The Omnipotent Summons.

The Omnipotent Summons.

The moment has now come for the voice of Omnipotence to give the mandate. The group have gathered around the sepulchral grotto—the Redeemer stands in meek majesty in front—the teardrop still glistening in His eye, and that eye directed heavenward! Martha and Mary are gazing on His countenance in dumb emotion, while the eager bystanders bend over the removed stone to see if the dead be still there. Yes!therethe captive lies—in uninvaded silence—attired still in the same solemn drapery. The Lord gives the word. “Lazarus come forth!” peals through the silent vault. The dull, cold ear seems to listen. The pulseless heart begins to beat—the rigid limbs to move—Lazarus lives! He rises girt inthe swaddling-bands of the tomb, once more to walk in the light of the living.

Where Scripture is silent, it is vain for us to picture the emotions of that moment, when the weeping sisters found the gloomy hours of disconsolate sorrow all at once rolled away. The cry of mingled wonder and gratitude rings through that lonely graveyard,—“This our brother was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!”

O most wondrous power—Death vanquished in his own territory! The sleeper has awoke a moral Samson, snapping the withs with which the King of Terrors had bound him. The star of Bethlehem shines, and the Valley of Achor becomes a door of hope. The all-devouring destroyer has to relinquish his prey.

Was the joy of that moment confined to these two bosoms? Nay! The Church of Christ in every age may well love to linger around the grave of Lazarus. Inhisresurrection there is to His true people a sure pledge and earnest of their own. It was the first sheaf reaped by the mower’s sickle anticipatory of the great Harvest-home of the Final day “when all that are in theirgraves” shall hear the same voice and shall “come forth.”[20]

Solemn, surely, is the thought that that same portentous miracle performed on Lazarus is one day to be performed onourselves. Wherever we repose—whether, ashedid, in the quiet churchyard of our native village, or in the midst of the city’s crowded cemetery, or far away amid the alien and stranger in some foreign shore, our dust shall be startled by that omnipotent summons. How shall we hear it? Would it sound in our ears like the sweet tones of the silver trumpet of Jubilee? Would it be to gaze like Lazarus on the face of our best friend—to seeJesusbending over us in looks of tenderness—to hear the living tones of that same voice, whose accents were last heard in the dark valley, whispering hopes full of immortality? True, we have not to wait for a Saviour’s love and presence till then. The hour ofdeathis to the Christian the birthday of endless life. Guardian angels are hovering around his dying pillow ready to waft his spirit into Abraham’s bosom. “The souls of believers doimmediatelypass into glory.”But the full plenitude of their joy and bliss is reserved for the time when the precious but redeemed dust, which for a season is left to moulder in the tomb, shall become instinct with life—“the corruptible put on incorruption, and the mortal immortality.” The spirits of the just enter atdeathon “the inheritance of the saints in light;” but at theResurrectionthey shall rise as separate orbs from the darkness and night of the grave, each to “shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” However glorious the emancipation of the soul in the moment of dissolution, it is not until the plains and valleys of our globe shall stand thick with the living of buried generations—each glorified body the image of its Lord’s—that the predicted anthem will be heard waking the echoes of the universe—“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Then, with the organs of their resurrection-bodies ennobled, etherealised, purified from all the grossness of earth, they shall “behold the King in his beauty.” “The King’s daughter,” all glorious without, “all glorious within”—“her clothing of wrought gold”—resplendentwithoutwith the robes ofrighteousness—radiantwithinwith the beauties of holiness—shall be brought “with gladness and rejoicing,” and “enter into the King’s palace.” This will form the full meridian of the saints’ glory—the essence and climax of their new-born bliss—the full vision and fruition of a Saviour-God. “When He shall appear, ... we shall see Him as He is!” The first sight which will burst on the view of the Risen ones will beJesus!Hishands will wreath the glorified brows, in presence of an assembled world, with the crown of life. FromHislips will proceed the gladdening welcome—“Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!”

But this will not exhaust the elements of bliss in the case of the “perfected just” on the day of their final triumph. Though the presence of their adorable Redeemer would be enough, and more than enough, to fill their cup with happiness, there will be others also to welcome them, and to augment their joy. Lazarus’ Lord was notaloneat the sepulchre’s brink, at Bethany, ready to greet him back. Two loved sisters shared the joy of that gladsome hour. We are left to picture for ourselves the reunion, when, with hand linked in hand, they retraversedthe road which had so recently echoed to the voice of mourning, and entered once more their home, radiant with a sunshine they had imagined to have passed away from it for ever!

