Without attempting to solve the mysteries of this deepest of all tragedies, we may yet see some of the uses and purposes of it in regard to ourselves.
Our Lord was appointed to suffer in all respects as his brethren; and the suffering of bearing with antagonistic and uncongenial natures is one that the providence of God often imposes on us. There are often bound to us, in the closest intimacy of social or family ties, natures hard and ungenial, with whom sympathy is impossible, and whose daily presence necessitates a constant conflict with an adverse influence. There are, too, enemies—open or secret—whose enmity we may feel yet cannot define. Our Lord, going before us in this hard way, showed us how we should walk.
It will be appropriate to the solemn self-examination of the period of Lent to ask ourselves, Is there any false friend or covert enemy whom we must learn to tolerate, to forbear with, to pity and forgive? Can we in silent offices of love wash their feet as our Master washed the feet of Judas? And if we have no real enemies, are there any bound to us in the relations of life whose habits and ways are annoying and distasteful to us? Can we bear with them in love? Can we avoid harsh judgments, and harsh speech, and the making known to others our annoyance? Could we through storms of obloquy and evil report keep calmly on in duty, unruffled in love, and commending ourselves to the judgment of God? The examination will probably teach us to feel the infinite distance between us and our divine Ideal, and change censoriousness of others into prayer for ourselves.
Nothing in ancient or modern tragedy is so sublime and touching as the simple account given by the Evangelists of the last week of our Lord's earthly life.
The church has since his ascension so devoutly looked upon him as God that we are in danger of losing the pathos and the power which come from a consideration of his humanity. The Apostle tells us that, in order that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest, he was made in all respects like unto his brethren. He was a Jew. His national and patriotic feeling was intense. To him the sacred nation, the temple service, with all its hymns and prayers and ancient poetic recollections, were more dear than to any other man of his nation. The nation was his own, his peculiar, chosen people; he was their head and flower, for whom the whole gorgeous ritual had been appointed, for whom the nation had been for centuries waiting. Apart from his general tenderness and love for humanity was this special love of country and countrymen. Then there was the love of his very own—the little church of tried, true, tested friends who had devoted themselves to him; and, still within that, his family circle, for whom his love was strong as a father's, tender and thoughtful as a mother's. And yet Jesus went through life bearing in his bosom the bitter thought that his nation would reject him and instigate one of his own friends to betray him, and that all seeming success and glory was to end in a cruel and shameful death. He foresaw how every heart that loved him would be overwhelmed and crushed with a misery beyond all human precedent.
It is affecting to read in the Evangelists how often and how earnestly Jesus tried to make his disciples realize what was coming. "Let this saying sink down into your ears," he would say: "the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men;" and then would recount, item by item, the overthrow, the agonies, the insults, the torture, that were to be the end of his loving and gentle mission. At various times and in various forms he took them aside and repeated this prophecy. And it is said that they "understood not his word;" that "they were astonished;" that they "feared to ask him;" that they "questioned one with another what this should mean." It seems probable that, warmed with the flush of present and increasing prosperity and popularity, witnessing his victorious miracles, they had thrown this dark prophecy by, as something inexplicable and never literally to be accomplished. What it could mean they knew not, but that it could have a literal fulfillment they seem none of them to have even dreamed. Perhaps they were like many of us, in our religion, in the habit of looking only on the bright, hopeful, and easily comprehensible side of things, and letting all that is dark and mysterious slide from the mind.
Up to the very week before his crucifixion the power and popularity of Jesus seemed constantly increasing. His miracles were more open, more impressive, more effective. The raising of Lazarus from the dead had set the final crown on the glorious work. It would appear that Lazarus was a member of a well-known, influential family, moving in the higher circles of Jerusalem. It was a miracle wrought in the very heart and centre of knowledge and influence, and it raised the fame of the new prophet to the summit of glory. It is an affecting comment on the worth of popular favor that the very flood-tide of the fame and glory of Jesus was just five days before he was crucified. On Monday—the day now celebrated in theChristian Church as Palm Sunday—he entered Jerusalem in triumph, with palms waving, and garlands thrown at his feet, and the multitudes going before and after, shouting Hosanna to the Son of David; and on Friday of the same week the whole multitude shouted, "Away with him! Crucify him! Release unto us Barabbas! His blood be upon us and upon our children!" and he was led through those same streets to Calvary. On these six days before the death of Jesus the historians have expended a wealth of detail, so that the record of what is said and done is more than that of all the other portions of that short life.
There are many touches of singular tenderness conveyed in very brief words. Speaking of his final journey from Galilee to Judæa, says one: "When the time came that he should be received up he set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem." Another narrates that when he was going up to Jerusalem he walked before his disciples, and as they followed him they were afraid. Evidently he was wrapped in an electric cloud of emotion; he was swept along by a mighty influence—tides of feeling deeper than they could comprehend were rolling in his soul, and there was that atmosphere of silence and mystery about him by which the inward power of great souls casts an outward sphere of awe about them. Still, as they walked behind, they had their political dreams of a coming reign of power and splendor, when the Judæan nation should rule the world, and they, as nearest to the Master, should administer the government of the nation—for it is said, by the way they "disputed who should be the greatest."
He hears their talk, as a dying mother, who knows that a few hours will leave her children orphans, listens to the contentions of the nursery. He turns to them and makes a last effort to enlighten them—to let them know that not earthly glory and a kingdom are before them, butcruelty, rejection, shame, and death. He recounts the future, circumstantially, and with what deep energy and solemn pathos of voice and manner may be imagined. They make no answer, but shrink back, look one on another, and are afraid to ask more. It would seem, however, that there wasonein the band on whom these words made an impression. Judas evidently thought that, if this was to be the end of all, he had been taken in and deceived: a sudden feeling of irritation arises against One who having such evident and splendid miraculous power is about to give up in this way and lose his opportunity and suffer himself to be defeated. Judas is all ready now to make the best terms for himself with the winning party. The others follow in fear and trembling. The strife who shall be greatest subsides into a sort of anxious questioning.
They arrive at a friendly house where they are to spend the Sabbath, the last Sabbath of his earthly life. There was a feast made for him, and we see him surrounded by grateful friends. By the fact that Martha waited on the guests and that Lazarus sat at the table it would appear that this feast was in the house of a relative of that family. It is said to have occurred in the house of "Simon the Leper"—perhaps the leper to whom Jesus said, "I will—be thou clean."
