tomb, hewn out in the rock, wherein was man never yet laid, I had
prepared it for myself; but I will gladly use it for Him, if I can but
get Pilate to yield me His body. I will go at once and ask for it."
"Well," says Nicodemus, "if you can succeed in getting the body, I will
see to it that there are not wanting the garments and spices of death."
Without a moment's delay, for the sun is fast sinking toward the west,
Joseph hastens to Pilate, and asks that he may take away the body of
Jesus; and not unlikely he quickens Pilate's response by an offer of a
liberal bribe if he will but accede to his request. Pilate, who had
just given orders to the soldiers to hasten the death of the crucified,
marvelled that Jesus was really dead; nor was he reassured until he had
asked the centurion; and when he knew it of him, he gave to Joseph the
necessary leave, with which he hastened back to the cross.
The sun would be very low on the horizon, flinging its last beams upon
the scene, as he reached Calvary. The crowds would for the most part
have dispersed. The soldiers might be engaged in taking down the
bodies of the thieves. The body of Jesus was however still on the
cross; and not far off would be the little band of attached friends of
whom we have already spoken, and who would be the sole remnants of the
vast crowds who had now ebbed away to their homes. What wonder, what
joy, as they see Joseph reverently and lovingly begin to take Him down;
with evident authority from the Governor, with manifest preparations
for His careful burial; they had never before known him to be
interested in their Master. And who is this that waits beneath the
cross with the clean linen shroud, and the wealth of spices? Ah! that
is Nicodemus; but who would have thought that he would help to perform
these last offices!
Oh to be a painter, and depict that scene! The discolored corpse
stained with blood, muscles flaccid, eyes closed, head helpless;
Joseph, and Nicodemus, and John, and other strong men busy. The women
weeping as if their hearts must break, but ready at any moment to give
the needed aid. Between them they carry the body into Joseph's garden,
and to the mouth of his new sepulchre. There on some grassy bank they
rest it for a moment, that it may be tenderly washed and wrapped in the
white linen cloth on which powdered myrrh and aloes had been thickly
strewn. A white cloth would then be wrapped about the head and face,
after long farewell looks, and reverent kisses. Then lifted once
again, the precious burden was born into the sepulchre, and laid in a
rocky niche. There was no door; but a great stone, probably circular,
prepared for the purpose, was rolled with united and strenuous efforts
against the aperture, to prevent the entrance of wild beasts and
unkindly foe. And then as the chill twilight was flinging its shadows
over the world, they reverently withdrew.
Joseph and Nicodemus had done their work and had gone to their homes,
and yet there were some who lingered as if unable to leave the spot.
There were Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the
sepulchre, gazing through their tears at the place where Jesus was
laid. How keen was their mental anguish! There was bereaved love;
with all purity the strongest love had grown up around Christ; and now
that He was gone, it seemed as if there was nothing more to live for.
The prop had been rudely taken away, and the tendrils of their hearts'
affection were torn and wrenched. Then there would come a rush of hot
tears, indignant passion with those who had pursued Him, with such
unrelenting torture, to His bitter end. Then again, broken-hearted
grief at the remembrance of His anguish, and gentle patience, and
shame. And, mingling sadly with all these, were disappointed hopes.
Was this the end? He who died thus could not have been the Messiah!
He had taught them to believe He was! He must have been self-deceived!
For this life only they had hope in Christ, and they were of all most
miserable! That gravestone hid not only the body of Christ, but the
structure of the brightest, fairest hopes that had ever filled the
hearts of mortals!
In spite of all, they love. This is the love of women: the object of
their fond attachment may be misrepresented and abused, the life may
seem to be an entire failure; they may themselves be suffering greatly
from the results of the beloved one's mistakes and follies--yet will
they love still! And so through the gathering gloom and evening
stillness they lingered on, until the increasing darkness told them
that the Sabbath had come. Then they returned and rested the Sabbath
day, according to the commandment; but neither they, nor Joseph, nor
Nicodemus, nor John, would be able to partake of the Paschal
festivities. To take part in a burial at any time would defile them
for seven days, and make everything which they touched unclean; to do
so at that time involved seclusion through the whole of the Passover
week, with all its holy observances and rejoicings.
As we peruse this narrative, many thoughts are suggested.
_We see the minute fulfillment of prophetic Scriptures._--It had been
written by Isaiah on the page of inspiration, that the Messiah would
make His grave with the rich. When Jesus died that prophecy seemed
most unlikely of accomplishment; but it was literally fulfilled. There
is not a prophecy, however minute, concerning our Lord's life and
death, which did not have an actual fulfillment; and does not this show
us how we are to treat the prophecies which foretell His future glory
and second advent? They too shall have a literal and exact fulfillment.
