From whom do these hireling shepherds expect their wages? I do not think it signifies much whether they expect them from man or from God,—in this world or in another. The temper is the same; the result which our Lord prophesies must be the same. For he who does his work in hope of getting a reward hereafter for what he has done, will, in general, regard God as an uncertain, capricious Being, whom it is very hard to please, who may punish as well as reward. Therefore he will pause before he will risk death for the sake of his work. Death may bring him into the presence of the Being whom he dreads. Death may surprise him before he has done all that he ought to have done. If there is nothing better in us than this expectation, we shall never throw away ourselves as soldiers do on the battle-field; we shall, perhaps, give ourselves credit for being better and holier than they are, because we do not.
But are we not to serve the sheep from a sense of duty to God? Are we only to serve them from certain feelings of affection for them? Let us hear what our Lord tells us of Himself, then we shall know better what we are to be.
'I am the good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.'
There are heights and depths in these verses which no man may look into; but the principle which is declared in them is needful for the daily practice of life, profound as it is. Christ declares that He knows His sheep. He opposes this knowledge to the motives and feelings of the hireling. Let us think ofthese.Wecan describe them to you; for, brethren, which of us may not say,—should not say,—in dust and ashes: 'They have been mine. I have felt cold and estranged from those I was seeking to guide; out of communion with their fears, their sorrows, their doubts, their temptations; ready to reprove the rich for being rich, and the poor for being poor, the tradesman for his basenesses, the lawyer for his; ready to condemn all the sins which I had no mind to commit; but not knowing them individually, not bearing their burdens, not feeling them as my own. And, therefore, when the wolf has come, which is always ready to divide the flock,—to rend them from each other,—to take away the life that should unite them,—I have not been ready to encounter him. How much less should I have been ready if he had come in the form of some terrible persecution, scattering them hither and thither!' We know the hireling's mind all too well; that we do not learn from report. And oh! that we might understand something of that other mind which is opposed to it,—of that which is expressed in the words, 'I know my sheep, and am known of mine!' If you would think rightly of the Son of Man, think of the Person who knows thoroughly everything that each one of you is feeling, and cannot utter to others or to himself,—every temptation from riches, from poverty, from solitude, from society, from gifts of intellect, from the want of them, from the gladness of the spirit, from the barrenness and dreariness of it, from the warmth of affection and from the drying up of affection, from the anguish of doubt and the dulness of indifference, from the whirlwind of passion and the calm which succeeds it, from the vile thoughts which spring out of fleshly appetites and indulgences, from the darker, more terrible, suggestions which are presented to the inner will. Believe that He knows all these, that He knowsyou. And then believe this also, that all He knows is through intense, inmost sympathy, not with the evil that is assaulting you, but with you who are assaulted by it. Believe that knowledge, in this the Scriptural sense of it,—the human as well as the divine sense of it,—is absolutely inseparable from sympathy.
But it is added, and 'am known of mine.' I am sure we should fix our minds upon those words which express His knowledge before we come to these, else they will either drive us to despair, or lead us to great presumption. When we have done this, we may say that the highest knowledge of Christ which any, the holiest, man, has attained,—that which we attribute to an à Kempis or to a Leighton,—is what is meant for the sheep of Christ,—their proper characteristic. But having said this, we should also say that every apprehension, which any man struggling with ever so much of evil, ever so much overcome by it, has of a higher and better life, of a Divine Teacher and Reprover, is part of this knowledge,—is in kind like theirs. We should say that to be absolutely without this knowledge is a dreadful possibility, which is threatening every one of us,—which those who are most occupied with divine mysteries must often feel to be near to themselves—but which is a reprobate condition, one into which we have no right to suppose that any person has sunk, so long as he has any perception of that which is good and true,—any, the faintest, desire to lay hold of it. Truly, the voice of him who was a liar and murderer from the beginning is speaking to us and in us all,—is tempting us all down into death. But the voice of the true Shepherd is also speaking to us, inviting us, claiming us as His sheep. And there is not one who has not at times heard that voice,—who has not been sure that he had a right to follow it, and that no man or devil had a right to say, 'Thou art not His; thou hast not a claim on Him; and He does not desire thee to follow Him.'
