'Do ye not remember!'--Mark viii. 18.
The disciples had misunderstood our Lord's warning 'against the leaven
of the Pharisees,' which they supposed to have been occasioned by
their neglect to bring with them bread. Their blunder was like many
others which they committed, but it seems to have singularly moved our
Lord, who was usually so patient with His slow scholars. The swift
rain of questions, like bullets rattling against a cuirass, of which
my text is one, shows how much He was moved, if not to impatience or
anger, at least to wonder.
But what I wish particularly to notice is that He traces the
disciples' slowness of perception and distrust mainly to
forgetfulness. There was a special reason for that, of course, in that
the two miracles of the feeding the multitude, one of which had just
before occurred, ought to have delivered them from any uneasiness, and
to have led them to apprehend His higher meaning.
But there is a wider reason for the collocation of questions than
this. There is no better armour against distrust, nor any surer purge
of our spiritual sight, than religious remembrance. So my text falls
in with what I hope are, or at any rate should be, thoughts which are
busy in many of our hearts now. Every Sunday is the last Sunday of a
year. But we are influenced by the calendar, even though there is
nothing in reality to correspond with the apparent break, and though
time runs on in a continuous course. I would fain say a word or two
now which may fit in with thoughts that are wholesome for us always,
but, I suppose, come with most force to most of us at such a date as
this. And, if you will let me, I will put my observations in the form
of exhortations.