Luke 22
THE LAST PASSOVER.
1 “Now the Feast of unleavened Bread drew nigh, which is
called the Passover.”
These words show that many of the readers for whom
this Gospel was intended were
foreigners, who were unacquainted with Jewish terms
such as the “Passover.”
(τὸ πάσχα
- to pascha - פסח) means, literally, “a passing.” The feast so named
commemorated the manner in which the chosen people
were spared in
destroying angel of the Lord passed over all Israelite
houses, which had
been sprinkled with the blood of the lamb, without slaying
the firstborn. Dr.
Farrar suggests that the Greek
word πάσχα – pascha –
Easter; Passover - is a
transliteration, with a sort of alliterative allusion to
the Greek πάσχα – pascho –
“I suffer.” This greatest and most important of the Jewish feasts,
which ever
brought a great host of pilgrims to
Jewish year (Nisan), from the
15th of the month, the day of full moon, to the 21st.
Roughly, this corresponded to the end of our March.
2 “And the chief priests and scribes sought how they might
kill Him; for
they feared the people.”
The determination, long maturing,
had,
during the last few days of public teaching, been come to
on the part of the
Sanhedrin. They had determined to put the dangerous public
Teacher to
death. The bitter hatred on the part of the Jewish rulers
had been gradually
growing in intensity during the two years and a half of the
public ministry
of Jesus of
the governing body with as little delay as possible to
compass the
Reformer’s death. The temporary withdrawal of the Lord
after the great
miracle deferred their purpose for a season; after,
however, a retirement for
a few weeks, Jesus appeared again, shortly before the
Passover, and taught
publicly in the temple, at a season when
pilgrims arriving for the great feast. Never had His
teaching excited such
interest, never had it stirred up such burning opposition
as at this juncture.
This decided the Jewish rulers to carry out their design on
the life of the
Galilaean Teacher with as little delay as possible. The only thing
that
perplexed them was how this could safely be
accomplished, owing to the
favor in which He was held by the people, especially by the
crowds of
pilgrims from the provinces then in
Piety,
Pedantry and Formalism (v. 2)
Of all those who in any and every way were responsible for
the death of
Jesus Christ, the largest share of guilt lies at the door
of the religious
leaders of the time. The Roman soldiers were only the immediate
instruments of it; the
Jewish populace were only the blind agents of it; but
these scribes and
chief priests were the guilty instigators of it: they brought
it about. It was they who first conceived the idea; it was
they who
suggested and urged it; it was they who ceased not to
agitate and direct
until the dark deed was done. How came they to go so far
astray? How
came it to pass that while (<422138>Luke
21:38), “all the people came early in the
morning to Him in the temple for to hear Him” thus bearing witness to the
sincerity of their discipleship and their desire to
know the truth He taught,
they, the leaders of
the land — scribes who were familiar with every letter
of the Law, priests who were daily occupied in the services
of the
sanctuary, learned doctors, and pious ministrants — were
actively and
earnestly compassing His death? The fact is that:
·
RELIGIOUS PEDANTRY
(excessive concern with minor details and rules)
MAY BE VERY LEARNED, AND YET WHOLLY WRONG.
These men
knew their Scriptures with a
fullness and nicety of detail that surpasses the
knowledge we have of our sacred
writings; and they had also a perfect familiarity
with the teachings of
traditional lore. They despised the ignorance of the common
people in these respects (see
John 7:47). Yet they were not wise with the wisdom
of God; they entirely
failed to understand the Divine will and the way to
eternal life. The
religion they taught and lived was utterly heartless; it was a
service without any soul in it,
a mechanism without any life in it; it was an
elaborate error,
a great and sad misconception of the mind of God; it was a
surrender of
freedom that did man no good and gave God no pleasure; it
was a toilsome and torturing
imposition that neither satisfied the intellect,
nor cleansed the heart, nor
elevated the life. And it so perverted the
judgment that, when the Truth
Himself came to reveal the Father, these
learned but unwise leaders,
instead of being eager to hear Him like the
people (ch.
21:38), were “seeking how they might kill Him.”
·
RELIGIOUS FORMALISM WILL GO TO GREAT LENGTHS OF
WRONG-DOING. If the
scribes were men of pedantry, the chief priests
represented the evil and error
of religious formalism; and the latter were in
no way behind the former in
either spiritual blindness or malevolence.
They, too, failed to recognize
their Messiah, and were actively engaged in
compassing His murder. In every
age and land religious formalism has been
blind and cruel; it has failed
to recognize the reformer when He has come to
speak in God’s name; and it has
been forward to accuse and to slay Him.
Such has been its spirit and its
course, that the home of love and mercy has
been converted into the hotbed
of hatred and of cruelty. It is another
illustration of the truth that
the corruption of the best becomes the worst of
all; the piety that runs into
ordinances, utterances, abstinences, formalities,
will in time degenerate into
utter error and shameful wrong. This is a truth
which applies to many more
Churches than one; it is, indeed, more or less
applicable to all religious
circles. There lies a deep-seated tendency in our
nature which accounts for the
facts in our Lord’s time and in every age
since then. Let us, therefore,
learn that:
·
TRUE PIETY IS FOUND IN
RECTITUDE OF HEART AND LIFE.
Not in holding and professing
certain correct formulae; not in going
through certain ceremonies or
observing a number of rules and regulations.
These have their place in the
means assure us of our place in
it. It
is rightness of heart toward God our
Father and our Savior, and consequent integrity of life,
which make us to
“stand before God” as His loyal subjects now, and will make us “worthy
to
stand before the
Son of man” when He shall call us to HIS NEAR
PRESENCE!
Judas Iscariot Betrays
His Master (vs. 3-6)
3 “Then entered Satan into
Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number
of the twelve. 4 And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests
and captains, how he might betray Him unto them. And they
were glad,” –
This was their chance. In the very heart of the Galilaean Teacher’s own company a
traitor showed himself, one who knew well the plans
of his Master. With his help
the Sanhedrin and the priestly party would be enabled to
effect the arrest
privately. They then must trust to Roman jealousy to help
them to carry
out their evil design. The expression, “Then entered Satan into Judas,” is a
strong one, and definitely shows that, in the opinion of
these inspired
compilers of the Gospels, there was a person who
bore rule over the
powers of evil. The character and history of the faithless
friend of Jesus is
mournfully interesting. For one to whom such splendid chances were
offered to fall so low, is an awful mystery. It is clear that the betrayal was
no sudden impulse. He set up self as the one object of all
his thoughts, and
followed Jesus because he believed that, in following Him,
he could best
serve his own interests. His ambition was cruelly
disappointed by his
Master’s gradual unfolding His views respecting His
kingdom, which was
not to be of
this world. He was still further shocked by the undisguised
announcement on the part of his Master, whose greatness and
power Judas
recognized from the first, that He would be rejected by the
nation, and even
put to death, has been suggested, as an explanation of the
betrayal, that at
the last he seems to have fancied that he could force the
manifestation of
Christ’s power by placing Him in the hands of His enemies;
but the
acceptance of a reward, miserable though it was, seems to point
to vulgar
greed, and to the idea of making friends with the dominant
party in the
state now that his Master evidently looked forward to a
violent death, as
the real motives of the betrayal – “and covenanted with him to give him
money. 6 And he promised, and sought
opportunity to betray him unto
them in the absence of the multitude.”
The Deepest
Wound (vs. 3-6)
When everything has been allowed for Judas that the most
ingenious and
the most charitable have begged us to consider, we must
judge him to be a
man whose conduct is to be solemnly and seriously
condemned. It is Divine
Love itself that decides this question (see v. 22; Matthew
26:24; John 17:12).
The text suggests to us:
·
THAT OUR DEEPEST WOUNDS ARE THOSE WE RECEIVE AT
THE HAND OF OUR NEAREST FRIENDS. How much force is there in
the parenthesis, “being
of the number of the twelve”!
What deep pathos is
in those sad words of the Lord, “Verily
I say unto you, that one of you
shall betray me” (<402621>Matthew 26:21)! This was a
“sword that entered into
his soul,” a keen distress, one of
the very bitterest of all the sorrows of the
Son of man. That one whom He had admitted to His intimate fellowship,
of
whom He had made a friend, who
had partaken of His confidence and
shared His strong affection, —
that he should be the one to betray Him to
His foes! There is no trouble
possible to us so great as that which lies open
to us on the side of our purest
and strongest affections. It is not our
avowed enemy, nor the man to
whom we are indifferent, but it is our
dearest friend, who has it in
his power to lacerate our soul with the
sharpest thrust, and to spoil
our life by throwing over it the darkest shadow
(see Psalm 41:9).
Ø
Be slow to admit to
the inner sanctuary of the heart; for he who has
entrance there holds your
happiness in his own right hand.
Ø
Realize the
responsibility of intimate friendship; it is not only a
privilege,
but an obligation; it gives you power to gladden and to bless,
but
also opportunity to mar and to destroy.
·
THAT MONEY PLAYS A LARGE PART, FOR GOOD OR EVIL,
IN HUMAN LIFE. They “covenanted
to give him money.” It seems hardly
credible that any man who had
lived in the society of Jesus Christ, and had
witnessed His kindness and His
purity, should take money for betraying Him.
Other motives — those of
resentment or ambition- are far less shocking
and revolting than this
mercenary one. To betray his Master, his Friend, for
thirty pieces of silver, fills
us with wonder and excites the deepest
reprobation. But for what has
not money been responsible in human
history? How large a part it
plays in the great drama! What untold good it
is instrumental in effecting!
What admirable virtues it is the means of
illustrating I To what deeds of
folly and even of infamy the desire to obtain
it has conducted! It is clear
that men who have been trained to hate
immoral and criminal behavior
with an intense hatred have been induced to
part with every principle they
have honored, and to do the worst deeds
they have denounced, in order to
obtain money, when they have found
themselves pressed for its possession. Probably no man who has not felt it
knows the deadly force of the
temptation. Who shall say that he is safe
from this powerful snare? It is
probable that to obtain money more evil
deeds have been done than under
any other inducement whatever.
Therefore let every man beware
lest he subjects himself to this strong and
fell temptation. Let neither an
overweening ambition nor extravagance of
habit lead where the possession
of more money becomes an imperative
demand. (There seems to be no place where this filthy
lucre is felt than
in the halls of Congress and the
Oval Office in Washington, D. C. - CY -
2021) Moderation in desire and economy in habit
save men from a
temptation in which, it may be,
their souls would be entangled and their
very life taken away.
·
THAT EARNESTNESS IS SURE TO SEEK ITS
UNTIL IT FINDS IT. He “sought opportunity to betray Him.”
By
whatever motives inspired, Judas
was intent on compassing the act he had
undertaken. And he did not wait idly until an opportunity offered itself. He
sought it. If evil is thus in earnest, how much more so should
righteousness
and mercy be! These should
surely be about their holy and loving work
“with both hands earnestly.”
restore, — this is not to be
passively waited for, but to be actively sought
out. There is a very marked
difference between readiness to work when we
are invited and even urged to do
so, and that noble zeal which will not be
contented without
finding material for activity. It is
the difference between
a goodness that you do not blame
and a goodness that you admire;
between a life that will not
stand condemned and a life that will be crowned
with victory and honor. If there
are those who, in the interest of error and
of evil, will set about
diligently to promote these ends. shall we not put
forth our utmost energy on
behalf of truth and heavenly wisdom? If men
can be found who will “seek
opportunity” to betray, shall not we with
deeper
devotedness “seek opportunity” to honor our Lord?
The Disciples Peter and John
are Directed to Prepare for the Last
Passover (vs. 7-13)
7 “Then came the day of
unleavened bread, when the Passover must be
killed.” This was the Thursday, Nisan 13.
On this afternoon all leaven was carefully
and scrupulously put away; hence the name.
8 “And He
sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the passover,
that
we may eat.” The three synoptists unite in
describing this solemn meal, for which
Peter and John
were sent to prepare, as the ordinary Paschal
Supper. But, on
comparing the record of the same Supper given by John, we are
irresistibly led to a
different conclusion; for we read that on the following day
those who led Jesus into
the Praetorium went not in
themselves, “lest they should be defiled;
but that
they might eat the Passover” (John 18:28); and again it is said of the same day,
that “it was the preparation of the Passover” (John 19:14). So the time of the Supper
is described by John (John 13:1) as “before the Feast of
the Passover.” It appears
that our Lord was
crucified on the 14th of Nisan, on the very
day of the sacrifice
of the Paschal Lamb, a few hours before
the time of the Paschal Supper, and
that His own Last Supper was eaten the night before, that
is, twenty-four
hours before the general time of eating the Passover
Supper. The most
venerable of the Fathers preserved this as a sacred
tradition. So Justin
Martyr: “On the day of the Passover ye took Him, and on the
day of the
Passover ye crucified Him” (‘Dial. cum Trypho,’
ch. 3.). To the same effect
write Irenaeus (‘Adv. Haer.,’ 4:23) and Tertullian
(‘Adv. Judaeos,’ ch. 8).
Clement of
Passover on the legal day of the Passover, but on the
previous day, the
13th, and suffered on the day following, BEING HIMSELF THE
PASSOVER! (Fragment from ‘Chron. Paschal.,’
p. 14, edit. Dindorf).
Hippolytus of Portus bears similar testimony. The question — as to whether
the famous Last Supper was the actual Passover Supper, or the
anticipatory
Paschal Feast, which we believe it to have been — is important; for
thus the
language of Paul (I Corinthians 5:7), “Christ our Passover is sacrificed
for us,” is justified. “The apostle regarded not the Last Supper,
but the death of Christ, as the antitype of the Paschal
sacrifice, and the
correspondence of type and antitype would be incomplete unless the
sacrifice of the Redeemer took place at the time on which
alone that
of the Paschal lamb could legally be offered.”
9 “And they said unto Him,
Where wilt thou that we prepare?”
It is probable that the disciples, in asking this question,
concluded that the
Passover was to be eaten by them and their Master at the
same time with
the rest of the Jews on the following day; but our Lord
gave directions for
its being eaten the same evening.
10 “And He said unto them,
Behold, when ye are entered into
the city, there shall a man meet you,” - The name
of the man who should
meet them was omitted — purposely, as some think, lest the place of meeting
should be prematurely known to Judas – “bearing a pitcher
of water; - This
would be an unusual sight in an Oriental city, where the
water is drawn by women.
It is probable that the “man”
whom the Master foretold John and Peter would
meet, was the master of the house, who, according to the
Jewish custom on the
13th of Nisan, before the
stars appeared in the heavens, had himself to go to
the public fountain to draw the water with which the
unleavened bread for the
Passover Feast was kneaded - “follow him into the house where he entereth
in.
11 And ye shall say unto the goodman
of the house, The Master saith
unto thee, Where is the guestchamber,
where I shall eat the passover with
my disciples?”
12 “And he shall show you
a large upper room furnished: there make
ready.” The house which possessed so large an upper chamber must
have been
one of considerable size, and evidently belonged to a man
of some wealth and
position, possibly to Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathaea. That it perhaps
belonged to Mark’s family has also been suggested.
It had evidently been
prepared beforehand for the purpose of the feast, in
obedience to a previous
direction of Jesus. (ἐστρωμώνον – estromonon - furnished ) applies specially
to carpets spread over the couches for the reception
of guests. “In this large upper
chamber thus prepared,’’ said the Lord, “make the
necessary arrangements for
the Paschal Supper; procuring and preparing the
lamb, the unleavened bread, the
herbs, and other customary dishes.” It seems
probable that this “large upper room,”
evidently belonging to a disciple, or at least to one
friendly to Jesus, was the same
room which, in the happier hours after the
Resurrection, witnessed the
appearance
of the Risen to the eleven, and, later, the descent of the
Holy Ghost at
Pentecost. 13 “And they went, and found as He had said unto
them: and they
made ready the passover.”
The Last Supper (vs. 14-38)
14 “And when the hour was
come, He sat down, and the twelve
apostles with Him.” The preparation had been made in the “large upper
room,” and the Lord and the twelve sat down, or rather reclined on
the
couches covered with carpets, the tables before them laid
with the dishes
peculiar to the solemn Passover Supper, each dish telling its part of the old
loved story of the great deliverance. There was the lamb the Paschal
victim, and the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread and the
reddish sweet
conserve of fruits — commemorating, it is said, by its
color the hard labors
of brickmaking, one of the chief
burdens of the Egyptian bondage — into
which the Master dipped the sop, and gave it to the
traitor-apostle (John 13:26).
The Lord reclined, probably, at the middle table; John next
to Him; Peter most
likely on the other side; and the others reclining in an
order corresponding more
or less closely with the threefold division of the twelve
into groups of four. The
Supper itself had its special forms and ceremonies, which
the Lord transformed
as they proceeded in such a way as to change it into the
sacred Supper of the
New Testament.
15 “And He said unto them,
With desire I have desired to eat
this Passover with you before I suffer.” This peculiar
expression, “with
desire,” etc., is evidently a reproduction by Luke of the Lord’s
very
words repeated to him originally in Aramaic (Hebrew), They
seem to be a
touching apology or explanation from Him to His own, for
thus anticipating
the regular Passover Supper by twenty-four hours. He had
been longing
with an intense longing to keep this last Passover with
them: First as the
dear human Friend who
would make this His solemn last farewell. (Do not
we, when we
feel the end is coming, long for a last communion with our
dearest ones?) And, secondly, as the Divine Master who
would gather up
into a final discourse His most important, deepest
teaching. We find this
teaching especially reported by John in his Gospel
(13-17.). And
thirdly, as the Founder
of a great religion, he purposed, on this
momentous occasion, transforming the most solemn festal gathering
of the
ancient Jewish people, which commemorated their greatest
deliverance,
into a feast which should — as age succeeded age — COMMEMORATE
A FAR GREATER DELIVERANCE, not of the old chosen race only,
BUT OF EVERY RACE UNDER HEAVEN! These were three of the
reasons why He had desired so earnestly to eat this
Passover with them.
“To-morrow, at the usual hour, when the people eat their
Passover, it will be
too late for us.” This he expresses in His own sad words, “before I suffer.”
16 “For I say unto you, I
will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in
the
desire once more to eat the solemn Passover with His
chosen disciples. He would,
by some significant action and word, show that the
great Jewish feast, for so many
centuries the central act of the ritual observances
under the Mosaic Law, from
henceforth would be superseded by a new and a yet more
solemn religious
rite. The Jewish
Passover was to give place to the Christian sacrament. He,
their Master, would with them share in the Passover meal
that evening for
the last time. The next time that He would partake would be
still with them,
but it would be in the
God, which was to be founded after His resurrection. The
commenced with the resurrection of Jesus. The constant
celebration of the
Holy Eucharist commenced from that time; it is more than
probable that
our Lord partook of it, after His resurrection, with His
own (see ch. 24:30;
Acts 10:41). 17 “And He
took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take
this, and divide it among yourselves: 18 For I say
unto you, I will not drink
of the fruit of the vine, until the
which speak of a final partaking (eating and drinking), are
closely parallel to the
command contained in vs. 19-20. The first statement seems
solemnly to close the
celebration of the Passover Feast; the second, to institute
with equal solemnity a
new feast in its place:
“With desire I have desired
to eat this passover with you before I suffer”
(v. 15); for:
The Passover Feast is solemnly The Holy Eucharist is solemnly
put an end to. Instituted.
“I will not any
more eat thereof, “He took bread and gave
unto
until it be fulfilled in the kingdom them:…This do in remembrance
of God”
(v. 16). of
me. (v. 19)
“I will
not drink of the fruit of the vine, “Likewise also the cup after
until the
It was in the course of the great ritual Supper on some of
the occasions
when the cup was passed round, and the unleavened bread
formally broken
or dipped in one of the Passover dishes, that the Lord
found His
opportunity solemnly to announce the formal abrogation of
the old Paschal
Supper and the institution of the new communion feast. The
above literal
interpretation of the Lord’s mystic words, “until that day when I drink it
new with you in my
Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29), or, as
Luke
reports them, “I will
not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the
meaning which lies beneath the surface, and which speaks of
another and spiritual
banquet in the heavenly realm, which not only the Redeemer, but
also His
redeemed, will partake of. Heaven-life under the
form of a banquet was
imagery well known and often painted by the Jewish masters
in the old
rabbinic schools before and contemporary with the earthly
life of Christ.
