Chapter I: Midnight 342 (6)

That this company of believers was regularly organized, and perfectly recognized as an organization, appears from a passage in Acts, where it is said that after the ascension of our Lord this little church came together and abode together for several days. The names of many of them are given--the eleven Apostles, the mother of Jesus, his brethren, and several others, called in the enumeration "the women," are mentioned, and it is further stated that "the number of them was about one hundred and twenty."

St. Paul indeed speaks of an occasion on which Christ, after his resurrection, appeared to five hundred disciples at once, of whom he says the greater part were living when he wrote. This hundred and twenty were probably such a portion of the whole company of disciples as had their residence in and about Jerusalem, and could therefore conveniently assemble together. We first see them called together to perform a corporate act in filling a vacancy among their officers. The twelve by the appointment of the Lord had occupied a peculiar position of leadership. The place of one of these being vacated by the death of Judas, the little church is summoned to assist in the election of a successor. The speech of Peter is remarkable as showing that he considered the persons he addressed as a body competent to transact business and fill vacancies. After relating the death and fate of Judas, he ends by saying, "Wherefore, from these men that have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." Here, then, are all the evidences of a regularly trained church already in existence when our Lord left the world.

But if we look at the twentieth chapter of John we shall see that the little company that performed this act had been previously ordained and inspired by Jesus, and wisdom had been promised to guide their proceedings.

It is said that immediately after Christ's resurrection--after he had appeared to Mary Magdalene--he suddenly appeared in an assembly of the disciples, showed them his hands and his side, said to them, "Peace be unto you," breathed on them, and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained." The disciples spoken of here were the whole company of believers who yet remained faithful--not merely the eleven, since one of the eleven at least was absent.

The words of the promise are not to be superstitiously interpreted, as they have been, as giving an arbitrary, irresponsible power to an aristocracy in the church, but as expressing this great truth: that whenever a body of Christians are acting under the influence of the Holy Spirit, under a high and heavenly state of Christian feeling, their decisions will be in sympathy with God and be ratified in heaven. It is only to those who receive the Holy Ghost that such power pertains.

Having shown, then, that Christ left a trained, inspired, ordained church of believers to perpetuate his work on earth, it now becomes interesting to go back and watch the process by which he trained them.

The history of the formation and gradual education of this church is interesting, because, although the visible presence of the Master made it differ from any subsequent church, yet the spirit and temper in which he guided it are certainly a model for all. Christ's visible presence relieved them from all responsibility as to discipline. He governed personally, and settled every question as it rose. In this respect no other church can be like it. But the invisible Christ, the Christ in the heart of all believers, ought to be with every church, that it may be carried on in _spirit_ as Christ conducted his.

In the first place, then, Christ carried on this his first church as a family, of which he was the father, and in which the law was love. He said to his disciples, "All ye are brethren;" he addressed them habitually as "children," sometimes as "little children," and laid on them with emphasis a _new_ commandment, that they should love one another as he had loved them. The old commandment, given by Moses, was, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; the new commandment of Christ was, Love one another as I have loved you--better than self. St. John interprets this thus: Hereby we perceive the love of God, because he laid down his life for us. We ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren.

This church or family of Christ was very wide and free in its invitation to any to join, and many did join themselves, so that at times portions of them traveled with him as a missionary family from place to place.

Thus, in Luke viii., we read that "it came to pass that he went through every city and village preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom; and the twelve were with him, and certain women whom he had healed of evil spirits and infirmities; Mary, called Magdalene, and Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, who also ministered unto him of their substance."

This coöperation of women in the missionary church would in some countries have given an occasion of offense and scandal. But the laws and institutions of Moses had prepared a nation in which the moral and religious mission of woman was fully recognized. Prophetesses and holy women, inspired by God, had always held an important place in its history, and it was in full accord with the national sense of propriety that woman should hold a conspicuous place in the new society of Jesus. It is remarkable, too, that the bitterest and most vituperative attacks on the character of Jesus which appeared in early centuries never found cause of scandal in this direction.

These pious women exercised, for the benefit of our Lord and his disciples, the peculiar gifts of their sex--they ministered to them as women best know how. One of them was the wife of a man of high rank in Herod's court. Several of them appear to have been possessed of property. Some of them, however, were reclaimed women of formerly sinful life, but now redeemed. The wife of Herod's steward, and the spotless matron, the mother of James and John, did not scruple to receive to their fellowship and sisterly love the redeemed Mary Magdalene, "out of whom went seven devils."

