heaven and earth that are so to be restored, the sympathies and
affections of the family are some of the chief. I know not why St.
John should have dwelt so much upon the sorrow of the sisters of
Lazarus, and upon Christ's feeling for them, if he had not meant us to
understand this. Martha, I suppose, thought before she came to Jesus,
that her brother would ascend some time or other on angels' wings into
a place somewhere above the stars; but that all the threads which,
from their childhood upwards, had been winding round them and binding
them to each other, should be broken; that the associations of home
should cease for ever. I am sure she learnt a different lesson after
she had seen her brother again, and had understood the declaration,
'_I am the resurrection and the life_.' Then she will have known that
if, in the resurrection, 'they neither marry nor are given in
marriage,'--if no fresh ties are formed like those which bind us
together on earth,--yet that the old relationships, the old
affections, are to have a new and higher life. What is sown in
corruption is raised in incorruption; what is sown in weakness is
raised in strength; what is sown a natural relationship is raised a
spiritual. But in this case, as in every other, the change does not
alter the substance of that which has been, only brings it forth in
its might and purity.
Towards this resurrection all creation is groaning and travailing. And
that groan which burst from Christ at the grave of Lazarus, was the
expression of His sympathy in that groan of His creatures; even as His
own travail hour, in the garden, on the cross, in the tomb of Joseph,
showed that the path of the Shepherd is the same as that of the sheep,
to victory and rest. Why cannot we enter into His sufferings? why
cannot we look forward hopefully to His triumph? There are some
fearful words in the text I have taken to-day--fearful in the midst of
all their consolation--which explain the secret. It is said, '_He
that_ BELIEVETH _in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live_.' Do
we not feel sometimes as if all power of believing in anything that is
great and noble were departing from us? Do we not feel as if to
believe in Him who is goodness and truth, were the hardest effort of
all? Does it not appear as if a second death were coming upon us,--a
death of all energy, of all trust, of all power to look beyond
ourselves? Oh, if this numbness and coldness have overtaken us, or
should overtake us,--if we should be tempted to sit down in it and
sink to sleep,--let the cry which awakened Lazarus awake us. Let us be
sure that He who is the resurrection and the life is saying to each of
us, however deep the cave in which he is buried, '_Come forth!_'
however stifling the grave-clothes with which he is bound, '_Loose
him, and let him go!_'
DISCOURSE XXI.
THE DEATH FOR ALL NATIONS.
[Lincoln's Inn, 5th Sunday after Trinity, June 22, 1856.]
ST. JOHN XI. 49, 50.
_And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that
same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor
consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should
die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not._
We naturally ask ourselves why Caiaphas should have taken this tone in
speaking to his colleagues in the Sanhedrim? What did he wish them to
do which they had not shown themselves ready to do? Had they not sent
officers to take Jesus? Had they not encouraged the impulse of some
amongst His hearers to stone him, if they had not issued a formal
decree that He should be stoned? The explanation lies, I think, in the
fact that Caiaphas was a Sadducee. It might be straining the words,
'_Then gathered the chief priests_ AND _the Pharisees a council_,' to
conclude from them that the priests in general were not Pharisees. But
there are other good reasons for thinking that the accession of
Caiaphas to the office of High Priest marks the commencement of a
Sadducean ascendency. Now, the views of these schools respecting
Jesus, however they might ultimately coincide, must have been
determined by their other opinions. The Sadducees will have been much
more disposed to regard Him as a fanatic than as a blasphemer; they
will have dreaded His doctrine much less than the belief of His
kingship among the multitude; consequently, they may have thought the
experiment of putting Him to death by stoning very unwise. It was
making a trial of their native jurisdiction which was, at least,
hazardous; it might lead both to a tumult among their countrymen, and
to interference from their masters. In the council which was held
after the raising of Lazarus, it is evident that the indignation
against Jesus for '_making Himself equal with God_,'--even the
indignation at a Galilæan for pretending to be a prophet--has been
merged in the fear, lest if '_they let Him alone, the Romans should
destroy both their place and nation_.' Caiaphas takes advantage of the
feeling, by whomsoever it may have been expressed, to state and defend
his own policy. '_Ye know nothing at all_'--'you who are trying to
punish Him by your own laws. You do not consider that if we are in the
danger you apprehend, "_it is expedient that one man should die for
the people_:" that we should give Him up to the Romans, as a rebel
against them; gulping down our scruples about our dignity and our
reluctance to ask aid from the Cæsar for crushing an enemy, rather
than that "_the whole nation_" should "_perish_," through our
obstinacy in maintaining an ancient and doubtful privilege.'
This was genuine Sadducean language,--precisely what one would expect
to come from such a mouth. But it was also triumphant language. The
Pharisee must yield to it, or else forego the gratification of his own
chief desire. He might very much have preferred to assert Jewish law.
He might have been willing to run some risk in enforcing it. To do
otherwise was to stoop to the maxims of a sect which he detested. But
a compromise was the only possible course. By adopting it, he could
ensure a general agreement among the rulers in bringing about the
death of Jesus at the next Passover. And there would be some
compensation. The death would be more ignominious than the national
customs would have made it. We are told, therefore, that '_from that
day forth they took counsel to put Him to death_.' There was now no
division, either about the end or the means. Pilate was to be the
judge; the death they were to aim at was the death of the Cross.