The New Testament writers in several places have adopted
the similar
imagery, notably in Matthew 8:11; v. 30 here; Revelation 19:9.
How widespread and well loved was this Jewish
representation of the
heaven-life under the form of a banquet is clear from the
three above
quoted references taken from Matthew, Paul (Luke), and
John.
The Passion, from Two
Standpoints (vs. 15-16)
·
AS IT LOOKED TO OUR LORD WHEN HE WAS APPROACHING
IT. It was to Him a
terrible trial, which He was eager to reach and pass
through. “With desire He desired”
(v. 15) the time to arrive when He should
suffer and should complete His
work. He did not wish to escape it; He was not
looking about for an
alternative; He knew that He could not save Himself if
He would save the world; and He
longed for the trial-time to come and to
be passed. Here was the heroic,
and here was also the human. Here was the
determination to endure, and, at
the same time, the natural, human anxiety
to know the worst and to
exchange an almost intolerable suspense for the
suffering that awaited Him.
Ø
Having chosen the path
of self-sacrifice, and having entered upon and
pursued it, it behoved Him to continue and to complete His appointed
work. He could not turn back
without suffering defeat; He accepted the
dark future that was before Him
as a sacred duty. From it there must be
no turning aside to other ends;
and there was none. He never wavered
in His purpose from
beginning to end. “This shall not be unto
thee,”
from Peter, appears to have
been. a strong shock of temptation to Him
(Matthew 16:21-23). But nothing
induced Him to turn aside by a single
step from the path of
sacrificial service.
Ø
Yet we have here a
glimpse of the extreme severity of the trial He
underwent. He knew that His “suffering”
would immediately follow this
Passover, and He “earnestly
desired” that Passover to come, that the
sufferings might follow. With
perfect reverence we may say that He could
not realize what they would
include, for they had never before been
experienced; they stood
absolutely by themselves, and could not be known
until they were actually felt.
And this element of suspense and uncertainty
must have added a great weight
of trouble to the sorrows of our Lord.
“How bitter that cup no heart
can conceive;” not even His heart did
conceive until it was in His
hands.
Ø
Like our Lord, we
should go on without faltering to the darkest future
which we feel it becomes us to
face.
Ø
As with Him, the
uncertainty of the actual elements of our grief may
oppress our spirit and fill us
with eager desire for its coming (see also
ch. 12:50).
Ø
We shall find, as He
found, all needful Divine help
when the hour
does actually arrive.
·
AS HE WOULD HAVE US REGARD IT NOW. That is, as a
completed work of redeeming
love. That last Passover has been “fulfilled
in the
FULFILLED! The “Lamb
of God” has been slain — that Lamb “which taketh
away the sin of
the world.” Everything in the way of
sacred endurance, of
Divine preparation, is now
completed, and THE WAY INTO THE KINGDOM
IS OPENED! Those sufferings to which Jesus was so eagerly looking
forward,
to which had now come, with
nothing between them and Him but that
Passover Feast, had to he
endured (see ch. 24:26); and now they
have been endured. EVERYTHING predicted
in sacred rite or solemn utterance
has been “fulfilled,” and we wait for nothing more. We sit down to no
predictive Passover Feast,
because “Christ, our Passover, is
slain for us.”
(I Corinthians 5:7) What we have to do is gratefully and eagerly
to avail
ourselves of the “FINISHED” work of our REDEEMING
LORD; to let
that suffering, that death, that sacrifice,
Ø
evoke our humility;
Ø
call forth our faith;
Ø
kindle our love and
command our obedience;
Ø
inspire us with sacred
and abiding joy, inasmuch as His “sorrow
unto death” is the source of OUR ETERNAL LIFE!
19 “And He took bread, and
gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them,
saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
20 Likewise also the cup
after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament
in my blood, which is shed for you.” Around these words,
and the parallel
passages in Matthew and Mark, for more than a
thousand years fierce theological
disputes have raged. Men have gone gladly to prison
and to death rather than
renounce what they believed to be the true
interpretation. Now, a brief exegetical
commentary is not the place to enter into these sad
controversies. It will be
sufficient here to indicate some of the lines of thought
which the prayerful
earnest reader might wisely follow out so as to attain
certain just ideas
respecting the blessed rite here instituted — ideas which may
suffice for a
practical religious life. Now, we possess a Divine
commentary on this
sacrament instituted by our Lord. It is noticeable that
John, whose
Gospel was the latest or well-nigh the latest of the
canonical writings of the
New Testament, when at great length he relates the story of
the last
Passover evening and its teaching, does not allude to the
institution of that
famous service, which, when he wrote his Gospel, had become
part of the
settled experience of Church life. He presupposes it;
for it had passed then
into the ordinary life of the Church. In another and
earlier portion of his
Gospel, however, John (John 6:32-58) gives us a record of
the
Lord’s discourse in the synagogue of
speaking plainly to those who heard Him at the time, gave
by anticipation a
commentary on the sacrament which He afterwards instituted.
The truth
which was taught in thin discourse is presented in a
specific act and in a
concrete form in the Holy Communion. In the fifty-third
verse of that sixth
chapter we read, “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of
the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.”
How is this
now to be done? We reply that our Lord has clothed these
ideas and
brought them near to us in this sacrament; while, by His
teaching in the
sixth chapter of John, He guards this sacrament from being
regarded on
the one hand as an end in itself, or on the other as a mere
symbol. Certain
truths, great landmarks laid down in this discourse,
have to be borne in mind.
- The separation
of the flesh of the Son of man into flesh and blood
(John 6:53) presupposes a
violent death submitted to for the sake of
others (Ibid. v.51).
- Both these
elements, the flesh and the blood, are to be appropriated
individually by the believer
(Ibid. v.56).
- How is this
appropriated? What is it to eat His flesh and to drink His blood,
but to share in His sufferings
and to imitate the life He lived when with
us in the flesh?” (St. Bernard, on Psalm 3:3). “If ye suffer with Him, ye
shall also reign
with Him” (II Timothy 2:12). The Holy Eucharist is from
one point of view a great
truth dramatized, instituted for the
.purpose of bringing
before men in a vivid manner the great truths above alluded
to. But it is
something more. It brings to the
believer, to the faithful communicant, to the
one who in humble adoring faith carries out to the
best of his ability his Master’s
dying charge — it brings a blessing too great for us to measure by
earthly
language, too deep for us to
fathom with human inquiry. For the partaking
of this Holy Communion is,
first, the Christian’s solemn public confession
of his faith in Christ
crucified; his solemn private declaration that it is his
deliberate wish to suffer with
his Lord and for his Lord’s sake; that it is,
too, his firm purpose to imitate
the earthly life lived by his Lord. The
partaking of this Holy
Communion, too, is the Christian’s most solemn
prayer for strength thus to
suffer and to live. It is, too, his fervent
expression of belief that this
strength will be surely given to him. Further,
the partaking of this Holy
Communion is, above all, the Christian’s most
solemn prayer for living union
with Christ — “that Christ may
dwell in
his heart by
faith” (Ephesians 3:17). It is, too, his fervent expression of
belief that “then we dwell in Christ,
and Christ in us; we are one with. Christ,
and Christ with us.” This
confession, declaration, and prayer he constantly
renews in obedience to the
dying command of his Master. It is difficult to
understand how any belief
in a physical change in the elements of bread and
wine, such as is involved
in the theory of transubstantiation held in the Roman
Church, or of
consubstantiation in the Lutheran community, can be supposed to
enhance the reverence of the
communicant, or to augment the blessing
promised. The words of the Lord,
“This is my body… my blood,” cannot
surely be pressed, seeing that
the same Divine Speaker was in His
discourses in the habit of using
imagery which could not literally be
pressed, such as “I am the Bread of life,” “I am the Door of the sheep,”
“I am the true Vine,” etc. Nothing that can be conceived is more solemn
than the simple rite, more awful in its grandeur, more Divine and
far-reaching
in its promises to the faithful believer. Human imaginings
add nothing to this
Divine mystery, which is connected at once with the Incarnation and
The Atonement. They only serve to envelop it in a shroud of earth-born
mist and cloud, and thus to dim if not to veil its Divine glory.
The Lord’s
Supper (vs. 19-20)
A very simple rite as first observed was the Lord’s Supper.
But for certain
passages in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles,
we should not
have known that Jesus Christ intended to create a permanent
institution.
But though the simpler the ceremony is the more scriptural
it is, yet are the
ideas associated with it and suggested by it many and
important. They are
these:
·
THE NEAR PRESENCE OF OUR LORD. Not in the elements but
presiding over the company. It
is a table at which He entertains His friends;
and can He, the Divine Host,
Himself be absent?
“Around a
table, not a tomb,
He willed
our gathering-place should be;
When going
to prepare our home,
The Savior
said, ‘Remember me.’”
And at that table, meeting and
communing with His friends, we may feel
sure and can realize forcibly
that our living Lord is, in spirit and in truth,
“in the midst of
us.”
·
CHRIST OUR STRENGTH AND OUR JOY. The chosen elements
are bread and wine, the sources of strength and of gladness. He, our Lord,
is the one constant Source of our spiritual nourishment
and strength, of the
joy with which our hearts are for ever glad.
·
CHRIST OUR PROPITIATION. The broken bread, the outpoured
wine — of what do these
speak to our hearts? Of the “marred visage,” of
the weariness, of the poverty
and privation, of the toiling and loneliness
of that troubled life, of the griefs and pains of that burdened and broken
heart, of the shame and the
darkness and the death of the last closing
scene. We stand with bowed head
and reverent spirit at that cross and see:
“Sorrow and love flow
mingled down.”
And our hearts are full as we
ask:
“Did e’er such love and sorrow meet;
Or thorns compose
so rich a crown?”
And we realize that that sorrow
was borne, that death died for us. “This is
my body, ‘given
for you;’ my blood, ‘shed for you.’” It is the
Propitiation
for our sins.
- OUR INDIVIDUAL APPROPRIATION OF OUR
LORD’S GREAT
WORK. Each one eats of that bread and drinks of that cup. As he does so,
in and by that act he declares his
own personal need of a Divine Savior; he
affirms his conviction that the sacrifice was offered for him; he renews his
faith in the Divine Redeemer; he recognizes the claim of Him that loved him
unto death; he rededicates
himself to Jesus Christ and to His service; he
rejoices, in
spirit, in his reconciled Father, in his Divine Lord and Friend.
·
HAPPY AND HOLY COMMUNION WITH ONE ANOTHER.
Gathered round one table, in the
felt presence of our common Lord, all
invited to drink of the same cup
(Matthew 26:27), we are drawn to one
another in the bonds of
Christian love. We realize our oneness in Him as a
strong bond which triumphs over
all the
separating influences of the world.
Faith, joy, love, are kindled
and” burn within us;” and we are strengthened
and sanctified, built up,
enabled to “abide in Him.”
The Lord’s Sorrowful
Allusion to Judas the Traitor (vs. 21-23)
21 “But, behold, the hand
of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table.”
This is the second mention of the traitor in Luke’s account
of the Last Supper.
From John’s recital, we gather that Jesus returned
several times in the course of that
solemn evening to this sad topic. That one of his
own little inner circle, so closely
associated with Him, should so basely betray Him,
was evidently a very bitter drop
in the Lord’s cup of suffering. In His dread
experience of human sorrow it was
needful that the Christ should fulfill in His own
experience what even the noblest of
the children of men — David, for instance — had felt of the
falseness of
friends. What suffering can be inflicted on a generous
heart comparable to
it? Surely He of whom it was written, “Whose sorrows are like unto my
sorrows?”
(Lamentations 1:12) must make trial of this bitterness. Chrysostom
thinks that the Master, in some of these repeated allusions
during the “Supper,”
tried to win Judas over to a better mind.
22 “And
truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined: but
woe unto that
man by whom He is betrayed!” We seem
to hear
a wailing in this woe, although
the denunciation was so firmly pronounced. Matthew, in his account,
here adds some
more words spoken by the Master, “It had
been good for that man if he had not
been born” (Matthew
26:24). Awful as the words were, they have their
bright as
well as their dark side. According to the estimate which
men commonly form, the
words are true of all except these who depart this life in
the faith and fear of God. In
His applying them to the case of the traitor in its
exceptional enormity, there is
suggested the thought that for others whose guilt was not
like his, existence even in
the penal suffering which their sins have brought upon them
may be better than never
to have been at all!!!???
Jesus and Judas; our
Lord and Ourselves (vs. 21-22)
The ordinance of the Lord’s Supper was closely connected,
not only in time but in
apostolic thought, with the act of the betrayal (see I
Corinthians 11:23) — the
institution of the greatest privilege with the commission
of the darkest crime.
Our Lord’s demeanor on this occasion is well worthy of our
most reverent thought.
·
JESUS AND JUDAS.
Ø His length of sufferance. After
knowing that Judas was seeking to
betray him (v.
6), Jesus might well have expelled him from his society.
He might have
done so, acting judicially, as being no longer worthy to be
classed among His
apostles. He might have done so, acting prudentially, as
one
o
whom
it was not wise to admit to His counsels and His plans; and
as one:
o
whose
association with the eleven would be a source of evil. He might
very
appropriately have declined to acknowledge him as an officer and a
friend. But
Jesus did not press His right. On the contrary, He let him
continue as one
of the twelve, he let him come under the same roof with
Himself, He
permitted him to share the Paschal feast: the hand of him
that was
betraying Him was “with
him on the table.” To
such a length
as that His
longsuffering went.
Ø His dignity in rebuke. He
did not break forth into passionate invective;
He did not use
words of natural and permissible vehemence; He quietly said,
“Woe
unto that man by whom He is betrayed!” Matthew tells us that he
added, “It
had been good for that man if he had not been born.”
(Matthew
26:24) What a transcendent calmness and
serenity of spirit we
have here! What
a contrast between two children of men! One man preparing
to betray his
Teacher, his Friend, his Master; the other compassionating His
betrayer for
the depth of his fall and the sadness of his doom. Jesus went
on
to His sacrificial death and
to His throne; Judas went out into the night
(John 13:30) —
into the dark night of guilt, of shame, of despair, of
death.
·
ONE LORD AND OURSE The wrong against our Lord it is still open to us to
commit.
We cannot betray Him as Judas
did; yet may we do that which answers
to, and is almost if not quite as deplorable as that sad and shameful act.
Let us
consider that:
Ø
We know more about
Jesus than Judas then did; for we have all the light
of His resurrection and of the
teaching of His apostles.
Ø
He has granted to us
mercies as many and as great in intrinsic value as
those He bestowed on Judas.
Ø
Owing Him as much as
Judas did, we may do even greater injury to His
cause than the traitor did. The
act of Iscariot ultimately issued in the
all-sufficient sacrifice; this
did not extenuate or lessen his guiltiness by
a simple grain; but it nullified
the mischief of the crime. We may do
incalculable and irreparable
mischief to the cause of our Master by our:
o
unfaithfulness,
o
infidelity,
o
disobedience, and
o
our criminal negligence.
Ø
By such disloyalty we
may wound and grieve His Spirit almost as
severely as His betrayer did.
Wherefore let us:
o
Be humble-minded. “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take
heed, lest he fall.” (I
Corinthians 10:12) ” If we could find the
man who has smitten Christ and
His cause the severest blow
that was ever struck, it is
probable that we might easily find an
hour in that man’s history when
he would have shrunk with holy
horror from such a guilty act.
o
Be prayerful; ever looking heavenward with the supplication,
“Hold
thou me up,” (Psalm 119:117)
o
Be diligent
in the field of earnest Christian work. It
is the idler
in
the vineyard whom the tempter will assail. It is the faithful
workman who is in a position to
say, after his Lord and Leader,
“The prince of
this world cometh, and hath nothing in me”
(John 14:30).
23 “And they began to
inquire among themselves, which of them it was that
should do this thing.” That all the disciples, on hearing this
statement of their Master,
should at once question their own hearts with the “Is it I?” (Ibid. v.
22), shows with
what cunning skill the arch-traitor must have
concealed not merely his plans but his
very sentiments. No suspicion on their parts ever
seems to have fallen on Judas,
their companion for so long a time. The direct colloquy of
the Lord with
the traitor, reported at length in the other Gospels on the
occasion of dipping the
sop into one of the Paschal dishes, was most probably
carried on in a whisper
(see John 13:26-29, where mention is specially made of the
disciples’ ignorance
of the dread meaning of their Master’s words to Judas).
The Last Passover of Our
Lord (vs. 1-23)
After the significant survey of
previous chapter, Jesus seems to have remained quietly at
the
was brief, but all the more important in consequence. Every
moment was
utilized by our Lord that He might be ready for His great
ordeal. But if He
was making preparations, so were His enemies. Accordingly,
we have an
account here of the treason which led up to His sacrifice.
We have,
consequently, to consider:
·
THE TREASON OF JUDAS. (vs.
1-6.) The Sanhedrin was in
session, anxious to seize on
Jesus and get Him removed; for they feared
that an attached populace would
declare for Him rather than for the old
leaders. It was a vain fear. The
people were fickle, and as ready to cry out
for His crucifixion as they had
been to cry “Hosanna!” Yet the fear of
losing popularity goaded the
Church leaders to desperation. Being beaten
in debate by the Master-Mind who
tabernacled among them, they can only
expect by treachery to secure
their purpose. They find their ready
instrument in Judas. And here
consider:
Ø The worldliness of Judas. He had evidently joined the cause of Jesus in
hope of a place
in a world-kingdom. But our Lord’s prophecies of His
speedy
suffering and death have blighted all these hopes. How can he best
make his peace
with the world, which is getting the upper hand, and before
which Jesus is
going down? Judas believes that he can best do this by
betraying Jesus
to His enemies, and, to make the transition the easier for
himself, he
consents to do the shameful work for thirty pieces of silver —
the mean price
of the life of a slave! It was not covetousness pure and
simple which
led Judas to such a bargain, but astute worldliness. He was
making his
peace with the world on the most liberal terms.
Ø Notice the Satanic inspiration
under which Judas acted. It is
evident
that Scripture
represents the sphere of evil as under the domination of a
great
personality called Satan. He can enter into men and take possession
of them. But we
are not to suppose that he has the same intimate access to
the human
spirit which God the Holy Ghost enjoys We have reason to
believe that
Satan moves men by presenting in all their attractiveness the
worldly motives
such as we have noticed. Further, the Satanic impulse is
such as in no
way to relieve the subject of it from responsibility. No one
will be able to
plead “not guilty” on the ground of Satanic temptation.
Ø Notice the mean prudence under which
the traitor acted. Had the band
come in open
day, when the entranced populace hung upon the lips of
Jesus, there
would have been a dangerous emeute (uprising or rebellion),
and life been
lost. Accordingly, Judas seeks to betray
Jesus “in the
absence of the multitude.” There is a meanness and cowardice about
most of the
diabolic wickedness which goes on in the world; a cowardice,
moreover, which
is generally overtaken by just and terrible
retribution.
·
PREPARATIONS FOR THE LAST PASSOVER. (vs. 7-13.) Jesus
meanwhile directs the two
disciples, Peter and John, to make ready the
Passover. He so times the
celebration as to have it over on the Thursday
night of the Passover week, and
without haste, to secure the further
preparation which His spirit
required. And here we have the facts set before
us:
Ø
that He owed
accommodation to the consideration of a stranger; and
Ø
that His supernatural
knowledge guided the disciples in their quest of a
guest-chamber. There, then, in
the guest-chamber of a stranger, without
taking the lamb to the temple,
but in the primitive fashion, the two
faithful men made ready for
their Master. It was a recurrence to the
primitive ritual.
·
THE PASSOVER FEAST.
