Matthew 26:14-30

Chapter 88

Prayer

Almighty God, thou art always leading us onward to Gethsemane, happy we if thou wilt enable us to sing a hymn here and there on the road. This is thy purpose that we should take our sorrows as the beginning of our joys, and should look onward beyond the place of the shadow into the place of the shining of the eternal light. Our eye will sorrowfully rest upon the gloom, it will not lift itself hopefully and look onward to the light, and herein have we great and needless sorrow, for we remember not that the dawn is at hand, and that thou art preparing us for great visions of glory. Help us, in the spirit of our Master, to endure the cross, despising the shame, and looking onward all the while to the glory that shall be revealed. Show us that the walk is a short one to Gethsemane, there a night of praying and sweltering blood, by and by, and sharply, the cruel cross with its nails and spear, then a moment's burial, and away into immortality. May this lie before us as the open road of the soul, and believing these great and solemn truths may we gird up our loins and pursue the way thou hast marked for our feet. Grant unto us that whilst we are eating the bread of afflictions and the bitter Egyptian herbs, we may see our deliverer and hear the voice of emancipation.

Thou hast led us just in the old Biblical way: no new line have we written, though we have often tried to do so. Thou dost begin with us in the sunny garden where the four rivers are and all the beauteous flowers and luscious fruits: thou dost grant unto us limitation, and bind us to do this as well as not to do that, and we are templed and seduced and lured by visible and invisible powers, and drawn straight to disobedience and rebellion. We are cast out of the garden into the wilderness, the great, bleak, drear desert, and but for thy mercy we should die there: but thou dost appear for us and grant a great promise, even to the rebellious heart, and thou dost set before our blinded eyes, blinded because of great tears of sorrow, the rainbow of covenant and hope, and the great light of final restoration, being purified by the sacrificial blood. And onward thou dost lead us, over many a weary road, along many a lengthening mile, until we are compelled to sit down for very tiredness, and to beg water from the wayfarer, and yet all the while thou dost show to our eyes the whitening harvest, and give to us promise of plenitude of joy and deep and durable content. Lead on, thou gracious One: we will follow thee: Saviour of the world, cleanse us every day by thy blood, inspire us by thy Spirit, feed us with thy truth, and sustain us with thy grace.

We bless thee that we cannot die. If any man believeth in Christ, he shall never see death: it may pass by him, and change his relation to things, but he will never see it. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith, so now we say, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" We have conquest and peace through him who was calm with the serenity of God.

We commend one another to thy gentle protection. Regard our affectionate solicitude for one another as a prayer unto thyself and plentifully answer it, thou whose heart is love. We commend unto thee all for whom we ought to pray, the royal, the great, the ruling, those who lead our sentiment and direct our national affairs, for all men in authority and influential positions the Lord's blessing be not withheld from any one of them, may they be caught in the impartial rain of his grace, and rejoice because he hath visited his inheritance. Regard our loved ones from whom we are separated for the moment; be with them in the far away city, on the great sea, in the middle of the wilderness, amongst strange people and amongst languages they cannot speak: bring them back to us in thy due course, thou who dost keep the time of the world in the high Heavens. Take up our children into thine arms and bless them, thou Son of Mary, thou Son of every woman.

Oh let thy light and thy salvation go forth like angels over all the earth, drive away the darkness of sin, superstition, error: liberate from bondage all who are enclosed in the prison of fear, distress, or despair, or do thou come, thou mighty One, whose right it is to reign, and having cleansed us in the one fount opened for sin and for uncleanness, and regenerated us by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, may the earth be recovered from her wandering, may the prodigal be brought home again and set among the brotherhood of the stars, to go out no more for ever. Amen.

Mat 26:14-30

Sanctified Symbols

You remember the meaning of the passover: it was a feast of the Jews, established for the purpose of keeping in perpetual remembrance the passing of the Red Sea, the coming out of Egypt, the final deliverance from Egyptian bondage. This festival was kept up every year by the Jews, it was therefore the feast of memorial, its one purpose was to keep continually in view the power and goodness of God, displayed to ancient Israel in delivering the people from Pharaoh and in causing them to pass over the Red Sea as on dry ground.

Jesus, as a Jew, would keep this feast. You reform institutions best oftentimes by remaining within them. It is true that on many occasions assaults may be delivered from the outside, but as a general rule the great and beneficent revolutions and reforms come from within the institutions themselves, and are unmarked by the violence of external onslaught. Jesus Christ said, early in his ministry, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil," that is, to bring up to the very highest point of meaning and to cause to pass away, because the divine idea has ripened and culminated and there is therefore nothing further for the institution to accomplish.