Here Mary, with the abandon which marks her earnest and poetic nature, breaks a costly vase of balm and sheds the perfume on the head of her Lord. It was an action in which she offered up her whole self—her heart and her life—to be spent for him, like that fleeting perfume. Judas expostulates, "To what purpose is this waste?" There is an answering flash from Jesus, like lightning from a summer cloud. The value that our Lord sets upon love is nowhere more energetically expressed. This trembling, sensitive heart has offered itself up wholly to him,and he accepts and defends it. There is a touch of human pathos in the words, "She is anointing me for my burial." Her gift had all the sacredness in his eyes of a death-bed act of tenderness, and he declares, "Wheresoever through the world this gospel shall be preached, there also shall what this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her."
Judas slinks back, sullen and silent. The gulf between him and his Master grows hourly more palpable—as the nature that cannot love and the nature to whom love is all come in close collision. Judas and Christ cannot blend any more than oil and water, and the nearer approach only makes the conflict of nature more evident.
On Monday morning, the day that we now celebrate as Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem. We are told that the great city, now full of Jews come up from all parts of the world, was moved about him. We have in the Book of Acts an enumeration of the varieties in the throng that filled Jerusalem at this time: "Parthians, Medes, Elamites, dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judæa and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and Proselytes, Cretes and Arabians." When all these strangers heard the shouting, it is said the "whole city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus, the Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee."
And what was He thinking of, as he came thus for the last time to the chosen city? We are told "And when he drew near and beheld the city, he wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." Then follows the prophetic vision of the destruction of Jerusalem—scenes of horror and despair for which his gentle spirit bled inwardly.
One feature of the picture is touching: the children in the temple crying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!"The love of Jesus for children is something marked and touching. When he rested from his labors at eventide, it was often, we are told, with a little child in his arms—children were his favorite image for the heavenly life, and he had bid the mothers to bring them to him as emblems of the better world. The children were enthusiastic for him, they broke forth into rapture at his coming as birds in the sunshine, loud and noisily as children will, to the great discomfiture of priests and Scribes. "Master! bid them hush," they said. He turned, indignant—"If these should hold their peace the very stones would cry out." These evidences of love from dear little children were the last flower thrown at the feet of Jesus on his path to death. From that day the way to the cross was darker every hour.
During the last week of the life of Jesus we see him under the most awful pressure of emotion; the crisis of a great tragedy, which has been slowly gathering and growing from the beginning of the world, is now drawing on. The nation that he had chosen—that he had borne and carried through all the days of old—was now to consummate her ruin in his rejection. All his words and actions during the last week of his life were under the shadow of that cloud of doom which overhung the city of Jerusalem, the temple, and the people whom he had loved, so earnestly and so long, in vain.
When going up to Jerusalem he walked before his disciples, silent and absorbed; and they dared scarcely speak to him. Amid the triumphant shouts of the people thatwelcomed him to the city he paused on the verge of Olivet and wept over it. He saw the siege, the famine, the terror of women and helpless children, the misery and despair, the unutterable agonies of the sacking of Jerusalem, which has been a world's wonder; and he broke forth in lamentation. "Oh, that thou hadst known—even thou in this thy day—the things that belong to thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes."
All his discourses of this last week are shaded with the sad coloring and prophetic vision of coming doom, of a crime hastening to fulfillment that should bring a long-delayed weight of wrath and vengeance.
His parables now turn on this theme. One day they tell of a husbandman intrusting a vineyard to the care of faithless servants; he sends messengers to overlook them; they beat one and stone another, till finally he sends his only and beloved son, and then they say, "Let us kill him;" and they catch him and cast him out of the vineyard and slay him. "What," he asks, "shall the Lord of the vineyard do to these husbandmen?" Again, he speaks of a feast to which all are generously invited, and all neglect or reject the invitation, and not only reject but insult and despise and ill-treat the messengers who bear the invitation; and tells how the insulted King sends the invitation to others, and decrees, "None of these men shall taste of my supper." He tells of a wedding feast, and of foolish virgins who slumber with unfilled lamps till the door of welcome is shut. He tells of a king, who, having intrusted talents to his servants, comes again to reckon, and takes away the talent of the unfaithful one and casts him to outer darkness.
All these themes speak of the approaching rejection of the nation on whom God has heaped so many favors for many years. The thought of their doom seems to press down the heart of the Redeemer.
The twenty-third chapter of Matthew contains Christ's last sermon in the temple—his final words of leave-taking of his people; and a most dreadful passage it is. It is awful, it is pathetic, to compare those fearful words with his first benignant announcement at Nazareth. Nothing in human language can be conceived more terrible than these last denunciations of the rejected Lord and Lover of the chosen race. He exposes with scathing severity the hypocrisy, the greed, the cruelty of the leaders of the nation; he denounces them as the true descendants of those who of old killed God's prophets and stoned his messengers, and ends by rising into the very majesty of the Godhead in declaring their final doom:—
"Fill ye up the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents! Ye generation of vipers! How can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. That upon you might come all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias,[5]the son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you all these shall come upon this generation!"O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets and stonest those that are sent unto thee—how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings—and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate, for I say that ye shall see me no more henceforth till ye say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
"Fill ye up the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents! Ye generation of vipers! How can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. That upon you might come all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias,[5]the son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you all these shall come upon this generation!
"O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets and stonest those that are sent unto thee—how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings—and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate, for I say that ye shall see me no more henceforth till ye say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
This was Christ's last farewell—his valedictory to those whom he had loved and labored for, and who would not come to him that he might give them life.
To all these awful words was added the language of an awful symbol. In one of his parables our Lord had spoken of the Jewish nation under the figure of a tree which, though carefully tended year by year, bore no fruit. At last the word goes forth, "Cut it down!" But the keeper of the vineyard intercedes and prays that it may have a longer space of cultured care, and so be brought to fruit-bearing. This last week of our Lord's life he sets forth the solemn close of that parable by one of those symbolic acts common among the old prophets and well understood by the Jews.