(vs. 14-18.) With the twelve
accordingly He comes at the
appointed hour, and sits down to the
significant feast. He tells them
with what desire He had contemplated this
last Passover before He should
suffer. He
will not again eat of it till it is
fulfilled in the
passing round of the wine-cup;
next, the bitter herbs, dipped, as salad
would be, in a red sauce made of
almonds, nuts, figs, and other fruits; next,
another wine-cup, after which
the father of the family explained the nature
of the rite; then came the
morsel of unleavened bread and the piece of the
roast lamb, made palatable by
the aforesaid sauce; the last act was the
passing round of a third
wine-cup. It must have been a touching and tender
type in the eyes of Him who was so soon to be offered. We
should have
listened to His explanations on
that occasion with peculiar interest. His
references must have been
somewhat veiled in presence of the
betrayer, yet sufficiently
explicit to have broken ordinary hearts. It was a
marvelous feast — the Paschal Lamb
Himself partaking of the Passover;
the Antitype experiencing a special benefit through the
study of the type!
What a solemnity, moreover, is
thrown over the whole scene through His
indication that it is all
shortly to be fulfilled!
·
THE INSTITUTION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER. (vs. 19-20.)
Upon the more formidable feast,
which is to pass away on fulfillment, Jesus
founds a simpler feast, to be
celebrated till He comes again. It is to consist
of bread and wine, two of the
elements there at the table. The bread is to
represent His body, which is to
be broken for His people; and the wine His
blood, which is for them to be
shed. In this way a memorial more lasting
than brass or marble is to be
reared, and His gracious presence is to be
experienced in the Christian Church. The new institution was a promise of
the most gracious kind,
regarding the season when He would be absent
from them.
·
THE INTIMATION OF THE BETRAYAL. (vs. 21-23.) Along with
the solemn joy there is dashed
profoundest sorrow at the intimation of
betrayal by one of the apostolic
band. A traitor is there, and they should
know it. Good sign in that each
man suspects himself! They all, except
Judas, ask Christ if it is he.
Last of all, it would seem, came the inquiry of
the real traitor. But this
unearthing of the false one does not shake him
from his foul purpose. Christ
could not do more for him than He here does,
even though it does not save
him. How salutary is self-suspicion! How
dangerous self-confidence!
The Jealousy Among the Disciples
(vs. 24-30)
24 “And there was also a
strife among them, which of them should be accounted
the greatest.” The Lord’s words in these verses are peculiar to
Luke. The strife
among the disciples which suggested the Lord’s
corrective sayings was evidently no
mere dispute as to precedence in their places at the
supper, but some question as to
their respective positions in the coming kingdom of
which their Master had said so much
in the course of His later instructions. It is
closely connected with the “footwashing”
related at length in John 13:4-17). This has been well
described as a parable in action,
exhibited to illustrate forcibly the novel and sublime
truth which He was teaching them,
the world-teachers of the future, that in self sacrifice
consisted the secret of true
greatness. In the kingdom of heaven this would be found to
be conspicuously the case.
25 “And He
said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over
them; and they that exercise authority upon
them are called benefactors.”
(εὐεργέται – euergetai - benefactors).
Those who were listening knew well how
utterly false these high-sounding human titles often were. Eὐεργέτης - Euergetaes) –
benefactor,
was the well-known title appropriated by Ptolemy Euergetes
and other
hated royal tyrants well known to the Jewish people. 26 But ye shall not be so:
but he that is greatest among you, let him
be as
the younger; and he that is
chief, as he that doth serve. 27 For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat,
or he that serveth?
Is not
he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as He
that serveth.”
Greatness
after Christ (vs. 24-27)
Three things claim our attention.
·
APOSTOLIC FAILURE.
When the apostles of our Lord came to look
back on this most memorable
evening, how pained and how ashamed they
must have felt as they
recollected this unseemly contest (v. 24)! At the
very hour when their Lord was
.manifesting His love and His forethought
for His Church in two most
striking and touching ways — at the very hour
when His heart was torn with
distracting sorrow by the desertion and
treachery of one of His chosen
band, and when He might well have been
looking for some consolation in
the attachment and the obedience of the
others, they must needs show
their unlikeness to Himself and their
unworthiness of their position
by an untimely dispute about their own
importance in connection with
that condescending service of their Lord’s,
how small such a controversy
seems! And in connection with such a trial as
that through which He was
passing, how unbecoming and ill-timed was any
anxiety about their own affairs!
It was in their power to render to Jesus
Christ a most helpful sympathy,
and, instead of doing that, they grieved
Him by the exhibition of a
contentious and an ambitious spirit. It was a sad
failure on their part. How often
do His disciples fail Him now! How often
do they let the opportunity of
loving and effective service pass unused!
When the hour strikes for
faithfulness, or for courage, or for self-sacrifice,
or for humility, or for
energetic action, is there not found unfaithfulness, or
timidity, or selfish
time-serving, or pride, or a culpable inactivity, that loses
everything and leaves behind nothing but failure and regret?
·
WORLDLY VANITY. (v.
25.) What a poor thing indeed is mere
official dignity, or even
arbitrary power, or servile flattery! Official dignity
without moral worth is a
miserably hollow thing. Arbitrary power,
exercised in caprice and apart
from a pure desire to do good and to enrich,
is an evil thing; it is
injurious to the possessor and it is burdensome to the
objects of it. Servile
flattery is a false thing. It is simply contemptible on
the part of those who pay it; it
is morally ruinous to those who accept it.
Let the “Gentiles” act thus if
they must; but “ye shall not be so.” Ye who
care to be true, to be loving,
to be humble — ye shall not sit on that seat of
honor, ye shall not run into
that serious temptation, ye shall not pursue
such a worthless prize. Other
and better things are within your reach; for
you there is:
·
CHRISTIAN GREATNESS.
(vs. 26-27.)
Ø
Jesus Christ, the
greatest One, was the Servant of all. He came to serve;
it was His holy, heavenly
errand; He came to seek and to save the lost. He
lived to serve. That act of menial service in which He had just
been
engaged (John 13:1-5) was only a
picture and illustration of the whole
spirit and substance of His
life; to bear the burden of others was the law
of His life (Galatians 6:2). He lived to heal,
to help, to comfort, to
enlighten, to redeem; his life from end to end was a loving ministry,
a gracious and generous service (Mark 10:45). He suffered to serve.
He died to serve. He had
a perfect right to say, I am among you as he
that serveth.”
Ø
We are nearest to
our Lord as we live to serve; we rise towards the
spiritual stature of Jesus
Christ as we are filled with this His spirit and as
we live this His life. There is a path for ambition to tread in the
kingdom
of Christ; but it is not the path that
leads to high office and official dignity
and popular applause: these
things may come unsought, and be used for
good. But the one road along which true Christian greatness
travels is the
way of self-forgetting
service. To be touched and moved by
the sorrows
and the sins of our fellow-men;
to be stirred to helpful, earnest, sacrificial
effort on their behalf; to pity
the poor and needy; to seek and to save the
lost; to breathe the air and to
do the work of an unpretentious but
effective kindness, to have the
right to say, “I am among you as he
that
serveth; “that is
greatness after Christ Himself.
28 “Ye are they which have
continued with me in my temptations.” But after
the gentle rebuke of their jealous ambition, whichrebuke was veiled in the great
instruction, their Master, with most tender grace,
referred to their unswerving loyalty
to Him. Their
faithfulness stood out at that
hour in strong contrast with the
conduct of Judas. It
is always thus
with their Master and ours. Every good deed,
every noble thought, each bit of generosity and self-forgetfulness on our part,
is at
once recognized and rewarded a hundredfold now as then.
29 “And I appoint unto you
a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me.”
This promise refers to earth and this life. They and their
successors in His Church
would bear sway over men’s hearts, His kingdom would
be administered by them.
With strangely literal accuracy has this promise
been fulfilled. From the hour when
the despised Master, already doomed to a shameful
death, uttered this seemingly
improbable prediction, his kingdom over men’s hearts
has been extending. Then
at most the kingdom numbered a few hundreds; now it
can only be reckoned
by millions. For centuries the story of the civilized world has been THE
STORY OF THIS KINGDOM!
30 “That ye may eat and
drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones
judging the twelve tribes of
referred to a success and a reward, the scene of which
was to be this world, the
Master now continues His promises of reward to His
chosen faithful followers —
a reward which will be their blessed portion IN ETERNAL LIFE which will
follow this. First, the endless bliss to be
shared with Him is pictured under the old
favorite Jewish image of the heavenly banquet; and second,
in that heavenly realm
a special place of honor and a distinct work is
promised to these His chosen faithful
servants.
Wednesday and Thursday of Passion Week (vs.
1-30)
Look at that picture — the Son of God awaiting the
hour; spending the
last day before the arrest and the trial in the deep
seclusion of the
home. Over that day the veil of an impenetrable secrecy hangs.
One thing
only is certain — it was a time in which the shrinking
spirit, whilst feeling
even unto death the shadow of the exceeding heaviness,
nevertheless drank
of the brook by the way (Psalm 110:7), the comforting “I am not alone, for
the Father is with me” (John 16:32). Look at this picture
— the priests and
scribes, defied and denounced in the temple and in the presence of the people,
have resolved that, by fair means or by foul, they must get rid of this
“Swift
Witness” against them. These men, united by a common hatred, consult
(v. 2)
how they may kill Him. We can imagine the conferences in the
dimly lighted
chamber — the partial light only casting deeper shadows,
and bringing into
fuller relief the lines of fierce resentment on the faces of
the councilors.
There is no debate as to the object; the only and the long
debate is simply
as to the means of accomplishing the object. Their
deliberations are
unexpectedly aided. The evangelist informs us of the
satisfaction which
lightens their countenances as they conclude the bargain
with Judas of
Karioth, and receive from him the assurance that he will find “the
opportunity to betray him to them” (v. 6) without the risk
of exciting a
tumult. Thus, whilst heaven is calm, hell is agitated at
its depths; whilst
love is directing its prayer and looking up, pride and envy
are laying their
plots and meditating the darkest crime which blots the page
of history.
“Mark the perfect, and behold the upright; for the end of
that man is
peace” (Psalm 37:37). “But the wicked
are like the troubled sea, when
it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt” (Isaiah
57:20). The early
hours of Thursday swiftly pass. The next day is
the great Passover day; and
the disciples have begun to press the inquiry, “Where shall we keep it?”
In the forenoon (v. 8) Jesus gives Peter and John His
instructions. A place
is in the Lord’s view. That
the one to whose house the apostles are directed
was a believer may be inferred:
- from the word
which the three synoptists represent the Lord as
using,
“The Master saith” (v. 11); and
- from the
confidential character of the message.
The two are commanded to go in advance of the party, and
have all in readiness
for a celebration of the Paschal meal, which probably anticipated
by one day
the usual celebration of the Lord’s Passover. Christ and
the remaining ten
apostles follow in the evening. Nothing is told us of that
journey, whether,
e.g., it was private,
or whether, as usual, Jesus was accompanied by a
multitude of people. It is the last time on which the feet
of the Christ who
had been known after the flesh shall press the grassy slope
of the hill He
loved. But He had spoken to His own of another day, that
foretold in
prophecy, when “His
feet shall stand on the
before
dark, but one day
known to the Lord. And living waters shall go out from
Jerusalem; half of
them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the
hinder sea;… and
the Lord shall be King over all the earth”
(Zechariah
14:4-9). All that is reported is this: “When the hour was come, he sat
down, and the
twelve apostles with him” (v. 14). The
details of that
memorable evening are full of interest; and, regarding
them, the narratives
of the evangelists are singularly explicit. The four
streams that go forth to
water the earth in that tale meet in a common channel; the
four winds of
the Spirit are in it, united and one. The scene is (vs.
11-12) “a large
upper room” — the guest-chamber of the house.
- Its object. To
receive and entertain the Friend, the one to be honored.
Is not Christ the Guest
(Revelation 3:20)?
- Its
characteristics. The best
room. Is He not entitled to the best? A large
room. The whole breadth of the life’s aims, the whole strength of
the
heart’s love, is due to Him. An upper
room. Poor and sorry is the life that
has no upper room; blessed is the life whose upper room is reserved for
Him. A furnished room, all in readiness for
His presence — a heart and
will furnished for every good
work.
- Its
consecration. How realized? On our side, by
an unreserved
surrender: “The Master saith;” and by the
ready-making of faith and
love, as symbolized in Peter and
John. On His side, by the coming as
the Lamb of God with the gospel
of forgiveness, and as the Bread of
life to have communion with us
and we with Him.
When Jesus enters the room there is a strife for
precedence, for the places nearest
Him. Luke places the
strife (v.24) along with the questioning among themselves
who would be false to Christ; but his language, “there was also,” is inexact, and
it seems consistent with the fitness of things that the
contention should occur
when seats were being taken. The Master, observing it,
administers the rebuke
recorded in vs. 26-27; and, having so done, He proceeds to
comply with
the ceremonial of the feast. It was wont to begin with the
passing of a cup
of wine, blessed and hallowed. The word recorded in vs.
15-16 is spoken
before the dispensation of the cup; the word in vs. 17-18
accompanies
the dispensation; both words intimating the declinature to
partake of the
shadowy rite when the substance is so soon to be realized. “Suffer it to be
so now,” said Jesus to John at the baptism. The now is
exhausted. “I will
not any more” is the sentence of the supper-table. As they
divide the cup,
He rises. He is minded to give them the lesson never to be
forgotten, as His
sharpest rebuke of all their contentions for priority — the
lesson so
graphically related in John 13:1-17. Resuming His place at
the table, lo!
a troubled look flits across the countenance. A little
later in the evening He
can no longer refrain. There is one seated near Him over
whom the heart
yearns, though it recoils from his baseness (v. 21). The
hand of the
betrayer is with Him. “One
of you,” Startled, deeply
moved, the question
passes from one and another, “Lord, is it I?” Simon whispers to John, “Ask
who it is;” and John, leaning forward, his head close to Jesus, puts
the
question. He gets the sign by which the one will be
identified — a morsel
to be dipped in the dish that is before the Lord will be
given to him. It is
given to Judas, hitherto silent, something of the better
self still struggling
within. But, after the sop, the Satanic spirit gains in boldness. He has the
effrontery to ask, “Is
it I?” What is the answer? “Thou hast said… That
thou doest do
quickly.” O Judas, there is no need to
linger; thou art
detected. “The Son of man goeth,
as it is written: but woe unutterable to
thee!” It is difficult to determine the precise stage in
the keeping of the
feast at which the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was
instituted. Matthew
makes the departure of the traitor precede the appointment of
the
ordinance. Luke seems to place the institution of the
Supper at an earlier
period than the departure. But the fact of the institution
is beyond doubt
(vs. 19-21). The Christian Church, in all ages, has obeyed
the command
of her beloved Lord, spoken in the guest-chamber when
keeping the
Passover with His disciples: “This
do in remembrance of me.” The central
point of the interest attaching to the Thursday evening is
this consecration
of the bread and the cup as the abiding pledges of
redeeming love. It is sad
to think that over the gracious words of Christ in the
consecration so many
controversies should have been waged. Why cannot men
recognize the
language of figure and symbol? Those who insist that in the
sentence,
“Take, eat; this is my body” there is implied the transubstantiation of the
cake of bread held in the hand, claim for that sentence a
narrow literalism
which they themselves do not observe when they read, “I am the true
Vine,” or “I am the Door.”
Let us receive, with all possible oblation of
praise, the earthly creatures as, in sacramental use, the
hallowed
representations to the eye and pledges to the soul of the
never-failing
nourishment of the body that was broken and the blood that
was shed for
us. Let all who would feed on Jesus in their heart with
thanksgiving reflect
on the words of the Thursday evening which mirror His
consciousness, and
let them examine themselves in the light of this
consciousness. “With desire
I have desired” (v. 15). O my Lord, if thy desire was thus vehement; if,
because of it, thou didst overlook all that lay in the
immediate future; if
thou didst so long to share thy feast with men, why the want of desire in
me? why the
backwardness and slowness of my soul to receive thee in the
mysteries of thy love? Lord, lead me in thy truth, and
teach me. “Until the
the future consummation of thy sacrifice! As, in
perspective, the distant is
often near, the intervening spaces being lost to sight, so was
it with thee.
Thou didst behold thy kingdom in glory as at hand. and thy
soul stretched
forward whither thy prayer afterwards pointed, — “Father, that which thou
hast given me, I will that where I am they also may be
with me” (John 17:24).
Why beats my pulse so slow and feeble in response to the
hope of thy kingdom?
Why is my Lord’s Supper so much of a mere commemoration, so
little of a
prophetic joy, of a prayer, as already in the vision of the
kingdom? “Come,
Lord Jesus, come quickly.” (Revelation 22:20)
“Thou
strong and loving Son of man,
Redeemer from the bonds of sin,
‘Tis thou the living spark dost fan
That sets my heart on fire within.
Thou openest heaven once more to men —
The soul’s true home, thy kingdom, Lord;
And I
can trust and hope again,
And feel myself akin to God.”
Fidelity and
its Reward (vs. 28-30)
The lesson of the
text is the bountiful reward of faithfulness to Jesus
Christ; but taking these words of His in connection with
the position in
which He well knew Himself to be, they speak to us of:
·
THE MAJESTIC CONFIDENCE OF OUR LORD. “I appoint
[bequeath] unto you a kingdom… that ye may
sit on thrones.” And who is
this thus calmly disposing of
kingdoms and thrones? — a reigning emperor,
a brilliant conqueror? Only a
poor, homeless, soldierless Prophet! One who
knew that He was about to be
taken, tried, convicted, scourged, crucified!
Yet He meant it all. What
majestic confidence in God, in the power of His
gospel, in His own integrity!
With what reverent homage shall we bow
before Him who could make such
royal offers when the shadow of the
cross already rested on His
path! And what nobler sight is there to be seen
among men than that of one
(missionary, minister, teacher, reformer, etc.)
calmly going on his way when
every one and when everything is against
him, confident in the triumph of
the cause for which he pleads] Taking
these words of Christ in
connection with the preceding verses, we see:
·
THE QUICKNESS WITH WHICH HE PASSED FROM
CORRECTION TO COMMENDATION. Seeing that His apostles were
not only silenced, but humbled
by the rebuke He had administered to them
(vs. 24-26), and wishing to
reassure and revive them, our Lord turned to
the fidelity they had shown
toward Himself, and spoke words of praise and
of promise. “You are wrong
altogether in your spirit and behavior in this
matter; I blame you for this.
But be not cast down; I do not forget your
constancy toward me in all my
times of trial, and I will reward you.” Such
was, such is, the gracious,
considerate, generous Master.
“His anger
is so slow to rise.
So ready
to abate.”
It is the flying shadow which
the wind-driven cloud casts upon the field,
chased by the hastening
sunshine. “O slow to strike and swift to spare!”
might well have been written of
Him. Can it be said or sung of us, in our
relations with one another? But
the main truth here is:
·
THE REWARD OF FIDELITY IN THE MASTER’S SERVICE.
Our Lord wished to assure His
disciples that He was by no means unmindful
or unappreciative of their
faithfulness; and He found the best proof of this
in their constancy toward
Himself in His times of trouble. Through all
poverty, all persecution, all
desertion, all apparent failure, they had been
true and loyal — they had shared
His sorrows, had kept step with Him
through the dark shadows; they
had ministered to His bodily necessities
(John 4:8), and (so far as they
could) had sympathized with Him in his
spiritual conflicts. “Ye
are they who have continued with me in
my trials.”
And what a reward He was
prepared to give them (vs. 29-30)! Not
understanding these words
literally, we take it that their Lord held out
before them:
Ø
Fullness of joy. “Eat and drink at my table.”
Ø
Signal honor.
“Sit on thrones.”
Ø
Large and abiding power and influence.
