"Where wast thou, brother, those four days?There lives no record of reply,Which telling us what it is to die,Had surely added praise to praise."
So we think very naturally. And yet, if we reflect, we shall perceive that those four days can only have been a part of the education of Lazarus,—that they cannot have been separate from all his previous and all his later experience.
The first cry of life, when he came out of the womb, as much testified of One in whom is life, who is the Source of life, as the look with which he greeted his sisters or his Lord, when he was commanded to come out of the grave. The opening of every sense to take in the sights and sounds of the world around him,—the opening of every affection which apprehended his human relations,—testified of the same living Word. The revival of past acts and scenes in the memory,—the awakening of the conscience, which bound those acts and scenes to his own individual self,—declared that there is One who not only gives life, but brings it back, who is the resurrection as well as the life. As the years of manhood brought him into converse with beings of his own race, whom he must meet on equal terms, whom he must recognise as having powers, affections, and responsibilities like his own,—as creatures looking before and after like himself,—he had a witness that there must be a common life, a common resurrection. As intercourse with Jesus gradually brought him to the knowledge of One who was a friend, and more than a friend,—a Master to whom he could submit,—an inspirer of strange thoughts,—a deliverer from infinite perplexities,—the discerner of mysteries which eye could not see, or ear hear; there was a more and more direct witness to his heart and reason: 'Thou hast found the Christ. Thou hast found the resurrection and the life.'
When one looks at the subject in this way, I am not sure whether one cares so much to know what passed in those four days. Let death and the grave claim their rights and keep their secrets, as long as they can. They were to assert a higher right than they asserted over this man of Bethany. Within a few days they were to claim dominion over Him who said, 'I am the resurrection and the life;' they were to try whether they could not hold Him as their thrall for ever. If they succeeded, it does not much concern us what has happened elsewhere in the universe; there is one thick impenetrable cloud over it all. If they failed, life must have fuller and more perfect dominion in the unseen region than it has in ours. Nothing which seems to die here can be under the sway of death there. And Christ, by raising one poor man before He was raised Himself, testified that death shall have no power, that the grave shall have no power, to extinguish one faculty of the soul, one sense of the body, in any creature whose nature He has taken.
Brethren, here is the doctrine of the resurrection of the spirit and of the body taught in Christ's own manner, not in words, but in an act. And here, too, is that doctrine of a general resurrection at the last day, which Martha had learnt from the Pharisees,—which, separated from the words, 'I am the resurrection and the life,' is the hardest and most unpractical of all opinions,—which, united to them, as it is in the Burial Service of our Church, is the most consolatory. A particular resurrection for individual men, without a general resurrection of our race, without such a restitution of all things as has been spoken of by prophets since the world began, would be utterly unsatisfactory, because it would not set forth the glory of God and the love of God. The general resurrection in Scripture is described in various forms of speech, all answering to deep human necessities. It is spoken of as a revelation of the Son of God; it is spoken of as a revelation or unveiling of the sons of God in Him; it is spoken of as a gathering together in Him of all things in heaven and all in earth.
I cannot read this story without feeling that, among those things in heaven and earth that are so to be restored, the sympathies and affections of the family are some of the chief. I know not why St. John should have dwelt so much upon the sorrow of the sisters of Lazarus, and upon Christ's feeling for them, if he had not meant us to understand this. Martha, I suppose, thought before she came to Jesus, that her brother would ascend some time or other on angels' wings into a place somewhere above the stars; but that all the threads which, from their childhood upwards, had been winding round them and binding them to each other, should be broken; that the associations of home should cease for ever. I am sure she learnt a different lesson after she had seen her brother again, and had understood the declaration, 'I am the resurrection and the life.' Then she will have known that if, in the resurrection, 'they neither marry nor are given in marriage,'—if no fresh ties are formed like those which bind us together on earth,—yet that the old relationships, the old affections, are to have a new and higher life. What is sown in corruption is raised in incorruption; what is sown in weakness is raised in strength; what is sown a natural relationship is raised a spiritual. But in this case, as in every other, the change does not alter the substance of that which has been, only brings it forth in its might and purity.
Towards this resurrection all creation is groaning and travailing. And that groan which burst from Christ at the grave of Lazarus, was the expression of His sympathy in that groan of His creatures; even as His own travail hour, in the garden, on the cross, in the tomb of Joseph, showed that the path of the Shepherd is the same as that of the sheep, to victory and rest. Why cannot we enter into His sufferings? why cannot we look forward hopefully to His triumph? There are some fearful words in the text I have taken to-day—fearful in the midst of all their consolation—which explain the secret. It is said, 'He thatBELIEVETHin me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.' Do we not feel sometimes as if all power of believing in anything that is great and noble were departing from us? Do we not feel as if to believe in Him who is goodness and truth, were the hardest effort of all? Does it not appear as if a second death were coming upon us,—a death of all energy, of all trust, of all power to look beyond ourselves? Oh, if this numbness and coldness have overtaken us, or should overtake us,—if we should be tempted to sit down in it and sink to sleep,—let the cry which awakened Lazarus awake us. Let us be sure that He who is the resurrection and the life is saying to each of us, however deep the cave in which he is buried, 'Come forth!' however stifling the grave-clothes with which he is bound, 'Loose him, and let him go!'
[Lincoln's Inn, 5th Sunday after Trinity, June 22, 1856.]
St. JohnXI. 49, 50.
And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
We naturally ask ourselves why Caiaphas should have taken this tone in speaking to his colleagues in the Sanhedrim? What did he wish them to do which they had not shown themselves ready to do? Had they not sent officers to take Jesus? Had they not encouraged the impulse of some amongst His hearers to stone him, if they had not issued a formal decree that He should be stoned? The explanation lies, I think, in the fact that Caiaphas was a Sadducee. It might be straining the words, 'Then gathered the chief priestsANDthe Pharisees a council,' to conclude from them that the priests in general were not Pharisees. But there are other good reasons for thinking that the accession of Caiaphas to the office of High Priest marks the commencement of a Sadducean ascendency. Now, the views of these schools respecting Jesus, however they might ultimately coincide, must have been determined by their other opinions. The Sadducees will have been much more disposed to regard Him as a fanatic than as a blasphemer; they will have dreaded His doctrine much less than the belief of His kingship among the multitude; consequently, they may have thought the experiment of putting Him to death by stoning very unwise. It was making a trial of their native jurisdiction which was, at least, hazardous; it might lead both to a tumult among their countrymen, and to interference from their masters. In the council which was held after the raising of Lazarus, it is evident that the indignation against Jesus for 'making Himself equal with God,'—even the indignation at a Galilæan for pretending to be a prophet—has been merged in the fear, lest if 'they let Him alone, the Romans should destroy both their place and nation.' Caiaphas takes advantage of the feeling, by whomsoever it may have been expressed, to state and defend his own policy. 'Ye know nothing at all'—'you who are trying to punish Him by your own laws. You do not consider that if we are in the danger you apprehend, "it is expedient that one man should die for the people:" that we should give Him up to the Romans, as a rebel against them; gulping down our scruples about our dignity and our reluctance to ask aid from the Cæsar for crushing an enemy, rather than that "the whole nation" should "perish," through our obstinacy in maintaining an ancient and doubtful privilege.'