Brethren, if shepherds and sheep made more of an effort to understand each other,—if the shepherds were more sure that they could enter into all that is drawing the sheep astray, because the same evil is in themselves,—if the sheep thought that they might give the shepherds credit for knowing all that is worst in them, not as judges, but as fellow-sinners and fellow-sufferers,—we should each and all of us have more communion with the Chief Shepherd. Those who guide would be driven, by the sense of their own ignorance and coldness, to seek for light and warmth from Him; those who are guided would feel that the pastor on earth did not intercept their communication with the heavenly Pastor, but existed to show them what He is, and how near He is to them. All has gone wrong in ourselves from our losing this fellowship with each other,—from our forgetting that the Highest of all was the lowest of all,—that He proved His right to rule us by becoming one of us, and one with us.
And yet there is a deeper error still at the root of our selfishness and want of sympathy. We do not confess the ground of Christ's own sympathy, of His own sacrifice. He declares to us here that His knowledge of the sheep, and the knowledge which the sheep have of Him, rests upon the Father's knowledge of Him and His knowledge of the Father. He has been telling us the same thing in previous discourses. This union of the Father with the Son,—this dependence of the Son upon the Father,—has been the mystery which the whole Gospel has been discovering to us. Those words, in which He tells us that this relation is at the basis of our relation to Him and to each other,—of all our social and spiritual sympathies,—do but carry us one step further in the revelation. Those words, in which He tells us that He lays down His life for the sheep, because He is one with His Father, do but bring out more fully that love of the Father, of which His life and death were testimonies; a love to which He yielded Himself in simple obedience, when He gave the greatest proof He could give of love to the sheep.
This is the answer to the question which was asked before, whether duty to God is not as good and powerful a motive as love to man? Yes, brethren, a more powerful motive, a deeper and safer ground to stand upon, if we accept what our Lord says here. He boasts of no love to man as dwelling in Himself,—it is all derived from His Father. He merely submits to His will, merely fulfils it. And because that will is a will of absolute love, the mere submission to it,—the mere consenting that it should be accomplished upon Him and in Him,—involved the most perfect love to men,—the most entire communion with them,—the dying for them. He says this expressly in the 17th and 18th verses, though there is one interposed between them and that which I last quoted, which it would be shameful indeed to pass over. 'And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.'
Our translators have carelessly substitutedfoldforflockin the last clause of the first of these verses. But most readers, I think, have of themselves restored the true reading, and perceived that the Gentiles were not to be brought into the Jewish fold, but to form one flock with the Jews after the temporary enclosure of their fold had been broken down. Perhaps they have been more puzzled to understand why what we describe as the calling in of the Gentiles should be spoken of in connexion with Christ's laying down His life. The second, modern theology represents as an event necessary for the salvation of individual men; the first, as an event connected with the outward economy of the world. And so, modern theology is out of harmony with the language of the Scriptures to which it appeals. For that represents the death of Christ as the uniting power which breaks down the barrier between man and man,—as the deliverance of each man from the selfishness which sets him apart from his fellows, and apart from His Father in heaven. If it is this, it is surely nothing strange to speak of the union of the two different classes into which the world was divided as the mighty effect of the death of Christ. If it is this, the calling in of the Gentiles belongs not to outward history, but to the most inward and spiritual part of God's dispensation. The recognition of Christ's other sheep as His sheep,—the acknowledgment of the heathen as having been always His, no less than those who had been called out to be a blessing to all the families of the earth,—was the mightiest witness that the Brother and Lord of man had met the wolf who was destroying the fold, had redeemed all from death by sharing their death.
It was the witness, too, of that other profound truth which the 17th verse announces, that there was a Man in whom the Father was perfectly satisfied, and that the ground of His satisfaction was that this Man entirely loved men—entirely gave Himself up for men. He could be satisfied with nothing less than this; for nothing less than this was the expression of His own mind and will. In no act of less love than this could His love declare itself. The thought is so wonderful, the mystery is so deep, that men have shrunk from it as incredible, and have invented any reason to account for Christ's death but that which He gives Himself. That an entirely voluntary act should be yet the fulfilment of a commandment,—that the highest power of giving away life and taking it should be realized in the most perfect obedience; this idea clashes so much with our natural pride and self-glorification, that we would rather think Christ died because He wasnotone with the Father,—that it was not the Father's love that was satisfied, but His wrath and fury,—than accept a statement which shows us that His thoughts are not as our thoughts or His ways as our ways; that He is not made after our image, though He would have us conformed to His. But seeing that all our morality, all our relations to one another, depend upon the question, what He is and what He has made us to be, we must ask for strength to cast away the schemes and theories of man's devising, and to receive simply, as little children, the teaching of Him who is the brightness of the Father's glory, our Brother and our Judge.