“I appoint unto
you a kingdom.” This promise has been
already fulfilled,
though in a different form from
that which they then expected — in the
exalted privilege of being the
first to publish the gospel of His grace to
mankind; in the glorious work of
writing those memorials and letters
which show no sign of age and
are esteemed the one absolutely
invaluable literature of the world; in the celestial joy, dignity,
influence, which they have long
inherited.
o
What are the best
proofs of loyalty we can give? These are
§
showing tender
sympathy and untiring helpfulness
towards
His people (see Matthew 25:40);
§
having continual
regard to His will in all the duties and
details
of our life (see John 14:15, 21, 23);
§
being practically
concerned for the progress of
§
His kingdom.
o
What is the reward He
will grant us? A goodly measure:
§
of joy,
§
of sacred joy in worship,
§
fellowship,
§
work,
§
life;
§
of honor,
the esteem which purity and love
rarely, if ever, fail to win;
of quiet power, — the
holy and blessed influence which
spiritual beauty and earnest
testimony exert on heart and life,
which they transmit from
generation to generation. This
reward here; and
hereafter joy, honor, power, such as we
must
wait to see and must resolve to experience.
The Lord
Foretells Simon Peter’s Fall
and Warns of Hard Times Coming
(vs. 31-38)
31 “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath
desired to have
you, that he may sift you as wheat.” The majority of the
more ancient authorities
omit the words, “and
the Lord said.” These words were possibly inserted at an
early date to obviate the abruptness of this sudden
change in the subject-matter of
the Lord’s discourse. The more accurate translation would
be, “Satan obtained
you by asking that he may try you,” not content with
Judas. This saying of Jesus
is a very mysterious one; it reveals to us something
of what is going on in the
unseen world. A similar request was made by the same
bitter, powerful foe
in the case or Job (Job 1:12). Are we to
understand that these are
examples of what is constantly going on in that world so
close to us, but
from which no whisper ever reaches our mortal ears? Such grave thoughts
lend especial intensity to those words in the prayer of
prayers, where we
ask “our Father which
is in heaven” to deliver us
from evil, or the evil
one, as so many of our
best scholars prefer to translate ἀπὸ τοῦ πονήρου –
apo tou ponaerou
– from the wicked one. Satan asks that he may test and try
the apostles. Judas he had
already tempted, and he had won him. Possibly this
signal victory emboldened him to proffer this request. We may imagine the evil
one arguing thus before the Eternal: “These chosen ones who are appointed to
work in the future so
tremendous a work in thy Name, are utterly unworthy.
Let me just try to
lure them away with my lures. Lo, they will surely fall. See,
one has already.” (Our pastor, Bro. David Tucker, taught about this on
Wednesday night, May 2, 2012 – One can only imagine the fall-out from
Such a person as Peter would engender if he had succumbed to Satan!
Thankfully,
the Lord prayed for him (v.32). May He
pray for us “seeing
He ever liveth to make intercession” in His intercessions before God’s
throne! – Hebrews 7:25) - CY – 2012)
32 “But I have prayed for
thee, that thy faith fail not:” - The
prayer of Satan apparently was not refused. Jesus,
however, says, that for
one of that loved
company, who He knew from his peculiar temperament
was in especial peril, He had prayed. The prayer was
answered thus: the
temptation came to all the apostles; all fell; Peter,
though, more
disastrously by far than his brethren, but the result of
the fall was not
hopeless despair as in the case of Judas, but bitter remorse and a brave
manly repentance.
It is said by Roman divines (e.g. Maldonatus,
a Lapide,
and Mai, here) that this prayer and precept of our Lord
extends to all
bishops of
our Lord spoke to them. Would
they be willing to complete the parallel,
and say that the bishops of
deny Christ? Let them not take a part
of it and leave the rest” (Bishop
Wordsworth) - “and when thou art converted.” “Converted”
must not be
understood here in its technical sense; it should rather be
translated, “And
thou, when thou hast turned (i.e. to God) “strengthen thy brethren.”
The Worth of
Man (vs. 31-32)
These verses afford incidental but valuable evidence of the
surpassing
worth of the human spirit, and should help us to feel of
how much greater
account are we ourselves than anything that merely belongs
to us. This is
brought out by:
·
THE DESIGNS THAT ARE LAID AGAINST US. It was evidently in a
very solemn and earnest strain
that Jesus said, “Satan desired to have you
[plural], that he may sift,” etc.
The evil one longed with eagerness, and
strove with strength, to pass
the apostles of Christ through the sieve of
temptation, that he might
compass their overthrow. And Peter, at a later
hour, tells us that that is his
attitude and habit in regard to all Christian
disciples (I Peter 5:8). We may
take it that:
Ø
All the unholy intelligences of the spiritual realm are
bent on
securing our
overthrow.
Ø
In this malign
intention they are supported by human agents. And this,
not only because evil naturally
propagates evil, and because the wicked
feel stronger and more secure as
they are more numerous, but because
they recognize the value of one
human spirit and the advantage secured
by gaining it to their side. Hence
there is a deliberate and determined
design often made
upon the individual man by the forces of evil. This
is a fact by no means to be
overlooked. As we go on our heavenward
way there may be an ambush laid
for us at any point; at any time strong
spiritual foes may do their
utmost to contrive our fall. The possibilities
of evil and of ruin are
manifold. We may fall by:
o
error and unbelief,
o
pride,
o
selfishness,
o
worldliness and vanity,
o
intemperance,
o
impurity,
o
by departure in
spirit from the fear and love of God.
There is room, there is reason,
for vigilance on the part of him who
believes himself well on the way
toward or even nearing the gates
of the celestial city. (I Corinthians 10:12)
·
THE SOLICITUDE OF OUR SAVIOUR ON OUR BEHALF. “I have
prayed for thee.” The strain of our Lord’s address, “Simon, Simon,” and
the fact of His interceding on
Peter’s behalf, speak of a tender solicitude on
His part for His disciple. Jesus
knew well all Peter’s infirmities; but He also
knew how ardently he could love,
how devotedly he could serve, how
much he could be. Hence the intensity of His desire that he would not be
overcome. And for this reason
we may be sure that our Lord is regarding
us all with a Divine interest. He knows the worth of any and every human
spirit — how much it can know
and can enjoy; whom and what it can love;
what graces it can illustrate,
and what truth adorn; what influence it can
instill; what good, and even
great, work it can accomplish for God and man.
He knows also what sorrow it may
bring upon itself, what shame, what
ruin; and also what irreparable
injury it may do. We need not hesitate, but
should accustom ourselves to
think that Jesus Christ is regarding us with a
very tender interest; is following the choices we are
making and the course
we are pursuing with holy and loving solicitude; is grieved when He sees us
wander from the way of wisdom, rejoices in us and over
us when He sees
us take the upward path.
·
THE REALITY OF OUR HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. Jesus Christ
prayed that Peter’s faith might
not fail. And it did not — we should
naturally expect. But in part it
did. It did not utterly break down as that of
Judas did, but it failed to keep
him loyal in a very trying hour. It did not
save him from the act of denial
and from the sorrow which succeeded the
sin. It did not in any way relieve the apostle of his individual
responsibility.
He continued to “bear
his own burden” (Galatians 6:5), as every man must.
Not the very highest privilege,
not even the intercession of the Lord Himself,
will relieve us of that. It must
rest with us, in the last resort, whether:
Ø
we will strive
and win, or
Ø
whether we wilt yield and be lost.
The Privilege of
Spiritual Maturity (v. 32)
“When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” This forward-looking
injunction of Christ reminds us of:
·
OUR NEED OF STRENGTHENING POWER. Such are the manifold
and effective forces opposed to
us, invisible as well as visible and human
(see Ephesians 6:12 - “.....spiritual
wickedness in high places..” - especially
in this day - CY - 2021); so
strong and so subtle are the temptations that
beset us on every side; that we
urgently need, not only the presence of
resisting principles within us,
but the aid of friendly and helpful auxiliaries
around us. We want, indeed, the
help which is from above - Holy Spirit;
that is the first Person to seek. And, having besought Him, we
do well to avail
ourselves of all the strength we
can gain from other sources. For the battle is
severe, and we are often hard
pressed by our vigilant and relentless foes.
·
THE HELP WE CAN FIND IN MAN. God is, as stated, the Source of
spiritual strength. He renews
our strength by the direct communications of
His Divine Spirit. But man helps
us also. “A man shall be as an
hiding place…
as rivers of
water… as the shadow of a great rock.”
(Isaiah 32:2) Paul went
through the region of
Peter was to “strengthen
his brethren.” We can and we should do
much to strengthen one another,
to build one another up on our holy faith.
We can do this:
1. By the force of a beautiful and attractive example.
2. By the utterance of invigorating truth.
3. By the inspiration of a cheerful, hopeful, loving spirit.
·
THE INCOMPETENCE OF INEXPERIENCE. Peter was not in a
position to afford spiritual
strength then. He was too inexperienced. He
had not yet learned what the
fierceness of the fire of temptation meant. He
did not then understand where
his true strength lay. He had not yet
graduated in the school of
experience. It is they, and only they, who know
what spiritual struggle means
who can impart to others the help they need.
We must have passed through the
waters before we can undertake to teach
others how to swim the strong
stream of trial and temptation.
·
THE UNFITNESS OF UNFAITHFULNESS. Peter was about to fall.
A few hours would find him in
the power of the adversary. Before another
day dawned he would have to
reproach himself as a disloyal disciple. He
was about to rest under the
shadow of great guilt, and he would have to
wait until he came forth from that
shadow. Not until he “was converted,”
not until the spirit of
overweening self-confidence had given place to that
of humble trust in God, not
until the knowledge of Christ “after the flesh”
had passed, had risen into a
knowledge of Him that was truly spiritual and
real, — not till then would he
be fitted to “strengthen his
brethren.” His
case was strikingly parallel
with that of David (see Psalm 51:11-13).
We have similar experiences now.
When the Christian disciple loses ground
spiritually and morally, it
becomes him to “return unto the Lord”
himself,
and “then to teach transgressors” the way of God; it becomes
him to
undergo a change of spirit, to
be “renewed
in the spirit of his mind”
(Ephesians 4:23) and then to
speak the helpful and sustaining truth of Christ.
Unfaithfulness to our Lord,
departure and distance from Him, — this has no
teaching function; its first
duty is penitential; then it may think of useful work.
But we should understand that all true usefulness rests on the foundation of
spiritual
integrity; it can find no other
footing.
·
THE PRIVILEGE OF CHRISTIAN MATURITY. Peter was to look
forward to a not distant future,
when, having learned truth by what he
suffered, he should strengthen
his brethren in all that was true and wise and
good. This he did, and in this
he found a noble heritage. To this we may
look forward as the reward of
spiritual struggle, as the goal of earthly
good. What better portion can we
ask for than to be the source of spiritual
strength to our brethren and
sisters as they bear the burdens and fight the
battles of
their life?
33 “And he said unto Him,
Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into
prison, and to death.”
This kind of confident enthusiasm
is usually a sign of
weakness. Jesus, the Heart-reader, knew too well
what such a wild protestation
was worth, and went on at once to predict his friend’s
and servant’s awful fall,
that very night. 34 And he
said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow
this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest
me.”
The Special Word to Simon (vs. 31-34)
Its solemnity is indicated by the twice- repeated “Simon.” Observe, when
the warning is given, this is the name used; afterwards (v.
34), in reply to
the disciple’s protestation, “I am ready to go both to prison and to death,”
the name is changed, “I tell thee, Peter.” How gentle, how
pathetic, the
irony! Of the Peter, the rock, it is to be said, “The cock shall not crow until
thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.” Note
three points in the
word of Christ.
- THE TEMPTATION. To Him the
personality of the tempter is always
real. Real, in respect of
His own temptations: “Get thee hence,
Satan;”
(Matthew 4:10); “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in
me” (John 14:30). Now
we are reminded that it is real in respect of
the temptations of men. Beware of
foolish speaking and jesting
in connection with the actual
existence of the Satan. “Behold!”
says
Jesus. All is vividly present to Him; he would have
the agency of the
adversary vividly present to His
follower. The expression employed is
very striking (see the Revised
Version, “Satan asked to have you”).
The phrase recalls the scene in
Job 2. But this is memorable — the
tempter recognizes the
proprietary of the Lord. Of Judas it is said,
“Satan entered into him.”
Of Simon it is said, “He asked to have you.”
This is one over whom he has no
right. He belongs to the Son of God
— a man given Him by the
Father. And he makes request that the
disciple be sifted. In the
margin of the Revised
Version it is put as an
alternative reading: “He obtained you
by asking.” All is so suggestive.
The Christian Father speaks of
the Christian’s fasting-days. Such days
are often part of the experience
of God’s
people. The sieve, as if with
God’s permission, is applied.
The tempter
obtained the Lord Himself by
asking, and the sieve was
applied to Him.
It was similarly applied to His
apostle; it is similarly applied, in one form or another, to those who are
His. God will have His wheat winnowed. Remember, there is the sieve:
“WATCH AND PRAY”
- THE
INTERCESSION. It is spoken of (v. 32) as past, and as a
transaction accomplished in the
invisible world. And who knows what
transactions are there realized?
How blessed is the assurance that
“Where
high the heavenly temple stands.
The
house of God, not made with hands,
A
great High Priest our nature wears,
The
Guardian of mankind appears”!
“I made intercession for thee.” Ah! in the day when all secrets are
declared, with what marvelous
light will this word be illumined! Ye
Simons of all ages, thyself, O
my soul, what a reflection it is that
between the one tempted and the
outer darkness there is the intercession
of the ever-living and
ever-mighty One, who is able to “save to the
uttermost”! (Hebrews 7:25) What is the
intercession? Not that the sieve
be withdrawn, that the sifting
fail? It is needful. Simon would not have
been the Peter he became without
the sieve and without the discipline.
The tempter and the trial are
used as discipline. He who world not pray
that his own be taken out of the
world, will not pray that the Satan-request
be refused. No; but He
intercedes that the “faith fail not”
(v. 32). The great
feature of Simon was his
confidence in Christ. Why should he have been
selected as the Rock-man, who
was so often rash, and who so weakly
denied his Master? Through all
there was still the faith. He had quicker
insight into the secrets of his
Master’s power and presence than any of
His fellows; he had a higher and
fuller perception of and trust in Him.
Were this to fail, all would
fail. And the fruit of the intercession was
evidenced in the springing back
of his faith — nay, in its rising to a still
higher measure of knowledge on the ruins of the old self-confidence;
there was created the new heart
that by-and-by was ready to
go to prison and death.
- THE
EXHORTATION. Simon will turn again. When the Lord turns,
in the day of the trial, and looks
on the apostate disciple, there is born a
godly sorrow
which works repentance not to be repented of
(II Corinthians 7:10)
Out of this repentance there comes the
earnest,
“Lord, thou knowest all things;
thou knowest that I love thee” (John 21:17).
And the charge is, “Do thou, when once thou hast turned again, stablish
thy brethren” (v. 32,
Revised Version). The most helpful
man is he who
has himself been tempted,
who has passed, not without scars,
through the
fight of faith. It is the
sympathy of the soul that has come
through great
tribulation that has the
delicate touch, the magnetic force,
the faculty of
establishing the brethren.
All discovery of the Lord is to be
utilized in the
way of strengthening,
cheering, building up human souls in
the kingdom
of God. What we receive we
hold in trust for others, and, in
giving as we
receive, what we have
gained becomes doubly ours.
“Heaven
does with us as we with torches do.
Not
light them for themselves.”
Experience of God and His love is
the best teacher. What we learn, even
through falls and failures,
turns most to the profit of poor human nature.
Simon, after the sifting,
through the turning again, was the confirmer of the
brethren.
The Apostle’s Fall (vs.
33-34, 55-62)
From this most memorable incident, recorded with noticeable
candor by
all the evangelists, many lessons spring.
·
HOW IGNORANT OF HIMSELF EVEN A GOOD MAN MAY
PROVE! (v. 33.) Peter
believed himself to be capable of daring and
enduring the very last extremity
in the cause of his Master. He would have
utterly ridiculed the idea that
the sneer of a servant-girl could draw from
him a denial of his Lord. The
event showed how entirely he mistook
himself. We ought to know
ourselves well; but, in fact, we do not. We
suppose ourselves to be strong
and steadfast, when we are feeble and
unreliable; or to be
humble-minded, when we are proud of heart; or to be
generous, when we are
essentially self-seeking; or to be devout, when we
are really unspiritual; to be
near to God, when we are afar off
(Revelation 3:17; I Corinthians
10:12; Psalm 19:12-13; 139:23-24).
·
HOW PERFECT THE KNOWLEDGE OUR MASTER HAS OF OUR
HEART AND LIFE! (v.
34.) Jesus knew how weak His disciple was,
and He foresaw his speedy
failure. He knows us altogether. He knows our
heart; how sincere is our purpose, how frequent are our efforts,
how many
our disappointments, how faulty
is our nature, how wounded and weak is
our spirit. He knows also our
life. He sees it as it lies before His all-beholding
eye; He “knows the way we take”
(Job 23:10), the path we are about to
pursue. It is to One who has a
thorough and complete knowledge of us
that we belong, and it is to Him
we draw nigh in our best hours.
·
FROM WHAT A HEIGHT A GOOD MAN MAY FALL! This erring
one is no other than the Apostle
Peter, the very man who had made the
great confession, and upon whom
or upon whose testimony Christ would
build his Church (Matthew
16:13-19). He also delivered the sermon on
the Day of Pentecost when the
Holy Spirit came down on them all! It is he who
had been admitted to such close
fellowship with Christ, and been allowed the
high privilege of rendering Him
constant personal service. There is no office,
however high it may be in the
Christian Church, which will ensure to its
occupant spiritual integrity.
And even he who has been “raised up to heavenly
places,” and has known even the raptures of an exalted spiritual
experience,
may fall under the power of
temptation. It is not the lofty but the lowly that
stand on safe ground in the
·
HOW STEEP IS THE DESCENT OF SIN!
Ø
From a presumptuous
and blind self-confidence Peter fell to a
half-hearted
following (v. 54);
Ø
from that he fell to
untruthfulness and denial of his Lord (v. 57);
Ø
from that to a more deliberate
and repeated denial (vs. 58-59),
accompanied even (as Matthew
tells us) with profanity. Sin is a slope which
seems slight at the summit, but it becomes steeper and yet steeper as we go
on our downward way. And it too often happens that we reach a point where
we cannot arrest ourselves, but
are compelled against our own desire to
continue. (A type of spiritual gravity - CY -
2021) Shun the first step in
the downward course!
·
HOW MERCIFUL IS CHRIST’S METHOD OF CONVICTION (v. 61.)
Not
a blow that smote him to the ground; not even burning words of
condemnation that should sound
ever afterwards in his soul; but one
reproachful glance — the look of
wounded love. So merciful and so pitiful
is our Lord when we are
unfaithful or disloyal to Him now. He bears long
with us; He seeks to win us
back through added privilege and multiplied
mercy; He deals very patiently
and gently with us; only when other and
milder methods fail does He
mercifully afflict us, that in some way and by
some means He may redeem us
from folly
and from ruin.
·
WHITHER CHRIST SEEKS TO LEAD THE ERRING. (v. 62.)
He seeks to lead us, as by His
reproving glance He led His fallen disciple, to
a pure and saving penitence. He
would have our hearts filled with a worthy
and a cleansing shame, with a
purifying sorrow; that this may lead us into a
condition of
Ø
abiding humility,
Ø
living faith, and of
Ø
thorough reconsecration to Himself and to His cause.
35 “And He said unto them,
When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and
shoes, lacked ye anything. And they said, Nothing. 36 Then said He unto
them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and
likewise his scrip;
and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and
buy one.” The Lord
speaks one more word to His own before leaving the
upper room, More occupied
with the future trials of His disciples than with
His own tragic destiny, which He knew
was about to be fulfilled, He reminds His friends of
the comparatively quiet and serene
existence they had been spending during the last two years
and a half with
Him. In that period, generally speaking, they had been
welcomed and kindly
entertained by the people, sometimes, they would remember,
even with
enthusiasm. But they must
prepare now for a different life — cold looks,
opposition, even bitter persecution, would be their lot
for the future.
