Verses 55-56
Chapter 93
Prayer
Almighty God, how wonderful is thy way in light and in love. We cannot follow all thy going, but thou hast so wrought in us by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, that we can wholly trust thy love, and be assured that thy way is light, though it be in the whirlwind, and the clouds be the dust of thy feet. Thou dost rise above us as the heaven is higher than the earth, yet thine eye is upon us for good, and thine hand is searching our life to find out where it may lay some other gift. Thou dost live to give; thou didst so love the world as to give, and in that giving we saw thy whole heart, all the love of thine eternity, and all the grace of thine infinitude. Thou didst give thine only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Thou hast no pleasure in the death of the wicked thy purpose is life and immortality, and bliss and service that is rest, and expectation that is its own fulfilment. Enable us to lay hold upon the gift of thy Son, and to make it the chief and only treasure of our life. His blood cleanseth from all sin, the great answer of his love confounds every accusation of the law, so that we say, It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?
Enable us more and more clearly to see the cross, to feel its gracious power, to answer its pathetic appeal. May we live in Christ because Christ lives in us, and may we serve Christ because of the inspiration of his own Spirit. May the secret of our energy be in the constraining love of Christ, may the mystery of our power and our industry be found in the love of our heart for the Son of God. He that spared not his own Son, but freely delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? So would we have but one care, that we have Christ in us, and that we live in Christ then shall all things needful and good be added unto us.
We now unanimously praise thee in cordial and loving song for all thy tender care over us from the first breath until now. We are thy children: thou didst make us and not we ourselves; we have in us thine own image and likeness, marred indeed and broken, not to be known by any eye but thine: yet still God is our Father in heaven. Thou wilt not shut the door until the prodigal returns, thou wilt welcome all who come to thee in penitence and hope and loving trust. Thou dost not turn away from the sons of men who cry unto thee contritely, thou dost further open the home-door and with broader welcomes call to those who are furthest off. Thy mercy endureth for ever: thy mercy is a great sea, thy love is without bound or limit which we can determine. Where sin abounds grace doth much more abound, for art not thou the all-filling One, and all-ruling, putting away everything contrary to thine own holiness and causing thy wisdom to be the light and peace of creation?
We come with our sins, but we shall not take them away again: we lay them down as a black and heavy burden at the foot of the cross. Lord, help us; Lord, pardon us; Lord lift up the light of thy countenance upon us and say, "Thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven." Thou dost not forgive little by little, thou dost not pardon partially, thou dost multiply to pardon, yea, thou dost pardon with pardons, as billow rolling upon billow, until our sins are like stones which are cast into the depths of the sea.
We come with our continual prayer for light, guidance, defence, and peace which passeth understanding. We know not how few our days, but we would make them the best days of our whole life. Hence on we would have no mistake or error; from this time forward may our life be complete in thy presence by reason of the holiness of its purpose and the sanctity of its prayer. Yet we know we shall fail, we shall be bruised again, the enemy shall yet overthrow us yet surely thou wilt come in the end and bind us up with an eternal healing, and make us strong with immortality. We are in thine hands as we have always been; our sin shall not separate us from thee, if so be there rise in our heart the hatred of it and the desire to be belter.
We come asking for light upon thy page, holy page, divinely written, full of light and truth. Open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of thy law, give to our understanding the light that shall be as a lamp of thine own lighting, and may we see things afar off, and read with quick and sure vision all the writing of God concerning this life.
Hear any special hymn and any particular prayer now offered by those who bow before thee in morning worship. In some houses thou hast given new life, and with new life is a new song. Otherwhere thou hast put out the fire and blocked up the window into which the most light came, and made the house cold and drear. O visit thou the dwelling thus desolated, and make it glad again with some purer joy. Regard those whose life is now to them a perplexity and a wonder, not knowing how they shall spend the little remainder of their energy, and grant them unexpected answers of release and joy.
The Lord's blessing be upon us now as a worshipping people; give us the spirit of adoration, the spirit of supplication, and the spirit of hopefulness, and work in us that sacred and vigilant desire which looks out for blessings and hails them with joy in their descent.