'There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye Him? Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?'
I do not know whether the Jews who held these different opinions were the Pharisees to whom He originally spoke, or whether His sayings were reported to those who were gathered at the feast of Dedication. The opinions themselves are exactly what one would expect that such sayings would call forth. 'How can you listen to a madman, a demoniac, who says that He shall lay down His life and take it again,—who denounces our teachers, and calls Himself the good Shepherd?' This is the language of the respectable citizen of Jerusalem, the representative of the feeling of the Jewish religious world. 'But do we not want a Shepherd who shall guide us to something better? Are we satisfied with our present state? May not He who can give sight to the blind be the Light of men, as He says that He is?' These would be the cautious suggestions of those in whom some cravings had been awakened, which the teachers of the day could not stifle.
We may suppose that the former party would press this argument upon the others; 'But if He is the Christ, why has He not courage to call Himself bythatname? Why does He adopt these phrases, "Shepherd," "Light of the world," "Son of Man," which we do not understand, instead of that with which we are familiar, the purport of which we know?' Of some such suggestion the question in the following verses may have been the fruit: 'And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about Him, and said unto Him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.' The demand seemed most reasonable, 'Tell us plainly.' What an honest sound there is in those words! What can be better than plain speaking? Why should He who denounced all lies have shrunk from it? The question is not a new one. To have said, 'I am the Christ,' would have been to deceive them, unless He showed them what the Christ was, unless He made them understand that He was in nearly all respects unlike the Christ they had imagined for themselves. 'May we not then, after His example, avoid direct answers? May we not use expressions which people call ambiguous?' Yes, if the answers we give are more perilous to ourselves than those we avoid, as His were; if the expressions that arecalledambiguous bring the hearers more face to face with facts, than those which are called straight. This is our Lord's example. Let all who dare follow it.
'Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one.'
He had told them that He had come from the Father; He had testified by acts what His Father was. He had shown them that the Father was working for them on common days and Sabbath-days to bless them. This act had begotten no faith in them; would the words, 'I am the Christ,' beget faith in them? Neither words nor acts, so long as they were not seeking as sheep for the true Shepherd. He had said to them before, that instead of looking for a shepherd who should point the way to them and the humblest Israelite,—who should fold them together,—they were aspiring to be independent shepherds; they were refusing to enter by the same door as the sheep. Those who were sheep,—those who needed a shepherd,—would own His voice. They did not want Him to tell them that He was the Christ. A sure and divine instinct would tell them, that He who gave up Himself, He who entered into their death, must be the guide they were created to follow,—that there could be no other. And He would justify their confidence. They were longing for life,—for the life of spirits,—for the life of God; nothing less would satisfy them. He would give them that life,—that eternal life of love, in which He had dwelt with the Father. They were surrounded by enemies who were seeking to rob them of life, to draw them into death. He was stronger than these enemies. They should not perish; neither man nor devil should take them out of His hands. The eternal will which He came to fulfil was on their side.The Father who gave them to Him was greater than all.Those who were seeking to separate them from their Lord and Shepherd were at war with this Father; for He had owned them, they were His.
To this mighty declaration all His discourse concerning the sheep and the shepherd has been tending; but at the ground of it lies a mightier still: 'I and my Father are one.' All that He has been teaching is without foundation, if it has not this foundation. The unity of the Father and the Son is the only ground of the unity between the shepherd and the sheep; undermine one, and you undermine both. And when I say this, I mean you undermine all unity among men, all the order and principles of human society. For if these do not rest upon certain temporary conventions; if they have not been devised to facilitate the exchange of commodities, and the operations of the money market; if there is not a lie at the root of all fellowship and all government, which will be detected one day, and which popular rage or the swords of armed men will cut in pieces;—we must recognise, at last, the spiritual constitution of men in one Head and Shepherd, who rules those wills which every other power has failed and shall fail to rule. We must recognise it. The existence of a Christendom either meansthis,—either affirms that such a constitution is, and that national unity and family unity imply it, and depend upon it;—or it means nothing, and will dissolve into a collection of sects and parties, which will become so intolerable to men, and so hateful to God, that He will sweep them from His earth. Do you think sects would last now for an hour, if there was not in the heart of each of them a witness for a fellowship, which combinations and shibboleths did not create, and which, thanks be to God, they cannot destroy? The true Shepherd makes His voice to be heard, through all the noise and clatter of earthly shepherds; the sheep hear that voice, and know that it is calling them to follow Him into a common fold where all may rest and dwell together. And when once they understand that still deeper message which He is uttering here, and which the old creeds of Christendom are repeating to us, 'I and my Father are one;' whenever they understand that the unity of the Church and the unity of mankind depends on this eternal distinction and unity in God Himself, and not upon the authority or decrees of any mortal pastor, the sects will crumble to pieces, and there will be, in very deed, 'one flock and one Shepherd.'