This was genuine Sadducean language,—precisely what one would expect to come from such a mouth. But it was also triumphant language. The Pharisee must yield to it, or else forego the gratification of his own chief desire. He might very much have preferred to assert Jewish law. He might have been willing to run some risk in enforcing it. To do otherwise was to stoop to the maxims of a sect which he detested. But a compromise was the only possible course. By adopting it, he could ensure a general agreement among the rulers in bringing about the death of Jesus at the next Passover. And there would be some compensation. The death would be more ignominious than the national customs would have made it. We are told, therefore, that 'from that day forth they took counsel to put Him to death.' There was now no division, either about the end or the means. Pilate was to be the judge; the death they were to aim at was the death of the Cross.
Such, I suppose, was what Caiaphas himself understood by the words, 'It is expedient for us that one man should die for the nation, and that the whole nation perish not.' A narrow meaning enough,—one in which there was nothing of patriotism, in the vulgarest sense of that word. Caiaphas would save his nation by binding the chains of foreign domination more strictly upon it; he would put on a new badge of slavery, that it might be permitted to exist. But then, as now, men utter words—made, as they think, to fit an occasion—intended to express only some paltry device of their minds—which are pregnant with a signification that ages unborn will confess and wonder at. St. John does not say to his Ephesian readers or to us,—'Wecan see another force in the words of the High Priest than that which he put on them;wecan translate them in our way and to our use.' But he says, 'Therewasthat force in them always.' Caiaphas had not the power to contract his speech to the dimensions of his wit. 'Being high priest that year, he prophesied.' The grandeur of the office, which had witnessed the relation of God to His people for fourteen hundred years, manifested itself through the poor creature, who could look no further than the expediency of the moment; to whom the past and the future were as nothing. He who believed in no angel or spirit was compelled to be the spokesman of the Divine Word, even when he was plotting His death. Strange and awful reflection! And yet so it must be,—so experience shows us continually that it is. Our words are not our own,—we are not lords over them, whatever we may think. Is it not well for us to ask who is Lord over them; how such terrible instruments—so immeasurably more terrible than swords or rifles—may be used lawfully, for the protection, and not the destruction, of our brethren; how we may be the willing, and not merely, like Caiaphas, the unconscious, proclaimers of a Divine purpose; how we may execute it by obeying it, not by the crimes which strive, vainly, to defeat it?
Caiaphas prophesied, says St. John, that 'Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also He should gather together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad.' It is not chiefly the form of the High Priest's sentence which suggests this thought to him; he does not play upon the words of it. The proposition, that Jesus should not be tried for violating Jewish law, but should be given up as a treasonable subject of Rome, involved the breaking down of barriers between the nations. The cross was emphatically a message to mankind,—to all tribes and races within the circle of the empire that had appointed this punishment for rebels and slaves. It is a thought which possessed the minds of all the apostles,—of none more than St. John. The cross was to do what the eagle had tried to do. It was to bind men in one society. I shall not dwell upon the words that announce that doctrine here, because it forms the most prominent subject in the following chapter of which I am going to speak. We shall find, I think, that every discourse and narrative in it is penetrated with the idea of crucifixion. So it becomes the suitable close to the records of our Lord's public ministry,—the right preface to those private interviews of which St. John is the only historian.
We are now arrived at the point in which the narratives of the different Evangelists coincide. All the others lead us from Galilee to Jerusalem at this Passover. St. John, who has taken us so often to Jerusalem at other feasts before, yet prepares us, by many significant intimations, to feel the special grandeur of the present.
'Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with His disciples. And the Jews' passover was nigh at hand; and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that He will not come to the feast? Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where He were, he should shew it, that they might take Him.'
He had walked the twelve hours of the day, and no stone had reached Him. But the night was closing in. The Jews were about to take the great step of confessing Cæsar to be the only king; thereforetheKing must prepare to be the Sacrifice.
The story which follows connects the two characters together:—'Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper;and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with Him.'
I spoke, last Sunday, of the domestic tone which pervades the history of the resurrection of Lazarus; how St. John refused to regard death except as the breaking of a family bond—resurrection except as the renewal of it. The same tone is preserved here. The family feast is the resurrection feast; it is the union of the several limbs of a body which had been torn asunder. There is no change of relation or of sympathy; the old ways of expressing it are retained. Only service has been ennobled. He who sits at meat, and she who serves, are brother and sister. For there is a Guest at the table whose life has been a service, and yet whose acts are all kingly. The awe of Lazarus, who has known the secrets of the grave, does not interrupt fellowship; for He must know them better, and He is with them, sharing in their gladness. 'And what is He? Is He only the elder brother of one household? May He not be the elder brother of all households? Has He only done acts of mysterious grace and power for us? May He not be the Ruler everywhere—over the whole earth, and over those who are in the region from which Lazarus has come back?'
Such thoughts may have been in the minds of both sisters. Martha cannot express them save by fulfilling her simple household duties; they are done for Him. He can translate them into heavenly ministries. Mary must find some other way to utter what is working in her heart,—what no words can give expression to. 'Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Thensaith one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray Him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?' Mary was probably puzzled by this question. She could not the least have defended her act, or even have explained what she meant by it. She had heard of the anointing of kings, and of the anointing in tombs. The thought of royalty and of burial would become associated in her mind. But why she should have done this thing,—why she had not reserved the money for those who needed it,—she could not have told. Judas may have seemed to her a prudent and religious man for rebuking her. And the other Evangelists say that he was not alone in the complaint. The Apostles generally seem to have agreed in it, and felt its reasonableness.
Later knowledge led St. John to say, 'This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.' But at the time he may have shared the feeling of the others. The covetousness of the betrayer may have been quite concealed by his judicious charity; Mary's act may have been measured by his rules. If it were so, John and his fellows showed that there was in them that mind which was rapidly becoming the only mind in Judas. Itmightbecome victorious in them; itmightbe overcome in him. This perhaps was a very critical moment in their lives. Mary's act was essentially a woman's act. No man would be commended for it; a man who imitated it would not be doing what he could, but attempting awkwardly to do what he could not. To rough men, therefore, it was a trial to understand her and sympathise with her. They had need to pass through many hard processes themselves—to be purged of the covetous spirit,—to be under the guidance of a Spirit who was not yet given,—before they could enter into the worth of services which they were not called to perform, before they could judge them by their origin, not by their immediate results, before they could see what a force love may put into symbols, and how that force may be felt from generation to generation by the humble and meek, whom words and notions affect very little.