As for those who are not with us, they are with thee the sick, the afflicted, the helpless, the poor who dare not venture out in the light, but who wait for the darkness that they may seek even their Father's house. The Lord remember such, and make all heaven shine upon them with promise and blessing. Our dear ones on the water, the great abyss, voyaging homeward, with many a tender memory and many a sacred hope the Lord himself navigate the ship and bring it to the desired haven.
Bless the stranger within our gate, the man unfamiliar with the place and institute, and give him comfort in the thought that this is his Father's house. In all our meetings and partings be thou with us, the one Light and the only joy, till we are gathered in the house that is above. Amen.
55. And many women (distinct from the "daughters of Jerusalem," Luk 23:28 ) were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him:
56. Among which was Mary Magdalene (the first mention of the name in Matthew), and Mary the mother of James (the Little) and Joses, and the mother (Salome, Mar 15:40 ) of Zebedee's children.
57. When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathæa (probably Ramah, the birthplace of Samuel), named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple;
58. He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered.
59. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,
60. And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.
61. And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.
62. Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,
63. Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.
64. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error (better deceit, as corresponding with deceiver, ver. 63) shall be worse than the first.
65. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can.
66. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch (the priests took part as well as the soldiers).
The Sayings on the Cross
These incidents are utterly trifling as compared with what had transpired on the cross itself, as indeed all incidents, except the Resurrection, must be. Nothing can occur, so soon after the scene upon the cross, which can, compared with that tragedy, be worthy of one moment's consideration. Whilst therefore these petty details are completing themselves, let us study the inner life of Christ as revealed in some of the Sayings which he uttered from the cross in his last agony. These Sayings will admit us into the very sanctuary of his soul. You remember that he called his sermon upon the mount "These sayings of mine," now that he is upon the higher mount, the cross, he utters Seven Sayings, which are really but a re-pronouncement of the first. The Sayings on the cross seem to be the solemn peroration of the Sayings on the mount. The great music is one. He returns, after many a wondrous and thrilling variation, to the note with which he opened the anthem. In such returns and such consonances, we find an argument for his Deity.
What said he on the cross? "Woman, behold thy son." He also said, "I thirst." Further, he said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Again he said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." And he cried, saying, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Finally he said, "It is finished." He laid the rock when he preached the sermon on the mount: on the cross he built the infinite fabric. Without professing to settle the order in which the Sayings are uttered, we can have no difficulty in discovering the meaning of the revelation. After we have studied that meaning awhile, we can come to these little incidents, and gather them up and show their greater meaning.
The Sayings upon the cross surely give a complete revelation of the humanity of Jesus Christ. It was no dramatic personage that quivered on the cross. It is of importance to say this. The voice was human, the confession of need was human, the sense of desolation was human, his filial affection was human. All these last proofs were needed to render absolutely impossible any theory, mythical, dramatic, or imaginary in any sense. On the cross was the man Christ Jesus. The humanity of Christ made his priesthood possible. We could not have a priest in a mere Deity. Deity does not pray. He must be a man, often as weak as I am; he must have a body as real, burning with the same fire, quivering under the same pain, answering the same great demands. He hungered, he thirsted, he slept, he rested because of weariness, he sat down on Jacob's well. Verily he took not on him the nature of angels, he took on him the seed of Abraham. Touch him, grasp him, look at him, watch him, and he is Man and Woman, male and female, the ideal man, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. "We have not a High Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities: he was in all points tempted like as we are."
This is the tender power of his priesthood to my soul. Peter touches the exact music of the occasion when he says, "Casting all your care upon him, for..." O listen to the following and completing words. How grandly the sentence would have read had it stood thus, "Casting all your care upon him, for he is omnipotent." That would, however, have touched but a feeble chord. Only the few can respond to sublimity. The sunset is wasted upon most eyes. But all hearts can answer the sympathetic so the glorious sentence stands not as I have suggested it, but, "Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you." It is the moral sublimity, not the intellectual magnificence, that touches the universal heart!