_We learn, too, that there are more friends of Christ in the world than
we know._--They sit in our legislature, in our councils, in our pews;
we meet them day after day: they give little or no sign of their
discipleship: the most large-hearted friend would be surprised to hear
that they were Christians. But they are Christ's. Christ knows and
owns them. But if they are secret disciples now, they will not be
secret disciples always. A time will come when the fire of their love
will burn the bushel that hides it, and they will avow themselves on
the Lord's side.
_We gather, too, that God can always find instruments to carry out His
purposes._--The immediate followers of Christ could not see how to
preserve the beloved corpse from defilement, but God had His place and
His servants ready; and at the very crisis of need He brought them to
the point. So has it been again and again: when influence and money
and men have been really required for the work of God, they have been
all at once forthcoming. He says to men like Joseph, Go, and he goeth;
and to men like Nicodemus, Come, and he cometh; and to His servants, Do
this, and it is done. Even the king's heart is in the hand of the
Lord; as the rivers of water, He turneth it wheresoever He will.
_There is also a very significant meaning contained in verse 41_: "In
the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden
a new sepulchre." There is something startling in the association--the
cross, the garden. The one--the symbol of shame and suffering, the
most awful witness to the destructive power of that sin which has laid
waste our world; the other--where flowers, Eden's brightest relics,
were guarded for man's enjoyment. Flowers, blooming in all the
luxuriance of an Oriental spring, shed their fragrance around our
Saviour when He died; one loves to dwell upon the thought that Golgotha
was part of the garden--that earth's fairest, brightest, gentlest
nurslings were there, mingling their smiles and balm with the trampling
angry footsteps and the cursings of malignant foes. They had been very
dear to Him in His life-course; it was only meet that they should be
near Him when He died. Was it not symbolical? In a garden man fell;
in a garden he was redeemed! And that death of Christ has sown our
world with the flowers of peace and joy and blessedness, so that many a
wilderness has begun to rejoice and to blossom as the rose.
Whilst the burial of Christ was proceeding, the chief priests and their
party were holding a meeting in all haste before the Sabbath began.
The success of their scheme was no doubt the theme of hearty
congratulation. But they dreaded Him still; they feared that all might
not be over; they could not forget that He had spoken of rising the
third day; and at the least, might not the disciples steal away the
body, and spread abroad the report that He had risen, and so the last
error would be worse than the first? A deputation was therefore
appointed to wait on Pilate representing their fears. Tired of them
and the whole case, he was in no humor to please them. "Ye have a
guard," said he, brusquely, "go, make it as sure as you can!" This
they did. They passed a strong cord across the stone, and sealed its
ends, and then placed soldiers to keep due watch and ward that none
should lay hands upon the body that lay within.
So Christ lay entombed; but He was not there. He was in the world of
spirits. The place of disembodied spirits was called, by the Jews,
Sheol. It had two divisions, Paradise and Gehenna. Christ, we know
from His own words, went to the former; and from Peter we gather that
He also went through the realms of Gehenna, proclaiming His victory.
The practical conclusion of the whole is, however, contained in Romans
vi. Just as the body of Christ after crucifixion was buried in the
grave, so our sinful, sensual, selfish selves must be done away in the
grave of forgetfulness and oblivion and disuse--buried with Christ,
"that like as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the
Father, so we also should walk in newness of life."
XXXIII
The Day of Resurrection
"The first day of the week."--JOHN xx. 1.
It may be helpful if we tabulate in a brief and concise form the
various appearances of our Lord on the great day, when He was declared
to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.
Mary of Magdala--a squalid Arab village on the south of the plain of
Gennesaret still bears that name--with another Mary had remained beside
the tomb, till the trumpet of the Passover Sabbath and the gathering
darkness had warned them to retire. They rested the Sabbath day,
according to the commandment, in the saddest, darkest grief that ever
oppressed the human heart; for they had not only lost the dearest
object of their affection, under the most harrowing circumstances, but
their hopes that this was the Messiah seemed to have been rudely
shattered. But how tenacious is human love, especially the love of
women! How it will cling around the ruins of the temple, even when
some rude shock of earthquake has shattered it to the ground! So, when
the Sabbath was over (after sundown on Saturday), they stole out to
purchase additional sweet spices, which they prepared that night in
order to complete the embalming of the body, which had been left
incomplete on the day of crucifixion. They would probably sleep
outside the city gates, which only opened at daybreak, because they
were resolved to reach the sepulchre while it was yet dark.