But there was one who knew Mary's meaning not only better than they knew it, but better than she knew it. 'Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.' What the day of His burying was, must have been unintelligible to the disciples generally; but the reference to it, and to a time when He should not be with them, may have had a solemnising effect upon them; they will have been less ready to judge, more inclined to honour those whom He honoured. Mary may have divined a little more of His meaning. The thought of His burial might perplex her. But it could not cause her despair. She knew that a body which had lain in the grave four days had been safe there. Surely some anointing, better than hers, would keep His body if it was laid in any tomb. In her the instinct of love made the thought of death and sacrifice, however wonderful, not incredible. On Judas it is evident that the sight of Mary's devotion had a withering effect. First, it led him to hypocritical professions about the poor, that he might persuade himself he had some benevolent feelings; then, when Christ drove him from this ground,—when he was reminded that he might always help the poor if he chose,—a conscious hatred against goodness began to unfold itself in him. He went away from that feast a traitor in heart, prepared to accomplish the prophecy that Jesus had uttered concerning Himself. He was to be present at one more feast,—to take one more sop,—then all would be dark within him.
The Evangelist leaves a strong impression upon our minds of the hurry and confusion in Jerusalem at that feast; the curiosity of the people to see Jesus and to see Lazarus; the questionings of the council whether the excitement could be removed without the death of both; the half-formed thought, which might soon take shape and lead to some act, that perhaps the king was among them after all. And then follows the story of the entrance into Jerusalem, which is told at less length than in the other Evangelists; but to which there are two additions that are worthy of note. St. John quotes, as St. Matthew has done, the prophecy of Zechariah:—'Thy king cometh, meek, and sitting upon an ass:' and then adds, 'These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when He was risen from the dead, then remembered they that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him.' The illumination of his own mind, and of the minds of his fellow Apostles, respecting the sense and connexion of the Scriptures,—how they learned to connect with Him the descriptions of a King reigning in righteousness, which the Old Testament contained,—how the resurrection from the dead identified Him as the fulfiller of them,—how it linked His relation to God with His relation to man,—this we learn more clearly from St. John than from all the other apostolical writings.Theytake the matter, in a certain degree, for granted; he enables us to see the process of it. I have spoken of this subject in considering the passage,—'The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.' The more we meditate upon it, the more, I believe, we shall be able to trace lines of thought running through the Old Testament, by which the formal critic is puzzled,—the more we shall find how little the word written in letters could profit, if the Living Word did not expound it to the heart and reason,—the more we shall be sure that the laws which governed men in the old time are those which govern us; that we must have the same Teacher as they had; or that while we seem to know everything we shall know nothing.
The other addition is this:—'The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after Him.' The words may indicate a doubt whether the new scheme which Caiaphas had devised was likely to succeed so well as their own; whether the feeling of the people for the Christ would not prove stronger than their submission to the Romans; whether it was not better, therefore, to accuse Him of breaking a law which the multitude did regard as sacred and Divine, however little they might understand it. At any rate, they show how much men, who have lost all sympathy with truth, are apt to overrate the power of mere numbers, and to underrate the effects of one simple, humble, brave act. The crowds that shouted 'Hosanna!' alarmed the Pharisees. Yet, in a few days, the temper of those crowds was changed; they could cry that Barabbas might be released, and Jesus crucified. The mere coming into Jerusalem royally, yet without the outward signs of royalty, was nothing in their eyes. Yet therein lay the real effective message to their city; that was the hour of its visitation; that has been received by generations of men, in the most cultivated nations of the earth, as the warning of its doom.
'And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: the same came therefore to Philip,which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.' The event seemed to the disciples a little one. They were used to see Greek proselytes at the great festivals; it was not strange that some of them should have heard of the Teacher from Galilee; or that, if they had heard of Him, they should wish to judge of Him for themselves. Coming with such feelings, to perform what must have seemed to them so easy a request, how they must have been astonished to see the emotion which it caused their Lord, and to hear Him answer them thus:—'The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.'
It is impossible, if we are not utterly loose in our mode of interpretation, not to connect these words with the Greeks who had come to the feast, whether we suppose that they were present and heard them, or that the answer was simply addressed to Philip and Andrew. And then the questions arise,—Why should this be such an hour of trouble and of glory? How should the appearance of a few strangers have led to a discussion respecting the falling of wheat into the ground, and its death,—respecting the saving of life and the losing it? You will remember that when our Lord spoke of those other sheep He had, which were not of the Jewish fold, and whom also He must bring, He connected the formation of the one flock with the death of the one Shepherd. He signified clearly that the union could take place only upon this condition. The assertion is in strict harmony with the comment of the Apostle upon the words of Caiaphas to which I have alluded already. The death upon the cross was to take place that He might gather together in one those scattered children of God. If you turn from St. John to St. Paul,—from this Gospel to the Epistle to the Ephesians,—you will find the breaking down of the middle wall of partition between Jews and Greeks is said to be effected 'in the body of Christ's flesh, through death;' that He is said to have 'nailed the enmity to His cross.' If you reflect on these passages, you will perceive (as I said in my discourse on the 10th of John) that what we sometimes speak of very lightly, as if it were only an accident of the New Testament,—the calling in of the Gentiles—the unfolding of a universal society out of the Jewish national society,—is treated by our Lord Himself, and by His Apostles, as that wonderful event to which all God's purposes, from the beginning of the world, had been tending. You will perceive that they looked upon this reunion, or reconciliation, as unveiling a deep mystery—the deepest mystery of all—in the relations of God to man, in the being of God Himself. Without sacrifice,—so the Jews had been taught from the beginning of their history,—so the other nations had believed just in proportion as theywerenations,—without sacrifice, there could be no unity among the members of a race. Sacrifice must bind them to God. Sacrifice must bind them to each other. This great political and Divine truth had been confirmed by the human conscience, even when it protested most against some of the inferences which priestcraft had deduced from it. Only he who can give up himself—so the heart of mankind testified—is a patriot; only he obeys the laws; only he can save his country when it is falling. There had been then a sure conviction expressed by prophets and holy men, planted deep in men's hearts, that any larger union—any union which should be between all nations, which should really be for mankind—must involve a mightier and more transcendent sacrifice; a sacrifice in which there should be no blemish. As the conscience was awakened by God's teaching more and more clearly to perceive that all resistance to God lies in the setting up of self—that this is the great barrier between Him and His revolted creatures—it began to be understood that the atonement of man with man must have its basis in an atonement of God with man, and that the same sacrifice was needed for both. One thing yet remained to be learnt, the most wonderful lesson of all; and yet of which God had been giving the elements, line upon line, precept upon precept, from the beginning. Could sacrifice originate in God? Could it be made, not firsttoHim, but firstbyHim? Could the sacrifices of men be the effect, not the cause, of His love and free grace to them? All our Lord's discourses concerning Himself and His Father,—concerning His own acts as being merely the fulfilment of His Father's will,—concerning the love which the Father had to Him because He laid down His life for the sheep,—had been bringing these mysteries to light; had been preparing the humble and meek to confess, with wonder and contrition, that in every selfish act they had been fighting against the unselfish God,—that in every self-sacrificing act they had been merely yielding to Him,—merely submitting to die, according to the law of His Eternal Being, which He had created men to show forth. And so far as they had any glimpses of the accomplishment of God's promises,—that He would bring all into one,—that the Gentiles should wait for His law,—that He would be a Father of all the families of the earth, and that they should be His children,—so far they had the vision of a transcendent and Divine sacrifice.