The disciples asked him where they should prepare the passover for him. It was a family feast: there was something national in the arrangements, and there was something domestic in the details. All the lambs were brought together, penned together, so that the Jews went down and chose their lambs from the great multitude, and took those lambs to the priest to be examined, that they might be declared to be fit for the sacrifice. Two of the disciples of Jesus Christ went onward to do this preliminary work. They went to the pens, they selected a lamb according to the law, they took their turn amongst the others in having the lamb submitted to the priest's scrutiny: in due time it was slain in the legal way and eviscerated, and what was designed for the altar was left behind, and the carcase was trussed with two skewers made of pomegranate wood and shaped like a cross, and then the lamb was taken home to be prepared for the evening meal.

The disciples, acting under the instructions of Jesus Christ, were dependent on another man for hospitality. Perhaps John, Mark, perhaps Joseph of Arimathsea the name is not given. There was no reason to divulge it at the time, and it has now fallen into oblivion. But hospitality was willingly and graciously offered on the occasion of the passover, and those who were very poor, and offered such hospitality as was in their power, were rewarded by having the skin of the lamb left, and by having the vessels which were used at the little feast given to them. The passover was never to be celebrated by fewer than ten or by more than twenty at a time. Jesus went with the twelve one of them was hardly in the count it was just about enough. We shall get the revelation why certain numbers were chosen, by-and-by: we shall find that not the smallest thing in the whole economy was done by the law of haphazard or accident.

Look at the little plain table. There is on it the unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, calling up the afflictions of ancient Israel. On it there was also a dish of bitter herbs, reminding those who partook of them of the hard life which ancient Israel was doomed to live in Egypt, and there was upon it a dish of the conserve of fruits, and that might sweeten the feast a little, for surely in every lot there is one drop of sweetness. And there were three cups of wine, or one cup thrice filled; it was filled with red wine mingled with water, and it was presented to the head of the feast. He rose and uttered a thanksgiving to God for the fruit of the vine, and partook of it and passed the cup on to the other guests, and then the second cup came and they ate again and commented upon the meaning of the festival, and the third cup was filled, and it was after that, that as they were eating, Jesus took the bread and blessed it, and brake it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat: this is my body." And he took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the new covenant rather than testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins." According to an Eastern custom, the guests put their fingers into the vessels and took out what they required to eat, hence the expression: "He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish," he that is dipping it, he that has just dipped it, the hand that has just met mine, "the same shall betray me. It is the last time the hands shall meet on earth, they have joined together in this one act of fellowship; hence on there will be nothing but disseverance, separation of the widest kind, which no line can measure. He whose hand is with mine in the dish, or has just been with mine in the dish, the same shall betray me."

Such is a little history of this memorial festival, which I have rapidly sketched in order that we may the more vividly realise the scene, whilst I proceed to ask one question and to answer it, namely: Is this the same Jesus with whom we have accompanied in the reading of this gospel, these many months past? Can we identify him as the same has he changed in any vital aspect or relation? We have never seen him under such a shadow before. Does he now, under the impending and terrific gloom, reveal the same features? Could little children go up to him now and say, "This is the Jesus that once blessed us?" Or is this some fancy portrait, lacking in every element of consistency with the living man who has travelled with us month by month in our Scriptural studies and made our hearts burn within us? To my mind it is the same Jesus, and I think the proof is more than ample. Here, for example, is the same absolute control over all circumstances, giving him the unspeakable serenity which has always appeared to us to be amongst the sublimest of his miracles. He is in no tumult: the great clock has struck his hour, but the striking has not paralysed him: he is, if possible, grander than ever, as there is about the sunset a royalty that we do not see in the rising sun, a richer pomp, a grander magnificence. In the rising sun there was power, promise, prophecy, the uplifting of one who said, "1 can do it, and will do it; I will fill the whole arch with light and make it glow with heat," but about the setting sun there is the calmness of one whose battle is won, a king dying amid pomp worthy the grandeur of his life.