They must order themselves now to meet these things. No ordinary prudent
forethought must be omitted by them. He had more than
hinted that this
future lay before them in His words, “Behold I send you forth as lambs in
the midst of
wolves”
(ch. 10:3); now He plainly tells them what
kind of life
awaited them in the immediate future. Of course, the advice
as to the sword was
not meant to be taken literally. It was one of those
metaphors the Lord
used so often in his teaching. For a similar metaphor still
more elaborately
developed, see Ephesians 6:17, and following verses.
37 “For I say unto you,
that this that is written must yet be accomplished in
me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors:” - Here He shows them
what He meant. They, as disciples of One treated as a malefactor,
had surely nothing
to expect but hatred and persecution. This is the first time that the Lord Himself
directs us to the Isaiah 53, that most pre-eminent and complete text of
the Passion -
“for the things concerning me have an end.” The
tragic end of His earthly
ministry is close at hand. The prophetic description of the
suffering Servant of the
Lord will soon be found to have been terribly accurate.
38 “And they said, Lord,
behold, here are two swords. And He said unto
them, It is enough.”
As so often, the disciples took
their Master’s words with
curious literalness, and, as a reply, produced two swords,
as if these two poor
weapons could help them in the coming times of
sore need. If they were to stand
firm in the long trial-season which lay before them,
they must surely provide
themselves with very different weapons to these;
their arms in the campaign of the
future must be forged in no earthly workshop. But
our Lord sadly declined then to
enter into further explanation. His meaning would be
all clear to them soon, so He
closed the dialogue with the words, “It is enough.”
The Proper Christian Spirit
(vs. 24-38)
Through our Lord’s faithful dealing the disciples had been
led to
wholesome self-suspicion. They cried out at the possibility
of a betrayal of
the Master, “Lord, is it I?” But no sooner have
their minds been relieved
through the singling out of Judas than they swing round
again to self-confidence
and even base ambition. There, at the table of the Lord, in
spite
of the hallowed associations, they speculate who is to be
greatest in the
coming kingdom. Jesus has consequently to check this
nascent ambition.
He does so by ennobling:
·
THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE.
(vs. 24-27.) Now, the world’s idea is
that it is noble to exercise
authority, to be able to order people about. In
fact, the world has come to call
men “benefactors” who have done
nothing
but command other people. What
tributes are paid to princes, who have
done nothing all their lives but
issue orders and receive the homage and
service of other people! A
blear-eyed world is ready, as Christ here shows,
to pronounce such princes the
benefactors of their age and country. But He
has come into the world to ennoble
the opposite idea. Here at this very
feast He has been as one that serveth. His whole life, moreover, has been a
public service. Everywhere He
has just considered how He could serve
others. To minister, not be
ministered unto, was His continual care. To
make the service of others
glorious in the eyes of discerning men was one
great purpose of His earthly
life. This
reveals also the very spirit of the
Divine life. God is Lord of all because Servant of all. He sustains all,
as He
has created all; and His
greatness is the greatness of ministration. It is only
Oriental barbarism which
supposes greatness to consist in indolent and
luxuriant state. Here, then, is
the field of genuine ambition. Let us try to be
first in the field of service; let us do our best and most for the benefit of all
about us; and then alone shall
we become noble and Christ-like.
·
CHRIST INDICATES THE RESULTANT INFLUENCE. (vs. 28-30.)
To
these disciples, who continue with Christ in His temptations, He
appoints a kingdom. In this
kingdom they are to have thrones, and to be
judges of the twelve tribes of
influence which these men, who
entertain His spirit of service, will acquire.
And when we consider the history
of Christianity, we see that even in the
world of humanity these humble
servants of God and mankind have
become kings and judges. It is
by their deliverances in the primitive age
that men are judging themselves
and being judged. The apostles are preeminently
the sovereigns of this new
and better time. And this posthumous
influence on earth is only a
faint reflection of their influence in heaven.
Now, is not this to encourage
every serviceable soul? Let each of us be
only content to serve, to do
whatever a brother needs, and by our service
we acquire influence and
kingship. The world is really ruled by obliging,
serviceable, meek, and earnest
men.
·
CHRIST NEXT POINTS OUT TO PETER HIS DANGER,
RECOVERY, AND CONSEQUENT USEFULNESS. (vs. 31-34.) For,
strange to say, temptation is
overruled as well as service to the creation of
influence. There is in Peter’s nature a good deal of pride and
vain-glory to
be winnowed out. There is wheat within him, but also chaff. Now, Satan
had set his mind upon the fall
of Peter; but Jesus has already prayed for him
that his faith may not fail.
Here was Peter’s safeguard in the timely
intercession of his Master.( How watchful the Lord was and is for souls!
Oh, how our want of watchfulness
stands rebuked! Yet Peter was
permitted to fall under
temptation; but he was won back again, converted
the second time, so to speak, by
the loving look of Jesus; and thus destined
to become a strengthener of the
brethren. So that our Lord’s prayers for us
may be that, through permitted
humiliations and tears and penitence, we
may pass on to power. It is only
when self-confidence, as in Peter’s case,
has been purged out of us by humiliating
discoveries of our personal
weakness, that we are in a position to undertake the care and
strengthening
of brethren. Broken-hearted
Simon becomes, after Pentecost, the reliable
Rock-man, worthy of the new
name, Peter.
·
THE CONTRASTED POLICIES OF CONFIDENCE AND OF
PRUDENCE. (vs. 35-38.)
In sending the disciples out on their first
missions, Jesus relied on the
hospitality of the people as a fitting support
for His agents. Going to the
people as philanthropists, working miracles,
preaching the advent of Messiah,
they would meet with such support as
would be all-sufficient. This
was the policy of confidence — the reliance on
the people for entire support.
But when the world turned against Christ,
and realized how opposed He was
to its worldliness, then the disciples
would require to exercise all
possible prudence. They would require to
look out for themselves, and
even to fight for their own hand. That is to
say, there are times when we may
trust the world, and times when we are
warranted in distrusting it.
When is it, we are inclined to ask, that the
prudential temper must take the
place of confidence? When the world is
determined on injustice. Thus at this time the world is about to reckon
Christ among the
transgressors, and to do Him manifest injustice. The fit of
unfairness was upon it, and the disciples should then stand in
self-defense.
But other days would dawn again,
when disciples will be warranted in
pursuing a policy of public
confidence, and thus giving the world the
chance of compensation. Let us
wisely consider the “signs of the times,”
and act accordingly.
Christ will guide us to the policy which is best, if we
prayerfully ask Him.
Misunderstanding
Christ (vs. 35-38)
There is no teacher who has been so well heard, and none
that has been so
much honored and obeyed, as Jesus Christ. Yet there can
have been few
who have been so much misunderstood as He has been. We have
our
attention drawn by the text to:
·
CONTEMPORARY MISUNDERSTANDING.
Ø By the
apostles themselves.
o
On
this occasion their Lord wished to intimate to them, in strong and
forcible
language, that to whatever perils and straits they had been
exposed before,
the time was now at hand when, He Himself being
taken from
their side and the saddest fore-shadowings being
fulfilled,
they would be
subjected to far severer trials, and would be (in a sense)
cast on their
own defenses. The apostles, mistaking his meaning, put
a literal
interpretation on His words, and produced a couple of swords,
as perhaps
meeting the emergency!
o
On a
previous occasion (Matthew 16:5-8) the Lord warned them
against “the
leaven of the Pharisees;” and they supposed Him to refer
to their
neglect in forgetting the bread!
o
They
completely failed to apprehend His meaning when He foretold
His own sufferings and death (ch. 18:31-34).
Ø By His
disciples generally.
o
They
could not comprehend what He meant by “eating his flesh and
drinking
His blood (John
6:53-60).
o
They completely
misunderstood the end He had in view, the character
of that “kingdom
of heaven” of which He spoke so much.
o
They
did not enter into the great redeeming purpose for which He came.
Ø By His
enemies.
o
In so small a matter
as His saying recorded in John 2:19;
o
in so great a matter
as that recorded in ibid. ch.18:37.
·
SUBSEQUENT MISUNDERSTANDING. In how many ways has the
so in regard to the meaning of
particular words; and in regard to the great
end He had in view (the nature
of His kingdom); and in regard to the means
and methods He would have His
friends employ. How pitifully and how
painfully has it misunderstood
Him when it has interpreted His reference to
the sword of the text (v. 36),
and His use of the word “compel” (ch.
14:23)
as justifying every conceivable
cruelty in the furtherance of His cause!
·
MODERN MISUNDERSTANDING. Judging from what we know
has been, we conclude that it is
likely enough that we also misunderstand
our Master.
Ø
We may fail to reach
the true significance of His words; we may find out,
further on, that they have
another and a larger meaning than that we have
been ascribing to them.
Ø
We may mistake His
will as to the object we should work for, or as to
the right and the wise methods
we should adopt to secure our end.
Ø
We may be wrong in our
judgment of what Christ is doing with
ourselves and with our life; we
may misread His Divine purpose
concerning us. There are three
principles which we shall do well to
keep in mind in our endeavor to
understand the Divine Teacher.
The thought of Christ is:
o
profound rather than superficial:
o
spiritual rather than sensuous;
o
comprehensive and far-seeing (reaching through time to
immortality)
rather than narrow and time-bounded.
As we enter “the place which is called
“holy place,” the
nearest of all to “the holy of holies” — that is, to
itself. Thither our Lord went on this most memorable
evening; and “His
disciples followed Him” — the eleven who remained faithful to Him. But
even of these only three were counted worthy to attend Him
into the secret
place of prayer and struggle, and to witness His agony.
Such sorrow as He
was then to know seeks the secret place and chooses only
the very closest
and dearest friendship for its ministry. Then fell upon our
Divine Lord a
sorrow and a
temptation; an agitation and agony of soul for which our
language has no
name, our heart no room, our life no experience. We ask
— What was that intolerable and overwhelming
anguish, which the Savior
asked might pass from Him, and which had so marvelous and
so terribly
significant an effect on His bodily nature (vs. 42-44)? Our
completest
answer leaves much to be said, much to be explained.
1. We barely touch the
outer line of the whole circle of truth when we
speak of the apprehension of coming torture and death as
events in the
natural, physical sphere. It is an irreverent and wholly
unworthy conception
that what many men — many who have not even been good men —
have
faced without flinching, our Lord and Master shrank from
with an
overmastering dread.
2. We come nearer to
the center of the truth when we think that the whole
shadow of the cross, with
its spiritual darkness and desolation, then began
to rest upon Him… Something of that shadow had been
darkening His path
before (Mark 10:38; here, ch.
12:50; John 12:27). And this shadow
darkened and deepened as He drew near to the dread hour
itself. At this
point the cross immediately confronted Him in all its awful
severity, and He
knew that this was the time when He must finally resolve to
endure
everything or to retrace His steps. This, then, was the
critical hour; then
was “the crisis of the world.”
Great and terrible was the temptation to
decline the fearful future now at hand; it was a
temptation He struggled
against with a
spiritual violence that showed itself in the drops of blood;
it was a temptation he only overcame by tearful
supplications to the Eternal
Father for His prevailing succor (Hebrews 5:7).
3. But we miss our
true mark if we do not include the thought that He was
then bearing something of the burden of human sin. Whatever
was
intended by “bearing
our sins in his own body,” by “making his soul an
offering for sin,” and
by expressions similar to these, we believe that Jesus
Christ was then in the very act of fulfilling these
predictions when He thus
strove and suffered in the garden. As we look upon Him there
we see “the
Lamb of God
taking away the sin of the world.” The scene may teach us
very varied lessons and affect us in many ways; but it is
certainly well fitted
to be:
·
AN ATTRACTION TO SOULS STILL DISTANT FROM THE
SAVIOUR. It says, “Behold how He
loved you!”
·
AN INVITATION TO PRAYER FOR FAITHFULNESS IN THE
HOUR OF TRIAL. Both
before and after, the Master exhorted His
disciples to pray that “they
entered not into temptation’’ (vs. 40, 46). He
Himself triumphed through the
strong efficacy of prayer (v. 41). Prayer,
appropriate at all times, is
urgently needed as we enter the shadow of
temptation; but it is positively
indispensable when the greater trials of our
life assail us.
·
A SUMMONS TO STRENUOUS AND UNFALTERING
PERSEVERANCE.
Christian pilgrim, Christian workman, do you weary
of your way or of your work?
Does the one seem long and thorny, or the
other tedious and unsuccessful?
Do you think you must sleep as the
disciples did, or that you must
put down the cup as their Master did not?
Do you talk about giving up the
journey, about retiring from the field?
Consider Him who went quite
through the work the Father game Him to do,
who strove and suffered to the
very last; consider Him, the agonizing but
undaunted, the suffering but
resolving Savior; consider Him, lest ye be
wearied and faint in your minds.
“Go, labor
on, spend and be spent,
Thy joy to
do the Father’s will;
It is the
way the Master went,
Should
not the servant tread it still?”
The Agony in the Garden (vs.
39-46
This eventful scene is recounted in detail by all the three
synoptists. Matthew’s
account is the most complete. Mark adds one saying of the
Lord’s containing a
deep theological truth, “Abba,
Father, all things are possible unto thee.”
(Mark 14:36) These
remarkable words, occurring as they do in the midst of the
most solemn scene of prayer in the Redeemer’s earth-life,
tell of the vast possibilities
of prayer. What may not be
accomplished by earnest supplication to the
throne of grace?
Luke’s account is the shortest, but it contains the story
of the angelic mission of help,
and the additional detail of the “bloody sweat” (vs.
43-44). While in ch.
12:23-28
he gives us, in his Master’s words, a new insight into that
awful sorrow which was the
source of the agony in
John alone of the four omits the scene; but, as in other
most important recitals where
he refrains from repeating the story of things thoroughly
known in his Master’s Church
at the period when he committed his Gospel to writing, he
takes care, however, often
to record some hitherto unrecorded piece of the Lord’s
teaching, which is calculated
to throw new light upon the momentous twice and thrice told
incident, the story of
which he does not deem it necessary to repeat.
- In ch. 2. he throws a flood of light upon Christian
baptism.
- In ch. 6. is a Divine commentary on the Holy Eucharist.
Canon Westcott suggests that the
succession of the main events recorded
by the four evangelists was as follows:
Approximate time:
1 a.m.…The agony.
The betrayal.
The conveyance to the high priest’s house,
probably
adjoining “the Booths of Hanan.”
2 a.m.…The preliminary
examination before Annas in the presence of
Caiaphas.
About 3 a.m.…The
examination before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin
at an irregular meeting at
“the Booths.”
About 5 a.m.…The formal
sentence of the Sanhedrin in their own
proper place of meeting — Gazith or Beth Midrash
(ch.
22:66; Matthew 27:1, πρωι'´ας γενομένης;
proias genomenaes – when
the morning was
come – compare Mark 15:1; Luke 22:66,
ὡς ἐγένετο
ἡμυέρα – hos egeneto haemuera
–
as soon as it
was day - The first examination
before Pilate at the
palace.
5.30 a.m.…The examination before
Herod.
The scourging and first mockery by the
soldiers at
the palace.
6.30 a.m.…The sentence of
Pilate (John 19:14, ὥρα η΅ν ὡς ἕκτη –
Hora aen hos
hektae – about the sixth hour).
7 a.m.…….The second mockery
of the condemned “King” by the
soldiers.
9 a.m.…….The Crucifixion,
and rejection of the stupefying draught
(Mark 15:25, η΅ν ὥρα τρίτη
- aen de hora tritae –
it was
the third hour).
12 noon….The last charge.
12-3 p.m.…The darkness
(Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; ch.23:44 –
η΅ν ὡσεὶ ὥρα
ἕκτη ἑως
ὥρας ἐννάτης – aen
hosei hora hektae……… hoes horas enataes – it
was
about the sixth hour………until the ninth hour ).
3 p.m.……CHRIST DIED FOR YOU AND ME!
39 “And He came out, and went,
as He was wont, to the
In the other evangelists we find the place on the
of the many charming gardens which Josephus tells us
old
It perhaps belonged to a friend of Christ, or else
was with others of these gardens,
or “paradises,” thrown open at the great festival
seasons to the faithful pilgrims
who on these occasions crowded the holy city and its
suburbs. There is at the
present day just beyond the brook Kidron, between the paths that go up to the
summit of the mount, about three quarters of a mile
from the
enclosed garden called
visited the spot, in 1697, these eight aged trees were
believed to be the
same that stood there in the blessed Savior’s time. Bove the botanist, in
Ritter’s ‘Geography of Palestine,’ vol. 4., quoted by Dean Mansel, says
these venerable olive trees are two thousand years old.
Josephus, however,
relates that in the great siege the soldiers of Titus cut
down all the trees in
the
feeling of awe stirred up by the tradition which hung, of
course, round this
hallowed spot, might have spared this little sacred grove;
or they might at
the time have been still young saplings, of no use for the
purpose of the
siege operations. “In spite of all the doubts that can be
raised against their
antiquity, the eight aged olive trees, if only by their
manifest difference
from all others on the mountain, have always struck even
the most
indifferent observers. They will remain, so long as their
already protracted
life is spared, the most venerable of their race on the
surface of the earth.
Their gnarled trunks and scanty foliage will always be
regarded as the most
affecting of the sacred memorials in or about
approaching to the everlasting hills themselves in the
force with which they
carry us back to the events of the gospel history – “and His disciples
also followed
Him.”
40 “And
when He was at the place, He said unto them, Pray that ye enter
not into temptation.” The temptation
in question was the grave sin of moral
cowardice into which so soon the disciples fell. Had they prayed
instead of
yielding to the overpowering sense of weariness and sleeping,
they would
never have forsaken their Master in His hour of trial and
danger.
(A lesson for us all! – CY – 2012)
41 “And He was withdrawn from them about a
stone’s cast, and kneeled
down, and prayed, 42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup
from me: nevertheless not my will, but
thine, be done.” The
three synoptists
give this prayer in slightly varying terms; but the figure
of the cup is
common to all the three;
it was indelibly impressed on tradition. This cup,
which Jesus entreats God to cause to pass from before (παρά - para) His
lips,
is the symbol of that terrible punishment, the dreadful and
mournful picture
of which is traced before Him at this moment by a skillful
painter with
extraordinary vividness. The painter is the same who in the
wilderness,
using a like illusion, passed before His view the magical
scene Of
the glories
belonging to the Messianic kingdom. If thou be willing. He
looked on in this supreme hour, just before “the Passion”
really began, to
the Crucifixion and all the horrors which preceded it and
accompanied it —
to the treason of Judas; the denial of Peter; the desertion
of the apostles;
the cruel, relentless enmity of the priests and rulers; the
heartless
abandonment of the people; the insults; the scourging: and
then the
shameful and agonizing lingering death which was to close
the Passion;
and, more dreadful than all, the reason why He was here in
why He was to drink this dreadful cup of suffering; THE
MEMORY OF
ALL THE SIN OF MAN! To drink this cup of a suffering, measureless,
inconceivable, the Redeemer for a moment shrank back, and
asked the Father
if the cross was the only means of gaining the glorious end
in view — the saving
the souls of unnumbered millions. Could not God in His
unlimited power find
another way of reconciliation? And yet beneath this awful
agony, the intensity of
which we are utterly incapable of grasping — beneath it
there lay THE
INTENSEST DESIRE THAT HIS FATHER’S WISH AND WILL
SHOULD BE DONE. That wish and will
were in reality His own. The prayer
was made and answered. IT WAS
NOT THE FATHER’S WILL THAT
THIS CUP SHOULD PASS AWAY and THE SON’S WILL WAS
ENTIRELY THE SAME! it was answered by the
gift of strength — strength
from heaven being given to enable the Son to drink the cup
of agony to its
dregs. How this
strength was given Luke relates in the next verse.