There was One, at least, who lived in the assurance that God's will would be done in earth as in heaven, and whose soul was straitened till that will was accomplished. To His inward eye, the Greeks, who had come to claim their share in Jewish privileges and Jewish knowledge, and who wished to see Him, represented all those who should believe in Him, when His Apostles should go forth to baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. They represented the human race of which He was the head, which should be at last gathered together in Him. How emphatically, then, did that moment speak to Him of the glory of the Son of Man,—of the end of His travail for the race of which He was the brother! It was the sign of that coming victory and glory. But how could He see that final issue, and not feel in Himself all the conflict which was to precede it? There was to be a mighty harvest: but the seed, from which it was to spring, must 'first fall into the ground and die, else it would abide alone; it would give birth to nothing.' Yes! that was the law; He knew it, He realized it in His own inmost being, that He might bring the world under it. He who would not give up his life, must lose his life; he who was content to cast it away, to surrender it wholly, should have the Life which is in God,—the eternal life—the life of truth and love, which cannot be destroyed. 'If any man "serve me," if he call himself after my name, let him go along with me in this path of sacrifice; let him be content to die with me; then where I am, he shall be; he shall share the presence and the love which are my joy and my reward; "him shall my Father honour."' But then comes the agony. The death He called upon others to die with Him, He must taste in its bitterness. He must tread the winepress alone. Hewastreading it at that very moment. The sense of the glory of the Son of Man—of the work that He would achieve for humanity—brings on the unutterable sorrow. The whole man sinks within Him,—He can only say, 'Father, save me from this hour.' And yet He adds, 'For this cause came I to this hour.' It is not often that these actual signs of the struggle within Him are declared to us. How wise and necessary that we should have only rare and occasional discoveries of it! But of what unspeakable worth have these discoveries been to the hearts of sufferers in every age! The agony must be passed through; the death-struggle—which is most tremendous after the vision of coming good has been the brightest. But the sting of solitude, which is the sharpest of all, is taken out of it. Christ has cried, 'Save me from this hour.' Christ has Himself said, 'That all He had passed through before, had been to prepare Him for that hour.' And Christ changed this cry into another. 'Father, glorify thy name.Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people, therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, an Angel spake to Him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This He said, signifying by what death He should die.'
I have heard speculations about this voice from heaven. It seems to me that St. John's words, taking them just as they stand, convey a much clearer impression to our minds than all commentaries upon them. There is a sound. The people take it for thunder. Some, seeing perhaps a sudden radiance in His countenance, think that an angel has brought Him strength and consolation. He hears in it the voice of His Father,—the sure witness that that name has been glorified, and shall be glorified. To Him the mere voice, the outward sound, is nothing. 'That came for their sakes.' It was the outward witness to them of the reality of that which He received into His heart. And surely the message has done its work. The struggle is over. He can see victory in His death. Sentence is passed on the tyrant of the world,—the Destroyer of the world. The trial-hour of the Son of Man is the hour of his defeat and overthrow. 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.'
'I will draw all men unto me.' How can we explain these words? First, let us listen to those which followed them, and then let us consider how far we dare explain them. 'The people answered him, We have heard outof the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man? Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things said Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself from them.'
Yes, brethren, we must either take those words, 'I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me,' as they stand, trying to learn a little of what they mean from the past history of the world, waiting for God to explain them to us more perfectly in the future; we must either confess that there are depths in God's purposes of love which no creature has sounded, heights which no creature has reached, but of which the Cross gives us the fullest glimpse we are capable of; we must either do this, or we must ask just as the Jews did,—'Who is this Son of man?' They could dream of a Christ who should exalt the chosen people, who should set them over their enemies. They could anticipate with a kind of faith the coming of such a Christ, and they could be sure that when He came He would abide for ever. But one who identified Himself with men, they would not, could not confess. I use both phrases, for the Bible uses them; St. John uses them at the close of this chapter. There is a hardness of heart, an inhumanity, which makes itimpossiblefor men, for the most apparently religious men, to receive Jesus as the Son of Man. And therefore it isimpossiblefor them really to receive Him as the Son of God, as revealing the mind and character of His Father in heaven. And the Atonement of heaven and earth, of God and man; the Atonement through a sacrifice made once for all; the Atonement by the blood of One who has taken the manhood into God,—who has raised, purified, redeemed, glorified the earthly nature by joining it to the Divine,—is changed into a cold, formal arrangement for delivering certain men from the punishment of a sin which has itself not been purged away. For sin is no longer that root of bitterness, that selfishness, which has poisoned the universe, and poisons the hearts of each one of us—that deadly thing which betrays Christ, and which divides us from the Father; sin becomes the violation of an arbitrary rule, drawing after it the endurance of an arbitrary and infinite penalty. Those who boast of their religion think they can have a Christ who is not a Son of Man; a God who is their Father, and not the Father of men in Christ; a Spirit who sanctifies them, but who does not dwell in the Church,—who is not the witness of a fellowship for all creatures whatever who bear the nature which Christ bore, who die the death which Christ died. Nay, the cross of Christ—of Him who gave up Himself—is actually so presented to men, that they suppose it is the instrument by which self-seeking men may secure the greatest amount of selfish rewards! Then other men, who know that such a scheme must be subversive of all pure morality, abandon the Gospel of God for what they call the Gospel of humanity. They fancy there can be a society of men without a Shepherd who dies for them; without a Father who loves Him because He dies. And the world begins to be divided between those who deny a Son of Man, because they think only of a salvation for themselves, and those who deny Him, because they worship the body of which we declare Him to be the Head instead of Him.