The contributions for the support of this mission church became so considerable, and the care of providing for its material wants so onerous, as to require the services of a steward, and one of the twelve, who had a peculiar turn for financial cares, was appointed to this office. Judas made all the purchases for the company, dispensed its charities, and, as financier, felt at liberty to comment severely on the "waste" shown by the grateful Mary.

It seems that Judas was a type of that class of men who seek the church from worldly motives. The treatment of this treacherous friend by Jesus is a model that cannot be too earnestly studied by every Christian. St. John says, "Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him." But he carried himself towards him with the same unvarying and tender sweetness that he showed to all the rest. He was Love itself. He could not possibly associate with another without love, and there was something peculiarly delicate and forbearing in his treatment of Judas (as is more fully considered in our next chapter).

He might easily have exposed him before his brethren, but he would not do it. It seems from the narrative that even when Judas left the little company to complete his crime, the simple-hearted disciples knew not where he was going.

There was no calling him to account, no exposure, no denunciation, no excommunication. Why this care, this peculiar reticence, on the Master's part? It was a part of his system of teaching his family what he meant when he said, Love your enemies. It was a way of teaching that, when they came to understand it fully, they never would forget. Moreover, during his whole life, in all his teachings to this little church, his main object was that they should be rooted and grounded in that kind of love which no injury, or cruelty, or perfidy can change, the kind of love which he showed when he prayed for those who were piercing his hands and feet. But he found them not apt scholars. They were apt and ready in the science of wrath. With them the way of anger and what is called righteous indignation went down hill, but he always held them back. When a village refused to receive the Master, it was James and John who were ready to propose to call down fire from heaven, as Elias did. But he told them they knew not what manner of spirit they were of; the mission of the Son of man was to save--not to kill.

As a delicate musician shudders to strike a discord, so Jesus would not excite among his little children the tumult of wrath and indignation that would be sure to arise did they fully know the treachery of Judas. He so carried himself that the evil element departed from them without a convulsion, by the calm expulsive force of moral influences. He bore with Judas patiently, sweetly, lovingly, to the very last. He kept the knowledge of his treachery in his own bosom till of his own free will the traitor departed.

There is something so above human nature in this--it is such unworldly sweetness, such celestial patience, that it is difficult for us at our usual level of life to understand it. It is difficult to realize that these expressions of love which Jesus continued to Judas were not a policy, but a simple reality, that he loved and pitied the treacherous friend as a mother loves and pities the unworthy son who is whitening her hair and breaking her heart, and that the kiss he gave was always sincere.

It is an example, too, that may with advantage be studied in conducting the discipline of a church. Here was the worst of criminals meditating the deepest injuries, the worst of crimes, in the very bosom of the infant church, yet our Lord so bore with him, so ruled and guided his little family that there was no quarrel and struggle,--that the very best and most was made of his talents as long as they could be used for good,--and when he departed the church was not rent and torn as a demoniac by the passage from them of an evil spirit.

But there were other respects in which Jesus trained his church, besides that of managing a discordant element within it. There were many who would become disciples from sudden impulse or sympathy, who had not the moral stamina to go on to spiritual perfection. Aware of this, the Master, while ever gracious, ever ready to receive, exacted no binding pledge or oath. He displayed no eagerness to get men to commit themselves in this way, but rather the reverse. Whoever came saying, "Lord, I will follow thee," met a gracious reception. Yet the seeker was warned that he must take up his cross, and that without this he could not be a disciple. He was admonished to count the cost, lest he should begin to build and not be able to finish. In some cases, as that of the young nobleman, the tests proposed were so severe that the man went away sorrowful; and yet, for all this, the heart of the Master was freely open to all who chose to follow him.

But as Jesus would take none without full warning of the stringency of his exactions, so he would retain none a moment beyond the time when their hearts were fully in it. Free they were to come as God's love is free--free also to go, if on trial they found the doctrine or discipline too hard for them. Christ gathered his spiritual army on the principles on which Moses commanded that the army of Israel should be gathered for battle, when proclamation was made that any one who for any reason was not fully in good heart should go home, "What man is fearful or faint-hearted, let him go and return to his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his."

There is a very striking passage in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, where Jesus, in the most stringent and earnest manner, spoke of the necessity of eating his flesh and drinking his blood; or, in other words, of an appropriating and identifying union of soul with himself as constituting true discipleship. This exposé of the inner depths of real spiritual life repelled some, as it is written:--

"Many, therefore, of his disciples said: This is a hard saying.
Who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples
murmured, he said: Doth this offend you?... But there are some
of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who
they were who believed not and who should betray him."