Approaching a fair and promising tree on his way into the city, he seeks fruit thereon, but finds it barren. There is a pause, and then a voice of deep sadness says, "No fruit grow on thee henceforth and forever!" and immediately the fig-tree withered away.
It was an outward symbol of that doomed city whose day of mercy was past. The awfulness of these last words and of this last significant sign is increased by the tenderness of Him who gave them forth. It is the Fountain of Pity, the All-Loving One, that uttered the doom—a doom made certain and inevitable not by God's will but by man's perversity.
The lesson that we have to learn is the reality and awfulness of sin, the reality of that persistence in wickedness that can make even the love of Jesus vain for our salvation. For what hope, what help, what salvation can there be for those who cannot be reached by His love? If they have seen and hated both him and his Father—what remains?
The thought may arise to many minds, if Jesus was so lovely, so attractive, and so beloved, how could it have been possible that he should be put to so cruel a death in the very midst of a people whom he loved and for whom he labored?
The sacred record shows us why. It was this very attractiveness, this very power over men's hearts, that was the cause and reason of the conspiracy against Jesus. We have a brief and very dramatic account of the meeting of the Sanhedrim in which the death of Christ was finally resolved upon, and we find that very popularity urged as a reason why he cannot be permitted to live. In John xi. 47, we are told that after the raising of Lazarus the chief priests and Pharisees gathered a council and said, "What do we? this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone all men will believe on him, and the Romans will come and take away our place and nation."
There is the case stated plainly, and we see that these men talked then just as men in our days talk. Do they ever resolve on an act of oppression or cruelty, calling it by its right name? Never. It is a "sacrifice" to some virtue; and the virtue in this case was patriotism.
Here is the Jewish nation, a proud and once powerful people, crushed and writhing under the heel of the conquering Romans. They are burning with hatred of their oppressors and with a desire of revenge, longing for the Messiah that shall lead them to conquest and make their nation the head of the world.
And now, here comes this Jesus and professes to be thelong-promised leader; and what does he teach? Love and forgiveness of enemies; patient endurance of oppression and wrong; and supreme devotion to the pure inner life of the soul. If Roman tax-gatherers distrain upon their property and force them to carry it from place to place, they are to meet it only by free good will, that is, willingness to go two miles when one is asked. If the extortionate officer seizes their coat, they are to show only a kindliness that is willing to give even more than that.
They are to love their bitterest enemies, pity and pray for them, and continue in unbroken kindness, even as God's sunshine falls in unmoved benignity on the just and the unjust!
It must have inflamed these haughty, ambitious leaders to fury to see all their brilliant visions of war and conquest and national independence melting away in a mist of what seemed to them the mere impossible sentimentalism of love. And yet this illusion gains ground daily; Christ is received in triumph at Jerusalem, and the rulers say to each other, "Perceive ye how we prevail nothing? behold the whole world is gone out after him."
Now, in the Jewish Sanhedrim Christ had friends and followers. We are told of Joseph of Arimathea, who would not consent to the deeds of the council. We are told of Nicodemus, who before now had spoken boldly in the council, demanding justice and a fair hearing for Jesus. We may well believe that so extreme a course as was now proposed met at first strong opposition. There seems to have been some warm discussion. We may imagine what it was: that Jesus was a just and noble man, a prophet, a man all of whose deeds and words had been pure and beneficent, was doubtless earnestly urged. The advocates, it is true, were not men who had left all to follow him, or enrolled themselves openly as his disciples, but yet they could not consent to so monstrous aninjustice as this. That the discussion produced strong feeling is evident from the excited manner in which Caiaphas sums up: "Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is better that one man should die than that the whole nation should perish." That was the case as he viewed it, and he talked precisely as men in our days have often talked when consenting to an injustice or oppression: Say what you will of this Jesus; I will not dispute you. Admit, if you please, his virtues and good works; still, he is a wrong-headed man, that will be the ruin of our nation. Either he must perish or the nation be destroyed.
And so, on the altar of patriotism this murder was laid as a sacrifice. And it was this same burning, impatient national spirit of independence that slew Christ which afterwards provoked the Roman government beyond endurance, and brought upon Jerusalem wrath to the uttermost.
The very children and grandchildren of Caiaphas died in untold miseries in that day of wrath and doom. The decision to reject Christ was the decision which destroyed Jerusalem with a destruction more awful than any other recorded in history.
We are apt to consider the actors in this great tragedy as sinners above all others. But every day and every hour in our times just such deeds are being reënacted.
There were all sorts of sinners in that tragedy: Caiaphas, who sacrificed one whom he knew to be a noble and good man to political ambition; Pilate, who consented to an acknowledged wrong from dread of personal inconvenience; Judas, who made the best of his time in selling out a falling cause to the newcomers; Peter, the impetuous friend suddenly frightened into denial; the twelve, forsaking and fleeing in a moment of weakness; the multitude of careless spectators, those tide-waiters who turn as the flood turns, who shouted for Jesus yesterday because others were shouting, and turn against him to-day becausehe is unpopular. All these were there. On the other hand, there were the faithful company of true-hearted women that went with Jesus weeping on his way to the cross; that beloved disciple and the Mother that stood by him to the last; all these, both friends and foes, represent classes of people who still live and still act their part in this our day.
"For, when under fierce oppression,Goodness suffers like transgression,Christ again is crucified;But if love be there true-hearted,By no pain or terror parted,Mary stands the cross beside!"
"For, when under fierce oppression,Goodness suffers like transgression,Christ again is crucified;But if love be there true-hearted,By no pain or terror parted,Mary stands the cross beside!"
The last chapters of St. John—in particular from the thirteenth to the seventeenth—are worthy, more than anything else in the sacred writings, of the designation which has been given them, The Heart of Jesus. They are the language of the most intimate love, to the most intimate friends, in view of the greatest and most inconceivable of human sorrows. For, though the disciples—poor, humble, simple men—were dazed, confused, and misty up to the very moment when they were entering upon the greatest sorrow of their life, the Master who was leading them saw it all with perfect clearness. He saw perfectly not only the unspeakable humiliation and anguish that were before himself, but the disappointment, the terror, the dismay, the utter darkness and despair that were just before these humble, simple friends who had invested all their love and hope in him.