Brethren, this division will not last. The Pharisees and Sadducees, much as they hated one another, came to understand that they had a common enemy when Christ walked the earth. They will do so again. The creeds of the Catholic Church, all our prayers and thanksgivings, bear witness that there is a Son of Man,—that He died for mankind, and that He lives for mankind. Do you not think there will be a combination against these? Do you think their antiquity will save them? Or do you think there is a heart in our people to say,—'These witnesses are dearer to us than our lives. Life would be nothing to us without them.' I dare not trust to such a feeling. I know that the cry of 'Hosanna' may be followed very soon by the cry of 'Crucify.' And we have dealt so unfaithfully with these witnesses, they have been such dead letters to us, that I dare not hope the people know the worth of them. Oh that they may not be tolerated any longer because they are regarded as doing no harm! Oh that they may become real torments to those who deny a Son of Man,—real messengers of life to those who seek for one! And to you brethren, I say,—or rather Christ says,—'Walk in the light while you have the light, that ye may be the children of the light.' Cling to these prayers, and thanksgivings, and sacraments, while you have them. Bind the meaning of them to your hearts. Live it out in your families. Serve Christ in your daily tasks. Follow Him in simple, hearty, self-sacrifice. And then, when the dark hour comes, and the open witnesses of Him disappear, and even two or three are scarcely gathered together in His name, you may await the time of His full revelation; the time which shall show that He died indeed to gather into one all the children of God who are scattered throughout this divided world; the men of every age, tongue, clime, colour, opinion; that by the might of His cross He has drawn all to Himself.
[Lincoln's Inn, 6th Sunday after Trinity, June 29, 1856 (St. Peter's-day).]
St. JohnXII. 44-50, and XIII. 1.
Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on Him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth Him that sent me. I am come a light into the world, that whomsoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.
Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on Him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth Him that sent me. I am come a light into the world, that whomsoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.
I said, in my last sermon, that we were approaching the end of our Lord's public ministry. The verses which I have just read to you are those which close it. I have connected them with the opening of the 13th chapter, because I wish you to mark the transition from this part of St. John's Gospel to that which records Christ's private interviews with the disciples. Hitherto the Apostles have hadlessprominence in St. John's Gospel than in the others. We have had narratives of discourses with Nicodemus, with the woman of Samaria, with the Jews at the feast, with the Galilæans at Capernaum, with the blind man, with Mary and Martha,—only now and then, (chiefly to introduce these dialogues or to link them together,) with the Twelve. The contrast, therefore, in him is far more marked than in St. Matthew, St. Mark, or St. Luke, between the Paschal supper and all that goes before it. And since inferences have been drawn from this contrast which I think are not true, I am anxious that you should feel how the words to the multitude, and the words to the chosen few, are connected, and in what the difference between them consists.
I must begin with some words which occur before those I have read to you:—'But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him: that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Esaias, when he saw His glory, and spake of Him.' St. John speaks here of the signs which Jesus did, as he has spoken of them from the first. They were signs of a divine presence, a divine power, a divine goodness. They were mighty, in so far as they revealed His presence, and power, and goodness. They were utterly ineffectual to any who esteemed them for their own sakes,—who merely wondered at them. These signs, he tells us now, had not produced belief. Was it to be expected that they would? Had not an old Prophet, who spoke the word of God, testified that they would not? Had he not complained for his predecessors, for himself, for all that should come after him, that the report of the care of God for men would be believed by very few; that only by very few would it be felt that the arm of a living God was stretched forth? And Isaiah, so the Apostle goes on, has not merely told us the effect which he witnessed, but has laid bare the cause. The inner eye which should see the divine arm is blinded, the heart which should take in the tidings of goodness and love is hardened: this was the reason why men with all outward advantages,—with a law, and a history, and a covenant,—chosen out of all nations to know God and be witnesses of Him, made all these privileges the very excuse for not turning to God, for not receiving His healing virtue.
But this is not the whole explanation. We must not forget that St. John says,—'Hehath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts.' We must not dare to cancel these words, because we may find them difficult. St. John himself interprets them in the next verse. He reminds us that Isaiah spake these words when he had the vision of the King who was sitting upon a throne and filling the temple with His glory. 'That,' he intimates, 'was a vision of the true Lord of the nation, of that same Ruler who now that He was called Jesus of Nazareth was rejected, just as He had been in the days of old when He was revealing Himself to His subjects in personal and in national judgments.' In both cases it was the goodness, the beauty, the glory, which blinded the eyes and hardened the hearts. We know it is so. Experience tells us that goodness has this effect upon minds in a certain condition. The bad that was in them it makes worse. The sight of love awakens and deepens hatred. If we believe and are sure that love has another power than this, that it is stronger than hatred, and can overcome hatred, let us cherish that faith. St. John certainly will not discourage us in it. No one demands it of us so much. But we must arrive at it, not through the denial of any facts, only through the fullest and frankest acknowledgment of them. This blinding, destructive effect of goodness and love upon the evil will, is a fact which we are bound to confess, and to tremble. It will force itself upon us, it will explain itself to us in ourselves, if we pretend to dispute it. If we own the danger, God will reveal to us the arm which can avert it; He will enable us to take in the mighty report of that power and love which can subdue all enemies.
The next words are also of the Evangelist. They contain partly a limitation of the former, partly an illustration of them. 'Nevertheless among the chief rulers many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.' Only two verses before, the word which we renderpraisehere had been renderedglory. I do not know why the connexion should not have been kept up for the English reader, seeing that it must certainly have been present to the mind of the Apostle. A vision of glory, he seems to say, did dawn upon the hearts of these rulers. It was not the notion of an outward Christ which presented itself to them. There came to their inmost consciences the sense of a King who was over them, of a Word who was enlightening them. But there rose up beside this vision another which seemed to be nearer,—the vision of human glory, human reputation, respectability in the class to which they belonged, the smile and good opinion of the Pharisee, the comfort of being called members of the synagogue. Brethren, which of us does not understand how this image might displace and banish the other,—how the hearts of these poor rulers, because they were like ours, might reject the noble to fondle and embrace the vile? Let us submit to be judged ourselves by the Apostle's words, instead of judging others. And let us ask that what we believe with our hearts we may confess with our lips; knowing that there is no condition so miserable as that of those who are enemies both to God and to His enemies; knowing that such must be, above all, enemies to themselves.
Here is the remedy against this state of mind:—'Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on Him that sent me. And he that seeth me, seeth Him that sent me. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.'