From that time, we are told, _many_ of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. They left the church; and we read of no effort to discipline or retain them. The spiritual life of the church expelled them by the law of moral repulsion; they felt they were not of it, and they left, and were suffered to leave. The only comment we read of as being made by the Lord was this: "Then said Jesus to the twelve: Will ye also go away?" There was the door, freely open, would they, too, go? Then said Peter: "Lord, to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ."

We can see here what was the sifting process by which our Lord kept his little church pure. It was the union of vivid spirituality with perfect freedom. The doors of entrance and of exit were freely open; and those who could not bear the intense and glowing spiritual life were at all times free to depart; in the words subsequently used by the Apostle, "they judged themselves unworthy of eternal life." Hence, like a vigorous human body, Christ's little church threw out from itself the unvital members, and kept itself healthy and strong. This perfect freedom to depart at any time constituted the strength of the little order. Its members were held together, not by a dead covenant, not by a conventional necessity, not by past vows uttered in high excitement--but by a living choice of the soul, renewed from moment to moment. Even the twelve had presented to them the choice to go away, and took anew their vow of constancy. Hence it was that even the astounding horrors of the sudden fall--the crucifixion of the Master--did not break their ranks. There were none left but those so vitally united to him, so "one with him" that, as he said, they "lived by him." He was their life; they followed him to the cross and to the grave; they watched the sepulchre, and were ready to meet him in the resurrection morning. It was this tried and sifted remnant to whom he appeared when the doors were closed, after the resurrection, on whom he breathed peace and the Holy Ghost, and whose spiritual judgments and decisions he promised should thereafter be ratified in heaven.

This little company were, as nearly as human beings can be, rooted and grounded in perfect love. The lesson of their lives had been love, taught them by precept from day to day, as he harmonized their contentions and repressed their selfish ambitions; and by example, as he persistently tolerated, loved, bore with a treacherous friend in his own family.

It was necessary that they should be prepared to exercise power, for power was about to be intrusted to them. It was necessary to prepare them to be the governors of the future Christian Church. But he was unwearied in efforts to make them understand that superiority must only be a superiority in doing and suffering for others. When the mother of James and John asked the highest two offices for her two sons, he looked at her with a pathetic sadness. Did she know what she was asking? Did she know that to be nearest to him was to suffer most? He answered: "You know not what you ask. Can you drink of the cup that I shall drink, and be baptized with my baptism?" And when they ignorantly said, "We are able," he said that the place of superiority was not his to give by any personal partiality, but was reserved for the appointment of the Father. But the ambitious spirit now roused had spread to the other disciples. It is said that when the ten heard it they were indignant with James and John. But Jesus called them to him and said:--

"Ye know that they that are accounted to rule over the Gentiles
exercise lordship over them, and their great ones exercise
authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you; but
whosoever shall be great among you let him be your minister,
and whosoever will be the chiefest let him be servant of all;
for even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and give his life a ransom for many."

One of the very last acts of his life, and one of the most affecting comments on these words, was his washing his disciples' feet as a menial servant--a last significant act, which might almost be called a sacrament, since by it he, in view of his dying hour, put this last impressive seal on his teaching of humanity and brotherly love.

The contest which should be the greatest, in spite of all his efforts, all his teachings, all his rebukes, had only smouldered, not been extinguished, and was ready at any moment to flame out again, and all the way up to Jerusalem when he came to die they walked behind him quarreling over this old point. As a dying mother calling her children around her confirms her life-teaching by some last act of love never to be forgotten, so this Master and Friend before the last supper knelt in humility at the feet of each disciple and washed and wiped them, and then interpreted the act as a sign of the spirit in which leadership in his church should be sought: "If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet." In after years the disciples could not but remember that Jesus knelt at the feet of Judas and washed them as meekly as those of all the rest; and then they saw what he meant when he said, "Love your enemies."

From first to last the teaching of Christ was one long teaching of the doctrine and discipline of perfect love. When the multitudes followed him, and he went into a mountain to give his summary of the new dispensation, we hear of no high, mystical doctrines. We hear doctrines against censoriousness, against the habit of judging others. We hear men cautioned to look on their own faults, not on those of others. We hear love like the perfect love of God set up as the great doctrine of the new kingdom--love which no injury, no unworthiness, no selfishness can chill, or alter, or turn aside; which, like God's providence, shines on the evil and unthankful, and sends rain on the just and the unjust--this mystery of love, deeper than the mystery of the Trinity, was what, from first to last, the Master sought to make his little church comprehend.

This love to enemies, this forgiveness, was the hardest of hard doctrines to them. "Lord, how often shall my brother transgress and I forgive him?" says Peter; "till seven times?" "Nay," answers Jesus, "till seventy times seven." "If thy brother trespass against thee seven times a day, and seven times turn again saying, 'I repent,' thou shalt forgive him." The Master taught that no religious ordinance, no outward service, was so important as to maintain love unbroken. If a gift were brought to the altar, and there it were discovered that a brother were grieved or offended, the gift was to be left unoffered till a reconciliation was sought.