So will it be with the believer on the morning of the Resurrection. While his Lord will bethere, waiting to welcome him, there will be others ready with their presence to enhance the bliss of that gladdening restoration. Those whose smiles were last seen in the death-chamber of earth, now standing—not as Martha and Mary, with the tear on their cheek and the furrow of deep sorrow on their brow, but robed and radiant in resurrection attire, glowing with the anticipations of an everlasting and indissoluble reunion!

Can we anticipate, in the resurrection of Lazarus, our own happy history? Yes!happierhistory, for it will notthenbe to come forth once more, likehim, into a weeping world, to renew our work and warfare, feeling that restoration to life is only but a brief reprieve, and that soon again the irrevocable sentence will and must overtake us! Not likehim, going to a home still covered with the drapery of sorrow,—a few transient years and themournful funeral tragedy to be repeated,—but to enter into the region of endless life—to pass from the dark chambers of corruption into the peace and glories of our Heavenly Father’s joyousHome, and “so to be for ever with the Lord!”

Sometimes it is with dying believers as with Lazarus. Their Lord, at the approach of death,seemsto be absent. He who gladdened their homes and their hearts in life, is, for some mysterious reason, away in the hour of dissolution; their spirits are depressed; their faith languishes; they are ready to say, “Where is now my God?” But as He returned to Bethany to awake His sleeping friend, so will it be with all his true people, on that great day when the arm of death shall be for ever broken. Ifnowunited to Him by a living faith,—loved by Him as Lazarus was, and conscious, however imperfectly, of loving Him back in return,—we may go down to our graves, making Job’s lofty creed and exclamation our own, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

One remark more. We have listened to the Omnipotent fiat,—“Lazarus, come forth!” We have seen the ear of death starting at the summons, and the buried captive goes free! Shall we follow the family group within the hallowed precincts of the Bethany dwelling? Shall fancy pour her strange and mysterious queries into the ear of him who has just come back from that land “from whose bourne no traveller returns?” He had been, in a far truer sense than Paul in an after year, in “Paradise.” He must have heard unspeakable and unutterable words, “which it is not possible for a man to utter.” He had looked upon the Sapphire Throne. He had ranged himself with the adoring ranks. He had strung his harp to the Eternal Anthem. When, lo! an angel—a “ministering one”—whispers in his ear to hush his song, and speed him back again for a little season to the valley below.

Startling mandate! Can we suppose a remonstrance to so strange a summons? What! to be uncrowned and unglorified!—Just after a few sips of the heavenly fountain, to be hurried away back again to the valley of Baca!—to gather up oncemore the soiled earthly garments and the pilgrim staff, and from the pilgrim rest and the victor’s palm to encounter the din and dust and scars of battle! What!—just after having wept his final tear, and fought the last and the most terrible foe, to have his eye again dimmed with sorrow, and to have the thought before him of breasting a second time the swellings of Jordan!

“The Lord hath need of thee,” is all the reply, It is enough! He asks no more! That glorious Redeemer had left a far brighter throne and heritage forhim. Lazarus, come forth! sounds in his old world-home, whence his spirit had soared, and in his beloved Master’s words, on a mightier embassy, he can say,—“Lo, I come! I delight to do thy will, O my God.”

Or do other questions involuntarily arise? What was the nature of his happiness while “absent from the body?” What the scenery of that bright abode? Had he mingled in the goodly fellowship of prophets? Had he conversed with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob? Was his spirit stationary—hovering with a brotherhood of spirits within some holy limit—or, was he permitted to travelfar and near in errands of love and mercy? Had Bethany been revisited during that mysterious interval? Had he been the unseen witness of the tears and groans of his anguished sisters?

But hush, too, these vain inquiries. We dare not give rein to imagination where Inspiration is silent. There is a designed mystery about the circumstantials of a future state. Its scenery and locality we know nothing of. It is revealed to us only in itscharacter. We are permitted to approach its gates, and to read the surmounting inscription,—“Withoutholinessno man shall see the Lord.” Further we cannot go. Be it ours, like Lazarus, to attain a meetness for heaven, by becoming more and more like Lazarus’ Redeemer! “We shall belike Him,” is the brief but comprehensive Bible description of that glorious world. Saviour-likehere, we shall have heaven begun on earth, and lying down like Lazarus in the sweet sleep of death, when our Lord comes, on the great day-dawn of immortality, we shall be satisfied when we awake inHis likeness!

“He that was dead rose up and spoke—He spoke!Was it of that majestic world unknown?Those words which first the bier’s dread silence broke—Came they with revelation in each tone?Were the far cities of the nations gone,The solemn halls of consciousness or sleep,For man uncurtain’d by that spirit lone,Back from the portal summon’d o’er the deep?Be hush’d, my soul! the veil of darkness layStill drawn; therefore thy Lord called back the voice departed,To spread His truth, to comfort the weak-hearted;Not to reveal the mysteries of its way.Oh! I take that lesson home in silent faith;Put on submissive strength tomeet, notquestiondeath.”