This was the summary of all that He had been teaching hitherto. Yet with what new force must it have come upon those who were halting between Jesus and the Pharisees, who were convinced that He was the true leader, and yet clung to the leaders of their sect! 'Belief in me is not belief in a chief of your choice. It is belief in the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Father of your spirits. In me you see Him. I find you in darkness, ignorance of yourselves, of your relation to each other, of your relation to God. I am come a Light into the world,—a Light to show you what you are, where you are, what you have to do with your fellows, what you have to do with Him apart from whom you have no life. Youcanrefuse that Light; you can treat what I say as vain babbling, as coming from the inspiration of an evil spirit. I judge you not. I have come not to judge the world, but to save it out of its darkness; to bring it back to God. But the word that I speak, which is echoed in your consciences, which is testifying of God in them, that word will judge you in the last day; that will tell you who has been with you, who has been binding you to Himself when you have been tearing yourselves away. For I have not been uttering a word out of my own heart; I have not been setting up my own will. I have been obeying my Father's will, fulfilling His commandments. And I know that His commandment is life eternal. I know that it is life in itself, and that its effect is life. These words which I speak, do themselves issue from that Fountain of life; they are the words of the living Father; therefore, they are living and life-giving words.'
If we consider well the force of this parting testimony to the Jewish world, we shall be prepared to understand the words:—'Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.'
The Jewish sects had refused to believe in a Father. They had refused to believe in a Son of Man. They had refused to believe in a Lord of their own hearts. For a Father they had substituted a lawgiver, who hated all Gentiles, and to whom Jews could only look up with terror, not with confidence. For a Son of Man they had substituted their sect and its leaders. For a Lord over their hearts they had substituted the notion of an outward Christ, who was to be identified by certain particulars of place and time, which must be ascertained by studying the letters of a book. The hour was come when all these contradictions would reach their highest point, when the sects would combine to show what was the real point of their agreement; to Whom they were equally opposed. The feast of the Passover was to be the crisis which would reveal the dark thoughts that were in them; which would show what they were, and what Jesus was. He knew that the moment was come when the question was to be decided, whether men have a Father, or are orphans; whether they have a living Head, or are the loose, broken limbs of a body which has none; whether they are to be governed as horses and mules are governed, by bit and bridle, or as spirits are governed, by a higher Spirit. He had chosen His Apostles to testify to their own nation, and to all nations, of Him and of His Father. He had held them together by His own love, when there was that in the world, and that in themselves, which would have separated them. Had anything happened to break this bond between them and Him? If He left the world, if He returned to His Father, would it be broken?
These were the questions which that Passover-night was to answer. Perhaps you will think that as I have spoken so much of Christ's love to the world, of Christ as the Son of Man, I may shrink from what seems the exclusive tone of this sentence: 'He lovedHis own;He lovedthemto the end.' Shrink from it! No, brethren, I would do the utmost to bring forth the full force of these words; to impress their meaning upon you. I would have you observe how carefully we are told that these disciples were chosen by Him; that His love to them did not depend upon their faith, but their faith upon His love. I would have you observe how this love was manifested to them all as a body—to one and another of them individually; how they were taught that it was only this love which was sustaining them then, or could sustain them afterwards. Unless we do that, we shall never understand how they were witnesses against that religious world out of which they were called,—that world of sects and parties,—that world where all were choosing for themselves, and none were acknowledging a loving Will which was ruling them; where all were striving for their own views and opinions, and none were confessing their relations to each other; where each was fighting for ascendency, and none was content to be a servant. We shall never understand how these Apostles were witnesses for the original calling of their nation, how they really represented the tribes in which God had put His name, and through which all the families of the earth were to be blessed. We shall never understand what that Church was which they were to bring out of these twelve tribes to be a witness to the world what its relation to God was, and how, by forgetting that relation, it had sunk into a poor, dark, divided, selfish world.
If we look upon His last supper as the special education of the Apostles for that work which they had to do in the world, we shall prize the part of this Gospel upon which we are now entering; we shall perceive how all the discourses of our Lord that are recorded in the other Evangelists, from the time that they left their fathers' ships, or the receipt of custom, till the time that He entered with them into Jerusalem, find their fullest illustration, their deepest root, in the dialogues and in the prayer which St. John has reported to us; we shall perceive how the institution of the Eucharist—which, as I said when I was speaking of the discourse at Capernaum, it was no part of St. John's function to announce—is more perfectly explained, both in its principle and its effects, by these specially sacramental interviews, than it is in any other part of the New Testament. And we shall begin to enter—it can be but the beginning of a lesson which must last to our life's end—into the purport of that sign which, whether it preceded or followed the giving the bread and the pouring out of the wine, teaches us how they are to be received.
'And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him; Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded.'
Two hints are given to us which may assist us in entering into the meaning of this act, though, at first, they seem as if they had little connexion with it. First, St. John speaks of what had taken place and was taking place in the mind of Judas; secondly, of the knowledge which was in the mind of Jesus, that He was come from His Father and was going to Him. What has the condition of the betrayer's heart to do with this washing? We are to learn, I apprehend, that the very corruption which was inthatheart,—the very evil which had ripened into the darkest of all purposes there,—was that from which all the disciples had need to be cleansed. Whatever else the washing symbolized, it certainly imported the existence ofthisdefilement, and that there was One who could remove it. Who could take the deep stain of covetousness, of selfishness, away from the heart of man, away from a human society? Only He who had come from the Father of love, that He might enter into the strictest and closest fellowship with human beings in their lowest estate, in all their peculiar and individual misery. Only He, who was going to the Father, that He might unite all in Himself. And He, knowing that He had come for this end, and was going away that He might accomplish it fully, He gives a pledge to the disciples that when He was seemingly absent from them, He would always be with them to do this work for them. He would be always near them to cleanse them from that pride and selfishness which would hinder them from being at one with each other, and from showing forth His mind to the world.
'Then cometh He to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto Him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto Him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto Him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.'
On St. Peter's-day you will not suppose that I could pass over these words; they illustrate so strikingly, as other parts of this chapter do, the character of him whom we are commemorating. They illustrate the particular education to which he was subjected; the education which is needed for the impatient and self-confident man, who must be kept waiting, that his eagerness to know, which is in itself a blessing, may not become a curse; who must often have the very thoughts and convictions which are most honest and appear most indisputable, turned upside down, that he may not exult in them ashisthoughts andhisconvictions, and so change the truth that is in them into falsehood. But the lesson, though peculiarly applicable to him, is a universal one, and shows the universal worth of Christ's sign. It is true of all symbols, that we can know little of them at first. The experience of life interprets them. And it is the hardest thing for all of us to believe that the Highest must wait upon the lowest; that it is not humility, but pride, to refuse the service. Wonderful thought to take in! God must stoop, or man cannot stoop. We must set ourselves up as gods, unless we believe that God's glory is shown in doing the lowest offices of a man.