Self-Surrender
(v. 42)
“Not my will, but thine, be
done.” These words are suggestive as
well as
expressive. They suggest to us:
·
THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF SIN. Where shall we find the root of
sin? Its manifold fruits we see
around us in all forms of irreligion, of vice,
of violence. But in what shall
we find its root? In the preference of our
own will to the will of God. If we trace human
wrong-doing and wrong-being
to its ultimate point, we
arrived to that conclusion. It is because men
are not willing to be what God
created them to be, not willing to do what
He desires them to do; it is
because they want to pursue those lines of
thought and of action which He has
forbidden, and to find their pleasure
and their portion in things which
He has disallowed, — that they err from
the strait path and begin the course which ends in CONDEMNATION
and in DEATH! The essence of all sin is in this assertion of our will
against
the will of God. We fail to recognize the foundation truth that we are His;
that by every sacred tie that can bind one being
to another we are bound,
and we belong to
Him from whom
we came and in whom we live, and move,
and have our
being. We assume to be the masters of
our own lives and
fortunes, the directors of our
own selves, of our own will; we say, “My
will, not thine, be done.” Thus are we RADICALLY
WRONG; and being
radically wrong, the issues of
our hearts are evil. From this fountain of error
and of evil the streams of sin
are flowing; to that we trace their origin.
·
THE HOUR AND ACT OF SPIRITUAL SURRENDER. When does
the human spirit return to God,
and by what act? That hour and that act,
we reply, are not found at the
time of any intellectual apprehension of the
truth. A man may understand but
little of Christian doctrine, and yet may
be within the kingdom of heaven;
or, on the other hand, he may know
much, and yet remain outside
that kingdom. Nor at the time of keen
sensibility; for it is possible to be moved to deep and to fervent
feeling, and
yet to withhold
the heart and life from the Supreme. Nor at the time of
association with the visible
the act by which the soul cordially
surrenders itself to God. When, in
recognition of the paramount
claims of God the Divine Father, the gracious
Savior of mankind, we yield
ourselves to God, that for all the future He
may lead and guide us, may
employ us in His holy service; when we have it
in our heart to say, “Henceforth thy
will, not ours, be done;” — then do we
return unto the Lord our God,
and then does He count us among the
number of His own.
·
THE HIGHEST ATTAINMENT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOUR.
When do we reach our highest
point? Not when we have fought our
fiercest battle, or have done
our most fruitful work, or have gained our
clearest and brightest vision of
Divine truth; but when we have reached the
point in which we can most cheerfully
and most habitually say, after Christ
our Lord, “Not my will, but thine, be done;” when under serious
discouragement or even sad
defeat, when after exhausting pain or before
terrible suffering, when under
heavy loss or in long-continued loneliness, or
in prospect of early death, we are perfectly willing that God
should do with
us as His
own wisdom and love direct.
43 “And there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven,
strengthening Him.”
The Lord’s words
reported by Matthew were no mere figure of rhetoric. “My soul
is exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38). The anguish
and
horror were so great that He Himself, according to His humanity,
must have before
the time become the victim of death had He not been SPECIALLY
STRENGTHENED FROM ABOVE, a Divine refreshing pervades Him, body
and soul, and it is thus
He receives strength to continue to the last the struggle!
This is the deep significance and necessity of the angel’s
appearance.
44 “And being in an agony He prayed more
earnestly: and His sweat was
as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Commentators
give instances of this blood-sweat under abnormal pathological circumstances.
Some, though by no means all, of the oldest authorities omit these last two
verses (43-44). Their omission in many of these ancient manuscripts was probably
due to mistaken
reverence. The
two oldest and most authoritative translations,
the Itala (Latin) and Peshito (Syriac), contain them, however, as do the
most important Fathers of the second century, Justin and Irenaeus. We have,
then, apart from the evidence of manuscripts, the testimony of the earliest
Christianity in
two famous verses. They are printed in the ordinary text of the Revised English
Version, with a side-note alluding to their absence in some of the ancient authorities.
45 “And
when He rose up from prayer, and was come to His disciples,
He found them sleeping for sorrow, 46 And said
unto them, Why sleep ye?
rise and pray, lest ye enter into
temptation.” The events of the past evening;
the long excitement stirred up by listening to such words
as their Master had been
speaking to them during the sad hours of the Last
Supper; the sure consciousness
of coming sorrow; then the walk through the silent city: — all
predisposed them to
sleep. Commentators
are never weary with pressing these excuses for the slumber
of the eleven at that awful moment. But all these things,
though they may
well have predisposed them to slumber, are not sufficient
to account for
that strange heavy sleep which seems to have paralyzed the
eleven in
pray, He finds them, several times during that dreadful
watch of His in the
garden, asleep, in spite of His asking them for sympathy
and prayer, in spite
of His evident longing for their sympathy — each time He
cast his eyes on
them, He sees them, not watching, but sleeping! Many a time
in their work
filled lives those fishermen He loved so well, John and
Peter and Andrew,
had toiled all night with their nets; but on this night of
sorrow, when their
pleading voices were listened for, possibly their hand-press
waited for,
their silent sympathy certainly longed for, they slept,
seemingly forgetful of
all save their own ease and comfort. Surely on this night of temptation they
were influenced by some invisible power, who lulled them to
sleep during
those precious moments when they should have been agonizing
with their
Master in prayer, and so arming themselves against the
supreme moment of
temptation just coming upon them. But swayed by the power
of evil of
whom the Lord had been warning them, but in vain, they let
the moments
slip by, and the hour of temptation came on them unawares.
We know how
grievously they all fell.
“‘Forsake
the Christ thou sawest transfigured! Him
Who trod
the sea and brought the dead to life?
What
should wring this from thee?’ — ye laugh and ask.
What wrung
it? Even a torchlight and a noise,
The sudden
Roman faces, violent hands,
And fear
of what the Jews might do! Just that;
And it is
written, ‘I forsook and fled:’
There was
my trial, and it ended thus .”
(Browning, ‘A Death in the Desert.’)
It is now dark. On the way to the
of Jesus (v. 39), at the point where the upward slope
begins, there is a
shady place, belonging, perhaps, to one of those who believed
in Him,
whither “Jesus had
often resorted” (John 18:2). The site of the garden
of
been the exact spot, overshadowed by the eight venerable
trees, which
immemorial tradition has distinguished as the scene of the
lonely vigil, but
it must have been close to that spot. It was a place where
there were many
olives, and, as the name suggests, an oil-press; a place of perfect quiet and
seclusion, where, beyond the voices of rude men, there was the peace of
heaven. To this place He who had uttered the high-priestly prayer
brought
the high-priestly sacrifice; and there He began the walk through the valley
of the shadow of death. The tale of the sore amazement and exceeding
heaviness is told, with more fullness of detail, by the
Evangelists Matthew
and Mark (see homiletics in loc.). Here,
without enlarging on the meaning
and scope of the features of the narrative, note:
- THE AGONY. (v.
44.) It has always been felt that in this there is
immeasurably more than a mere
revolt from imminent pain and death. The
anguish is marked by an
intensity for which this revolt cannot account. A
brave man, however sensitive,
can face, with unflinching fortitude, a high
enterprise, even though its fatal
consequence is evident. “The sweat
becoming as it
were great drops of blood,” speaks of
a conflict in the soul
for which the impending physical
dissolution cannot account. Some
references supply us with
suggestions.
Ø
The announcement made
at the Supper-table (John 14:30), of the
coming of the prince of the
world, speaks to us of a temptation,
intensified by the
circumstances of the hour, in the line of the
wilderness-temptation, to
grasp the power of the Messiah otherwise
than through the suffering
of the cross (see, in this connection,
Matthew 26:53).
Ø
The sorrow which cast
its shade over His countenance when the
betrayal was mentioned
(John 13:21); the horror with which He
regarded the perfidy (v.
22; Matthew 26:24); the utterance by
which He awoke the
disciples, marking out the betrayal as the
bitterness of the hour at
hand (Ibid. v.45); the appeal to Judas
(v. 48); — these things
indicate the amazement and pain caused
by the action of the son of
perdition.
Ø
The word of the Son to
the Father as to the cup so full of woe that
He humbly besought its
removal, reminds us of a region beyond all
that our thought can trace,
in which the Christ of God was treading
the wine-press alone
(Isaiah 63:3). Better, in view of this,
a holy
reticence than a zeal which
is eager with explanations. If we must
speak of the special
fearfulness and trembling of
simply say that there, in
all its crushing weight, was realized THE
BEARING OF THE SIN
OF THE WORLD!
- THE PRAYER.
Ø Observe its
characteristics.
o
Humility. He kneeled down.” More strongly still Mark
14:35 says “He fell on the
ground.” It was the attitude
of deepest
reverence, of entire prostration. In
the high-
priestly prayer, “He lifted up His
eyes to heaven”
(John 17:1); but now, in
human weakness and dependence,
He is prostrate before His
Father. Sign of the “godly fear”
(Hebrews 5:7) for which He
was heard.
o
Importunate repetition. Thrice He prayed, “saying the
same words” (Matthew
26:44). It is not the eloquence,
but the sincerity of desire
in the prayer which God regards.
o
Increasing earnestness. “Being in an agony, he prayed
more earnestly.” The
greater the pressure on the soul, the
more fervent became the
cry. The sorrow of the disciples
sent them to sleep; His
sent Him to the Father. “Love
overmasters agony,” not
agony love. Let the disciple learn,
of THE MASTER!
Ø
Observe its subject-matter. (v. 42.) “Remove this cup from me;
or (as in Matthew 26:30), “Let this cup pass from me.” It was the
pleading of the sensitive
human soul. And we may be assured that
to plead for the removal of
a cup of pain, for relief from burdens
which seem greater than we
can bear, is in the way of the child’s
privilege; only there must
be the
spirit of entire dependence.
“If thou be
willing.” There is to be no “if”
where God’s promise
is absolute. We do not need
to say, If thou be willing, make thy
grace sufficient.” His
pledge as to this is distinct and unequivocal:
“My grace is sufficient’’ (II Corinthians
12:9). From this, on this
resting, we pray. But when we desire that concerning which we
have no definite assurance
of the Father’s mind, then ALL IS TO
BE SUBORDINATED TO
HIM! This is to abide in
the Son as
He is revealed in
to God’s will,
He heareth us”
(I John 5:14). Getting into tune
for prayer is when we learn
Christ’s
“if it be possible;” “If thou
be willing.”
“Renew
my will from day to day;
Blend
it with thine,”
Ø
Observe its answer. The answer is
manifest:
o
In the righting “Nevertheless.” (v. 42.) In the prayer the
soul realized “God my Rock.”
From what might have
been self-seeking, it was
delivered.
“Do
thou thy holy will:
I
will lie still; I will not stir,
Lest I
should break the charm.”
“In the day when
I cried, thou answeredst me, and
strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.” (Psalm 138:3)
o
In the comforting angel. (v. 43.) The holy
one, sign of the
sympathy in heaven above.
For to the one who prays in an
agony the heavens are not brass. There are ministries of
love. God’s angels are all
ministering spirits. (Hebrews 1:14)
In visible form the angel
may not appear; (and then again he
may since “some
have entertained angels unawares” –
Hebrews 13:2 CY – 2012) but
we know that he is with us
in the comfort and peace. HAVE WE NOT THE
COMFORT OF GOD HIMSELF?
“A gracious, willing Guest,
While
He can find one humble heart
Wherein to rest.”
And thus, though the cup does
not pass, the will of the Son is
strengthened
into perfect harmony with the
will of the Father. He rises up from
prayer,
ready, “strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.”
- Finally, THE
REMONSTRANCE. Very touching the word
to Peter “Could ye not watch with me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40).
The one hour never again to come, the
one hour of watching, lost in sleep!
And now “Why sleep ye?” (v.
46). May not the pathetic question ring in
the ears of the Christian? Why do we sleep — we whom the
Son of man
has associated with Himself in His prayers and pains? We asleep, and He
toiling! We asleep, and THE WORLD LYING IN DARKNESS!!!!! Ah!
in the solemn light of
but a slumber? and how many who claim to be Christ’s are fast asleep,
not for sorrow, but in SELF-INDULGENCE
and SIN! Oh that the
gentle, reproachful “why?” may be as an alarm-clock to conscience,
a continual incitement to will
and heart! The spirit may be willing,
but the flesh is
ever weak (Matthew 26:41).
“Rise and pray, lest ye
enter into temptation!” (v. 46)
The Arrest of Christ (vs. 47-53)
All the four evangelists tell the story of the last hours,
in the main the same, though
the language is often quite different, and fresh and
important details appear in each
memoir. The general
effect on the thoughtful reader is that the Crucifixion and the
events leading up to it were very far from being the result
of the counsels
of the Jewish leaders, the outcome of their relentless enmity.
The death and
all the attendant circumstances took place in their solemn
order, then, when
the public teaching of the Redeemer was finished, because
it had been
determined by a higher and grander power than was possessed
by
Sanhedrin or Roman Senate.
So Matthew, in his account, twice (26:54,56) gives the
ground for the
arrest, “That the
Scriptures might be fulfilled.” And
the Scriptures were
but the echoes of that other and grander power.
47 “And
while He yet spake, behold a multitude,” – Different to His
disciples, their Master, who had prayed and received as an
answer to His
prayer the angel’s visit, was now, when the hour of mortal
danger struck,
in possession of the profoundest calm. Nothing disturbed
His serenity any
more. With calm majesty He advanced to meet the traitor as
he guided his
Master’s deadly enemies into the garden. From this hour
Jesus welcomes
the cross, from which for a brief moment He had seemed to
shrink. The
company who was thus guided to
dead of the night was composed of Roman legionaries
detailed for this
duty from a cohort on guard in the Antonia Fort by the
temple, and of
Levitical guards belonging to the temple — an armed force of police,
part
of the temple watch at the disposal of the priests - “and he that was called
Judas, one of the twelve,” - Each of the evangelists mention the presence of
the traitor. It was evidently a strange and startling
detail for the writers of
these memoirs that one of the chosen twelve should have
been the betrayer! -
“went before them, and drew near unto Jesus to
kiss Him.” This was
the sign agreed upon between Judas and his employers. They
knew that it would
be night, and that
conspicuous sign would be necessary to indicate to the
guards which of the
company of twelve was the Master whom they were to seize.
But the
signal was superfluous, for, as John tells us, Jesus of His
own accord
advanced before the others, telling those who came for Him
who He was. (John
18:1-8) Because of
this kiss the early Christian Church discontinued the
customary brotherly kiss on Good Friday. 48 “But Jesus said unto him, Judas,
betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss? 49 When they which were
about Him saw what would follow, they said
unto Him, Lord, shall we smite
with the sword?”
50 “And one of them smote
the servant of the high priest, and
cut off his right ear.”
The name of the disciple who smote
the servant of
the high priest is given by John: it was Peter. He gives,
too, the servant’s name,
Malchus (John 18:10), John
wrote many years later, when
had long ceased to exist; Peter, too, had passed away.
Before this incident,
John relates how the Roman and Jewish guards “went backward, and
fell to the ground” (Ibid. v. 6). Something of
majesty in the Lord’s appearance
impelled these men to retire and reverently to salute Him
they were ordered to
seize. John mentions this to show that it was of His own
free will that He rendered
Himself up. “Therefore
doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life,
that I might take it up again. No man taketh it
from me, but I lay it down
of myself. I have
power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up
again.” (John 10:17-18)
51 “And
Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far.” “Excuse this
resistance.” The exact
meaning of these words has been much
debated.
They probably were addressed to the company of armed men,
and contained a
plea for the mistaken zeal of His disciple Peter. “And
He touched his ear, and
healed him.” This miraculous
cure of the wound inflicted by the zealous disciple
is related by the physician Luke. 52 “Then
Jesus said unto the chief priests,
and captains of the temple, and the elders,
which were come to Him, Be ye
come out, as against a thief,
with swords and staves?”
53 “When I was daily with
you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands
against me: but this is your hour, and the power of
darkness.” These words
of the Lord may signify, “It was from a cowardly fear
of the people whom you felt
were my friends that you did not dare to arrest me
in the full light of day.” But it is
better to take the last clause as possessing a
deeper meaning: “I have often been in
your power before, when, without concealment, I
taught publicly in that sacred house
where you are the appointed guardians; you never
dared to lay hands on me then.
But this, I know, is your hour, the moment God has
given up to you to effect this
sad triumph, and this (i.e. the power by which you
work) is the power of darkness
(i.e. the power of the spirit of darkness).”
Thursday Night (vs. 47-62 to ch. 23:46)
It is time to be going. The footfall of the coming host has
already been
heard, and the gleam of the lanterns and the flashing of
the swords have
been detected at no great distance. Guiltily, under shadow
of night, the
conspirators have approached. “While Jesus is yet speaking.” (v. 47), the
traitor is bending forward to give the salute of
friendship. Note the
question, so full of gentle dignity, “Companion, wherefore art thou come?
Betrayest thou the Son of man, with a kiss?” Note what follows down to
the flight of the apostles, when to them it seems that the
end has come.
“We trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed
(ch. 24:21); and now? Betrayed
into the hands of sinners, He is “led as a lamb
to the slaughter, and as a sheep dumb before her shearers” (Isaiah
53:7).
Priest, Pharisee, scribe, He who scourged you with the whip of His holy
indignation
is now the Prisoner on whose bleeding body the furrows of your
scourge may be
made long. No legion of
angels will interpose. The Son of God only waits
to die. There are:
(1) a precognition by Annas;
(2) an arraignment before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin; and,
finally
(3) the deliverance to the judicature of the governor.
Briefly trace the narrative.
- THE PRECOGNITION BY ANNAS. Annas, or Hanan, to whom
first
the fettered Jesus is borne,
occupied at the time a peculiar position. His
son-in-law, Joseph Caiaphas, was the actual high priest. But Annas, having
been deposed by the Roman
governor, was still regarded as the priest jure
divino, and his influence
seems to have been immense. Five of his sons and
his son-in-law were raised to
the pontifical throne. It was under the last of
his five sons that James, the
brother of our Lord, was put to death. He was
an unscrupulous, intriguer. A
Sadducee, who had been mixed up in foul
plots and conspiracies, the head
of “a viper brood,” as a Jewish chronicler
says, which amassed wealth by
unlawful gains. When the capture of
Jesus is
determined, the Pharisees
disappear from the scene; His implacable enemies
are the chief priests and
scribes. Before this Annas Jesus stands (John
18:13-23).
Some questions are put as to His
disciples and doctrine. And these, as has well
been remarked, Jesus answers
“with dignified repulsion” — a repulsion so
sharp that the first blow inflicted
on that sacred face was bestowed by one
of the menials of the court. “Answerest thou the high priest so?” (Ibid. v. 22)
How complete the self-restraint
expressed in the only action which followed —
the reply, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if
not, why
strikest thou me?” (Ibid. v. 23)
·
THE ARRAIGNMENT BEFORE CAIAPHAS AND THE
SANHEDRIM. All that Annas could do was to order his Prisoner to be
still more tightly bound, and to
send Him to the portion of the temple court
which was occupied by the
priest, his son-in-law, Caiaphas. The morning
had not yet dawned, and until
dawn no meeting of council could be
convened. It was during
this interval that the predicted denial of the Lord
by Peter occurred
(vs. 54-62). The clock marks the hour of six, when
Caiaphas and his assessors confront the Nazarene. Their object is
to
establish a charge of blasphemy,
and suborned witnesses are cited. They
are clumsy perjurers, who
contradict one another and contradict
themselves. And the evidence breaks
down. Then the tactics are changed.
The high priest, directly
addressing the Prisoner, demands a “yea” or “nay”
to the interrogation, “Art
thou the Christ?” Jesus has been silent, but now
(vs. 60-71), calmly and
solemnly, He answers, “Thou hast said;” and adds
that, by-and-by, they should see
“the
Sou of man sitting on the right hand
of the power of
God.” It is enough. “Blasphemy!”
is the shout, and He is
condemned as worthy of death. And there ensues a scene of brutal ferocity.
The wretches in
attendance spit on the face, buffet, strike him with the
palms of their
hands, and rend the air with ribald cries. For the world
shows its baseness when a man is
down; then the many rush forward to
have their fling and kick.