It is not merely with the brother who has given us cause of offense, but the brother who, however unreasonably, deems himself hurt by us, that we are commanded to seek reconciliation before we can approach a Heavenly Father.

A band of men and women thus trained in the school of Jesus, careful to look on their own faults, refraining from judging those of others, unselfish and lowly, seeking only to do and to serve, so perfected in a divine love that the most bitter and cruel personal injuries could not move to bitterness or revenge--such a church is in a fit state to administer discipline. It has the Holy Spirit of Jesus with it; and it may be said, without superstitious credulity, of a church in that spirit that its decisions will be so in accordance with the will of God that "whosesoever sins they remit are remitted, and whosesoever sins they retain are retained."

But where have we such a church?

The church of the Master was one of those beautiful ideals, fair as the frost-crystals or the dew-drops of morning. It required a present Jesus to hold it, and then with what constant watchfulness and care and admonition on his part was it kept! We can only study at his marvelous training, and gather some humble inspiration. It was this church of Jesus, the Master, this tried, sifted, suffering body of faithful men and women whose prayers brought down the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and inaugurated the Apostolic Church.

XXI

JUDAS

It is one of the mysteries in the life of our Lord that he was led by the immediate direction of the Father to incorporate into his little family, and to bring into the closest personal relations with himself, an unsympathetic and adverse element that must have been a source of continual pain to him.

It was after a whole night spent in prayer for the divine direction that the first twelve Apostles were chosen; and Judas also was one of them. The history of this man is a wonder and a warning. That there could possibly be a human being who could have such advantages, could rise to such a height of spiritual power and joy, and yet in the end prove to be utterly without any true spiritual life seems fearful.

It would appear that Judas had at first a sort of worldly enthusiasm for Christ and his kingdom; that he received the divine gift of miracle-working; that he went forth preaching and healing, and felt all the exultation and joy which the sense of spiritual power and influence gives. Judas was among those who returned from the first missionary tour in triumph, saying, "Lord, even the devils were subject unto us!" The grave answer of Jesus reminded them that it was of far more importance to be really accepted of God as true Christians than to have the most brilliant gifts and powers.

In our Lord's first Sermon on the Mount, which may be considered as an ordaining charge to his Apostles, he had said to them that in the great final day of Judgment there would be many who would say unto him, "Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? and then will I say to them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Everywhere in the New Testament these miraculous powers are spoken of as something of far less value than the true Christian spirit, and, if we may trust the word of our Master, many had them whom he will never acknowledge for his own.

But the warning fell on the ear of Judas unheeded. Perhaps he did not himself know how selfish and self-seeking was his zeal for the coming kingdom. Generally speaking, the first person deceived by a man who plays a false part is himself. Judas appears not to have excited the suspicions of the little company of brethren. His shrewdness and tact in managing financial matters led them to appoint him the treasurer of the common family purse. Without doubt, what he saw of the enthusiastic love which Jesus excited, the ease with which he could make people willing to lay their fortunes at his feet, opened to his view dazzling golden visions. He saw himself treasurer of a kingdom unequaled in splendor and riches, when all the kingdoms of the world should be subject to his master. It was more than the reign of Solomon, when gold was to be as the stones of the street.

If we notice our Lord's teachings delivered in the hearing of Judas, we must be struck with the explicit and forcible manner in which he constantly pointed out the danger of the worldly spirit which was growing upon that disciple. How solemn the picture of the rich man, absorbed in plans and calculations how to bestow his great wealth until God says to him, "Thou fool! this night shall thy soul be required of thee--then whose shall those things be that thou hast provided?" "So," he adds, "is every one that layeth up riches, and is not rich towards God." Again, he tells them that it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. He asks them, What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

We hear nothing of any replies that Judas makes to these teachings. He seldom is represented dramatically. Peter, James, John, and Thomas, all present themselves vividly to our mind by the things that they say; but Judas is silent. The Master, who knew him so well, did not expose him to the others. He did not lessen their brotherly regard or interrupt the peace of his little family by any effort at expulsion. As his Father had chosen this member to be in intimate nearness to himself, Jesus accepted him, bore with him, loved him, and treated him to the last with the same unvarying sweetness that he showed to the more congenial natures. It is affecting to remember that the very act by which Christ was betrayed was one that showed that all the external habits of affection remained still unbroken between him and the traitor. The kiss of Jesus was sincere; he loved this wretched man as heavenly beings love, and followed him with love to the last.