But before they could arrive the sublime event had occurred, which has
filled the world with light and joy in all succeeding years. For
behold, whilst the Roman sentries were pacing to and fro before the
sepulchre, there had been a great earthquake, and the angel of the Lord
had descended from heaven, rolled back the stone from the door, and sat
upon it. Then from that opened door the Lord had come forth
unperceived by the eye of man (for the watchers were dazed and dazzled
by the appearance of the angel and the terror of the earthquake), and
in sublime majesty had become the Firstborn from among the dead, and
the First-fruits of them that sleep.
The women, meanwhile, were hurrying to the grave, debating as they did
so, how they would be able to roll away the stone from its mouth.
Probably they had heard nothing of the seals and sentries with which
the Sanhedrim had endeavored to guard against all eventualities; for,
had they known, they would hardly have ventured to come at all. They
were greatly startled, however, when, on approaching the grave, they
saw that the stone was rolled away. Mary of Magdala apparently
detected this first; and without staying to see further, and with the
conviction that it must have been rifled of its precious contents,
started off to apprise Simon Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved.
What a shock, as she broke in on their grief, with the tidings, "They
have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where
they have laid Him."
What a series of mistakes was hers! She had gone to anoint the dead
while the morning light still lingered over the hills of Moab; she did
not realize that He could not be holden by the bands of death, and had
passed out into the richer, fuller life, of which death is the portal.
She came with aromatic spices that her means had bought, and her hands
prepared; she did not know that all His garments were already smelling
of aloes and cassia, of the perfume of heaven with which His Father had
made Him glad.
She came to a Victim, so she thought, who had fallen beneath the knife
of His foes as a Lamb led to slaughter, she was not aware that He was a
Priest on the point of entering the most Holy Place on her behalf.
She came for the Vanquished; but failed to understand that He was a
Victor over the principalities and powers of hell; and that the keys of
Hades and the grave were hanging at His girdle, whilst the serpent was
bruised beneath His feet.
She thought that she had come to put a final touch, such as only a
woman can, to a life of sad and irremediable failure; but had no
conception that on that morning a career had been inaugurated which was
not only endless and indissoluble in itself, but was destined to
vitalize uncounted myriads.
She thought that the empty tomb could only be accounted for by the
rifling hands that had taken away the precious body, but could not
guess that the Rifler of the perquisites of death was none other than
the Lord Himself.
We all make mistakes like this. Our treasures, whether of things or
people, which had been our pride and joy, pass from us; and we stand
beside the grave, gazing in on vacancy and emptiness; we think that we
can never be happy again: we suppose that God's mercies are clean gone
forever, and that His mercies have failed forevermore. But, all the
while, near at hand, the radiant vision of a transfigured blessing
waits to greet us, and to fill us with an ecstasy that shall never pall
upon us, but make our after-life one long summer day.
In the meanwhile, the other women had pursued their way to the grave.
The guard had already fled in terror, so there was none to intercept or
frighten them; and entering the sepulchre they saw a young man, emblem
of the immortal youth of God's angels, sitting on the right side,
clothed in a long white garment, and they were affrighted. Presently,
as they were much perplexed, behold, two men stood by them in shining
garments; and as they were afraid and bowed down their faces to the
earth, they said unto them, "Be not affrighted, ye seek Jesus, which
was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Remember
how He said into you when He was yet in Galilee, that He would rise
again. Come, see the place where they laid Him. And go quickly, tell
His disciples, and Peter, that He goeth before you into Galilee; there
shall ye see Him, as He said unto you." And they departed quickly from
the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring His
disciples word.
In the meanwhile, Peter and John were hurrying to the sepulchre by
another route, and probably reached it just after the women had left.
John, younger than Peter, had outrun him, but was withheld by
reverential awe from doing more than peering into the empty grave. The
linen clothes, lying orderly disposed, seem to have specially arrested
his notice, yet went he not in. Peter, however, went at once into the
sepulchre; he also saw the linen clothes, and especially that the cloth
which had covered the face of the dead was wrapped together in a place
by itself. Then John also went in; he saw and believed. It was
evident to them both that the tomb had not been rifled, nor the body
stolen by violent hands; for these garments and the spices would have
been of more value to thieves than a naked corpse. In any case,
thieves would not have been at the pains to fold the garments up so
carefully. Whilst the same indications proved that the body had not
been removed by friends; for they would not have left the grave-clothes
behind.
When the disciples had gone back to their own home, Mary stood without
at the door of the sepulchre weeping; and as she wept she stooped down,
and looked into the sepulchre. What earnest heart is there, that has
not at some time stood there with her, looking down into the grave of
ordinances, of spent emotions, of old and sacred memories, seeking
everywhere for the Redeemer, who had been once the dearest reality, the
one object of love and life? The two sentry-angels, who sat, the one
at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had
lain, sought in vain to comfort her. "Woman," they said, in effect,
"there is no need for tears; didst thou but know, couldst thou but
understand, thy heart would overflow with supreme joy, and thy tears
become smiles." "They have taken away my Lord," she said, "and I know
not where they have laid Him." What could angel voices do for her, who
longed to hear one voice only? What were the griefs of others in
comparison with hers? In an especial sense Jesus was hers! _my_ Lord!