When we think of this it will seem all the more strange, the more unworldly and divine to find that in these very chapters our Lord speaks more often, and with more emphasis, ofJoythan in any other part of the New Testament. In the fifteenth he says, "These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." And again, in his prayer for them, he says, "And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves." He speaks of his joy as a treasure he longed to impart—as something which overflowed his own soul, and sought to equalize itself by flowing into the souls of his friends. He was not only full of joy, but he had fullness of joy to give away.
This joy of Christ in the approach of extremest earthly anguish and sorrow is one of the beautiful mysteries of our faith. It is a holy night-flower, opening only in darkness, and shedding in the very shadow of death light and perfume; or like the solemn splendor of the stars, to be seen only in the deepest darkness.
In the representations made of our Lord as a man of sorrows we are too apt to forget the solemn emphasis with which he asserts this fullness of joy. But let us look at his position on the mere human side. At the hour when he thus spoke he knew that, so far as the salvation of his nation was concerned, his life-work had been a failure. His own people had rejected him and had bargained with a member of his own family to betray him. He knew the exact details of the scourging, the scoffing, the taunts, the torture, the crucifixion; and to a sensitive soul the hour of approach to a great untried agony is often the hour of bitterest trial. It is when we foresee a great trouble in the dimness of to-morrow that our undisciplined hearts grow faint and fail us. But he who had long foreseen—who had counted in advance—every humiliation,every sorrow, and every pain, spoke at the same time of his joy as an overflowing fullness. He spoke of his peace as something which he had a divine power to give away. The world saw that night a new sight—a sufferer who had touched the extreme of all earthly loss and sorrow, who yet stood, like a God, offering to give Peace and Joy—even fullness of joy. For our Lord intensifies the idea. He wants his children not to have joy merely, but to be full of joy. This is the meaning of the words to "have my joy fulfilled in them."
We shall see in the affecting history of the next few hours of the life of Jesus that this heavenly joy was capable of a temporary obscuration. He was aware that a trial was coming from a direct collision with the Evil Spirit. "The Prince of this world cometh, but hath nothing in me."
Yet we cannot but feel that the mysterious agonies of Gethsemane, that wrung the blood-drops from his heart, were in part due to that conflict with cruel and malignant spirits. It is the greatest possible help to our poor sorrowful nature that these struggles, these strong cryings and bitter tears of our Lord, have been recorded, because it helps us to feel that he was not peaceful because he was passionless—that his joy and peace did not come from the serenity of a nature incapable of sorrow and struggles like ours. There are passages in the experience of such saints as Madame Guyon that seem like the unnatural exaltations of souls exceptionally indifferent to circumstances; nothing makes any difference to them; one thing is just as good as another. But in the experience of Jesus we see our own most shrinking human repellencies. We see that there were sufferings that he dreaded with his whole soul; sorrows which he felt to be beyond even his power of endurance; and so when he said, "Not my will, but Thy will," he said it with full vision of what he was accepting;and in that unshaken, that immovable oneness of will with the Father lay the secret of his joy and victory.
It is a great and solemn thing for us to think of this joy of Christ in sorrow. It is something that we can know only in and by sorrow. But sorrows are so many in this world of ours! Griefs, sickness, disappointment, want, death, so beset our footsteps that it is worth everything to us to think of that joy of Christ that is brightest as the hour grows darkest. It is a gift. It is not in us. We cannot get it by any human reasonings or the mere exercise of human will, but we can get it as a free gift from Jesus Christ.
If in the hour of his deepest humiliation and suffering he had joy and peace to give away, how much more now, when he is exalted at the right hand of God, to give gifts unto men! Poor sorrowful, suffering, struggling souls, Christ longs to comfort you. "I will give to him that is athirst the water of life freely." "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
There are times in life when human beings are called to sorrows that seem so hopeless, so cruel, that they take from the spirit all power of endurance. There are agonies that overwhelm, that crush,—their only language seems to be a groan of prostrate anguish. There are distresses against which the heart cries out, "It is too much. I cannot, cannot bear it. God have mercy on me!"
It was for people who suffer thus, for those who are capable of such depths and who are called to go throughthem, that the great Apostle and High Priest of our profession passed through that baptism of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Apostle says, "It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons and daughters unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." And it was at this hour and time that he was to pass through such depths that no child of his could ever go deeper. Alone, and without the possibility of human sympathy, he was to test those uttermost distresses possible to the most exceptional natures. Jesus sufferedallthat he could endure and live. The record is given with great particularity by three Evangelists, and is full of mysterious suggestion. Up to this period all the discourses of our Lord, in distinct view of his final sufferings, had been full of calmness and courage. He had consoled his little flock, and bid them not be troubled, speaking cheerfully of a joy that should repay the brief anguish of separation. He not only was wholly at peace in his own soul, but felt that he had peace in abundance to give away. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
Yet he went forth from speaking these very words, and this is the account of the scene that followed, collated from the three Evangelists:—
"Then cometh Jesus with them unto the place that is called Gethsemane, and said to his disciples, Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy (in extreme anguish). And he said unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with me, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he went forward a little, and fell on his face and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as Iwill, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto his disciples and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second time, and prayed, and said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt. O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and found them asleep again; for their eyes were heavy, neither wist they what to answer him. And he left them and went away the third time, and prayed, saying the same words. And, being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood, falling down to the ground, and there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him."And when he rose up from prayer and was come to his disciples, he findeth them sleeping for sorrow, and saith unto them, Sleep on now—rest."
"Then cometh Jesus with them unto the place that is called Gethsemane, and said to his disciples, Sit ye here while I go and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy (in extreme anguish). And he said unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with me, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he went forward a little, and fell on his face and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as Iwill, but as thou wilt. And he cometh unto his disciples and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. He went away again the second time, and prayed, and said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt. O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done. And he came and found them asleep again; for their eyes were heavy, neither wist they what to answer him. And he left them and went away the third time, and prayed, saying the same words. And, being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood, falling down to the ground, and there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him.
"And when he rose up from prayer and was come to his disciples, he findeth them sleeping for sorrow, and saith unto them, Sleep on now—rest."
There seems here evidence that the anguish, whatever it was, had passed, and that Jesus had returned to his habitual peace. He looks with pity on the poor tired followers whose sympathy had failed him just when he most needed it, and says, "Poor souls, let them sleep for a little and rest."