“He that was dead rose up and spoke—He spoke!Was it of that majestic world unknown?Those words which first the bier’s dread silence broke—Came they with revelation in each tone?Were the far cities of the nations gone,The solemn halls of consciousness or sleep,For man uncurtain’d by that spirit lone,Back from the portal summon’d o’er the deep?Be hush’d, my soul! the veil of darkness layStill drawn; therefore thy Lord called back the voice departed,To spread His truth, to comfort the weak-hearted;Not to reveal the mysteries of its way.Oh! I take that lesson home in silent faith;Put on submissive strength tomeet, notquestiondeath.”

The Box of Ointment.

Once more we visit in thought a peaceful and happy home-scene in the same Bethany household. The severed links in that broken chain are again united.

How often in a time of severe bereavement, when some “light of the dwelling” has suddenly been extinguished, does the imagination fondly dwell on the possibility of the wild dream of separation passing away; of the vacant seat being refilled by its owner the “loved and lost one” again restored. Alas! in all such cases, it is but a feverish vision, destined to know no fulfilment. Here, however, it was indeed a happy reality. “Lazarus is dead!” was the bitter dirge a few brief weeks ago; but now, “Lazarus lives.” His silent voice is heard again—his dull eye is lightedagain—the temporary pang of separation is only remembered to enhance the joy of so gladsome a reunion.

It was on a Sabbath evening, the last Sabbath but one of the waning Jewish dispensation, when Spring’s loveliness was carpeting the Mount of Olives and clothing with fresh verdure the groves around Bethany, that our blessed Redeemer was seen approaching the haunt of former friendship. He had for two months taken shelter from the malice of the Sanhedrim in the little town of Ephraim and the mountainous region ofPerea, on the other side of the Jordan. But the Passover solemnity being at hand, and his own hour having come, he had “set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem.” It is more than probable that for several days He had been travelling in the company of other pilgrims coming from Galilee on their way to the feast. He seems, however, to have left the festival caravan at Jericho, lingering behind with his own disciples in order to secure a private approach to the city of solemnities. They were completing their journey on the Sabbath referred to just as the sun was sinking behind the brow ofOlivet, and, turning aside from the highway, they spent the night in their old Bethany retreat. Befitting tranquil scene for His closing Sabbath—a happy preparation for a season of trial and conflict! It is well worthy of observation, how, as His saddest hours were drawing near—the shadow of His cross projected on His path—Bethany becomes more and more endeared to Him. Night after night, during this memorable week, we shall find Him resorting to its cherished seclusion. As the storm is fast gathering, the vessel seeks for shelter in its best loved haven.[21]

Imagine the joy with which the announcement would be received by the inmates—“Our Lord and Redeemer is once more approaching.” Imagine how the great Conqueror of death would be welcomed into the home consecrated alike by His love and power. Now every tear dried! The weeping that endured for the long night of bereavement all forgotten. Ah! if Jesus were loved before in that happy home, how, we may well imagine, wouldHe be adored and reverenced now. What a new claim had He established on their deepest affection and regard. Feelingly alive to all they owed Him, the restored brother and rejoicing sisters with hearts overflowing with gratitude could say, in the words of their Psalmist King—“Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness, to the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever!”

But does the love and affection of that household find expression in nothing but words? Supper is being made ready. While Martha, with her wonted activity, is busied preparing the evening meal—doing her best to provide for the refreshment of the travellers—the gentle spirit of Mary (even if her name had not been given, we should have known it was she) prompts her to a more significant proof of the depth of her gratitude. Some fragrant ointment of spikenard—contained, as we gather from the other Evangelists, in a box of Alabaster—had been procured by her at great cost;[22]either obtained for this anticipated meetingwith her Lord, or it may in some way have fallen into her possession, and been sacredly kept among her treasured gifts till some befitting occasion occurred for its employment. Has not that occasion occurred now? On whom can her grateful heart more joyously bestow this garnered treasure than on her beloved Lord. With her own hands she pours it on His feet. Stooping down, she wipes them, in further token of her devotion, with her loosened tresses, till the whole apartment was filled with the sweet perfume.

And what was it that constituted the value of this tribute—the beauty and expressiveness of the action?She gave her Lord the best thing she had!She felt that to Him, in addition to what He had done for her own soul, she owed the most valued life in the world.

“Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,Nor other thought her mind admits;But, he was dead, and there he sits,And He that brought him back is there.“Then one deep love doth supersedeAll other, when her ardent gazeRoves from the living brother’s faceAnd rests upon the Life indeed.“All subtle thought, all curious fears,Borne down by gladness so complete;She bows, she bathes the Saviour’s feetWith costly spikenard and with tears.”[23]

“Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,Nor other thought her mind admits;But, he was dead, and there he sits,And He that brought him back is there.

“Then one deep love doth supersedeAll other, when her ardent gazeRoves from the living brother’s faceAnd rests upon the Life indeed.

“All subtle thought, all curious fears,Borne down by gladness so complete;She bows, she bathes the Saviour’s feetWith costly spikenard and with tears.”[23]

What a lesson for us! Are we willing to give our Lord the best of what we have—to consecrate time, talents, strength, life, to His service? Not as many, to give Him the mere dregs and sweepings of existence—the wrecks of a “worn and withered love”—but, like Mary, anxious to take every opportunity and occasion of testifying the depth of obligation under which we are laid to Him? Let us not say—“My sphere is lowly, my means are limited, my best offerings would be inadequate.” Such, doubtless, were the very feelings of that humble, diffident, yet loving one, as she crept noiselessly to where her pilgrim-Lord reclined, and lavished on His weary limbs the costliest treasure she possessed. Hundreds of more imposing deeds—more princely and munificent offerings—may have been left unrecorded by the Evangelists; but “wherever this Gospel shall be preached, in the whole world, there shall also thisthat this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her.”[24]

Would that love to “that same Jesus” were with all of us more paramount than it is! “Lovest thou Memore than these” is His own searching test and requirement. Is it so?—Do we love Him more than self or sin—more than friends or home—more than any earthly object or earthly good; and are we willing, if need be, to make a sacrifice for His glory and for the honour of His cause? Happy for us if it be so. There will be a joy in the very consciousness of making the effort, feeble and unworthy as it may be, for His sake, and inacknowledgment of the great love wherewith He hath loved us.

“Thrice blest, whose lives are faithful prayers,Whose loves in higher Love endure;Whose souls possess themselves so pure,Or is there blessedness like theirs?”

“Thrice blest, whose lives are faithful prayers,Whose loves in higher Love endure;Whose souls possess themselves so pure,Or is there blessedness like theirs?”

Let it be our privilege and delight to give Him our pound of spikenard, whatever that may be; and if we can give no other, let us offer the fragrant perfume of holy hearts and holy lives.Thatreligion is always best which reveals itself by its effects—by kindness, gentleness, amiability, unselfishness, flowing from a principle of grateful love to Him who, though unseen, has been to us as to the family of Bethany—Friend, and Help, and Guide, and Portion. Mary’s honour was great to anoint her Lord, but the lowliest and humblest of His people may do the same. We may have no aromatic offering, neither “gold, nor frankincense, nor myrrh;” but My son, My daughter, “give Me thine heart.” “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”

Nor ought we to forget our blessed Lord’s reply, when Judas objected to the waste of the ointment—“Let her alone; ... the poor ye have always with you,but Me ye have not always.” Let us seek to make the most of our Lord’s visits while we have Him. The visits of Jesus to Bethany were soon to be over;—so also with us. He will not always linger on our thresholds, if our souls refuse to receive Him, or yield Him nothing but coldness and ingratitude in return for His love. “Me ye have not always.” Soon may sickness incapacitate for active service! Soon may opportunities for doing good be gone, and gone for ever! Soon may death overtake us, and the alabaster box be left behind, unused and unemployed; the dying regret on our lips—“Oh that I had done more while I lived for this most precious Saviour! but opportunities of testifying my gratitude to Him are now gone beyond recall.” Good deeds performed on Gospel motives, though unknown and unvalued by the world, will not go unrecompensed or unowned by Him who values the cup of cold water given in His name. “God is not unmindful to forget our work of faith and our labour of love.”The Lamb’s Book of Life registers every such deed of lowly piety; and on the Great Day of account “it shall be produced to our eternal honour, and rewarded with a reward of grace; though not of debt.”

Let us bear in mind, also, that every holy service of unostentatious love exercises a hallowed influence on those around us. We may not be conscious of such. But, if Christians indeed, the sphere in which we move will, like the Bethany home, be redolent with the ointment perfume. A holy life is a silent witness for Jesus—an incense-cloud from the heart-altar, breathing odours and sweet spices, of which the world cannot fail to take knowledge. Yes! were we to seek for a beautiful allegorical representation of pure and undefiled Religion, we would find it in this loveliest of inspired pictures. Mary—all silent and submissive at the feet of her Lord—only permitting her love to be disclosed by the holy perfume which, unknown to herself, revealed to others the reality and intensity of her love. True religion is quiet, unobtrusive, seeking the shade—its ever-befitting attitude at the feet of Jesus, looking to Him as allin all. Yet, though retiring, itmustandwillmanifest its living and influential power. The heart broken at the cross, like Mary’s broken box, begins from that hour to give forth the hallowed perfume of faith, and love, and obedience, and every kindred grace. Not a fitful and vacillating love and service, buteveremitting the fragrance of holiness, till the little world of home influence around us is filled with the odour of the ointment.