Herein is the secret of the power of evangelical preaching, above all philosophical abstraction and ethical prelection. These touch but a few, but evangelical unction, sympathy, tenderness, grace, these belong to the universal heart, and the tone is detected as the tone of a universal speech. Be quite sure of your Lord's humanity. Do not allow any section of the theological church to steal that from you, as if it belonged to that section as a special possession. When a theologian of any school arises and says, "I believe in the humanity of Jesus Christ," we ought to answer, "And so do we." More fully, more pathetically, and more trustfully, we accept more from his blood than any school of theologians can accept, who doubt or hesitate concerning his divinity. A body was prepared for him: he interrupted no law of nature: whilst on the cross he said, "I thirst," what wonder, with his blood drained from his heart, what wonder if the peasant thirsted? The wonder was that he confessed the thirst. But it was a wonder of love, a wonder of condescension, a wonder that concealed a revelation. The words "I thirst" did not indicate a merely personal accident, they revealed and confirmed a sublime doctrine and fact, namely the humanity, and the priestly humanity, of the suffering Son of God. He suppressed no natural instinct "Son," said he, "behold thy mother." He created new relationships whilst he was sundering old ones. "Woman," said he, "behold thy son, thy support, thy friend, thy refuge in time of bitterest loneliness and childlessness." He set up a new household whilst the temple of his body was being torn asunder, he made whilst he was being unmade. He smothered no natural emotion; "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" uttered in a strange language, " Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani ." Hark, is it Hebrew? is it Syriac? what is it? They could not tell. The bystanding Jews said, "He calls for Elias." He was always misunderstood! The Son of God calling for Elias? Always were his great magnificent words dragged down to little applications and accidental circumstances, by the mean interpreters who thronged around him, crowding him with their society, but not enlarging him with their thoughts.
These Sayings do more than reveal the complete humanity of Christ: they show the grandeur of his moral nature. I do not dwell on the tenderness of his care for his mother, but I would point to the sublimity of his forgiveness. It was his then to be the great Man, to work the last miracle, to mount a throne from the very head of the Cross itself. He would have his murderers forgiven! It is grander to forgive than to slay! we should have no enemies if we could really pray for them. They in themselves might continue to be enemies, but in our hearts there would be no sting of enmity. When did the Lord turn the captivity of Job when he gave his most brilliant retort to his three comforters? No. The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends!
It is always so: it is a subtle and beneficent law in the divine revelation, and the administration of human affairs, that we get our greatest blessings in our most religious moments. Examine what has been done to you, analyze it, weigh it in scales of your own making, measure it by standards of your own setting up, and then you will but aggravate the enmity which you have already deplored. But pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, and though no answer fall upon them, the reply will surely enter your own heart, and in the sanctuary of your consciousness there will be rest, and even joy.
But I would dwell still more upon the magnificence of Christ's religious conceptions. He called himself "forsaken," but he did not therefore deny the existence of God; he did not allow the experience of a moment to becloud and destroy the eternal realities. That is where so many of us fail. God takes away the delight of our eyes, and we therefore turn our back upon him, and deny what is infinitely of more consequence than his existence we deny his love! Of what avail is it to confess his existence if we deny his providence, his compassion, his mercy? What does it amount to if we have a theological God, but no God gleaming in the compassion which bedews every morning, and shining in the light which gladdens the whole day? Better deny his existence and shout blasphemous oaths into his blank heaven, than profess to acknowledge his existence and yet deny, or distrust or disown his love and his claims.
Let us read this cry of forsakenness in the light of the other Sayings, and we shall see what it meant. How many of us have taken out this dark expression and reasoned gloomily about it, instead of setting it in its right place, and allowing all the lights to shine upon it and illustrate its great sadness and mystery? "Forsaken," yet not without consciousness of God: calling him "Father," committing the spirit into the Father's hands. He is not "forsaken" who can in the darkness say, "Father." Forsaken, yet confident in prayer, spending his last breath in supplication addressing the heavens, making no appeal to the earth: sending enough downwards to prove his humanity, but sending upwards the great breadth and force of his life. "Father, receive me, Father, forgive them" he cannot be much forsaken who can thus trust his spirit to the Unseen One!