But why was not Peter right in that other prayer of his,—'Not my feet only, but also my hands and my head?' Did he not want a thorough cleansing? Does not each of us want it? The question is one which requires the most careful answer. If the Bible did not give it in the most express terms, we should be utterly at a loss where to find it. But from first to last the Jewish nation is spoken of as a pure and holy nation by those lawgivers and prophets who complain of its members for being stiff-necked and rebellious. There is nothing which the prophets are so earnest in as in persuading their countrymen that they are the people of God's covenant, and are therefore a holy people; that they areforgettingHis covenant, andsoare making themselves unholy. They call upon the people to repent and turn to God, and then He will restore them, He will purify them; the hearts which are red as scarlet, shall become as white as wool. The Jewish sects did not in the least understand this truth. They looked for an individual holiness, an individual cleanness, apart from the holiness of their nation. Each member of them wanted a holiness of his own; he regarded his race as unholy. He did not repent of the sins which kept him from sharing in the holiness which they all had in God.
Now our Lord was educatingHisdisciples out of this falsehood into which their age had fallen, this falsehood which was so natural to every one of them. He came to show them on what ground the holiness of their nation stood. It had been called and chosen in Him. It was His righteousness, and not the righteousness of its individual members, which justified the titles that had been bestowed upon it. These members were righteous only so far as they rose out of themselves; as they submitted to the righteousness of God. It was, therefore, His first lesson to His disciples that, as a body, they were clean and holy because He had called them and they were complete in Him.
'Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For He knew who should betray Him; therefore said He, Ye are not all clean.'
They were clean as a body, as a family. Each had need to be purified from his own individual selfishness which kept him apart from the family, which kept him from claiming the common righteousness of his Lord. But they were not all clean. There was one who had wrapt himself up in his individual nature,—one solitary, selfish being, who would have nothing to do with the family,—who would have nothing to do with the common Lord, the Son of Man; one who had sold his heart to the divider, to the spirit of selfishness and evil. I do not know anything which illustrates more clearly the sense in which the Apostles, as a body, were clean than this terrible exception; or anything which explains more clearly what need they would have for that daily cleansing of the feet of which He had given them a pledge.
'So after He had washed their feet, and had taken His garments, and was set down again, He said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord; neither He that is sent greater than He that sent Him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.'
In the last century, preachers were wont to speak continually of our Lord as an example. In our time there has been a kind of revolt against that phrase as a hard and even as an unpractical one. 'It is very well,' we say, 'to have an example; but can we follow it? Christ is divine, and we are human. No doubt He was human, too, in a sense; but then surely His divinity helped His humanity, so as to put all His acts at an immeasurable distance from ours.' I believe there is a genuine feeling at the bottom of this complaint. I believe it is a very wearisome and a very useless thing to talk to men about examples, unless you can show how that he who exhibits the example has some connexion with them, and some power over them. But, on the other hand, we are bound to inquire what has been the effect of example upon the world, how the men whom we meet with that are better than ourselves operate upon us, how it is that we can be impressed by the records of men who have departed. Christ's divinity is not a hindrance to our understanding the might of His example; it rather explains to us the whole doctrine and law of example. Are not that doctrine and law to be found in this passage? If He were not the Master and Lord, if the disciples did not say well in calling Him so, then His act would have been a solitary one, belonging to Himself, one which they could not imitate; but if He were their Lord in the highest sense of the word, in that sense which John has been setting forth to us throughout his Gospel,—if He were the Word in whom they had been created, the Word who was their life and their light, the Word from whom every energy of their spirits was derived,—then everything which dwelt in Him could descend upon them; whatever shone forth in Him could be reflected in them. And this would take place, not by their raising themselves to contemplate a lofty ideal, but by their submitting to a gracious and loving Will. The Highest of all showed Himself to them in washing their feet. All they had to do was not to think themselves greater than He, not to think that unworthy of the disciple which was not unworthy of the Lord.
The difficulty to the formal divine is no doubt this:—'If cleansing the feet symbolizes the removing of defilements from the inner man, is not that Christ's work alone? Can the disciple follow His example in doing that work?' Our consciences tell us that he can. We do know that we may receive purification from one another, that the tenderness, and love, and patience of one man act in a marvellous way upon another, when those qualities seem the furthest from him, when he most confesses that they do not belong to him. We do not set ourselves deliberately to follow examples. The examples get the mastery over us; there is a life in the men who exhibit them which awakens life in us. These are facts not to be gainsaid for the sake of any system. Upon them have been built theories about the righteousness of the saints, and the transference of one man's righteousness to another, which are, no doubt, very immoral and ungodly. But St. Paul's words, which are the plea for these theories, 'I fill up in my body the sufferings of Christ,' are both moral and godly. For they are grounded upon the idea which St. John is setting forth here: that Christ, the Divine Sufferer, is the source of all purification and of all life; and that all men, in their proper spheres, may share His sufferings, and transmit and communicate the purification and life that flow from them to their fellows. All difficulties about example are capable of that solution. If we are members of one body, if He is the Head, why should not there be a continual circulation of life from each member of the body to every other? How can the departure of men out of this world hinder that circulation, or cause us who are here to feel it less? May not their power have become greater as the mortal fetters have been taken from them? May not we feel it more?
That is a strange announcement,—'The disciple is not above His master,'—to be introduced by a 'Verily;' and yet the longer the Apostles lived, the more they understood what need they had to be told this truth, and told it with such solemnity. What follows reminds us that a commonplace in words may become a paradox in action, and that we never experience either the difficulty of a divine sentence, or the power of it, till we put it in practice. All the crimes of Churchmen from that hour to this, all their cowardice, their arrogance, their baseness, their violence, have had this one root: the servants of Christ have believed themselves greater than Christ; they have counted it a shame and disgrace to do what He did, to endure what He endured. Here has been the cause of their powerlessness; the very secret of His power has been wanting in them. They have put forth the mock power which His real power has come into the world to crush and subdue. Does not the Christian power—the Church's power—beginwhen it has been brought to workwiththis power of Him who humbled Himself, and not against it? Do we want another ground for believing that those who have completely washed their robes and made them white from every stain of selfishness in the blood of the Lamb, must be mightier than they were here? Do we want another explanation of the fact, that those words of theirs which spoke out the true mind of Christ in them, live and are fruitful for generations after their names, and all the efforts they made to magnify their own names, have been forgotten?
'I spake not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth Him that sent me. When Jesus had thus said, He was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.'
How are these verses connected with those that went before them? how are they connected with each other? Sometimes the thought comes to us,—'Can we trace the processes of that Mind in that hour? Must not His words spring out of depths into which our eyes can never look? Must they not follow each other in an order which is altogether unlike that of other men?' So far as such a doubt leads to reverence,—so far as it makes us distrust our own perceptions, eager to learn from others, certain that we can but see the smallest portion of that which is in Him, I would cherish it. So far as it puts Christ at a distance from us, as it tempts us to think that He was not the Son of Man feeling perfectly as a man,—that He did not mean that the things He said to us should be apprehended by us, and that He will not help us to apprehend them,—so far I would eschew it, and cast it off; because it is fatal to all sincere reverence and sincere humility.