“I ask Thee for the daily strength,To none that ask denied;And a mind to blend with outward life,While keeping by Thy side;Content to fill a little spaceIf Thou be glorified.“And if some things I do not askIn my cup of blessings be,I would have my spirit fill’d the moreWith grateful love to Thee—More careful not to serve Theemuch,But to please Thee perfectly.”

“I ask Thee for the daily strength,To none that ask denied;And a mind to blend with outward life,While keeping by Thy side;Content to fill a little spaceIf Thou be glorified.

“And if some things I do not askIn my cup of blessings be,I would have my spirit fill’d the moreWith grateful love to Thee—More careful not to serve Theemuch,But to please Thee perfectly.”

Such is a brief sketch of this beautiful domestic scene, and its main practical lessons,—a green spot on which the eye will ever love to repose, among the “Memories of Bethany.” It isunnecessary to advert to the controverted question, as to whether the description of the anointing, which took place in the house of Simon the leper (as recorded in Matt. xxvi. 6-14, and Mark xiv. 3), and where the alabaster box is spoken of, be identical with this passage, or whether they refer to two distinct occasions. The question is of no great importance in itself—the former view (that they are descriptions of one and the same event) seems the more probable. It surely gives a deep intensity to the interest of the narrative to imagine the Leper and the raised dead man, seated at the same table together with their common Deliverer, glorifying their Saviour-God, with bodies and spirits they felt now to be doublyHis! Simon, it is evident, must have been cured of his disease, else, by the Jewish law, he dared not have been associating with his friends at a common meal. How was he cured? How else may we suppose was that inveterate malady subdued but by the omnipotent word ofHim, who had only to say,—“I will, be thou made whole!” May we not regard him as a standing miracle of Jesus’ power over the diseased body, as Lazaruswas the living trophy of His power over death and the grave. The one could testify,—“This poor man cried, and the Lord saved him, and delivered him out of all his troubles.” The other,—“Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul must now have dwelt in silence!”

In order to explain the circumstance of this family meeting being in the house ofSimon, there have not been wanting advocates for the supposition, that the restored leper may have been none other than theparentof the household.[25]It is not for us to hazard conjectures, where Scripture has thrown no light. Even when sanctioned by venerated names, the most plausible hypothesis should be received with that caution requisite in dealing with what is supported exclusively by traditional authority. Were, however, such a view as we have indicated correct (which is just possible, and there is nothing in the face of the narrative to render itimprobable), it certainly would impart a new and fresh beauty to the picture of this Feast of gratitude. Well might theparent’sheart swell within him with more than ordinary emotions!Himselfplucked a victim from the most loathsome of diseases! He would think, with tearful eye, of the dark dungeon of his banishment—the lazar-house, where he had been gloomily excluded from all fellowship with human sympathies and loving hearts. His own children condemned by a severe but righteous necessity to shun his presence—or when within sound of human footfall or human voice, compelled to make known his presence with the doleful utterance,—“Unclean! Unclean!” He would think of that wondrous moment in his history, when, shunned byman, theGod-mandrew near to him, and with one glance of His love, and one utterance of His power, He bade the foul disease for ever away!

Nor was this all that Simon (if hewere, indeed, the father of the family) must have felt. What must have been those emotions, too deep for utterance, as he gazed on the son of his affections, seated once more by his side! A short time ago, Lazarus had been laid silent in the adjoining sepulchre—Death had laid his cold hand upon him—the pride of his home had been swept down. But the same Almighty friend who had caused hisown leprosy to depart, had given him back his lost one. They were rejoicing together in the presence of Him to whom they owed life and all its blessings. Oh, well might “the voice of rejoicing and salvation be heard in the tabernacles of these righteous!” Well might the head of the household dictate to Mary to “bring forth their best” and bestow it on their Deliverer—the costliest gift which the dwelling contained—the prized and valued box of alabaster, and pour its contents on His feet! We can imagine the burden, if not the words, of their joint anthem of praise,—“Bless the Lord, O our souls, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all our iniquities, who healeth all our diseases, who redeemeth our lives from destruction, and crowneth us with loving-kindness and with tender mercy.”