After an interval he rouses them. "It is enough—the hour is come; the Son of man is betrayed into the hand of sinners. Rise up; let us go: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me."
The supposition that it was the final agony of the cross which Jesus prayed to be delivered from is inconsistent with his whole life and character. He had kept that end in view from the beginning of his life. He said, in view of it, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" He rebuked Peter in the sharpest terms for suggesting that he should avoid those predicted sufferings. Going up to Jerusalem to die, he walked before the rest, as if impelled by a sacred ardor tofulfill his mission. Furthermore, in the Epistle to the Hebrews we are taught thus: the writer says, speaking of the Saviour, "Who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers with strong crying and tears to him that was able to save him from death, andwas heardin that he feared." Whatever relief it was that our Lord supplicated with such earnestness, it was given; and he went forth from the dreadful anguish in renewed and perfect peace.
We may not measure the depths of that anguish or its causes. Our Lord gives some intimation of one feature in it by saying, as he prepared to go forth to it, "The Prince of this World cometh, and hath nothing in me;" and in warning his disciples, "Pray that ye enter not into temptation." The expression employed by St. Mark to describe the anguish is indicative of a sudden rush—of an amazement, as if a new possibility of suffering, overwhelming and terrible, had been disclosed to him, such a sorrow as it seemed must destroy life—"exceeding sorrowful, even unto death."
Let these words remain in all their depths, in all their mystery, as standing for that infinite possibility of pain which the one divine Man was to taste for every man. There have been facts in human experience analogous. We are told that the night before his execution, Jerome of Prague, in his lonely prison, condemned and held accursed by the proud Scribes and Pharisees, the Christian Sanhedrim of his times, fainted and groaned and prayed as Jesus in Gethsemane. Martin Luther has left on record a wonderful prayer, written the night before the Diet of Worms, when he, a poor, simple monk, was called before the great Diet of the Empire to answer for his faith. Such strong crying and tears—such throbbing words—that seem literally like drops of blood falling down to the ground, attest that Luther was passing through Gethsemane. Alone, with all the visible power of the Churchand the world against him, his position was like that of Jesus. A crisis was coming when he was to witness for truth, and he felt that only God was for him, and he appeals to him: "Hast thou not chosen me to do this work? I ask thee, O God, O thou my God, where art thou? Art thou dead? No, thou canst not die; thou art only hiding thyself."
In many private histories there are Gethsemanes. There are visitations of sudden, overpowering, ghastly troubles,—troubles that transcend all ordinary human sympathy, such as the helpless human soul has to wrestle with alone. And it was because in this blind struggle of life such crushing experiences are to be meted out to the children of men that Infinite Love provided us with a divine Friend who had been through the deepest of them all, and come out victorious.
In the sudden wrenches which come by the entrance of death into our family circles, there is often an inexplicable depth of misery that words cannot tell. No outer words can tell what a trial is to the soul. Only Jesus, who, as the Head of the human race, united in himself every capability of human suffering, and proved them all, in order that he might help us, only he has an arm strong enough and a voice tender enough to reach us. The stupor of the disciples in the agony of Jesus is a sort of parable or symbol of the inevitablelonelinessof the deepest kind of sorrow. There are friends, loving, honest, true, but they cannot watch with us through such hours. It is like the hour of death—nobody can go with us. But he who knows what it is so to suffer; he who has felt the horror, the amazement, the heart-sick dread—who has fallen on his face overcome, and prayed with cryings and tears and the bloody sweat of agony—he can understand us and can help us. He can send an angel from heaven to comfort us when every human comforter is "sleeping for sorrow."It was Gethsemane which gave Jesus the power to bring many sons and daughters unto glory.
And it may comfort us under such trials to hope that as he thus gained an experience and a tenderness which made him mighty to comfort and to save, so we, in our humbler measure, may become comforters to others. When the experience is long past, when the wounds of the heart are healed, then we may find it good to have drank of Christ's cup, and gone down in that baptism with him. We may find ourselves with hearts tenderer to feel, and stronger to sustain others; even as the Apostle says, he "comforteth us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort them that are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."
A peculiar sacredness always attaches to the words of the dying. In that lonely pass between the here and the hereafter the meanest soul becomes in a manner a seer, and a mysterious interest invests it. But the last utterances of great and noble spirits, of minds of vast feeling and depth, are of still deeper significance. The last utterances of great men would form a pathetic collection and a food for deep ponderings. It is no wonder, then, that the traditions of the Christian Church have attached a special value to the last words of Jesus on the cross.
The last words of Socrates, reported by Plato, have had an undying interest. These words were spoken in the bosom of sympathizing friends and in the enjoyment of physical quiet and composure. Death was at hand; butit was a death painless and easy, and undisturbing to the flow of thought or emotion.
The death of Jesus, on the contrary, was death with every aggravation and horror which could make it fearful. There was everything to torture the senses and to obscure the soul. It was a whirl of vulgar obloquy and abuse, confusing to the spirit, and following upon protracted exhaustion from sleeplessness and suffering of various kinds for long hours.
In the case of most human beings we might wish to hide our eyes from the sight of such an agony; we might refuse to listen to what must be the falterings and the weaknesses of a noble spirit overwhelmed and borne down beyond the power of human endurance. But no such danger attends the listening to the last words on Calvary. They have been collected into a rosary embodying the highest Christian experience possible to humanity, the most signal victory of love over pain and of good over evil that the world's history presents.
During Passion Week in Rome no services are more impressive than those of the seven "last words," with the hymns, prayers, and exhortations accompanying them. To us the mere quotation of them, unattended by sermon or hymn or prayer, is a litany of awful power. Have we ever pondered these as they were spoken in their order in the words of the simple Gospel narrative?