But, that we may enter thoroughly and deeply into the meaning of these words, we should meditate earnestly upon those which followed them, those especially in which our Lord justified what the Jews declared to be blasphemy. 'Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered Him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in Him.'
We are eager to quote these words of Jesus, as a proof that He is God. I fear that, very often, we only mean,that He took to Himself the name of God. We associate with that name a certain idea of power and absoluteness; we believe that He vindicated that power and absoluteness to Himself. No, brethren. He came—if we may believe His own words—to show us what God is; to deliver us from our crude, earthly, dark notions of Him; to prevent us from identifying His nature with mere power and sovereignty, as the heathens did, as the Jews in that day were doing. He came to show us the Father. Instead, therefore, of eagerly grasping at the divine name, and appropriating it to Himself, the method which He takes of proving His unity with the Father is, to humble Himself, to identify Himself with men, to refuse to be separate from them. 'You charge me with calling myself God. "But did not he call them gods, to whom the word of God came?"' We are startled at the defence. We ask ourselves whether He was not abandoning the very claim which He had put forward; whether He was not allowing others to share the incommunicable glory with Him? No! but He was showing that a dignity and a glory had been put upon men by the word of God itself, which proved that there must be a Son of Man who was indeed the Son of God.
It was not only heathen sages who had spoken of man's divine faculties, divine origin, divine destiny. The Scriptures had called those whom God had set over men, gods. Psalmists, who were most jealous for the honour of Jehovah, had not feared to use the language. Prophets could not maintain the truth of their own mission—could not declare that the word of God was speaking by them and in them—without falling into it. Therewasthe greatest peril of men becoming Lucifers,—of their setting themselves up in the place of God. It is the very danger of which Christ has been speaking in this discourse,—the temptation into which kings, prophets, priests,—even teachers who pretended to no inspiration, who merely stood on the ground of their traditional greatness, or of men's preference for them,—had fallen. Nor was there any deliverance from such pretensions, and from the robberies and murders which were the consequence of them, unless One came who did not exalt Himself, who did the works of His Father, who simply glorified Him. Such a One could justify all the high words that had ever been spoken of our race, and yet could lay low the pride of those who had aspired to be the lords of it. He could show what the true man is; and, in doing so, could show what the true God is. By putting Himself into the position of the lowest of the sheep, by enduring the death to which each one of the sheep had been subjected, He could prove that the glory of man is to serve; He could show that the true sons of God had been the true servants of men; He could show that the perfect servant of all must betheSon of God. All titles, honours, dignities among men, had derived their virtue and efficacy from Him. Their virtue and efficacy lay in His Sonship. He was content to be a Son, to be nothing else than a Son. So He showed forth His eternal consubstantial union with the Father. If God is merely absolute Power, then all this Christian theology is a dream and a falsehood,—then there is no Son of God or Son of Man, in any real sense of the words. But if God is absolute Love, then He who died for the sheep must be His perfect image and likeness, the 'only-begotten, full of grace and truth;' then to separate Him from the Father, to seek for the Father in any but Him, must lead to the denial of both, ultimately to the glorification of an evil spirit, a being of absolute selfishness, in place of both. From which frightful consummation, brethren, may the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the one God, whose name is Love, preserve us and His whole Church!
[Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday after Trinity, June 15th, 1856.]
St. JohnXI. 25.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
The words, 'I and my Father are one;' 'The Father is in me and I in Him,' which were spoken in the porch of the Temple at the feast of Dedication, had the same effect as the words, 'Before Abraham was, I am,' which were spoken after the feast of Tabernacles. In both cases the Jews sought to take Jesus that they might stone Him; in both Jesus escaped out of their hands. On the last occasion we are told whither He retired: 'He went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized, and there He abode.' The disciples who had been with Him in the crowd of the city found themselves in the lonely place where they had first heard Him proclaimed as the Lamb of God. Since that time there had been a whirl of new thoughts and strange hopes in their minds. The kingdom of God had appeared to be indeed at hand; they had seen their Master exercising the powers of it; they had exercised those powers themselves. Some day His throne would be established; they should sit beside Him. The vision had passed away; they were the companions of a fugitive; they were in the desert where they had first learned, not that they were princes to sit and judge, but sinners wanting a Deliverer.