It would seem that towards the last part of the life of Jesus the moral antagonism between himself and Judas grew more pronounced and intense.

As the spiritual life of Jesus waxed brighter and stronger, so much the more vivid became the contrast between it and the worldly aims of the traitor. Judas saw the kind of worldly prosperity to which he had aspired receding. He saw that Jesus, instead of using his splendid miraculous powers to draw towards him the chiefs of his nation, was becoming every day more in antagonism with them. Instead of meeting the popular desire to make him a king he had drawn back from it, and by that very act lost many followers. His extreme spiritual teachings had disgusted many of his disciples and led them to go back and walk no more with him. And now the talk of Jesus was more and more of persecutions and sufferings and death, as lying just before him. To a worldly eye all this looked like a fanatical throwing away of the very brightest opportunity for fame and fortune and dominion that ever was given to a leader. Judas became sullenly discontented, not yet ready openly to throw off all hopes of what might be got by adhering to his Master, but yet in a critical and fault-finding spirit surveying all his actions.

It is an awful thought that it was possible for a man to share the daily bread of Jesus, to be in his family, treated as a beloved child, to hear all his beautiful words, to listen to his prayers day after day, and yet, instead of melting, to grow colder and harder--to grow more earthly as his Master grew more heavenly, and to find this want of sympathy slowly hardening into a sullen enmity which only waited its hour to declare itself openly. Christ said to the unbelieving Jews, "Ye have both seen and hated both Me and my Father." Judas was fast preparing to join that party.

According to the narrative of St. Matthew, it was after this rebuke in the matter of Mary that Judas went into negotiations with those who were plotting the destruction of Jesus. He was a disappointed man. He had joined a party which he confidently expected to lead to triumph, success, and wealth. Instead of this, Jesus had lost every opportunity, lost the favorable hour of popularity, and concentrated on himself the hatred of the most powerful men of the nation, and now was talking only of defeat and rejection.

The presence of Judas with the household was now that of a spy, watching his occasion, but making no outward demonstration. He was in the little family circle that gathered in the upper room to eat the last passover supper. His Master bent at his feet and washed them, as he did those of the faithful ones, in that sacramental action when he showed them what he meant by true love. It was directly after this last act of affection that Jesus openly declared his knowledge of the meditated treachery, for he said: "I speak not of you all, I know whom I have chosen; but the Scripture must be fulfilled which saith, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me." Then with a deep sigh he adds in plain words, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, one of _you_ shall betray me."

It is a most lovely comment on the goodness of heart of these simple men that in so solemn a moment no one of them thought of criminating the other. Each one said tremblingly, "Lord, is it I?"

John, leaning down on his Master's breast, inquired privately who it was; and Jesus gave him a private sign that it should be he to whom he gave a sop when he had dipped it. He dipped the sop, and gave it to Judas. Then Judas, still keeping up the show of innocence, said, like the rest, "Master, is it I?" Jesus answered, "Thou hast said it."

It is said that "Satan entered into him" at this moment. All the smouldering elements of meanness, disgust, dislike of Jesus, his teaching, his spirit, and his mission were quickened by the presence of that invisible enemy who comes to the heart of man only when he is _called_ by the congenial indulgence of wicked passions.

Judas rose hastily, and our Lord added, "That thou doest, do quickly." He flung himself out and was gone.

The miserable sum for which he sold his Master, though inconsiderable in itself, was probably offered as first wages in a new service. His new masters were the heads of Israel: all avenues of patronage and power were in their hands, and the fortune that he could not make on the side of Jesus he might hope to gather on that of his enemies. He may have compounded with his conscience by believing that the miraculous power of our Lord was such that there was no danger of a fatal termination. In fact, that his being taken might force him to declare himself and bring on the triumphant moment of victory. He might possibly have said to himself that he was at any rate acting the part of a mediator in bringing matters to a crisis, and perhaps forcing a favorable result. For, when he found that Jesus was indeed a victim, he was overwhelmed with remorse and despair. He threw the wretched money at the feet of his tempters and departed and hanged himself, and went, as we are told, "to his own place."

He went to the place for which _he_ had fitted himself, who, living in the very bosom of Jesus, had grown more and more unlike him every day. He left Christ--driven by no force but his own wicked will. To the last the love of God pursued him: his Master knelt and washed the very feet that were so soon to hasten to betray him. It was with a sorrowful spirit, a troubled heart, that Jesus said, "Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed: good were it for that man if he never had been born."

Without attempting to solve the mysteries of this deepest of all tragedies, we may yet see some of the uses and purposes of it in regard to ourselves.