But be all this as it may, that same great Physician of Souls still waits to be gracious. He healethallour diseases. Young and old, rich and poor, every type of spiritual malady has in Him and His salvation its corresponding cure. The same Lord is rich to all that call upon Him. The ardent Martha, the contemplative Mary, theaged Simon, Lazarus the loving and beloved—He has proved friend, and help, and Saviour toall; and in their several ways they seek to give expression to the depth of their gratitude. Happy home! may there be many such amongst us! Fathers, brothers, sisters, “loving one another with a pure heart fervently,” and loving Jesus more than all—and themselves in Jesus! Seeking to haveHimas the ever-welcomed guest of their dwelling—feeling that all theyhave, and all theyare, for time or for eternity, they owe toHimwho has “brought them out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set their feet upon a rock, and established their goings, and put a new song in their mouth, even praise unto our God!”

Yes! having the Lord, we have what is better and more enduring than the best of earthly ties and earthly homes. This must have been impressed with peculiar force on aged John, as in distant Ephesus he penned the memories of this evening feast. Where werethenall its guests?—the recovered leper, the risen Lazarus, the devout sisters, the ardent disciples—allgone!—none but himself remained to tell the touching story.Nay,notall!—Oneremained amid this wreck of buried friendship—the adorable Being who had given to that Bethany feast all its imperishable interest was still within him and about him. The rocky shores of Patmos, and the groves around Ephesus, echoed to the well-remembered tones of the same voice of love. Hisbest Friendwas still left to take loneliness from his solitude. He writes as if he were still reclining on that sacred bosom—“Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ!”

Reader! take “that same Jesus” now as your Friend—receive Him as the guest of your soul; and when other guests and other friendships are vanished and gone, and you may be left like John, as the alone survivor of a buried generation;—“alone! you will yet benotalone!”—lifting your furrowed brow and tearful eye to Heaven, you may exclaim, “Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?”

Palm Branches.

We have just been contemplating a beautiful episode in the Bethany Memories—a gleam amid gathering clouds.Martha,Mary, andLazarus! With what happy hearts did they hail the presence of their Lord on the evening of that Jewish Sabbath! Little did they anticipate the events impending. Little did they dream that their Almighty Deliverer and Friend would that day week be sleeping in His own grave!

These were indeed eventful hours on which they had now entered. The stir through Palestine of the thousands congregating in the earthly Jerusalem to the great Paschal Feast, was but a feeble type of the profound interest with which myriad angel-worshippers in the Jerusalem above were gathering to witness the offering of the TruePaschal Sacrifice, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

On the morning after the supper at Bethany (probably that of our Sabbath), the Saviour rose from His couch of needed rest to approach Jerusalem. The reserve hitherto maintained as to His kingly power is now to be set aside. “The hour is come in which the Son of man is to be glorified.”Bethanyis one of the few places associated with recollections of the Redeemer’s royalty. The “despised and rejected” is, for once, the honoured and exalted. It is a glimpse of the crown before He ascends the cross; a foreshadowing of that blessed period when He shall be hailed by the loud acclaim of earth’s nations—the Gentile hosannah mingling with the Hebrew hallelujah in welcoming Him to the throne of universal empire.

Multitudes of the assembled pilgrims in the city, who had heard of His arrival, crowded out to Bethany to witness the mysterious Being, whose deeds of mercy and miracle had now become the universal theme of converse. His mightiest prodigy of power in the resurrection of Lazarus had invested His name and person with surpassing interest. Weneed not wonder, therefore, that “the town of Mary and her sister Martha” should attract many worshippers from Jerusalem, to behold with their own eyes at once the restored villager and his Divine Deliverer! In fulfilment of Zechariah’s prophecy, the meek and lowly Nazarene, seated on no caparisoned war-horse, but on an unbroken colt, and surrounded with the multitude, sets forth on His journey.[26]“The village and the desert were then all alive (as they still are once every year at the Greek Easter) with the crowd of Paschal pilgrims moving to and fro between Bethany and Jerusalem. ... Three pathways lead, and probably always led, from Bethany; ... one a long circuit over the northern shoulder of Mount Olivet, down the valley which parts it from Scopus; another, a steep footpath over the summit; the third, the natural continuation of the road by which mounted travellers always approach the city from Jericho, over the southern shoulder between the summit which contains the Tombs of the Prophets, and that called the ‘Mount of Offence.’ There can be no doubt that this last is the roadof the entry of Christ, not only because, as just stated, it is, and must always have been, the usual approach for horsemen and for large caravans such as then were concerned, but also because this is the only one of the three approaches which meets the requirements of the narrative which follows. ... This is the only one approach which is really grand. It is the approach by which the army of Pompey advanced, the first European army that ever confronted it. Probably the first impression of every one coming from the north-west and the south may be summed up in the simple expression used by one of the modern travellers—‘I am strangely affected, but greatly disappointed!’ But no human being could be disappointed who first saw Jerusalem from the east. The beauty consists in this, that you then burst at once on the two great ravines which cut the city off from the surrounding table-land.