I cannot doubt that He who was educating them, not only by His speech but by all His acts, had devised this lesson for them, that it was just what they needed at that time. How often do we all need just such a discipline; the return to some old haunt that some past experience has hallowed; the return to that experience which we seem to have left far behind us, that we may compare it with what we have gone through since! How good it would be for us if when circumstances take us back to the past, we believed that the Son of Man had ordered those circumstances, and was Himself with us to draw the blessing out of them!
Others beside the disciples were profiting, the Evangelist tells us, by this choice of a place. 'And many resorted unto Him, and said, John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this Man were true.' They had perhaps contrasted John the preacher in the wilderness, with Jesus who ate with publicans and sinners; John, who said, Repent, with Jesus, who opened the eyes of the blind. Now they were reminded of the likeness between them. Jesus drew them away from earthly things, as John had done. Jesus made them conscious of a light shining into them, as John had done. Only what John had said was true. They needed a baptism of the Spirit, that the baptism for the remission of sins might not be in vain. They needed a Lamb of God and a Son of God, who should do for them what no miracles could do. Was He not here? 'And many believed on Him there.'
I can conceive no diviner introduction than this to the story of the raising of Lazarus. It prepares us to understand that what we are about to hear of, is not one of those signs which Jesus rebuked His countrymen as sinful and adulterous for desiring; not one of those wonders which draw men away from the invisible to the visible,—from the object of faith to an object of sight; but just the reverse of this,—a witness that whatJohn spake of Jesus was true,—a witness that in Him was Life, and that this Life always had been, was then, and always would be, the Life as well as the Light of men. With what care the story is related so that it shall leave this impression on our minds—how all those incidents contribute to it which would have been passed over by a reporter of miracles, nay, which would have been rejected by him as commonplace, and therefore as interfering with his object—I shall hope to point out as we proceed. And I would thankfully acknowledge at the outset, that, on the whole, the mind of Christendom has responded to the intention of the divine narrator; that whatever scholars and divines may have made of the story, the people have apprehended its human and domestic characteristics, and have refused to be cheated of its application to themselves under the pretext that it would serve better as an evidence for Christianity if its meaning were limited to one age. I am still more thankful that the Church, by adopting the words of my text into her Burial Service, has sanctified this rebellion. An attempt, therefore, to discover the exact meaning of the Evangelist will not introduce novelties, but will deepen old faith. And I cannot help feeling that unless we do seek to deepen that faith, unless we are willing to learn again from St. John some of the lessons which we may think we know very perfectly, or have left behind us in our nurseries, we shall find that we have less of belief than many Jews and many heathens had before our Lord came in the flesh.
'Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)' The story of Mary and the alabaster box of ointment has not yet been told by our Evangelist. But he had too distinct and high an object to care for preserving the conventional proprieties of a narrator. He never pretended to be giving those who read him their first information about the events that happened while our Lord was upon earth. Their memories, he knew, were stored with these events. What they wanted was to see further into the meaning of them; to see how they exhibited the life of the Son of Man and the Son of God. He will tell us afterwards what is the context and significance of Mary's act. Here he assumes that it was known at Ephesus,—as it was to be known wherever the Gospel was preached,—and he uses it to identify Lazarus. But how could Lazarus need to be identified? Must not his name and his fame have been spread as widely as his sister's? Was any other more likely to be preserved in the first century, by tradition, if not by record? The answer is contained in the narrative. Lazarus, as a man who had been in a grave and had come forth out of it, might be spoken of then as he is spoken of now. A glorious halo might surround him. It would be shocking to connect him with ordinary feelings and interests. A like halo would encircle her head who had anointed the Lord's body for the burial. Men would refuse to look upon her as one of the common children of earth. It was just this which John dared to do, which it was essential to his purpose that he should do. He would have us know that Mary dwelt in the little town of Bethany; that she had a sister Martha; that Lazarus was her brother. The story is stripped of its fantastical ornaments. The hero and heroine have passed into the brother and sister. If they have to do with an unseen world, it is not with a world of dreams, but of realities; not with a heaven that scorns the earth, but with a heaven that has entered into fellowship with earth.