"And when they came to the place that is called Calvary, there they crucified him and the malefactors, the one on his right hand and the other on his left. Then said Jesus,Father, forgive them; they know not what they do." This is the first word. Against physical violence and pain there is in us all a reaction of the animal nature which expresses itself often in the form of irritation. Thus, in strong, undisciplined natures, the first shock of physical torture brings out a curse, and it is only after aninterval that reason and conscience gain the ascendency and make the needed allowance. In these strange words of Jesus we feel that there is the sharp shock of a new sense of pain, but it wrings from him only prayer. This divine sweetness of love was unvanquished; the habit of tenderness and consideration for the faults of others furnished an instant plea. The poor brutal Roman soldiers—they know not what they do! The foolish multitude who three days before shouted "Hosanna," and now shout "Crucify"—they know not what they do! How strange to the Roman soldiers must those words have sounded, if they understood them! "What manner of man is this?" It is not surprising that tradition numbers these poor soldiers among the earliest converts to Jesus.
The second utterance was on this wise:—
"And the people that stood beholding, and the rulers also with them, derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar; and one of the malefactors railed on him, saying, If thou be the Son of God, save thyself and us. But the other answering, rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing that thou art in the same condemnation?—and we, indeed, justly, for we receive the reward of our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him,Verily, I say unto thee, to-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
"And the people that stood beholding, and the rulers also with them, derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar; and one of the malefactors railed on him, saying, If thou be the Son of God, save thyself and us. But the other answering, rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing that thou art in the same condemnation?—and we, indeed, justly, for we receive the reward of our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him,Verily, I say unto thee, to-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
Still unvanquished by pain, he is even with his last breath pronouncing words of grace and consolation for the guilty and repentant! He is mighty to save even in his humiliation!
The third utterance is recorded by St. John as follows:—
"Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus, therefore, saw his mother standing, andthe disciple whom he loved, he said to his mother,Woman, behold thy son, and to the disciple,Son, behold thy mother."
"Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus, therefore, saw his mother standing, andthe disciple whom he loved, he said to his mother,Woman, behold thy son, and to the disciple,Son, behold thy mother."
Thus far, every utterance of Jesus has been one of thoughtful consideration for others, of prayer for his enemies, of grace and pardon to the poor wretch by his side, and of tenderness to his mother and disciple. But in tasting death for every man our Lord was to pass through a deeper experience; he was to know the sufferings of the darkened brain, which, clogged and impeded by the obstructed circulation, no longer afforded a clear medium for divine communion. He was to suffer the eclipse which the animal nature in its dying state can interpose between the soul and God. Three hours we are told had passed, when there was darkness over all the land, like that that was slowly gathering over the head of the suffering Lord. "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying,Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani, which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Those words, from the Psalm of David, come now as the familiar language expressive of that dreadful experience to which the whole world looks as its ransom:—
"After that, Jesus said,I thirst. And one ran and filled a sponge full of vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink. And when he had received the vinegar, he said,It is finished, and he bowed his head."
"After that, Jesus said,I thirst. And one ran and filled a sponge full of vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink. And when he had received the vinegar, he said,It is finished, and he bowed his head."
What we read of his last utterance is that "he cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost." This last loud utterance was in the words, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
It is the interpretation that the church has given to these last words that they betokened a sudden flame of joyful perception, such as sometimes lights up the brain at the dying moment, after it has been darkened by the paralysis of death. As he said, "It is finished," light,and joy, and hope, flushed his soul, and with this loud cry of victory and joy, it departed like a ray of heavenly light to the bosom of the Father.
Such were the seven "last utterances" of Jesus—and when can we hope to attain to what they teach? When shallwebe so grounded in Love that no tumult or jar of outward forces, no insults, no physical weariness, exhaustion, or shock of physical pain, shall have power to absorb us in selfishness, or make us forgetful of others? When shall pity and prayer be the only spontaneous movement of our hearts when most hurt and injured—pierced in the tenderest nerve? When shall thoughtfulness for others, and divine pity for degraded natures, be the immovable habit of our souls? How little ofselfand its sufferings in these last words; how much of pity and love—the pity and love of a God!
Could we but learn life's lessons by them, then will come at last to us the final hour, when,ourtrial being completed, we shall say "It is finished," and pass like him to the bosom of the Father.
What is the darkest hour to us when our friends die? Not the dying hour; for then love has some last act, some last word to receive, some comfort to give, some service to render, that diverts from the bitterness of pain. Not even when the eyes are closed forever, and the face is fixed in marble stillness; for still we gather at the side of the cold clay and feel as if there were something left us of our love. But when we have carried our dear ones to the grave, andseen the doors of the sepulchre shut between them and us, and come back to the house where they are no more—where they never more may be—thenis indeed the darkest hour.
There is a very touching picture by Delaroche entitled "The Return from the Cross," in which the mother of Jesus, leaning on the arm of the beloved John, is seen just entering a lowly dwelling. A few faithful friends, men and women, are with them; they have seen him die—seen him laid in the sepulchre and a great stone rolled against the door; and now they are come to their desolate home to think it all over, and to weep.
Do we ask, Why did they not remember the words of Jesus, that he should rise again? Ah! because they had just such hearts as we have, and their faith was overpowered by sight just as ours is.
They may have thought they believed that they should see their Lord risen from the dead; but at the sight of the death agonies, and the lifeless form, and the dark, cold stone of the sepulchre, all this poor faith died in darkness. It was like carrying a taper out into a tempest. And we, when we lay our dear ones in the grave, say in solemn words that we do it "in sure and certain hope of a blessed and glorious resurrection," when what is sown in weakness shall be raised in power, what is sown in dishonor shall be raised in glory. We say it, and we think we believe it; but does it really then cheer us? Does it dry our tears? Does it make the return to our desolated home any less dreadful?
Still we remember the death-bed, the pains, the dying eyes, the weakness, the sinking—we are overwhelmed by sorrow, and our souls ache as with a wound. Our hearts throb and yearn towards the form we can no longer see or embrace, as if the loved one were a portion of our own selves that had been violently torn away, leaving us faintingand bleeding to death. All this—more than all this—was in the sorrow of the home of Mary and John that darkest of all nights.
He they mourned was not merely friend, but Lord and Leader, the Hope of Israel; the hope of the world; and God had let him suffer and die thus!
It was true that Jesus had made special efforts to provide against the sinking of this hour. He warned his friends of it beforehand. He admitted four of his chosen disciples upon the Mount of Transfiguration to look into the heavenly world and see him in glory and hear him speaking with Moses and Elijah of his coming death. All this was given that their faith might not fail. Then, just before his death, at the grave of Lazarus, he declared himself the Resurrection and the Life, and showed them in the restored form of a well-known friend what he meant by rising from the dead—for it is said, "They questioned among themselves what the rising from the dead should mean."