Forsaken, yet forgiving all; dying with the word of clemency upon his lips, anticipating and outblotting the great judgment about this solemn tragedy. He was not forsaken who thus prayed. " Why hast thou forsaken me?" ay, that is the question of the ages, and that cry was meant for our consideration rather than as an expression of his own loneliness. " Why hast thou forsaken me?" Let the ages answer that inquiry! let the church ponder it! let the world renounce all smaller inquiries, and answer this infinite perplexity! It is a question we must answer: God made no reply; we must find out why it was that for one moment Christ was orphaned and left alone. When we come to consider this question in other relations we may find that it was part of the grand priestly process that Christ should feel the woe of orphanage; we shall find that this was no reflection upon his purity or his purpose, but one of the infinitely solemn secrets of the impenetrable decrees of heaven. Maybe that sin explained the forsakenness, that sin wrought out this isolation; the Lamb must stand back in terrible loneliness to receive the last shock of the very storm which he came to silence and to sanctify.
Then mark how these Sayings show Christ's assurance of the completion of his work. He bowed his head and said, "It is finished." "It" what? The sentence relates to something beside and beyond itself. "It is finished" how much is signified by that meanest of the pronouns. Who can tell what visions enthralled his attention at that moment? how the eternal purpose stood before him like a tower on which the top stone had just been laid; how some immeasurable cycle of time completed itself and another cycle of vaster sweep and intenser light began its revolution. What decrees were fulfilled, what prophecies matured, what hearts enlightened, what worlds opened none can tell. The atonement was completed, the answer to the law perfected, the way to the Father was opened, the love of God shone upon the world without a cloud to interrupt its light, and righteousness and peace kissed each other over the covenant fulfilled.
In the light of these reflections turn to the little incidents that make up the rest of this chapter, and in those incidents you find bewildered but undespairing love. "Many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him." They stood their ground, and were saying just what Christ was saying, in a sense their own. They said, "My Jesus, my Jesus, why hast thou forsaken me?" Had he forsaken them? No more than God had forsaken him. See in their loneliness some hint of the meaning of his own, "I will come again. After three days I will rise again. Destroy this temple and in three days I will build it again." It was a momentary forsakenness; it recalled an ancient prophecy "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with everlasting mercies will I gather thee."
Then here is what we always find in the whole Christian history, and perhaps in the individual story as well Help from an unexpected quarter. "When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathæa, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple; he went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus." Help from an unexpected quarter! the evening having a star all its own! This star was not seen in the bright light, it shone "when the even was come." The evening brings us all together: morning scatters us, evening reconstitutes the household and resanctifies the home. Thank God for evening stars, for night glories, for jewellery gleaming through the darkness. We have seen some of God's bright stars when the night settled upon our houses, but what we have seen is but a dim hint of the glory that shall be revealed.
And here also we have a confession of human weakness. They the chief priests and Pharisees remembered what the disciples had forgotten. The disciples required to be reminded of the resurrection! "Then remembered they the saying that he would rise again," but the enemies treasured it. Our enemies catch tones in our speech which our friends sometimes miss. Those who watch us most carefully with a view to our destruction write down in their note-books sentences which our friends hardly hear. "Sir," said they, "we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again." So they would have precautions taken. Pilate said unto them, I wonder with how much of irony, "Ye have a watch go your way, make it as sure as ye can." As ye can: go your way wave your hands to the rising sun, and forbid him to advance. What a fool's errand! Go your way: seal up the Spring, and tell it that this year we shall have no vernal wind and no vernal blossoming. What a fool's errand! Go your way and tell Arcturus and his sons to shine no more, and bid the Pleiades vanish from the heavens they have illumed so long. What a fool's errand! but a philosopher's undertaking compared to sealing the tomb in which lay the Son of God.
So shall all our enemies be disappointed, if we ourselves be right; so all sealing and watching shall come to an ignominious end, if the thing buried be only the body, and not the soul that cannot die!
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