'Therefore his sisters sent unto Him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.' The man who was healed at the Pool of Bethesda, the blind man who was sent to wash in the Pool of Siloam, were merely suffering Jews; the bread at Capernaum was given to five thousand men gathered indiscriminately; the nobleman of Capernaum seems to have heard for the first time of Jesus; the guests at the marriage-feast may have been His neighbours, or even His kinsmen, but we are not told that they were. This message is the first which directly appeals to the private affection of the Son of Man, which calls Him to help a friend because he is a friend. The words which follow of our Lord and of His Apostle are worthy of all study in reference to this point. 'When Jesus heard that, He said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was.' He had a work to do. This was the first thought of all. The sickness was to glorify God, just as the blindness of the man to whom He restored sight was to glorify God. The Son of God who had been revealed as the Light of the world, was to be revealed as the Restorer of life. Death was not to be conqueror here, any more than darkness there. All other thoughts must give way to this. Yet 'Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus.' The individual sympathy was not crushed by the universal, but grew and expanded in the light and warmth of it. He did respond to the message in His inmost heart. The love which it assumed to be there—the love for that particular man—was there. And in spite of it, yea, because of it, He continued in the desert, and made no sign of moving towards Bethany. These sentences enable us to enter into the Divine humanity of Jesus, as a thousand prelections and discourses would not enable us to enter into it. They do not present to us first the Divine side of His life, and then the human, as if they were opposing aspects of the same Being. They make us feel that the one is the only medium through which we can behold the other.
'Then after that He saith to His disciples, Let us go into Judæa again. His disciples say unto Him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of the world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.' I suppose many persons have asked themselves, 'What does this sentence mean just here? why was it introduced?' I do not know that we, who are living easy and comfortable lives, can quite solve the question. But many a patriot and confessor, who has been concealing himself from the anger of those whom he wished to bless, has, I doubt not, learnt the meaning of the sentence, and has felt the support of it. If he tried to rush forth into danger, merely in obedience to some instinct or passion of his own, he was walking in the night, and was sure to stumble. If he heard a voice in his conscience bidding him go and do some work for God,—go and aid some suffering friend,—he would be walking in a track of light; it signified not what enemies might be awaiting him, what stones might be cast at him, he could move on fearlessly and safely. The sun was in the heavens,—the stones would miss until his hour was come. If it was come, the sooner they struck the better.
'These things said He: and after that He saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said His disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that He had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.' These words, 'Our friend sleepeth,' recal what was said, in the other Gospels, of the daughter of Jairus; and they point onwards to the language of the Epistles to the Thessalonians and to the Corinthians, concerning those that are fallen asleep in Jesus. Our Lord is evidently teaching His disciples a new language; a language drawn from nature and experience; one which had mixed itself with other forms of speech in the dialect of all nations; but yet which was not easy for them to learn, and which we understand very imperfectly yet. It might not help them much then, but it helped them afterwards, that He did not speak merely of a man having fallen asleep, but of 'our friend' sleeping. They might not have seen Lazarus for weeks or months, or heard any tidings of him. All the outward tokens by which the existence of friendship is ascertained, might have ceased. They might never meet again. Would, therefore, the name lose its meaning or its power? What limit would you fix for that meaning or that power? Surely there is something immortal about the name; it prepares us for understanding how thin the thread is which separates death from taking of rest in sleep. The words, 'I go to awake him out of sleep,' could, of course, convey little sense till the event interpreted them. But the expression, 'Nevertheless let us go to him,' must have had a strange sound. 'Go to one who was already dead,—what could that mean? What did it all mean?' Thomas, the greatest doubter among them, assuredly could not tell. But he was willing to die with his Master; and that was the best preparation for understanding whatever He had to teach.
'Then when Jesus came, He found that he had lain in the grave four days already.' The commentator takes this opportunity of saying a word about Eastern customs, and the need of a burial immediately after death. Does he suppose that that necessity makes the story less near and dear to the sorrower of the West? The longer he is permitted to look at a face which appears often as if it had lost its restlessness,—not its beauty or its life,—the more dark and terrible must be the grave which is to hide it from him altogether, the more earnestly he must ask, Can light ever penetrate into that darkness? It is because the story of Lazarus has been believed to meet this question; because it comes into contact with the fact which speaks most directly to the senses and to the imagination of every one of us, that we cling to it when the topics of ordinary consolation are wearisome, unintelligible, even hateful, to us.