But all appeared to be gone now. Love still kept watch. Spices were prepared to embalm the precious form with no hope, apparently, of its resurrection. It had faded out from their minds as it seems to fade out of the minds of us Christians when we bewail our dead and speak of them as "lost." Their Jesus was to them dead and gone; and why this thing was permitted was a dark, insoluble mystery. "We trusted that it had been he that should have redeemed Israel," said the two disciples, sadly walking on the way to Emmaus. "We trusted!" All in the past tense. Not a word of any hope or faith in the resurrection! And yet their Lord and Master was even at that moment walking with them and comforting their hearts.
Surely, in this respect, we modern Christians too often tread in the footsteps of the saints and suffer as they did.But our Lord knows our weakness; he knows the physical faintness which comes from long watching, the obscuration of mind which comes from sorrow, and he is at hand to comfort us in our blind weeping. Mary Magdalene knew him not, because her eyes were full of tears, till his well-known voice called her name. The mourning disciples as they walked to Emmaus knew not that Jesus was walking by them. And so, ever since, to weary hearts and lonely homes the comforting Christ still comes invisibly, with sweetness and rest, if only we of little faith would remember his promises and recognize his presence. Still now, as he first announced himself, he comes "to heal the broken-hearted," and is beside them ever in the darkest and most dreadful hour of their afflictions.
There is something wonderfully poetic in the simple history given by the different Evangelists of the resurrection of our Lord. It is like a calm, serene, dewy morning, after a night of thunder and tempest. One of the most beautiful features in the narrative is the presence of those godlike forms of our angel brethren. How can it be possible that critics with human hearts have torn and mangled this sacred picture for the purpose of effacing these celestial forms—so beautiful, so glorious! Is it superstition to believe that there are higher forms of life, intellect, and energy than those of earth; that there are races of superior beings between us and the throne of God, as there are gradations below us of less and lessening power down to the half-vegetable zoöphytes? These angels, withtheir power, their purity, their unfading youth, their tender sympathy for man, are a radiant celestial possibility which every heart must long to claim as not only probable but certain.
The history of our Lord from first to last is fragrant with the sympathy and musical with the presence of these shining ones. They announced his coming to the Blessed among Women. They filled the air with songs and rejoicings at the hour of his birth. They ministered to him during his temptations in the wilderness. When repentant sinners thronged about him and Scribes and Pharisees sneered, it was to the sympathy of these invisible ones that he turned, as those whose hearts thrilled with joy over the repenting sinner. In the last mysterious agony at Gethsemane it was an angel that appeared and strengthened him. And now with what godlike energy do they hasten upon their mission to attend their king's awaking!
"And, behold, there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and rolled back the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment was white as snow, and for fear of him the keepers did shake and became as dead men."
"And, behold, there was a great earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and rolled back the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment was white as snow, and for fear of him the keepers did shake and became as dead men."
In another Evangelist we have a scene that preceded this. These devoted women, in whose hearts love outlived both faith and hope, rose while it was yet dark, and set out with their spices and perfumes to go and pay their last tribute of affection and reverence to the dead.
They were under fear of persecution and death; they knew the grave was sealed and watched by those who had slain their Lord, but still they determined to go. There was the inconsiderate hardihood of love in their undertaking, and the artless helplessness of their inquiry, "Who will roll away the stone from the door?" shows the desperation of their enterprise. Yet they could not butbelieve that by prayers or tears or offered payment—in some way—that stone should be rolled away.
Arrived on the spot, they saw that the sepulchre was open and empty, and Mary Magdalene, with the impulsive haste and earnestness which marks her character, ran back to the house of John, where were the mother of Jesus, and Peter, and astonished them with the tidings. "They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him."
Nothing is said of the Mother in this scene. Probably she was utterly worn out and exhausted by the dreadful scenes of the day before, and incapable of further exertion. But Peter and John started immediately for the sepulchre. Meanwhile, the two other women went into the sepulchre and stood there perplexed, till suddenly they saw a vision of celestial forms, radiant in immortal youth and clothed in white. One said:—
"Be not afraid. I know ye seek Jesus of Nazareth that was crucified. Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen as he said. Behold where they laid him. Remember how he spake unto you of this when he was in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again."
"Be not afraid. I know ye seek Jesus of Nazareth that was crucified. Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen as he said. Behold where they laid him. Remember how he spake unto you of this when he was in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again."
And they remembered his words.
Furthermore, the friendly spirit bids them to go and tell the disciples and Peter that their Master is risen from the dead, and is going before them into Galilee—there shall they see him. And charged with this message the women had fled from the sepulchre just as Peter and John came up.
The delicacies of character are strikingly shown in the brief record. John outruns Peter, stoops down and looks into the sepulchre; but that species of reticence which always appears in him controls him here—he hesitates to enter the sacred place. Now, however, comes Peter, impetuous,ardent, determined, and passes right into the tomb.
There is a touch of homelike minuteness in the description of the grave as they found it—no discovery of haste, no sign of confusion, but all in order: the linen grave-clothes lying in one place; the napkin that was about his head not lying with them, but folded together in a place by itself; indicating the perfect calmness and composure with which their Lord had risen—transported with no rapture or surprise, but, in this supreme moment, maintaining the same tranquillity which had ever characterized him.
It is said they saw and believed, though as yet they did not fully understand the saying that he must rise from the dead; and they left the place and ran with the news to the disciples.
But Mary still lingers weeping by the empty tomb—type of too many of us, who forget that our beloved ones have arisen. Through her tears she sees the pitying angels, who ask her as they might often ask us, "Why weepest thou?" She tells her sorrowful story—they have taken away her Lord and she knows not where they have laid him; and yet at this moment Jesus is standing by her, and one word from his voice changes all.
It is not general truth or general belief that our souls need in their anguish; it is one word from Christ to us, it is his voice calling us by name, that makes the darkness light.
We mark throughout this story the sympathetic touches of interest in the angels. They had heard and remembered what Christ said in Galilee, though his people had forgotten it. They had had sympathy for the repentant weeping of Peter, and sent a special message of comfort to him. These elder brethren of the household seem in all things most thoughtful and careful of human feelings;they breathe around us the spirit of that world where an unloving word or harsh judgment is an impossible conception.