“Two vast streams of people met on that day. The one poured out from the city, and as they came through the gardens whose clusters of palms rose on the south-eastern corner of Olivet,they cut down the long branches, as was their wont at the Feast of Tabernacles, and moved upwards towards Bethany with loud shouts of welcome. From Bethany streamed forth the crowds who had assembled there on the previous night, and who came testifying to the great event at the sepulchre of Lazarus. The road soon loses sight of Bethany. It is now a rough, but still broad and well-defined mountain track, winding over rock and loose stones,—a steep declivity below on the left; the sloping shoulder of Olivet above on the right. Along this road the multitudes threw down the branches which they cut as they went along, or spread out a rude matting formed of the palm branches they had already cut as they came out. The larger portion (those perhaps who escorted Him from Bethany) unwrapped their loose cloaks from their shoulders, and stretched them along the rough path, to form a momentary carpet as he approached. The two streams met midway. Half of the vast mass, turning round, preceded; the other half followed. Gradually the long procession swept up and over the ridge, where first begins the ‘descent of the Mount of Olives,’ towards Jerusalem. Atthis point the first view is caught of the south-eastern corner of the city. The Temple and the more northern portions are hid by the slope of Olivet on the right; what is seen is only Mount Zion, covered with houses to its base, surmounted by the castle of Herod on the supposed site of the palace of David, from which that portion of Jerusalem, emphatically ‘The City of David,’ derived its name. It was at this precise point, as he drew near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, (may it not have been from the sight thus opening upon them?) that the shout of triumph burst forth from the multitude—‘Hosannah to the Son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom that cometh of our father David. Hosannah—Peace—Glory in the highest!’ There was a pause as the shout rang through the long defile; and as the Pharisees who stood by in the crowd complained, He pointed to the ‘stones,’ which, strewn beneath their feet, would immediately ‘cry out’ if ‘these were to hold their peace.’ Again the procession advanced. The road descends a slight declivity, and the glimpse of the city is again withdrawnbehind the intervening ridge of Olivet. A few moments, and the path mounts again, it climbs a rugged ascent, it reaches a ledge of smooth rock, and in an instant the whole city bursts into view. As now the dome of the Mosque El Aksa rises like a ghost from the earth before the traveller stands on the ledge, so then must have risen the Temple Tower; as now the vast enclosure of the Mussulman Sanctuary, so then must have spread the Temple Courts; as now the gray town on its broken hills, so then the magnificent city with its background (long since vanished away) of gardens and suburbs on the western plateau behind. Immediately below was the valley of the Kedron, here seen in its greatest depth, as it joins the valley of Hinnom; and thus giving full effect to the great peculiarity of Jerusalem, seen only on its eastern side—its situation as of a city rising out of a deep abyss. It is hardly possible to doubt that this rise and turn of the road (this rocky ledge) was the exact point where the multitude paused again, and ‘He, when He beheld the city, wept over it.’ ... Here the Lord stayed His onward march, and here His eyes beheld what isstill the most impressive view which the neighbourhood of Jerusalem furnishes—and the tears rushed forth at the sight.”[27]

Without dwelling longer on this splendid ovation, we may only further remark, that had the Redeemer’s mission been on (the infidel theory) a successful imposture, what an opportunity now to have availed Himself of that outburst of popular fervour, and to have marched straight to take possession of the hereditary throne of David. The populace were evidently more than ready to second any such attempt; the Sanhedrim and Jewish authorities must have trembled for the result. The hosannas, borne on the breeze from the slope of Olivet, could not fail to sound ominous of coming disaster. So incontrovertible indeed had been the proof of Lazarus’ resurrection, that only the most blinded bigotry could refuse to own in that marvellous act the divinity of Jesus. In addition, too, to this last crowning demonstration of omnipotence, there were hundreds, we may well believe, in that procession, who, in different parts of Palestine,had listened to His gracious words, and witnessed His gracious deeds. Whatother, whatbetterMessiah could they wish than this—combining the might of Godhead with the kindness and tenderness of a human philanthropist and friend? Is He to accept of the crown? Nay, by a lofty abnegation of self, and all selfish considerations, He illustrates the announcement made by Him, a few hours later, in Pilate’s judgment-hall, as to the leading characteristic of that empire He is to set up in the hearts of men—“My kingdom is not of this world.” He was, indeed, one day to be hailed alike King of Zion and King of Nations, but a bitter baptism of blood and suffering had meanwhile to be undergone. No glitter of earthly honour—no carnal dreams of earthly glory—would divert Him from His divine and gracious undertaking. He would saveothers—Himself Hewouldnot save.