By such topics the sisters of Lazarus were tormented; for St. John says,—'Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off: and many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.' They endure the visitation impatiently or patiently, according to their different dispositions. 'Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him: but Mary sat still in the house.' The impulse of the first is to find a Friend to whom she can dare to make complaints, because she trusts Him; the other retreats into herself, and, perhaps, finds that same Friend there, teaching her another kind of lore than that which the well-meaning comforters are pouring into her ear.
'Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.' It is the language of reproach; but it is the kind of reproach which has faith and confidence for the ground of it,—which comes from a longing that the person who is the object of it should clear himself, and prove that he has not failed in the office of friendship, however he may have seemed to do so. And then, as if His face had already answered the uneasy suspicion which her words had expressed—had given her a hope of some unknown, inconceivable blessing—she adds, 'But I know that even now, whatsoever thou shalt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.' The words sound grand and glorious; they were really disappointing. What else she thought He might ask of God she could not say; but it was notthis. She had heard often of a resurrection; the Jews, who had come to Bethany, had, no doubt, been telling her many good discourses of the elders concerning it. Ages hence he would, she thought, awake out of the dust; in the meantime, the light in their house had been quenched; he was gone from them. She said, 'I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.' If He intended to give back Lazarus to her at once, could He not have told her so? Might He not have said, 'In thy special case, for my love to Lazarus and Mary and thee, I am about to break through ordinary laws, and to raise a body out of the grave,—not at the last day, but now.' Why not? Because, if He had said so, He would have contradicted His own words, His own acts, the whole tenor of His life. He did not come into the world to show special favours, but to assert and manifest universal truth. He did not come into the world to break God's laws, but to establish them, and to show forth the will which was at the foundation of them. Therefore, instead of limiting Martha's words about a resurrection in the last day, He expanded her words,—He uttered what was amoregeneral proposition than that one,—not bounded to a certain moment in the future, but extending over the present and the past. The resurrection in the last day,—vague and loose as Martha's thoughts were about it,—was still practically bounded by the feeling which occupied her soul in that hour. 'I know thatmy brothershall rise again,' did not mean very much to her; the rising of any besides her brother meant nothing. But 'I am the resurrection and the life,' were words that applied to herself as much as to Lazarus,—to her sister as much as to either. She could not apprehend them, even in the slightest degree, without feeling that they were spoken ofhumanbeings,—not merely of that being who had been lying in the grave four days. And yet how immeasurably more they met her own case, her own sorrow, than the others! 'I am the resurrection and the life.' 'You have a Friend, an almighty Friend, who restores life, who is the Giver of life. Do not task your poor, feeble, sorrow-stricken fancy to conceive of some distant world-gathering. There may be such a one; but, if you are to know anything of it, know Me first. Trust in an actual person; leave yourself and the world to Him.' And He went on: 'He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.' I do not say that she could understand this, or that we can. But I am sure she did understand that she was meant to believe in Him—to rest in Him; and that this belief and this rest might be exercised, not only by those who could look into His countenance and hear sounds coming from His lips, but by those who were out of sight,—who had passed into the unseen world. The dead might hear His word speaking to them. The dead might believe in Him. The dead might be quickened by that word and that faith. Therefore, when He asked her the question, 'Believest thou this?'—though she could not dare to say, 'I believe it all; I take it in just as Thou hast spoken it,'—she could say, 'Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.' She could trust absolutely, unreservedly in Himself, whatever His language might or might not import.
'And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly,and came to Him.' Martha went into a presence which she felt to be dear, with a confidence that she should be welcome, with a certain sense that she had a right to speak; Mary must wait in silence and awe till she had some intimation that He was seeking for her. This difference of characters is as marked in the nineteenth century as in the first; it affects all the common subordinate relations of life; it reaches to the highest and most divine. Each has its own worth, and its own temptations. We have no business to disparage either; for Christ has imparted both, and has made each a way to Himself.
'Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met Him. The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.'
The good-natured comforters can give their victim no peace,—even the grave is not too sacred a place for their persecutions; her only safety is where her sister had sought it and found it. The words Mary uses are the same as Martha's; they are the simplest expressions of the thought which must have been in both of them,—the thought which each must have understood the other to be vexed with, if nothing was spoken,—the thought which Martha will have been able to utter, and which Mary will probably have kept closed within her till that moment. And is there anything in that thought to make a chasm between the household in Bethany, and any English household in the nineteenth century? Is not the feeling the very same, in the heart of every one who has lost a friend or brother? 'He might have been saved; Christ might have ordered this differently. In this and in that case He did; why not in mine?'