Our Lord was appointed to suffer in all respects as his brethren; and the suffering of bearing with antagonistic and uncongenial natures is one that the providence of God often imposes on us. There are often bound to us, in the closest intimacy of social or family ties, natures hard and ungenial, with whom sympathy is impossible, and whose daily presence necessitates a constant conflict with an adverse influence. There are, too, enemies--open or secret--whose enmity we may feel yet cannot define. Our Lord, going before us in this hard way, showed us how we should walk.

It will be appropriate to the solemn self-examination of the period of Lent to ask ourselves, Is there any false friend or covert enemy whom we must learn to tolerate, to forbear with, to pity and forgive? Can we in silent offices of love wash their feet as our Master washed the feet of Judas? And if we have no real enemies, are there any bound to us in the relations of life whose habits and ways are annoying and distasteful to us? Can we bear with them in love? Can we avoid harsh judgments, and harsh speech, and the making known to others our annoyance? Could we through storms of obloquy and evil report keep calmly on in duty, unruffled in love, and commending ourselves to the judgment of God? The examination will probably teach us to feel the infinite distance between us and our divine Ideal, and change censoriousness of others into prayer for ourselves.

XXII

GOING UP TO JERUSALEM

_Palm Sunday_

Nothing in ancient or modern tragedy is so sublime and touching as the simple account given by the Evangelists of the last week of our Lord's earthly life.

The church has since his ascension so devoutly looked upon him as God that we are in danger of losing the pathos and the power which come from a consideration of his humanity. The Apostle tells us that, in order that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest, he was made in all respects like unto his brethren. He was a Jew. His national and patriotic feeling was intense. To him the sacred nation, the temple service, with all its hymns and prayers and ancient poetic recollections, were more dear than to any other man of his nation. The nation was his own, his peculiar, chosen people; he was their head and flower, for whom the whole gorgeous ritual had been appointed, for whom the nation had been for centuries waiting. Apart from his general tenderness and love for humanity was this special love of country and countrymen. Then there was the love of his very own--the little church of tried, true, tested friends who had devoted themselves to him; and, still within that, his family circle, for whom his love was strong as a father's, tender and thoughtful as a mother's. And yet Jesus went through life bearing in his bosom the bitter thought that his nation would reject him and instigate one of his own friends to betray him, and that all seeming success and glory was to end in a cruel and shameful death. He foresaw how every heart that loved him would be overwhelmed and crushed with a misery beyond all human precedent.

It is affecting to read in the Evangelists how often and how earnestly Jesus tried to make his disciples realize what was coming. "Let this saying sink down into your ears," he would say: "the Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men;" and then would recount, item by item, the overthrow, the agonies, the insults, the torture, that were to be the end of his loving and gentle mission. At various times and in various forms he took them aside and repeated this prophecy. And it is said that they "understood not his word;" that "they were astonished;" that they "feared to ask him;" that they "questioned one with another what this should mean." It seems probable that, warmed with the flush of present and increasing prosperity and popularity, witnessing his victorious miracles, they had thrown this dark prophecy by, as something inexplicable and never literally to be accomplished. What it could mean they knew not, but that it could have a literal fulfillment they seem none of them to have even dreamed. Perhaps they were like many of us, in our religion, in the habit of looking only on the bright, hopeful, and easily comprehensible side of things, and letting all that is dark and mysterious slide from the mind.

Up to the very week before his crucifixion the power and popularity of Jesus seemed constantly increasing. His miracles were more open, more impressive, more effective. The raising of Lazarus from the dead had set the final crown on the glorious work. It would appear that Lazarus was a member of a well-known, influential family, moving in the higher circles of Jerusalem. It was a miracle wrought in the very heart and centre of knowledge and influence, and it raised the fame of the new prophet to the summit of glory. It is an affecting comment on the worth of popular favor that the very flood-tide of the fame and glory of Jesus was just five days before he was crucified. On Monday--the day now celebrated in the Christian Church as Palm Sunday--he entered Jerusalem in triumph, with palms waving, and garlands thrown at his feet, and the multitudes going before and after, shouting Hosanna to the Son of David; and on Friday of the same week the whole multitude shouted, "Away with him! Crucify him! Release unto us Barabbas! His blood be upon us and upon our children!" and he was led through those same streets to Calvary. On these six days before the death of Jesus the historians have expended a wealth of detail, so that the record of what is said and done is more than that of all the other portions of that short life.