I think He says plainly,—'I am not speaking to you all when I bid you wash each other's feet. There is a sympathy with my mind implied in that act. There is a submission to me, as one who has chosen you, implied in it. That sympathy, that submission, one of you has shaken off. He sits at my feast; He has disclaimed me. But I tell you to do as I have done, that you may know hereafter what the secret of the power you exert over men is. If they receive you, they will be receiving me; if they receive me, they will be receiving my Father.' Does it seem to you that such an assurance was likely to counteract the humbling lesson which He had just given? I do not wonder that any should entertain that opinion, because it is undoubtedly true that men may give themselves intolerable airs on the strength of their being messengers of the Most High; may curse and excommunicate all who do not receivetheirdecrees and confesstheirdignity, under pretence that they are setting Christ at nought. It is true also, and the records of the world establish the truth, that none have been so free from pretension, that none have borne such insults, and been so ready to die that men might not be cursed and excommunicated, as those who have given themselves up to speak a word which they were sure was not theirs, who have felt that they had no goodness or love of their own to show forth, but that the Son of God was showing forth His love to sinners through them, even as the Father showed His love to men through the Son. There needed a 'Verily' to confirm this sentence as well as the other. They are, in fact, parts of the same sentence. The disciple will think himself above his Master as long as he thinks himself separate from his Master; when that thought ceases, he must accept our Lord's language in the length and breadth of it: 'He that receiveth you receiveth me.' Dare he be an insolent, usurping, persecuting priest, unless he inwardly denies that the meek, suffering Jesus, who washed His disciples' feet, is in him?
And is it wonderful that the 'trouble of spirit' which St. John speaks of, should have mixed itself with this thought, and that the image of the betrayer, which had been appearing from time to time during this discourse in the background, should now rise fully and terribly before Him? 'There is one who chooses to be separate from me! one who will stand in his own name! one who will cast me his Lord, and friend, and reprover, away! He is one of you,—one of those whom I have sent forth as a messenger in my Father's name and mine.' Jesus has spoken of the Scripture being fulfilled in the act of Judas. It was a Scripture which David felt had been fulfilled in his own case. A friend who had eaten ofhisbread had lifted up his heel. It had been fulfilled in a thousand cases before David, and since. But this wasthefulfilment; this contained the essence of all treacheries that had been and that were to be; this explained the principle and author of them. If there is a Son of Man, one in whom all human feelings, sympathies, affections, reach their highest point, one from whom they have been derived, one in whom they reflect perfectly that God of whom He is the image, then the betrayer of that Son of Man exhibitstherevolt against these feelings, affections, and sympathies,thestrife against this love, in which every false friend may read the ground and the possible consummation of his own baseness. Men, generally, have confessed this remark to be true, and have embodied it even in their careless forms of speech; therefore they ought to confess, also, that whatever pain and inward anguish any have experienced from the insincerity of those who have eaten their bread and lifted up the heel against them, must have been undergone by Jesus with an intensity proportioned to the intensity of His love. Surely this reflection, if we follow it out, may help us more to such an apprehension of His sufferings, as it is permitted and possible for us to have, than any phrases of pompous rhetoric which put Him at a distance from us, and make us suppose that He did not bear our griefs and carryoursins.
'Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom He spake. He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto Him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall givea sop, when I have dipped it. And when He had dipped the sop, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.'
St. John has not spoken of himself hitherto. Why does he introduce himself now? When I was quoting, in my first sermon, the accounts which are given of him by the other Evangelists, I did not refer to the name by which he has described himself. Do we not sometimes think that it was a kind of indelicacy and presumption in an Apostle to claim it? Was it not setting himself above the others? Would it not have been better that he should have let them give him the title? Are not those which they do give him less honourable? I do not wish to evade any of these inquiries. Let it be remembered that St. John was writing in the full knowledge that he had been described as a Son of Thunder, that his ambition and his desire to call down fire had been recorded. These signs of what he was, of what he had shown himself to be, could not be separated from him; they were fixed upon him indelibly. None, therefore, could say that he was an object of Christ's affection because he had shown a gentler disposition than his fellows. Could they say, then, that the love of Christ was a partial love, that it was not directed to mankind, that it was not the expression of a universal love? St. John is the especial witness against these heresies. He declares that God loved the world; and Christ came to do His Father's will in saving it. What, then, might be—what has been—the effect of the name, 'the disciple whom Jesus loved,' upon the Church? It has been felt that the story of Judas needed this foil. The dark, solitary, separate man must be brought into direct contrast to a man who lives only on trust. We understand by the disciple who leant on Jesus' bosom what his condition was who went out into the night. At the same time, we must not be allowed to fancy that the love came forth from John. He could only be the receiver of it. If he ever fancied himself the disciple who loved Jesus, and not 'the disciple whom Jesus loved,' he would be magnifying himself, he would be claiming to be better than his brethren. As it is, he can only regard it as part of Christ's manifestation of the divine character that this peculiar affection should be displayed to him. In the world of nature the distinctness of each thing is necessary to the harmony of the whole. Can it be otherwise in the world of human beings? Are they to be merged, now or hereafter, in one great chaos of being? Must not each form, each person, be brought out fully and brightly when the mists that prevent us from seeing the perfect unity have been scattered? Personal affections, gradations of sympathy, attachments and affinities between this human being and that, are the barriers which sever the true life of man from that Pantheistical absorption which is another name for death. Should not we expect there to be a witness for these, a restoration of them to their proper unselfish ground, in the acts and the life of the Word made flesh?
'And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for what intent He spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night.'
Though I have spoken of St. John as the contrast to Judas, the contrast must not be regarded in this sense,—that love was withheld from Judas. We are occupied with that awful mystery of a human will and its relation to the divine will, where every step is perilous, respecting which the truest statements must wear the appearance of contradictions. But it has been the belief of all earnest men of all schools that the sop given to Judas was a last love-token, and that the entrance of Satan into him, after it had been received, expresses that last defiance of love, that utter abandonment to the spirit of selfishness, which precedes the commission of the greatest conceivable crime. After that perdition has come, the Lord speaks words to the man which he can understand, and he only. They may mean nothing to the bystanders; they may be capable of the most frivolous construction. To him they testify,—'There is one who knows thy heart; who knows thee. He restrains thee no longer. Nay, He bids thee be quick. It is to be; thou hast decreed it. Go and do thy new master's bidding faithfully. Then it will be seen whether he or I shall prevail at last.'