·
JESUS IS DELIVERED TO THE JUDICATURE OF THE
GOVERNOR, What priests
and elders could do has been done. The
procurator alone could inflict
the sentence of death. Their next movement
must be to coerce him into the
carrying out of their plan. And they know
that in Pontius Pilate, stained
with violences the report of which to his
imperial master would cost him
his government, if not his life, they have
the ruler whom they can rule.
Two appearances (ch. 23.) of our Lord
before the governor are
recorded, and between them stands the episode
with which the name of Herod is
associated. There is nothing more sad
than the record of the
expedients, the shufflings to and fro, the efforts to
save One whom Pilate felt to be
guiltless, whilst yet he dared not give
effect to his convictions. (I
wonder how many in
has succumbed to this weakness
in the last four years? CY - 2021)
A record most sad, but most
instructive. Is it not a portrait, many of whose
features suggest cowardly
concessions, timidities, struggles between conscience
and policy in which conscience
is worsted, with which, in one form or another,
too many of us are
familiar? A character-sketch, like that
of Pilate in the trial,
gauges the directions and the
possibilities of the human nature which is common
to us all. In the afternoon of
Friday the Savior of sinners was crucified. An
incident on the way to
in itself, and which reminds us
of the attitude of mind, the kind of feeling
towards Him, the Crucified,
which He denies and accepts. We are told that
He was “followed by a great company of
women, who bewailed and
lamented him” (ch. 23:27-31). Observe His
saying, most tenderly prefaced by
the phrase, “Daughters of
which express only sorrow over
His fate. He wishes those who bewail to
estimate the significance of the
spectacle, to realize what it foreboded for
them and theirs; to weep not for
Him, but with Him in His sadness concerning
thwarted purpose
to save and bless. The events of that
day were the
prophecy of a doom not to be
long delayed: in His thought and emotion as
to this doom, and in this alone,
He sought their sympathy. And so,
remember, Christ desires not a
luxury of sentiment, which ends in
lamentations on account of His
suffering. He desires partnership in his
suffering. His cross is to be our cross. We are to hold
ourselves identified
with him in it. The
apostle’s words are the interpretation of the genuine
Christian sentiment: “I
was crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I
live
by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me;”
(Galatians 2:20) “God
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ,
through which the world has been crucified to me, and
I to the world.” (ibid. ch. 6:14)
After the Passover and the address given in John 14., He
led the disciples
out through the vineyards, where most likely John 15. was
delivered to
them, and John 16., until He reached His usual rendezvous
in
part of the
given in John 17. took place, which being ended, He retired
to an adjacent
and secluded place for further prayer.
for suffering and death, as the Transfiguration had been
for work. And here
we have to notice:
·
HIS DREAD OF THE DENOUEMENT WAS NOT A DREAD OF
PHYSICAL PAIN AND DEATH.
His cry for escape, if possible, was not
prompted by physical fear. He
always showed Himself brave before danger
of a mere physical kind.
Socrates seems the braver man before he drank the
hemlock, but this was because
Socrates could not see the issues that were
before him as Christ foresaw His
fate. The cup He shrank from was not like
that of Socrates. It was no
literal cup, but THE APPREHENSION OF
ISOLATION FROM HIS
FATHER. Not the trial, nor
the mockery, nor the
physical pain, but the isolation
from God, the sense of forsakenness, the
constraint to cry, “My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” which
prompted the cry to escape. Now,
the very elevation of His being rendered
the dread of separation even for
the shortest season from His Father intensely
painful. Vulgar souls can take separation from others
quietly, but the elect souls
pass through deepest pains in
consequence. That darkness which came on
when Son was separated from
Father because of the sin-bearing was what
Jesus dreaded, and would gladly
have escaped. Want of fellowship with the
Father seemed to this holy Child
Jesus something to be escaped if at all
possible.
·
THE INTENSITY AND EFFICACY OF HIS PRAYER. Just as Jacob
had to wrestle at Peniel to obtain the blessing, so had the Saviour in the
garden. He was in an agony
of earnestness, and was in consequence bathed
in a bloody sweat. Time after
time He prayed thus earnestly. And we are
expressly told, “He
was heard in that he feared” (Hebrews 5:7). His
prayer was efficacious. Now, let
us consider what He prayed for. It was for
deliverance from isolation from
God — deliverance from death without a
sense of the Divine fellowship.
And when we consider the sequel, we find
that He was heard, and His
prayer answered. For:
Ø
He enjoyed an angelic visit and was strengthened
by it (v. 43);
Ø He was granted light and fellowship with the Father before death
supervened; and
Ø
He was saved from
death by resurrection. In these ways the Father
undoubtedly heard and answered
the cry of Christ in
·
NOTICE THE DISCIPLES’ SLEEP OF SORROW. For sorrow often
induces sleep, while at other
times it makes sleep impossible. In the present
case the disciples ought to have been praying for Jesus, for themselves,
seeking preparation for the
trial He had forewarned them was at hand.
Instead of doing so they slept.
Here we have to notice:
Ø
know, was most anxious they
should watch with Him. He needed and He
sought their sympathy; but they, in thoughtlessness,
denied it to Him. It
would be well if deepest
consideration were exhibited for noble souls that
are greatly tried.
Ø
needed spiritual help more than
Christ. They could less afford than He to
meet the crisis prayerlessly. Yet this was their condition when the trial fell
upon them.
Ø
Physical effort was their only resource when the crisis
came. They
could lay on with the sword. It
does not take much prayer to help men to
fight. But other and better
weapons were needed than Peter’s sword, but
they could only be taken out of the armory by prayer.
·
THE BETRAYAL. Judas
and his band were upon them before the
sleepy disciples had time to
pray. He had planned the capture as only a
coward can. He betrays Christ
with the semblance of friendship, trying to
give the Master the usual kiss.
To this offer Jesus simply replies, “Judas,
betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?” Force behind deceit is
apparently overpowering the
spirituality which had its home in that place of
prayer.
·
THE DEFENSE OF THE DISCIPLES AND THE MIRACLE OF
THE MASTER, The
disciples, spiritually off guard, betake themselves to
the carnal weapon, and Peter
lays round him with the sword. He succeeds
in cutting off the right ear of
the high priest’s servant. Here is fresh trouble
created. If this servant has to
go back thus wounded, a warrant will soon
be out for the disciples, and
the whole issue thrown into perplexity. Our
Lord accordingly interposes,
heals the sufferer’s ear, and advises Peter to
put up his sword. In this way
Jesus rescues the disciples from the liability
incurred through their own
imprudence. It was a wonderful consideration
manifested when His own troubles
were rising to their height.
·
THE REBUKE ADMINISTERED TO HIS ENEMIES. Why had they
come out against Him as against
a thief? Had He not confronted them time
after time in open day? They had
not dared to lay hands upon Him then. He
thus convicted them of
cowardice. It was “their hour, and the power of
darkness.” A deed of darkness dare not be done in open day. Thus was
it
that our Lord bravely met His
adversaries. He was prepared, though the
disciples were not.
The Power of Spiritual
Darkness (v. 53)
As our Lord, declining to avail Himself of the physical
forces at His
command, surrendered Himself to the will of His assailants,
He used an
expression which was full of spiritual significance. “This
is your hour,” he
said, “and the power of darkness.” By this
He intimated:
(1) that the hour of his enemies’ triumph had arrived — the brief hour of
their outward success and inward exultation, the dark hour of His
humiliation and visible defeat; and
(2) that this passing hour was simultaneous with the prevalence of the
power of darkness. Wicked men were to triumph because the
forces of
guilty error were for the time prevailing. We look at:
·
THE POWER OF DARKNESS.
Ø Its spiritual nature. It is a state of spiritual blindness. We may not, with
a great Greek
philosopher, resolve all evil into error; but we may say that
sin is
continually, is universally, springing from inward blindness. Men do
not see the
truth; they call good evil, and evil good; they have the most
false
imaginations concerning all objects, from the Divine Being Himself to
the lowliest
human duty; and hence they go far astray.
Ø Its most glaring manifestations. It lays its unholy hand on innocence, on
Divine Love
itself, and leads it away to trial and crucifixion. It conducts the
devoted servant
of Christ to the brutal judge, to the shameful scaffold, to
the devouring
flame. It arms a vast multitude of men and leads them forth
to a vain and
useless strife, shedding human blood and wasting human
labor, as if
Christ would be pleased or could be served by such means as
these. It
covers with the sacred name of religion a system that holds
millions of
human beings in a degrading bondage. It sanctions all the sinful
institutions
the world has seen and suffered from.
Ø Its most deplorable effects. These are not found in the deeds and the
sufferings of
men, but rather in their souls; the worst issue of spiritual
misconception is in the utter darkness of
spirit in which it ends. “If
the
light
that is in us be darkness, how great must that darkness be!” It means:
o
False thoughts. Here were men who should have known better thinking
the worst
things of Jesus Christ — judging Him to be a criminal, to be a
traitor, to be
a blasphemer; and there are men amongst us who, under the
power of error,
think altogether wrong thoughts of God and of the Savior
— thoughts
which do Him wrong, which misrepresent Him to the mind,
which repel
rather than attract the soul.
o
Bad feelings. Here were men indulging in feelings of positive and
perfect hatred
against Jesus Christ; and there are men, misled by the
power of
darkness, hating instead of loving the Father of spirits,
repelled from
instead of being drawn towards good and true souls
whom they have
grievously misunderstood.
o
Wrong purposes of heart. Under this malignant influence men are
purposing to
injure their fellow-men. Instead of resolving to rescue, to
raise, to
ennoble them, they determine to put them down or to hold
them down, to
lay a hard hand upon them and keep them harmless
because
helpless. It is in the blinding, misleading, deteriorating effects
upon the soul
itself that the very worst results of darkness are to be
seen.
·
OUR HOPE CONCERNING IT. The “power of darkness” was
coincident with “the hour” of the enemies of our Lord.
And that was but
an hour; it was limited to the brief period of the Passion. Then came
Christ’s glorious hour — the hour of His resurrection; the
hour of His
ascent to the right hand of Power. The prevalence of this evil power of
darkness is limited in time; it will not last for ever. Innocence,
purity, truth,
love,
righteousness, may be led away to
trial and death, as they were then
in the Person of Jesus Christ; but the hour of their resurrection and their
triumph will arrive. Let faithful
labor do its noble part, and let calm and
Christian patience bring its priceless
contribution, and another hour will
strike than that of the foes of
Christ, and another power than that of moral
darkness will take the scepter
and rule the world.
The Denial of Peter (vs. 54-62)
54 “Then took they Him,
and led Him, and brought Him into the high priest’s
house. And Peter
followed afar off.” There has been
some discussion here on the
question of harmonizing the separate accounts. There
is, however, no real difficulty if
the following historical details be borne in mind.
The actual high priest at this juncture
was Caiaphas, son-in-law
to Annas, who was the legal high priest, but had been
deposed by the Roman power some time before. Annas, however, although
prevented by the Roman government from bearing the high
priestly
insignia, was apparently looked upon by the people as the
rightful
possessor of the dignity, and evidently exercised the chief
authority in the
Jewish councils. It seems that he and his son-in-law Caiaphas, the Roman
nominee, occupied together the high priest’s palace. There
were three trials
of our Lord by the Jews:
·
Before Annas (John 18:12-18).
·
Before Caiaphas and what has been termed a committee of the
Sanhedrm (Ibid. v.24; Matthew 26:59-68; Mark 14:55-65).
·
Formally before the
whole Sanhedrin at dawn (vs.66-71;
Matthew 27:1; Mark 15:1).
The thrice-repeated denial of Peter took place:
·
On his first going in
(he was admitted through the influence of John,
who was known to the
officials) to the court-yard of the high priest’s
palace, in answer to the
female servant who kept the door (John 18:17).
·
As he sat by the fire
warming himself, in answer to another maid
(Matthew 26:69) and to
other bystanders (John 18:25; v.58), including
the kinsman of Malchus (John 18:26).
·
About an hour later
(v.59), after he had left the fire to avoid the
questioners, and had gone
out into the porch or gateway leading into
the court-yard, in answer
to one of the maids who had spoken before
(Mark 14:69; Matthew
26:71), and to other bystanders (v. 59;
Matthew 26:73; Mark 14:70).
55 “And when they had
kindled a fire in the midst of the hall,
and were set down together, Peter sat down among them.” We know
that the arrest in
apostles. John and Peter, however, once out of reach of the
armed band,
seem in some way to have recovered from their first panic,
and to have
followed their Master and His guards into the city.
Arriving at the high
priest’s house, John, who was known to the high priest, had
no difficulty in
procuring admission for himself and his companion. Peter’s motive in
pressing into what he knew for him was a locality full of
peril,
is given
by Matthew (Matthew 26:58), “to see the end.” There was no doubt
there was in the heart of the impulsive, loving man,
sorrowful anxiety and
deep sorrow for his dear Master’s fate. But, alas! with the
feverish sad
expectation to see what he felt would be the end, there was no earnest
prayer for guidance and help. (A good lesson for us when we are prone
to go to places or to delve into things which are just as
dangerous! – CY –
2012) The fire is mentioned
because, generally speaking, the nights in the
appears to be spoken of as something unusual. Peter sat
down among them.
John (it must be supposed) had passed on into the audience-chamber,
so that
Peter was alone. John, who
remained closest to the Lord, was unmolested;
Peter, who mingled with the indifferent crowd, fell!.
56 “But a certain maid
beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looked
upon him, and said, This man was also with Him. 57 And he denied him,
saying, Woman, I know Him not. 58 And after a little while another saw him,
and said, Thou art also of them. And Peter said,
Man, I am not.”
Comparing the several accounts of the evangelists together,
we see how
naturally the incidents followed each other. As he entered,
the portress first
thought she recognized him as one of the followers of the
well-known
Teacher just arrested on a capital charge. Then as, weary
and chilled, he
drew near the fire, the firelight shone on his face, a face
known to many
who had listened during the last few days to his Master as
He taught, with
His disciples grouped round Him in the temple-courts before
crowds of
listeners. Thoroughly alarmed, he drew aside from the
friendly warmth of
the fire into the outer shade of the gateway; yet he could
not tear himself
away from the neighborhood of the spot where his dear
Master was being
interrogated by His deadly foes; and even there, while
lurking in the
shadow, he was recognized again, and then, just as he was
in the act of
fiercely denying, with oaths and curses, his friendship for
and connection
with Jesus, came the Master by, after the second
examination before
Caiaphas and certain members of the Sanhedrin, being conducted by
the
guard to another and more formal court. And as the Master passed, He
turned and looked upon His poor cowardly disciple.
59 “And
about the space of one hour after another confidently affirmed,
saying, Of a truth this fellow also was
with Him: for he is a Galilaean.”
The strong provincial dialect of the fisherman of the
these Jerusalem Jews, accustomed to the peculiar
pronunciation of the
pilgrims at the Passover Feast, that the man whom they
suspected certainly came
from the same province as Jesus the Accused. 60 And Peter
said, Man, I know
not what thou sayest.
And immediately,
while he yet spake, the cock crew.”
61 “And the Lord turned,
and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered
the word of the Lord, how He had said unto
him, Before the cock crow, thou
shalt deny me thrice. 62
And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.”
As He was passing from the interrogation before Caiaphas to be examined before
The Sanhedrin assembled in solemn council, He heard his
servant’s well-known
voice raised and accompanied with oaths and curses,
assuring the bystanders
he had no connection with and knew nothing of Jesus of
Nazareth.
Then, as He passed, the Master turned and looked on His old
friend, that
disciple who so lately had declared that even if all others
deserted the Lord,
he never would! The
glance of Jesus was full of the tenderest pity; it
was
not angry, only sorrowful; but
it recalled Peter to his better, nobler self.
Matthew and Mark (Peter’s own Gospel) record how, when he
heard the
cock crow, which Luke tells us happened as our Lord turned
to look on
the recreant disciple, he remembered all, and burst into
bitter weeping. We
meet him again on the Resurrection morning in company with
John
(John 20:3), whence, it would seem, that in his bitter
sorrow he had
turned to his old friend, who had probably heard his
denial. John, who
briefly in his narrative touches upon the “denial,” omits
to mention the
repentance, but, according to his custom, specially
illustrates it in the scene
by the lake (John 21:15-23).
Distant
Discipleship (v. 54)
“Peter followed afar off.”
In this we find something that
was commendable.
The impulsive and energetic Peter did not exhaust his
zeal in that unfortunate sword-
stroke of his; nor was it quenched by the rebuke of his
Master. Though it was far
from an ideal discipleship to “follow afar off,” it
was discipleship still. We do not
read that the others did as much as that; they probably
sought their own safety by
complete retirement. Peter could not do that; his
attachment to Christ did not
allow him to disconnect himself any further than was
involved in a distant
following.
However, we find something that
was incomplete. The disciple
desired to be near enough to his Master to know what the
end would be, but he
wished to be far enough off to be secure from molestation.
He took counsel of
his fears, and was so far from the scene that he was showing no sympathy with
his Friend, and was running no risk from his enemies. It is not at all unlikely
that this timidity, from which he succeeded in partially
and momentarily shaking
himself, was the beginning and the explanation of his
subsequent failure.
·
GENUINE DISCIPLESHIP. This is
found in following Christ.
Ø
Owning His claim as
Lord and Leader of the soul; owning it by
a willing and entire
submission of our will to His will, a
consecration or our life to
His service, a perfect readiness of heart
to say, “Lord, I will follow thee.”
Ø
Endeavouring to walk even as He walked — in reverence, in
righteousness,
in love.
Ø
Striving to live this Christian life not only after Him, but unto
Him.
·
DISTANT DISCIPLESHIP.
We follow “afar off” when we are:
Ø
Lacking in devotion, He who is only found irregularly and
Infrequently with God, in
the attitude of praise and prayer, and
in the act of studying His
holy will, must be at a great distance
from that “beloved Son” who
spent so much time with His
Father, and found so much
strength in His conscious presence
and loving sympathy.
Ø
Lacking in purity, he whose spirit is much entangled with the
cares, absorbed in the
pursuits and prizes, hungering and
thirsting for the pleasures
of this world, and certainly he
whose soul is to any
considerable degree affected and tainted
by the lower temptations of
the flesh, — is a long way behind
the holy Savior; is far off
from Him who was “holy,
harmless,
undefiled, separate from sinners,”
(Hebrews 7:26)
from Him “in whose mouth no guile was found.” (I Peter 2:22)
Ø
Failing in generous and practical kindness. He who is only
Sparingly offering his
resources, spiritual or material, to the cause
of human comfort and
elevation, who is drawing the line of his
service at the point of
self-sacrifice, and declines to go across it,
is surely a very distant
follower of that gracious and generous
Friend of man who suffered
the very last and the very worst that
He might redeem
us from sin and restore us to truth, to holiness,
to God. This distant discipleship is, in every aspect, to be
deplored.
o
It is unfaithfulness
to ourselves. A departure from the
position we took when we
first “yielded ourselves unto
God, as those alive
from the dead.”
o
It is perilous to our
own souls. That way failure lies; and
failure here means utter
and disastrous defeat; it means
suffering and shame; it may
even mean death.
o
It is disappointing
to our Divine Lord. He looks for a close
following on our part; He wants
us to be at His side, to be
serving Him with all our
strength, to be like Him in spirit
and in character and in
life.
And when He sees us “afar off,” he is grieved with us instead of
rejoicing in us.
o
Let those who have
been abiding in Him, and therefore
following him closely, be
watchful and prayerful that they
do not “drift away” and lag
behind;
o
Let those who have to
reproach themselves as distant
disciples draw near to
their Lord in renewed
penitence
and devotedness
of spirit.
The Look of
Our Lord (v. 61)
“And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter.” What was there then, and
what is there now, in the glance of Jesus Christ?
·
HIS LOOK OF PENETRATION.
We read of one of the earliest
disciples being convinced by our
Lord’s discernment of him under the thick
foliage of the fig tree; he was
then told to look for greater things than that
(John 1:50). And surely one of
those greater things was found in that
penetration which saw through
the thicker covering of the human flesh and
of human speech and demeanor to
the very thought of the mind, to the
very desire of the heart, to the
inmost secrets of the soul. He knew what
was in man.