There are many touches of singular tenderness conveyed in very brief words. Speaking of his final journey from Galilee to Judæa, says one: "When the time came that he should be received up he set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem." Another narrates that when he was going up to Jerusalem he walked before his disciples, and as they followed him they were afraid. Evidently he was wrapped in an electric cloud of emotion; he was swept along by a mighty influence--tides of feeling deeper than they could comprehend were rolling in his soul, and there was that atmosphere of silence and mystery about him by which the inward power of great souls casts an outward sphere of awe about them. Still, as they walked behind, they had their political dreams of a coming reign of power and splendor, when the Judæan nation should rule the world, and they, as nearest to the Master, should administer the government of the nation--for it is said, by the way they "disputed who should be the greatest."

He hears their talk, as a dying mother, who knows that a few hours will leave her children orphans, listens to the contentions of the nursery. He turns to them and makes a last effort to enlighten them--to let them know that not earthly glory and a kingdom are before them, but cruelty, rejection, shame, and death. He recounts the future, circumstantially, and with what deep energy and solemn pathos of voice and manner may be imagined. They make no answer, but shrink back, look one on another, and are afraid to ask more. It would seem, however, that there was _one_ in the band on whom these words made an impression. Judas evidently thought that, if this was to be the end of all, he had been taken in and deceived: a sudden feeling of irritation arises against One who having such evident and splendid miraculous power is about to give up in this way and lose his opportunity and suffer himself to be defeated. Judas is all ready now to make the best terms for himself with the winning party. The others follow in fear and trembling. The strife who shall be greatest subsides into a sort of anxious questioning.

They arrive at a friendly house where they are to spend the Sabbath, the last Sabbath of his earthly life. There was a feast made for him, and we see him surrounded by grateful friends. By the fact that Martha waited on the guests and that Lazarus sat at the table it would appear that this feast was in the house of a relative of that family. It is said to have occurred in the house of "Simon the Leper"--perhaps the leper to whom Jesus said, "I will--be thou clean."

Here Mary, with the abandon which marks her earnest and poetic nature, breaks a costly vase of balm and sheds the perfume on the head of her Lord. It was an action in which she offered up her whole self--her heart and her life--to be spent for him, like that fleeting perfume. Judas expostulates, "To what purpose is this waste?" There is an answering flash from Jesus, like lightning from a summer cloud. The value that our Lord sets upon love is nowhere more energetically expressed. This trembling, sensitive heart has offered itself up wholly to him, and he accepts and defends it. There is a touch of human pathos in the words, "She is anointing me for my burial." Her gift had all the sacredness in his eyes of a death-bed act of tenderness, and he declares, "Wheresoever through the world this gospel shall be preached, there also shall what this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her."

Judas slinks back, sullen and silent. The gulf between him and his Master grows hourly more palpable--as the nature that cannot love and the nature to whom love is all come in close collision. Judas and Christ cannot blend any more than oil and water, and the nearer approach only makes the conflict of nature more evident.

On Monday morning, the day that we now celebrate as Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem. We are told that the great city, now full of Jews come up from all parts of the world, was moved about him. We have in the Book of Acts an enumeration of the varieties in the throng that filled Jerusalem at this time: "Parthians, Medes, Elamites, dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judæa and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and Proselytes, Cretes and Arabians." When all these strangers heard the shouting, it is said the "whole city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus, the Prophet of Nazareth in Galilee."

And what was He thinking of, as he came thus for the last time to the chosen city? We are told "And when he drew near and beheld the city, he wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." Then follows the prophetic vision of the destruction of Jerusalem--scenes of horror and despair for which his gentle spirit bled inwardly.

One feature of the picture is touching: the children in the temple crying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" The love of Jesus for children is something marked and touching. When he rested from his labors at eventide, it was often, we are told, with a little child in his arms--children were his favorite image for the heavenly life, and he had bid the mothers to bring them to him as emblems of the better world. The children were enthusiastic for him, they broke forth into rapture at his coming as birds in the sunshine, loud and noisily as children will, to the great discomfiture of priests and Scribes. "Master! bid them hush," they said. He turned, indignant--"If these should hold their peace the very stones would cry out." These evidences of love from dear little children were the last flower thrown at the feet of Jesus on his path to death. From that day the way to the cross was darker every hour.

XXIII

THE BARREN FIG-TREE

_Monday in Passion Week_

During the last week of the life of Jesus we see him under the most awful pressure of emotion; the crisis of a great tragedy, which has been slowly gathering and growing from the beginning of the world, is now drawing on. The nation that he had chosen--that he had borne and carried through all the days of old--was now to consummate her ruin in his rejection. All his words and actions during the last week of his life were under the shadow of that cloud of doom which overhung the city of Jerusalem, the temple, and the people whom he had loved, so earnestly and so long, in vain.