The earlier Christian tradition speaks of our Lord's first visit to his mother. It may be that in that space of time while Peter and John were running to the sepulchre Jesus himself chose to draw near to his mother. To her he gave one of his last dying words, and we cannot but believe that one of his earliest risen messages of hope and blessing was for her. But over an interview so peculiar and so blessed the sacred narrative has deemed it wise to leave the veil of silence.
The time after our Lord's resurrection is one full of mysteries. But few things are told us of that life which he lived on earth. He no longer walked the ways of men as before—no longer lived with his disciples, but only appeared to them from time to time, as he saw that they needed comfort, counsel, or rebuke. We have the beautiful story of the walk to Emmaus. We have accounts of meetings of the disciples with closed doors, for fear of the Jews, when Jesus suddenly appeared in the midst of them, saying, "Peace be unto you!" and showing to them his hands and his side; and it is added, "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord."
We have an account of how he suddenly appeared to them by the Lake of Genesareth, when they had been vainly toiling all night—how he stood on the shore in the dim gray of morning and said, "Children, have ye any meat?" They answered him "No;" and he said, "Cast the net on the right hand and ye shall find." And then John whispers to Peter, "It is the Lord!" and Peter, impetuous to the last, casts himself into the water and swims to the shore. They find a fire prepared, a meal ready for them, and Jesus to bless the bread,—and very sweet and lovely was the interview.
How many such visits and interviews there were—when and with whom—we have no means of knowing, though St. John indicates that there were many other things which Jesus said and did worthy of record besides those of which we are told. We learn from St. Paul that he appeared to more than five hundred of his followers at once—a meeting not described by any of the Evangelists.
It is believed by many Christians that Christ is yet coming to reign visibly upon this earth. That Christ should reign in any one spot or city of this earth, as earthly kings reign, with a court and human forms of administration, is suggestive of grave difficulties. The embarrassments in the way of our Centennial Exhibition this year, the fatigue and disturbance and danger to health and life of such crowds coming and going, might suggest what would be the effect on human society if in any one earthly place the universal object of all human desire were located. But it may be possible that the barrier between the spiritual world and ours will be so far removed that the presence of our Lord and his saints may at times be with us, even as Christ was with the disciples in this interval. It may become a lawful subject of desire and prayer and expectation. It may be in that day that in assemblies of his people Jesus will suddenly stand, saying, "Peace be unto you!" Such appearances could take place in all countries and lands, according to human needs, without deranging human society.
But whether visibly or by the manifestation of his Spirit, let us hasten and look forward to that final second coming of our Master, when the kingdoms of this world shall be the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ.
At length the visible and mortal pilgrimage of our Lord was over, and the time come when he must return to his home in heaven, to the glory with the Father which he had before the world was.
We cannot fail to notice the calmness, brevity, and simplicity with which this crowning act of his life is recorded. He had before told his disciples that it was better for them that his visible presence should be withdrawn from them, and that when ascended to the Father he should be with them as an intimate spiritual presence and power. He now speaks to them of a baptism of the Holy Spirit that they should receive after his ascension, and bids them tarry in Jerusalem till they be endued with this power from on high.
Then the narrative says: "And he led them out as far as Bethany; and he lifted up his hands and blessed them, and while he blessed them he was parted from them and taken up into heaven; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were looking steadfastly to heaven, as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel, who said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy from the Mount of Olives, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God."
The forty days that Jesus lingered on earth had, it seems, not been in vain. His mourning flock were consoledand brought to such a point of implicit faith that the final separation was full of joy.
They were at last convinced that it was better for them that he go to the Father—that an ascended Lord, seated at the right hand of power and shedding down spiritual light and joy, was better than any earthly presence, however dear. Christ, as a living power of inspiration in the soul, was henceforth to be nearer, dearer, more inseparable, more consoling and helpful than the man of Nazareth had ever been.
Let us all with one heart unite in the beautiful prayer of the church for this day: "O God, the King of Glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy Kingdom in Heaven, we beseech thee leave us not comfortless; but send to us thy Holy Ghost to comfort and exalt us to that same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before us, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen."
When our Saviour was to go forth on his great mission he spent forty days in prayer; and so now his little church were to spend forty days of waiting and devotion till they should receive the gift from on high. What that gift was we can see in their history. How dark, how confused, how unspiritual their views, how low their faith, how easily upset by the storms of persecution! But when the divine influence came upon them, what a change! What clearness, what insight, what courage, what power! Whenbrought before kings and rulers they bore joyous testimony; when beaten ignominiously they went out rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his sake.
Do not all ministers of Christ, all Christians to whose keeping his honor and cause is confided, need such a baptism as this, such a new birth in spiritual things? For the gift came not merely on the twelve Apostles, but on the whole company of believers, both men and women. We read the names of the twelve, and then are told that "these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brethren,"—a company of a hundred and twenty persons.
They were united day after day in prayer—their whole souls, with one accord, were lifted heavenward; all earthly scenes and interests were put aside, and the attitude of their minds was one of ardent desire and expectancy.
It was to souls so raised, so enkindled, that at last the glorious gift came—the spiritual power that made every Christian man and woman among them an inspired and convincing witness for Christ. The world witnessed that day a new sight—an invisible spiritual power, before which thousands bowed at the name of that Jesus whom but a few weeks before they had seen crucified. And why have we not such a baptism and such a power? Is our faith what it should be,—our zeal, our devotion? If all Christians were like us, would the world ever be converted to God? Is there a gift of spiritual power and constancy of faith to be had in answer to fervent prayer? and should we not seek it as they did? Of late there have been in Europe and in this country large conventions of Christians of all names and denominations to pray and seek for this gift of the Holy Spirit, to enable them to witness for Christ as these witnessed; it is a most joyfulsign of our times. Let us hope that such prayers may be answered in bringing back to the modern church something of the fervor, the simplicity, the entire devotion that characterized these first Christians. It is not by arguing with skeptics, but by a divine and holy life, that Christians are to convince the world of the truth of our religion. It is "Christ in us, the hope of glory," that is to be the power that shall convert the world.