It was His knowledge of men that directed
Him in His varying
treatment of them; it is His
penetrating insight into men now that
determines His dealing with us
all.
·
HIS LOOK OF COMPASSION. What did the sick and the suffering,
the fevered and the paralyzed
and the leprous, the men and women who
had left afflicted ones behind
them at their homes — what depths of tender
compassion did these sons and
daughters of
Christ? And what inexhaustible fullness of pity, what unbounded
sympathy,
may not the stricken and the
sorrowing souls who are badly bruised and
wounded on life’s highway
still find in “the face of Jesus Christ”!
·
HIS LOOK OF SAD REPROACH. Sometimes there was that in the
glance of Jesus Christ from
which the guilty shrank. When “He looked
round about on
them with anger” (Mark 3:5), we may be
sure that His baffled
enemies quailed before His
glance. And when “the Lord turned, and looked
upon Peter,” what keen sorrowful reproach was then apparent in the face
of
Jesus Christ! how that look
gathered up all possible words and tones of
solemn expostulation, of sad
disappointment, of bitter sorrow! It was a
look which wrought great things
in the apostle’s soul, the remembrance of
which, we may be sure, he
carried with him to the end. Christ has all too
many occasions now to turn
toward us that reproachful glance.
1. When we fail to keep the promises we made Him at the time
of our
self-surrender.
2. When we fail to pay the vows we made Him in some hour of
discipline.
3. When we fall seriously short of the allegiance which all
His disciples owe
to Him:
a.
in reverence,
b.
in obedience,
c.
in submission.
Let us, who are professing to
follow Him, ask ourselves what we should
see in His countenance if we
stood face to face with Him today. Would
it be the benign look of Divine
commendation? or would it be the pained
look of sorrowful reproach? To
those who are inquiring their way to life
it is a source of blessed
encouragement that they will see, if they regard
their Lord.
·
HIS LOOK OF TENDER INTEREST. When the rich young man
came and made his earnest
inquiry of the great Teacher, he was not yet in
the kingdom, and was not yet
fully prepared to enter it; but he was a
sincere and earnest seeker after
God, and “Jesus, beholding him, loved
him” (Mark 10:21). With such tender regard, with such loving interest,
does He look down on every true suppliant who looks up to
Him with the
vital question on his lips, “Good
Master, what shall I do that I may inherit
eternal life?”
Before the Sanhedrin the Second
Time
The Mocking and Ill Treatment of
Jesus (vs. 63-65)
63 “And the men that held Jesus mocked Him, and smote Him.”
The position of the Redeemer when the cruelties took place,
described in
this and the two following verses, was as follows: After
the arrest in
palace of the high priest in
apparently lodged. In the first instance, Jesus was brought
before Annas,
who was evidently the leading personage of the Sanhedrin of
that day.
Details of the preliminary examination are given apparently
by John 18:13,19-24.
In this first and informal trial Caiaphas
was evidently present, and took part (v.19).
At the close of this unofficial but important proceeding, Annas sent him to Caiaphas.
The true reading in John 18:24 is ἀπέστειλεν οϋν – apesteilen
oun - Annas
therefore “sent Him.” That is, at the close of the first unofficial
examination, which
took place in Annas’s apartments in the palace of the high priest, Annas sent Him
to be examined officially before Caiaphas,
the reigning high priest, and a committee
of the Sanhedrim This, the second trial of Jesus, is
related at some length by Matthew
26:59-66) and Mark 14:55-64). The priests on that occasion
sought false witnesses,
but their witness did not, we know, agree. Jesus kept
silence until Caiaphas arose,
and with awful solemnity adjured Him to say whether He was
the Christ, the
Son of God. So
adjured, Jesus answered definitely in the affirmative. Then Caiaphas
rent his robe, and appealed to the assembly, who answered
the appeal by a
unanimous cry, “He is guilty of
death.” After this hearing before Caiapnas
and a committee of the Sanhedrin, the condemned One was
conducted
before the full assembly of the Sanhedrim While being led
across the court,
He heard Peter’s third denial. It was during the interval
which elapsed
before the great council assembled, that the mocking
related in these verses
(63-65) took place. 64 “And when they had
blindfolded Him, they struck
Him on the face,
and asked Him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?
65 And many other things blasphemously spake they against Him.”
The Jews, in this terrible scene (see, too, for further
details of the outrages,
Matthew 26:67; Mark 14:65), were unconsciously working out
a literal fulfillment
of Isaiah’s picture of the righteous Sufferer (Isaiah 50:6;
53:3-7).
· THE ARRAIGNMENT BEFORE CAIAPHAS AND THE
SANHEDRIN The clock marks the hour of six, when
Caiaphas and his assessors confront the Nazarene. Their object is to
establish a charge of blasphemy, and suborned witnesses are cited. They
are clumsy perjurers, who contradict one another and contradict
themselves. And the evidence breaks down. Then the tactics are changed.
The high priest, directly addressing the Prisoner, demands a “yea” or “nay”
to the interrogation, “Art thou the Christ?” Jesus has been silent, but now
(vs. 60-71), calmly and solemnly, he answers, “Thou hast said;” and adds
that, by-and-by, they should see “the
Son of man sitting on the right
hand of the power of God.” It is enough. “Blasphemy!” is the shout, and
He is condemned as worthy of death. And there ensues a scene of brutal
ferocity. The wretches in attendance spit on the face, buffet, strike Him with
the palms
of their hands, and rend the air with ribald cries. For
the
world
shows its baseness
when a man is down; then the many rush forward to
have their fling and
kick.
Christianity and Violence (vs. 47-52,63)
The use of the sword by Peter, and the presence of “swords and staves” in
the hands of the officers, suggest to us the connection
between Jesus Christ
(and His disciples) and the employment of violence; and
this both by them
and against them.
·
THE UNSEEMLINESS OF VIOLENCE USED AGAINST JESUS
CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES. It is true that there was something
worse than the weapons of
violence in that garden; the traitor’s kiss was
very much worse. We may be sure
that Jesus was conscious of a far
keener wound from those false
lips of Judas than He would have been
from the hands of those armed
men had they struck Him with their
strength. The subtle schemes and
the soft but treacherous suggestions
of false friends are deadlier in
their issue, if not in their aim, than the
hard blows of open adversaries.
But:
Ø
How unseemly was open
violence shown to Jesus Christ!
To come with sword and stick against the Gentle One from
heaven; against Him who
never used His omnipotence to
harm a single adversary;
against Him who “would not break
the bruised reed” (Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20) among the
children of men; against
Him who had been daily employing
His power to relieve from
pain, to raise from weakness, to
remove privation, to
restore from death!
Ø
How unseemly is such violence shown to Christ’s
true disciples!
His true disciples, those
who are loyal and obedient to their Lord,
are men and women in whom a
patient and loving spirit is prevailing;
they are peacemakers among
their brothers and sisters; they have
“put away bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, railing” (Ephesians
4:31); they walk in love;
they seek to win by a gentle manifestation
and by a gracious utterance
of the truth. How entirely
inappropriate and unseemly
is violence shown to them! And it may
be added, how useless is
such violence employed against the cause
they advocate! It has never happened yet that sword and stave have
crushed the living truth. They have smitten its champions to the
ground, but they have only brought out
into the light the heroic
courage and noble unselfishness which that truth
inspires. “So
that
those things [those
persecutions] have fallen out
rather unto the
furtherance of the gospel” (Philippians 1:12). Cruelty strikes
at
its enemy, and
smites itself.
·
THE UNLAWFULNESS OF VIOLENCE EMPLOYED ON
BEHALF OF CHRISTIANITY. How vain and how foolish the act of
“smiting with the sword”
(v. 49)! It was an act of intemperate and ill-
considered zeal; it was
calculated to do much more harm than good. Its
effects had to be undone by
the calm interposition and the healing
power of Christ (v. 51). It was rebuked by the Master in decided terms
(Matthew 26:52). And from that
hour to the end of apostolic history
the use of physical violence
disappears. Well would it have been for the
cause and kingdom of our Lord if
it had never been revived. The sword
and the stave have
no place in the Christian armory. The
weapons of its
warfare are not carnal (II
Corinthians 10:4). Such instruments do
not,
they cannot, serve it; they gain
a momentary victory at the sad and great
expense of entirely misrepresenting the spirit and the method of
Jesus Christ. Compulsion is utterly out of place in connection with
the
that resource. Let the disciples
of Christ be assured that:
Ø
the utterance of
Divine truth, especially the truth that relates
to the redeeming love of
the Savior Himself;
Ø
living a life of
blamelessness and beauty, of integrity and
kindness;
Ø
dependence on the aid
of the Divine Spirit to make the
spoken Word and the living
influence effectual and mighty;
that THESE
ARE THE WEAPONS which will conquer the
enemies of
Christ, and will place Him upon the throne of the world.
The Patience
of Christ (vs. 63-64)
In these touching words, which we cannot read without a
sentiment of
shame as members of the human race, we have:
·
A PICTURE OF SUPREME ENDURANCE. How much our Lord was
called upon to endure, we shall
be best able to realize when we consider:
Ø
The greatness of which
He was conscious (see v. 70). He knew and felt
that He had a right to the most
reverent homage of the best and highest,
and was thus treated by the
worst and lowest.
Ø
The power which He
knew He wielded: with what perfect ease could
He
have extricated Himself from these cruel insults!
Ø
The character of the
men who were maltreating Him — the lowest
amongst the low.
Ø
The nature of the
indignities to which they subjected Him; these went
from bad to worse:
o
from binding Him to
beating Him,
o
from beating Him to
spitting upon Him,
o
from this most
shameful indignity to the yet more cruel
sneer
at His holy mission,
“Prophesy unto
us.” They vented upon Him the very
last extremes
of human insults and shame.
·
A PICTURE OF SUBLIME PATIENCE. He bore it all with perfect
calmness. Here shone forth in
its full luster “the meekness of Jesus Christ.”
“When he was
reviled, he reviled not again; when he suffered, he
threatened not;”
“As a sheep before her shearers, so openeth not His
mouth.” And wherein shall we find the source and explanation of
this
sublime patience?
Ø
He was bent on
bearing, to the full and to the end, His Father’s will.
Ø
He was determined to
complete the work He had undertaken, and of
that
work those sufferings were a part. He was then “wounded for our
trangressions,” then He was “bruised
for our iniquities,” and by those
“stripes were we
healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)
·
APPLICATION.
Ø
Like our Divine
Master, we ore called upon to endure.
In doing those
things we believe to be right of
which others do not feel the obligation,
also in abstaining from those
things we feel to be wrong, which other
people allow, we come into
conflict, we excite displeasure, we incur
disdain, we suffer censure,
opposition, ridicule; we “bear His reproach.”
Thorough loyalty to our Lord and
to our own convictions means
exposure to the assaults and
indignities of the world.
Ø We have the highest
incentives to endure.
o
As with our Master, it
is the Father’s will that we should suffer.
o
As with Christ, it is an
important part of the testimony we are
to
bear and the work we are to do in this world.
o
Only thus can we
completely follow our great Leader; He who
does
not go with Christ into the valley of humiliation does not
follow Him all the way He trod.
o
So doing, we are
building up a strong Christian character, and
are
thus preparing for fuller and higher service.
o
Then are we
especially, pleasing our Master, and “great is our
reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:10-12).
The Third Trial Before the
Sanhedrin (vs, 66-71)
66 “And as soon as it was
day,” - The Sanhedrin as a council could
only meet by day; all the preliminaries had been settled
and the course of
procedure fully arranged when the legal time for the
meeting of the state
council arrived - “the elders of the people and the chief
priests and the
scribes came together, and led him into their council,
saying.” These were
the three constitutional parts of the Sanhedrin. The name
of the famous
Sanhedrin, curiously enough, is a Greek, not a Hebrew or Aramaic
word,
being derived from συνέδριον – sunedrion - an assembly. We first come
on the word when this state council summoned before them Hyrcanus II., son of
Alexander Jannaeus. In the time
of our Lord, the Roman government had taken
from them the power of carrying out capital sentences;
hence their bringing Jesus
before Pilate. There is a remarkable tradition that the
council left their proper place
of assembly, Gazith, and sat in
another chamber (forty years before the destruction
of the temple). Now,
it was forbidden to condemn to death except in Gazith
(see ‘Avoda Zara,’
pp. 61, etc.). It is probable that the night sitting of Annas
and Caiaphas and the members of
the Sanhedrin favorable to their policy
(the second trial) was held at “the Booths of the Sons of Hanan” (Annas),
These booths, or shops, were under two cedars on the
(
were for the sale of objects legally pure. In one of these
pigeons were sold for
the sacrifices of all
of Olives were part of the famous Booths of the Sons of Hanan (Annas), to
which the Sanhedrin retired when it left the chamber Gazith.
67 “Art thou the Christ?
tell us. And He said unto them, If I tell you,
ye will not believe.” In His answer Jesus evidently refers to
something which had preceded this interrogation on the part
of the
Sanhedrim He referred, no doubt, to that night examination
before
Caiaphas and certain chosen members of the council — the meeting
passed
over by Luke, but recounted by Matthew and Mark. In this
earlier
trial, which we (see above) termed the second, a similar
question had been
put to Jesus, but now the political significance of
the charge, the claim to
Messianic royalty, is brought into prominence. They were
desirous to formulate
an accusation which they could bring before the Roman
tribunal of Pilate. The
words, “Son of God,” which
the fury of jealous anger had wrung from Caiaphas
(Matthew 26:63), is here left out of sight, and is only
brought forward again by the
fierce Jewish wrath excited by the Lord’s quiet words
telling of His sitting
“on the right hand of the power of God” (vs. 69-70). If I tell you, ye will
not believe. If you, who have seen
my life, have heard my words, and seen my
works, believe not, to what end is it to say it again now?
68 “And if I also ask you,
ye will not answer me, nor let me go.” The Lord
here especially refers to those public questions of His put
to members of the
Sanhedrin and others in the last days of His public
ministry, “If David then call
Him Lord, how is He his son?” - such as we find in
Matthew 22:45, to which
the rulers had attempted to give no answer.
69 “Hereafter shall the
Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.”
Jesus decided to put an end to this weary and useless
trial, and supplied His judges
with the evidence they were seeking to extort from Him.
The Master’s words would
recall to the teachers of
Daniel - “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son
of man
came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of
days, and they
brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, and
glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and
languages should
serve Him: His
dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not
pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be
destroyed.” (Daniel
7:13-14). These
solemn words of His were, and they perfectly understood them as
such, a claim on the part of the Prisoner who stood before
them — a direct
claim to
Divine glory.
70 “Then said they all,
Art thou then the Son of God?” Now
bringing forward the loftier title formerly suppressed (in
v. 67). “And art
thou, then, dost thou, poor Man, vain in thy
imagining, dost thou assert
thyself to be the Son of God?” – “And He said unto them,
Ye say
that I am.” This form of reply
is not used in Greek, but is frequent in
rabbinic. By such an answer the one interrogated accepts as
his own
affirmation the
question put to him in its entirety. We have, then, here, in
the clearest possible language:
·
A plain assertion by
our Lord of His Divinity.
·
The reply of the Sanhedrists, showing that they for their part
distinctly understood it as
such, but to make it quite clear they
asked Him if that was His
meaning, i.e. the assertion of His Divinity.
- We have the
Lord’s quiet answer, “Yes, that was his meaning.”
Verse 71 shows that they were
satisfied with the evidence which
They proceeded without delay to lay before the Roman governor,
Pilate.
71 “And
they said, What need we any further witness? for we ourselves
have heard of His own
mouth.”
Christ’s Trials in the
High Priest’s Palace (vs. 54-71)
The agony of
calmness of real courage. He allows Himself to be led to
the palace of the
high priest, and we have now to consider all the trials
through which He
passed there. The first of these is from Peter. Love to the
Master keeps the
disciple in the train of the procession, and even leads him
to linger without
until through John’s good offices he gets into the hall.
But, alas! instead of
keeping near the Master, he lingers near the fire which was
kindled in the
hall to keep the cold at bay. And here let us notice:
·
PETER’S TEMPTATION. (vs.
54-60.) It was identification with a
lost cause. Here is Jesus down;
no hope apparently lingers about Him; He
cannot now be saved. What use is
there in further identifying himself with
Jesus? Instead of responding
boldly to the challenge and confessing Christ,
he is tempted to deny Him. And
the denials are repeated, the last time with
an oath. Peter’s distant view of
his Master and of His cause leads him to the
fatal conclusion that it is
safest to cut the connection and deny that he has
ever known Him. It is, alas! the
temptation of men still. In the blazing light
of society, when worldliness
seems so strong and comfortable, it is
convenient to ignore the Master
and His cause. Peter’s temptation is
constantly repeated, and his fall has its counterpart continually in the
cowardice of souls.
·
PETER’S RECOVERY AND REPENTANCE. (vs. 61-62.) The
Master in warning him had given
him a sign, that of the cock-crow. It acts
as an alarum upon the dull ear
of Peter. Along with this there comes the
look ineffable of the loving
Lord. The great heart is broken, and Peter
passes out to weep bitterly. We
have a great contrast between the sorrow
of Peter and that of Judas. It
is the sorrow of the world which worketh
death in the one case; it is the
sorrow which is godly and saving in the
other. As Gerok,
in an admirable discourse upon the subject, says,
Ø Peter’s sorrow
proceeds upon his sin, Judas’s upon the consequences
of his sin;
Ø
Peter’s sorrow turns
him from the world, Judas’s turns him towards the
world; and
Ø
Peter’s sorrow leads
him to life, Judas’s leads him to death. Peter’s
repentance was thus the
consequence of his Master’s love, and the sign of
his recovery. How sensible he
must have been of the mighty wrong he had
done the Master!
Jesus knew when Peter slunk away out of the palace that
he was safe in his bitter
sorrow, and that he would come forth from it a
better man. Our Lord’s trial
through Peter’s faithlessness terminated when
the disciple’s heart was broken.
·
THE BUFFET-GAME. (vs.
63-65.) The heavy hours till morning
must be spent, and so the
soldiers determine to get some amusement out of
their notable Prisoner. They
make Jesus, consequently, the center in what
is now known as the buffet-game.
Blindfolding him, they proceed to strike
Him, and call upon Him to tell
who has inflicted the blows. They are terrible
liberties they thus take with
the Son of God. But they are unable to irritate
this meek and lowly
meekness. They must
have been struck at the majestic carriage of the
Prisoner under their brutal
horse-play. Yet the blows of the soldiers were
less a trial, we may be sure,
than the faithlessness of the disciple. But we
are surely taught how
essentially degrading it is to manufacture
mirth out
of the
humiliation of others! The soldiers
never were so brutal as when
they treated Jesus in the style
they did.
·
HIS TRIAL BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN. (vs. 66-71.) In the
morning the Jewish authorities
assembled, and their line of examination
was as to the nature of His Messiahship. As we have seen, it was not a
Divine, but a military
Messiah the Jews desired. To their question He
replies first that they will not
believe Him if He answers them truthfully.
They will only
believe what they like. In other words, faith
is largely a
matter of the will as influenced
by emotion. They were not prepared to
accept truth and follow it to
its consequences. After this
preliminary, Jesus
goes on to declare, “From
henceforth shall the Son of man be seated at the
right hand of the
power of God” (Revised Version). That
is to say, His
Messiahship is to be a heavenly reign, not an earthly and temporal
one. At
once they saw in this a claim to
Divine Sonship. Hence they challenge Him
upon the point, and get His
manly reply that He is. On this ground they
condemn Him. It is plain,
therefore, that this Divine Messiah was not what
suited their fancy. It was not deliverance from such impalpable foes as sin
and anxiety and suffering they desired, but from the Romans. They
wanted
a military leader — a pasha; and
when God gave them His Son as their
heavenly King, they condemned Him
to an ignominious death. It is thus that
men despise their greatest
blessings, and do their best to put them out of
the way.
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