until the Master
of the house should bid them come up higher. And so, when His own supreme
victory is won, and heaven held its breath expectant and astonished, the
conquering Lord was content to walk with peasants by the Lake of Galilee
and on the slopes of Olivet until the appointed time. What a rebuke to us
who chafe and fret if the recognition of our petty merits be postponed.

“He was received up into heaven!” What sublime mysteries are covered by
that simple phrase. It was He who taught us to make, even of the mammon of
unrighteousness, friends who shall welcome us, when mammon fails and all
things mortal have deserted us, into everlasting habitations. With what
different greetings, then, do men enter the City of God. Some converts of
the death bed perhaps there are, who scarcely make their way to heaven,
alone, unhailed by one whom they saved or comforted, and like a vessel
which struggles into port, with rent cordage and tattered sails, only not
a wreck. Others, who aided some few, sparing a little of their means and
energies, are greeted and blessed by a scanty group. But even our
chieftains and leaders, the martyrs, sages and philanthropists whose names
brighten the annals of the Church, what is their influence, and how few
have they reached, compared with that great multitude whom none can
number, of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, who cry with a
loud voice, Salvation unto our God who sitteth upon the throne, and unto
the Lamb. Through Him it pleased the Father to reconcile all things unto
Himself, through Him, whether things upon the earth or things in the
heavens. And surely the supreme hour in the history of the universe was
when, in flesh, the sore stricken but now the all-conquering Christ
re-entered His native heaven.

And He sat down at the right hand of God. The expression is, beyond all
controversy, borrowed from that great Psalm which begins by saying, “The
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at My right hand,” and which presently
makes the announcement never revealed until then, “Thou art a Priest for
ever after the order of Melchizedec” (Ps. cx. 1, 4). It is therefore an
anticipation of the argument for the royal Priesthood of Jesus which is
developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Now priesthood is a human
function: every high priest is chosen from among men. And the Ascension
proclaims to us, not the Divinity of the Eternal Word but the
glorification of “the Lord Jesus;” not the omnipotence of God the Son, but
that all power is committed unto Him Who is not ashamed to call us
brethren, that His human hands wield the sceptre as once they held the
reed, and the brows then insulted and torn with thorns are now crowned
with many crowns. In the overthrow of Satan He won all, and infinitely
more than all, of that vast bribe which Satan once offered for His homage,
and the angels for ever worship Him who would not for a moment bend His
knee to evil.

Now since He conquered not for Himself but as Captain of our Salvation,
the Ascension also proclaims the issue of all the holy suffering, all the
baffled efforts, all the cross-bearing of all who follow Christ.

His High Priesthood is with authority. “Every high priest standeth,” but
He has for ever sat down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in
the heavens, a Priest sitting upon His throne (Heb. viii. 1; Zech. vi.
13). And therefore it is His office, Who pleads for us and represents us,
Himself to govern our destinies. No wonder that His early followers, with
minds which He had opened to understand the Scriptures, were mighty to
cast down strongholds. Against tribulation and anguish and persecution and
famine and nakedness and peril and sword they were more than conquerors
through Him. For He worked with them and confirmed His word with signs.
And we have seen that He works with His people still, and still confirms
His gospel, only withdrawing signs of one order as those of another kind
are multiplied. Wherever they wage a faithful battle, He gives them
victory. Whenever they cry to Him in anguish, the form of the Son of God
is with them in the furnace, and the smell of fire does not pass upon
them. Where they come, the desert blossoms as a rose; and where they are
received, the serpents of life no longer sting, its fevers grow cool, and
the demons which rend it are cast out.






FOOTNOTES


    1 Cf. the admirable note in Archdeacon Watkins’ “Commentary on John.”

    2 By the absence of the article in the Greek.

    3 The opposite is asserted by the fact that one demon may ally himself
      with seven others worse.

    4 The connection would be almost certain if the word “devil” were
      alike in both. But in all these narratives it is “demon,” there
      being in Scripture but one devil.

    5 The exceptions in the Revelation are only apparent. St. John does
      not call Jesus the Son of man (i. 13), nor see Him, but only the
      type of Him, standing (v. 6).

    6 And this proves beyond question that He did not merely follow
      Ezekiel in applying to himself the epithet as if it meant a son
      among many sons of men, but took the description in Daniel for His
      own. Ezekiel himself indeed never employs the phrase: he only
      records it.

    7 Lange. _Life of Christ_, li. p. 179.

    8 It is also very natural that, in telling the story, he should
      remember how, while hesitating to enter, he “stooped down” to gaze,
      in the wild dawn of his new hope.

    9 “Theology would have been spared much trouble concerning this
      passage, and anxious timid souls unspeakable anguish, if men had
      adhered strictly to Christ’s own expression. For it is not a _sin_
      against the Holy Ghost which is here spoken of, but _blasphemy_
      against the Holy Ghost.”—Lange “_Life of Christ_,” vol. ii. p. 269.

   10 Unless indeed the meaning be rather, “_ever_ hearing the word,”
      which is not its force in the New Testament (Matt. xviii. 17,
      twice).

   11 Once besides in the New Testament this phrase was applied to death.
      That was by St. Peter speaking of his own, when the thought of the
      transfiguration was floating in his mind, and its voices lingered
      unconsciously in his memory (2 Pet. i. 15, cf. ver. 17). The phrase,
      though not unclassical, is not common.

   12 That the event was recent is implied in the present tense: “he
      followeth not”: “forbid him not”; the matter is still fresh.

   13 “By the fire the children sit
      Cold in that atmosphere of death.”—_In Memoriam_, xx.

   14 The ingenious and plausible attempt to show that His death was
      caused by a physical rupture of the heart has one fatal weakness.
      Death came too late for this; the severest pressure was already
      relieved.

_   15 I.e._ in the New Testament, where it occurs but once besides.

   16 Can anything surpass that masterstroke of insight and descriptive
      power, “they still disbelieved for joy” (Luke xxiv. 41).