So Jesus Christ calls himself the Master even now. When he instructed the disciples to go into the city to such a man, he told them to say unto the man, "The Master saith." Coming from his lips these words have great meaning; coming from his lips at such a time they seal him as one who was indestructibly conscious of sovereignty. He does not tremble or cower or beg. He commands even now, without a house to eat the passover in, dependent upon his friends for the last hospitality he does not say, "I ask thee, I beg of thee, I entreat of thee," he says, "The Master saith, My time is at hand: I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples." Why, this is the very Jesus that looked up and saw Zacchæus, and said, "Make haste, Zacchæus, and come down, for today I must abide at thine house." He had no house, and yet he seemed to have all houses: he went in where he pleased, and made the place the greater by his presence. Poverty never lost anything by his entertainment, and the rich man always found his silver cup on the top of the sack when he opened it, when his wondrous Guest had gone, and the money was there, and nothing was lost. This is Christian experience the ages through. No man loses anything by Christ. When any man in a moment of haste and thoughtlessness says, "We have forsaken all and followed thee," he makes such a reply as causes the man to burn with shame that he was forgetful enough and ungrateful enough to mention the little so-called sacrifice he had made.

Here is a mastery of details. Everything was pointed out with the ease and clearness of a man who apparently had nothing else to do. Where the room was, how it was furnished, how everything was to be set in order so that no two men ever left a master with more carefully or precisely worded instructions. He does not hang down his head that he may sob out his weakness, he does not speak incoherently because of the great pressure that was upon his life, he does not say, "Please spare me now: do what you will, and whatever you arrange, I will accept." He is still Master, and Lord still, and Great Sovereign yet, and the outgoing of his words is the utterance of a command, and in his look there is nothing to betray the consciousness of fear or the presence of weakness. So far we know we can identify him as the Man who was always the same, who never knew one shock of paralysis, who never hesitated as to the course he ought to pursue, and who, when his voice was lowest, showed that it was not the suppression which comes of weakness, but the lowering of his mighty thunder to accommodate the weakness of others.

Here also we have the same tender compassion. Again and again we have seen that compassion is the key-word of the Saviour's life. But for his pity the most of his miracles never would have been wrought. He never worked a miracle merely to exhibit his strength. He never hurled his almightiness upon the attention of society to overcome men by mere power. He wept, he sighed, he pitied, he compassionated with the most clement and tender spirit; and because he had compassion upon those who were needy and in pain or in great distress, he wrought miracles for the supply of their necessity, for the soothing of their pain, and for the abolition of their sorrow.

We have the same compassion exhibited in this closing instance of his fellowship with the disciples. Whom does he compassionate now? He compassionates Judas Iscariot. Think of that for one moment. Surely we read the words in a wrong tone if we read the twenty-fourth verse as a mere threatening "Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed: it had been good for that man if he had not been born." He does not turn upon Judas and look daggers at him: he does not utter these words in a tone of exasperation and resentment, then the occasion would have lost its sublimity. He interprets the great decrees: he stands fast in the tabernacle of God's eternity, and there might have been tears in his eyes when he said: "Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed." Not, "I threaten you with woe," not, "I will one day repay you for this," not, "This is the day of your triumph, but my day will come, and then I will visit you with penal chastisement because of this betrayal." Such a tone would have been out of rhythm with the gospel of his love, and also with the thunder of his almightiness; it would have become a quarrel, a mere contention; he regarded it as a fulfilment of prophecy, the final expression of that which had been decreed from eternity. Woe will be the lot of him who does this, he will suffer for it when he sees one day what has been done: he will have no joy in this, he will sup sorrow out of a deep bowl and will drink the very dregs of the bitterness. Oh, I pity that man; it had been good for him that he had not been born.

Do not understand from these remarks that Judas was a good man. This does not alter the character of Judas himself: I am speaking of the divine interpretation of a fact, and the divine interpretation of the development of a certain man's character. Judas himself was a traitor, a thief, a man for whom no word of merely personal condemnation is bad enough, but we must not find the whole interpretation of the case herein: there is the divine view as well as the human view, and Jesus Christ pities the man who has fitted himself to carry out this purpose though it be old as the decrees of eternity: he pities the sinner in working out the sin, there is an aspect of every sinner which touches him, not with anger, but with real grief and pity; when he sees a man breaking his commandments right in two, and throwing the halves away from him with eager hand, he does not burn with anger only. Leave such anger to artificial deities. God is love, and he cries over the poor fool as he sees him doing the wrong. That does not excuse the man, that does not make the man one whit whiter or better, but I contend that there is an aspect even of sin which moves the divine pity as well as the divine anger, and I feel that the rhythm of this solemn music is kept up equally throughout, not by interposing notes of discord such as would follow in mere commination or threat of penalty. I would see in these words from Christ's point of view the sorrow which God always feels when he looks upon the traitor. We are all traitors; some have come to public infamy, but all should live in private shame. We may run away from Judas as to the mere accident of what he did, but he is our brother, born in our heart, and we are born in his, so far as the internal act of personal disobedience or rebellion or treachery is concerned.