'When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how He loved him! And some of them said, Could not this Man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?' The strength of these words, which has been so great for those who have taken them simply and naturally, has often been diluted. 'What need had He to weep, seeing that He was about to remove the cause for weeping?' But what if that grief of Mary was in kind the grief of every sister that had lost a brother, since death entered into the world,—of every sister who shall lose one, till death be finally swallowed up in victory? What if the grief of those about her, though less earnest, yet was at least a testimony that each of us has a share and a right in that which any other is afflicted with? Would the Son of Man, who had taken man's flesh, who had entered into man's sorrows, sympathise less with her who was beside Him then, because He knew the depth and cause of her grief better than she knew it herself; because He knew that it could not be cured by the smile of a brother, or the pressure of his hand, if that were granted her again; because He knew in Himself the mystery of the death of every man, and was to bear it Himself for every man? Surely it would have been a woful thing for us, and for the world, if He had not groaned in spirit at the sight of that cave, merely because Lazarus was to come out of it; if He had not wept when He saw Mary and the Jews weep, merely because a sudden joy was to succeed their tears! And was it not a cause for groaning, that those who saw how minute, and tender, and personal His affection was for this one man, should take so poor a measure of His love as to suppose that He cared for him, and not for them,—for Mary and Martha, and not for every human sorrower,—that He might from partiality have caused that this man should not have died, but had no power of delivering all from death?
'Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?'
He had said to her, 'Thy brother shall rise again.' He changes the language now, that He may convey a deeper sense. It was God's glory that was to be revealed in that act. Hereafter she would know how much more it concerned her, and her sister, and her brother, that Jesus should manifest that, than that He should have caused her brother not to have gone into the grave, or to come forth from it again.
'Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when He thus had spoken, He cried with aloud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.'
The thanksgiving to His Father for the power which He felt He had been endued with to finish that work, unfolds the mystery of His life; the sense of filial dependence and trust that was at the root of it; the pressure of human misery and death which turned His confidence into cries and groans for deliverance and help; the quickening energy which answered the cry; because, as He tells us so often, He was not doing His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. This time it was needful that the cry should be heard by others. They must be taught that He was not exercising some rare and unwonted privilege to serve a partial end,—that He could bid Lazarus come forth, because He was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, the resurrection and the life.
St. John, who has told us the story with such care and minuteness, does not stop for an instant to comment upon it, or to utter any expressions of astonishment; he merely tells us: 'Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on Him. But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.'
Could he have spoken otherwise, brethren? Did he not wish us to consider this act as the sign of a truth, as the exercise of a power, which circumstances cannot affect, which is proving its vitality from age to age? Why should he comment? Why should he wonder? The commentary was to be in the history of the world; the wonder was to be renewed in the case of every brother, whom Christian hands were to lay in the grave, 'earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' in sure and certain hope that Christ is 'the resurrection and the life, and that whosoever believeth in Him, though he were dead, yet should he live.' When we think of the return of Lazarus to his house at Bethany, it is not with an unmixed delight. We ask whether he could have welcomed the world's confusions which he had escaped? whether the thought must not have haunted him, that after a little while he should be in the same cave again? These are questions which it may be well for us to consider; though, perhaps, they are not different in kind from those which arise when any one who has been on the borders of the unseen world, who has taken leave of kinsfolk and friends, who has had glimpses of another country, suddenly recovers, and has to adapt himself once more—for a time probably with a strange sense of awkwardness and incoherency—to the business and intercourse of the earth. In one case as in the other, I conceive there is but this solution of the difficulty. The man must be glad to be placed where it pleases Christ that he should be placed. He will not certainly be nearer Him by complaining of his destiny, or by not desiring exactly the work which has been given him to do. If he has dreamed of a heaven above where he shall be under some other law than that, or where his will must not be in conformity with that law, the dream will never be realized. So, doubtless, Lazarus was taught by his discipline. And this may have been to him, if he could take it in, a greater comfort than even his appearance again beside the old hearth,—a compensation for all he might suffer then or afterwards,—that through him multitudes unborn were to learn the meaning of their own death, the secret of their own life, and who is the Friend that interprets them both. To each man who has been near the grave, and has come back to ever such commonplace duties, something of the same blessing may be given. He may think of One who hallows the common feast as well as the grave, who binds both worlds together.
To the question—