Let us pause for a moment, and ponder that significant chorus of praise which on Olivet arose to the Lord of Glory. How interesting to think of the vast and varied multitude gathered around the Conqueror! Many, doubtless, assembled fromcuriosity, who had never seen Him before, and had only heard of His fame in their distant homes; others, from feelings of personal love and gratitude, were blending their voices in the shout of welcome. Think, it may be, of Bartimeus, now gazing with his unsealed eyes on his Divine Deliverer. Think of Mary Magdalene, her heart gushing at the remembrance of her own sin and shame, and her adorable Redeemer’s pardoning and forgiving mercy! Nicodemus, perhaps, no longer seeking to repair by stealth, under the shadow of night, to hold a confidential meeting; but in the full blaze of day, and before assembled Israel, boldly recognising in “the Teacher sent from God” the promised Messiah, the Prince of Peace, the Redeemer of Mankind. Shall we think of Lazarus too, fearless of his own personal safety, venturing to follow his guest with tearful eye, the multitude gazing with wonder on this living trophy of death? We may think of the very children, as He entered the temple, uplifting their infant voices in the general welcome—pledges of the myriad little ones who, in future ages, were to have an interest in “the kingdom of God.”

“Meanwhile He paces through th’ adoring crowd,Calm as the march of some majestic cloudThat o’er wild scenes of ocean warHolds its still course in Heaven afar.“Yet in the throng of selfish hearts untrue,His sad eye rests upon His faithful few;Children andchild-likesouls are there,Blind Bartimeus’ humble prayer;And Lazarus, waken’d from his four days’ sleep,Enduring life again that Passover to keep.”[28]

“Meanwhile He paces through th’ adoring crowd,Calm as the march of some majestic cloudThat o’er wild scenes of ocean warHolds its still course in Heaven afar.“Yet in the throng of selfish hearts untrue,His sad eye rests upon His faithful few;Children andchild-likesouls are there,Blind Bartimeus’ humble prayer;And Lazarus, waken’d from his four days’ sleep,Enduring life again that Passover to keep.”[28]

May not Olivet be regarded on this occasion as a type of the Church triumphant in Heaven—Jesus enthroned in the affections of a mighty multitude which no man can number—old and young, great and small, rich and poor—casting their palms of victory at His feet, and ascribing to Him all the glory of their great salvation?

Letusask, havewereceived Jesus asourKing?—haveourpalm branches been cast at His feet? Feeling that He is alike willing and mighty to save, have we joined in the rapture of praise—“Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord to save us?” Have our hearts become living temples thrown open for His reception? Is thisthe motto and superscription on their portals—“This is the gate of the Lord, into whichThe Righteous Oneshall enter!” Jesus refused and disowned none of these gratulations—He spurned no voice in all that motley Jerusalem throng. There were endless diversities and phases, doubtless, of human character and history there. The once proud formalist, the once greedy extortioner, the hated tax-gatherer, the rich nobleman, the child of penury, the Roman officer, the peasant or fisherman of Galilee, the humbled publican, the woman from the city, the reclaimed victim of misery and guilt! All were there as types and samples of that diversified multitude who, in every age, were to own Him as King, and receive His gracious benediction.

We have spoken of this incident as a glimpse of glory before His sufferings. Alas! itwasbut a glimpse. What a picture of the fickleness and treachery of the heart!—That excited populace who are now shouting their hosannahs, are ere long to be raising the cry, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” Four days hence we shall find the palm branches lying withered on the Bethany road,and the blazing torches of an assassin-band nigh the very spot where He is now passing with an applauding retinue! “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils.”

It does not belong to our narrative to record the remaining transactions of this day in Jerusalem. The shades of evening find the Saviour once more repairing to Bethany. The evangelistMark, in the course of his narrative, simply but touchingly says:—“And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple, and when He had looked round about upon all things” (the mitred priests, the bleeding victims, the costly buildings), “and now the eventide was come, he went out untoBethanywith the twelve.” (Mark xi. 11.) As He returned to the sweet calm of that quiet home, if He could not fail to think of the hours of darkness and agony before Him, could He reap no joy or consolation in the thought, that that very day week the redemption of His people was to be consummated—the glory that surrounded the grave and resurrection of Lazarus was to be eclipsed by the marvels of His own!

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