We misrepresent the great Father when we think of him only as being angry with the sinner. Anger never suggests redemption; wherever God has followed the sinner with offers of redemption and mercy and forgiveness, it is because he has looked upon the sinner, not with an eye of anger only, but with an eye of pity and tenderness and compassion, so far as the sinner himself is concerned. He never looks with pity upon the sin, he never looks without pity on the sinner.

This is the same Jesus then: he is as compassionate as ever, he will love down to the end. Perhaps even on the rack itself he may say, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," and if so, he will, to his last breath, be as compassionate as he has been throughout his whole career. Let us wait and sec.

In the next place, here is the same use of incidents, and the same elevation of opportunities and occasions to their highest significance and purpose. "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the new covenant." Have we seen this Jesus before? Unquestionably. Where? At Cana in Galilee. What was he doing there was he keeping the feast of the passover? No he was keeping a wedding feast, and at that wedding feast he turned the water into wine, and now he turns the wine into blood. He always moves to some higher generalisation, to some broader gift, to some grander display of beneficent power. Where have we seen this Jesus before? In the desert place. What was he doing there? Turning a few loaves into a feast for a great multitude. What is he doing now? Taking the bread lying before him and breaking it so that it should be in symbol his broken body, flesh given for the life of the world.

Have we seen this power displayed elsewhere? Indisputably. Where? Why in the very beginning. God took the dust of the earth and made of it a man. Christ took the water and made it into wine: he took the wine and made it into blood, he took the bread and made it into flesh behold I make all things new! think not to say unto yourselves, We are the children of Abraham, for verily I say unto you, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. Think not that you are reputed the succession, and that God is dependent upon you for the continuity of the Abrahamic line: God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

We do not see the deep meaning of things. We read the letter and leave it as the letter: we do not wait until it burns, and out of it there comes the voice of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Hence we have all manner of foolish controversies about the words "This is my body: this is my blood." Go back to the feast itself, sit down as members of that little band, and watch the action from its beginning, and tell me if the mystery be not imported into it by the priests, for it is not there by the action of Christ himself. When we come to what is now termed the Lord's Supper, we come to the passover of the Christian Church, we come to eat memorial bread and drink memorial wine. There is no magic about it, no priest's fingers manipulate the elements so as to change them or give them value. They are to you what you are to them. You do not see them, you eat as if not eating, drink as if not drinking, and if your heart be penitent and broken utterly, and there be no place in it or excuse for sin, and your whole soul goes out after the loving Christ for the benefits of his completed redemption and his continual intercession, you will be as if you had eaten his flesh and drunken the very blood of his heart. Do not try to explain these things in words, and do not fritter away your attention and fritter away your love, too, in trying to reconcile these with your reason. You cannot take the whole sum into your house, however broad your window or directly southerly your aspect: you can take in but a ray or two, the great sun does not feel as a prisoner within the lines of your architecture. So with these great sacred hallowed histories and suggestions; they take upon themselves the language of every country, the accent of every dialect, and they change themselves so as to throw broadening glory and ample hospitality according to the ever-enlarging civilisation of the world.

And is there some poor soul that is afraid of eating and drinking the bread and wine unworthily? You cannot do so if you eat and drink penitentially. If you turn the action into a revel, into a drunkard's feast, you eat and drink unworthily. It is not you that have to be worthy, it is the feast that has to be worthily approached, that is to say, approached with a due sense of its dignity, meaning, unction, and spiritual suggestion.

The passover was eaten, the mouthful of bitter herbs had been taken by Christ for the last time, the new Symbol had been set up, the law of the passover had been fulfilled in the institution of the symbolic feast. "And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives." Some few of the men sang the great solemn words of the ancient Hallelujah, then the others joined in saying the last words of the song, and ended with the exclamation, "Hallelujah." They fulfilled the law to the last letter, no jot or tittle of it was taken away. Poor singing it was, from an artistic point of view grand singing from the heavenly standpoint. If you sing artistically only, the shame be yours and mine. Sometimes the hymn that is sobbed may be more acceptable than the hymn that is sung. Sometimes the prayer that is broken off in the middle is a mightier intercession than a gorgeous address or a splendid litany. God accepts the heart: he knows what we would do if we could, but "God abhors the sacrifice where not the heart is found."

They went out into the mount of Olives. So simple is the action when set down in cold words. There never was such a going out before there never has been such a going out since! Let us be very quiet just now: the Master has gone out He is on his way to Gethsemane!

To Gethsemane!