When going up to Jerusalem he walked before his disciples, silent and absorbed; and they dared scarcely speak to him. Amid the triumphant shouts of the people that welcomed him to the city he paused on the verge of Olivet and wept over it. He saw the siege, the famine, the terror of women and helpless children, the misery and despair, the unutterable agonies of the sacking of Jerusalem, which has been a world's wonder; and he broke forth in lamentation. "Oh, that thou hadst known--even thou in this thy day--the things that belong to thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes."

All his discourses of this last week are shaded with the sad coloring and prophetic vision of coming doom, of a crime hastening to fulfillment that should bring a long-delayed weight of wrath and vengeance.

His parables now turn on this theme. One day they tell of a husbandman intrusting a vineyard to the care of faithless servants; he sends messengers to overlook them; they beat one and stone another, till finally he sends his only and beloved son, and then they say, "Let us kill him;" and they catch him and cast him out of the vineyard and slay him. "What," he asks, "shall the Lord of the vineyard do to these husbandmen?" Again, he speaks of a feast to which all are generously invited, and all neglect or reject the invitation, and not only reject but insult and despise and ill-treat the messengers who bear the invitation; and tells how the insulted King sends the invitation to others, and decrees, "None of these men shall taste of my supper." He tells of a wedding feast, and of foolish virgins who slumber with unfilled lamps till the door of welcome is shut. He tells of a king, who, having intrusted talents to his servants, comes again to reckon, and takes away the talent of the unfaithful one and casts him to outer darkness.

All these themes speak of the approaching rejection of the nation on whom God has heaped so many favors for many years. The thought of their doom seems to press down the heart of the Redeemer.

The twenty-third chapter of Matthew contains Christ's last sermon in the temple--his final words of leave-taking of his people; and a most dreadful passage it is. It is awful, it is pathetic, to compare those fearful words with his first benignant announcement at Nazareth. Nothing in human language can be conceived more terrible than these last denunciations of the rejected Lord and Lover of the chosen race. He exposes with scathing severity the hypocrisy, the greed, the cruelty of the leaders of the nation; he denounces them as the true descendants of those who of old killed God's prophets and stoned his messengers, and ends by rising into the very majesty of the Godhead in declaring their final doom:--

"Fill ye up the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents! Ye
generation of vipers! How can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and
scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some
of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues and persecute from
city to city. That upon you might come all the righteous blood
shed upon earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood
of Zacharias,[5] the son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the
temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you all these shall come
upon this generation!

"O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets and
stonest those that are sent unto thee--how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen doth gather her
brood under her wings--and ye would not. Behold, your house is
left unto you desolate, for I say that ye shall see me no more
henceforth till ye say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of
the Lord."

[5] See 2 Chronicles xxiv. 20, 21.

"And the spirit of the Lord came upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoida the priest, who stood among the people, and said, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? Because ye have forsaken the Lord he also hath forsaken you. And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord."

These two instances, of Abel and Zacharias, cited by our Lord from the very first and very last of the sacred historic books, seemed to cover the whole ground of their history. The variation as to the name of the prophet's father has many theories to account for it, any one of which is satisfactory.

This was Christ's last farewell--his valedictory to those whom he had loved and labored for, and who would not come to him that he might give them life.

To all these awful words was added the language of an awful symbol. In one of his parables our Lord had spoken of the Jewish nation under the figure of a tree which, though carefully tended year by year, bore no fruit. At last the word goes forth, "Cut it down!" But the keeper of the vineyard intercedes and prays that it may have a longer space of cultured care, and so be brought to fruit-bearing. This last week of our Lord's life he sets forth the solemn close of that parable by one of those symbolic acts common among the old prophets and well understood by the Jews.

Approaching a fair and promising tree on his way into the city, he seeks fruit thereon, but finds it barren. There is a pause, and then a voice of deep sadness says, "No fruit grow on thee henceforth and forever!" and immediately the fig-tree withered away.

It was an outward symbol of that doomed city whose day of mercy was past. The awfulness of these last words and of this last significant sign is increased by the tenderness of Him who gave them forth. It is the Fountain of Pity, the All-Loving One, that uttered the doom--a doom made certain and inevitable not by God's will but by man's perversity.

The lesson that we have to learn is the reality and awfulness of sin, the reality of that persistence in wickedness that can make even the love of Jesus vain for our salvation. For what hope, what help, what salvation can there be for those who cannot be reached by His love? If they have seen and hated both him and his Father--what remains?

XXIV

CAIAPHAS

_Tuesday in Passion Week_

The thought may arise to many minds, if Jesus was so lovely, so attractive, and so beloved, how could it have been possible that he should be put to so cruel a death in the very midst of a people whom he loved and for whom he labored?