Had He not cast out from her seven devils?
Some slight movement behind, or perhaps, as Chrysostom finely supposes,
because of an expression of love and awe which passed over the angel
faces, led her to turn herself back, and she saw Jesus standing, but
she knew not that it was Jesus. Supposing him, in her grief and
confusion, to be the gardener, she said that if he knew the whereabouts
of the body she sought, she would gladly have it removed at her
expense: nay, she even volunteered to bear it off herself. Then He
spoke the old familiar name with the old intonation and emphasis, and
she answered in the country tongue they both knew and loved so well,
"Rabboni!" In her rapture she sought to embrace Him, but this must not
be; and there was need for Christ to work in her love, with His high
art, as the artificer may carve the stone, or engrave some legend on
the intaglio. He therefore withdrew Himself, saying, "Touch Me not."
To Thomas afterward He said, "Behold My hands and My side; reach hither
thy finger": because there was no danger of his abusing the permission,
or leaning unduly on the sensuous and physical. But Mary must learn to
exchange the outward for the inward, the transient for the eternal, and
to pass from the old fellowship with Jesus as friend and companion into
a spiritual relationship which would subsist to all eternity.
Therefore Jesus spoke of His ascension, and bade her look upward, and
see, gleaming on high, diviner things. So she was prepared for the
time, when, in the upper room, she should continue steadfastly in
prayer, and come nearer to Him whom she loved than ever previously.
Did you ever realize that the intonations of the voice of Jesus, which
had passed unimpaired through death, suggest that in that new life,
which lies on the other side of death, we shall hear the voices speak
again which have been familiar to us from childhood? As is the
heavenly, so are they who are heavenly; and as we have borne the image
of the earthy, we shall bear that of the heavenly, and shall speak
again with those whom we have lost awhile, and they with us.
Mary Magdalene went and told them that had been with Him, as they
mourned and wept, that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken
these things unto her. But they, when they had heard that He was
alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.
In close succession, the Lord appeared to others of the little group.
To the women, as they did run to bring His disciples word. To Peter,
whom He encountered on His way back, in lonely astonishment and awe,
and restored with gracious words of forgiveness. To the two that
walked to Emmaus, in the afternoon, and talked of all that had
happened. Finally He appeared to the whole company of the apostles, as
they sat at meat. They had carefully shut their doors, since there was
every reason to fear that the rumors of the events of the morning would
arouse against them the strong hate and fear of the Pharisees. It may
be that they were startled by every passing footfall, and every
movement on the stair, as when the two returned from Emmaus to tell how
Jesus had been made known unto them in the breaking of bread. Then,
suddenly, without announcement or preparation, the figure of their
beloved Master stood in the midst of them, with the familiar greeting
of peace! And, as the sacred historian naïvely puts it, they were
terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they were gazing on a
spirit. But the Lord allayed their fears, first by showing them His
hands and His feet; and next, by partaking of a piece of broiled fish
and of an honeycomb.
Evidently He was clothed in the resurrection or spiritual body of which
the Apostle Paul speaks. He was not subject to all the laws that
govern our physical life. He could pass freely through unopened doors,
and at will He could manifest Himself, speak, stand, and walk, or
subject Himself to physical sense.
His words were very significant. He began by upbraiding them for their
reluctance to believe that He had risen. Again He said, "Peace be unto
you"; and accompanied His words with the indication of His wounds--"He
showed them His hands and side." This was the peace of forgiveness,
which falls on our conscience-stricken hearts, as the dew distils on
the parched heritage. "Look at the wounds of Jesus," cried Staupitz to
Luther; and there is no other sign that will give rest to the penitent.
After this He opened their understandings, that they might understand
the Scriptures, and showed them that a suffering Messiah was the
thought which pervaded the entire Hebrew Scriptures. "Thus it is
written, and thus it behoved the Messiah to suffer, and to rise from
the dead the third day." What would we not give to have some
transcript of that wonderful conversation! With what new eyes should
we read the Bible, if only we could know what Jesus said on that
occasion!
Next He repeated the "Peace be unto you," and told them that He was
sending them forth as the Father had sent Him--"Go ye unto all the
world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." But He added,
"Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you; but tarry ye in the
city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." "And
these signs shall follow them that believe. In My name shall they cast
out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up
serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;
they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."