Such, I suppose, was what Caiaphas himself understood by the words,
'_It is expedient for us that one man should die for the nation, and
that the whole nation perish not_.' A narrow meaning enough,--one in
which there was nothing of patriotism, in the vulgarest sense of that
word. Caiaphas would save his nation by binding the chains of foreign
domination more strictly upon it; he would put on a new badge of
slavery, that it might be permitted to exist. But then, as now, men
utter words--made, as they think, to fit an occasion--intended to
express only some paltry device of their minds--which are pregnant
with a signification that ages unborn will confess and wonder at. St.
John does not say to his Ephesian readers or to us,--'_We_ can see
another force in the words of the High Priest than that which he put
on them; _we_ can translate them in our way and to our use.' But he
says, 'There _was_ that force in them always.' Caiaphas had not the
power to contract his speech to the dimensions of his wit. '_Being
high priest that year, he prophesied._' The grandeur of the office,
which had witnessed the relation of God to His people for fourteen
hundred years, manifested itself through the poor creature, who could
look no further than the expediency of the moment; to whom the past
and the future were as nothing. He who believed in no angel or spirit
was compelled to be the spokesman of the Divine Word, even when he was
plotting His death. Strange and awful reflection! And yet so it must
be,--so experience shows us continually that it is. Our words are not
our own,--we are not lords over them, whatever we may think. Is it not
well for us to ask who is Lord over them; how such terrible
instruments--so immeasurably more terrible than swords or rifles--may
be used lawfully, for the protection, and not the destruction, of our
brethren; how we may be the willing, and not merely, like Caiaphas,
the unconscious, proclaimers of a Divine purpose; how we may execute
it by obeying it, not by the crimes which strive, vainly, to defeat
it?
Caiaphas prophesied, says St. John, that '_Jesus should die for that
nation; and not for that nation only, but that also He should gather
together in one the children of God which were scattered abroad_.' It
is not chiefly the form of the High Priest's sentence which suggests
this thought to him; he does not play upon the words of it. The
proposition, that Jesus should not be tried for violating Jewish law,
but should be given up as a treasonable subject of Rome, involved the
breaking down of barriers between the nations. The cross was
emphatically a message to mankind,--to all tribes and races within the
circle of the empire that had appointed this punishment for rebels and
slaves. It is a thought which possessed the minds of all the
apostles,--of none more than St. John. The cross was to do what the
eagle had tried to do. It was to bind men in one society. I shall not
dwell upon the words that announce that doctrine here, because it
forms the most prominent subject in the following chapter of which I
am going to speak. We shall find, I think, that every discourse and
narrative in it is penetrated with the idea of crucifixion. So it
becomes the suitable close to the records of our Lord's public
ministry,--the right preface to those private interviews of which St.
John is the only historian.
We are now arrived at the point in which the narratives of the
different Evangelists coincide. All the others lead us from Galilee to
Jerusalem at this Passover. St. John, who has taken us so often to
Jerusalem at other feasts before, yet prepares us, by many significant
intimations, to feel the special grandeur of the present.
'_Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went
thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called
Ephraim, and there continued with His disciples. And the Jews'
passover was nigh at hand; and many went out of the country up to
Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they
for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple,
What think ye, that He will not come to the feast? Now both the chief
priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man
knew where He were, he should shew it, that they might take Him._'
He had walked the twelve hours of the day, and no stone had reached
Him. But the night was closing in. The Jews were about to take the
great step of confessing Cæsar to be the only king; therefore _the_
King must prepare to be the Sacrifice.
The story which follows connects the two characters together:--'_Then
Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was
which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead. There they made Him
a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat
at the table with Him._'
I spoke, last Sunday, of the domestic tone which pervades the history
of the resurrection of Lazarus; how St. John refused to regard death
except as the breaking of a family bond--resurrection except as the
renewal of it. The same tone is preserved here. The family feast is
the resurrection feast; it is the union of the several limbs of a body
which had been torn asunder. There is no change of relation or of
sympathy; the old ways of expressing it are retained. Only service has
been ennobled. He who sits at meat, and she who serves, are brother
and sister. For there is a Guest at the table whose life has been a
service, and yet whose acts are all kingly. The awe of Lazarus, who
has known the secrets of the grave, does not interrupt fellowship; for
He must know them better, and He is with them, sharing in their
gladness. 'And what is He? Is He only the elder brother of one
household? May He not be the elder brother of all households? Has He
only done acts of mysterious grace and power for us? May He not be the
Ruler everywhere--over the whole earth, and over those who are in the
region from which Lazarus has come back?'
Such thoughts may have been in the minds of both sisters. Martha
cannot express them save by fulfilling her simple household duties;
they are done for Him. He can translate them into heavenly ministries.
Mary must find some other way to utter what is working in her
heart,--what no words can give expression to. '_Then took Mary a pound
of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus,
and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the
odour of the ointment. Then saith one of His disciples, Judas
Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray Him, Why was not this
ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?_' Mary
was probably puzzled by this question. She could not the least have
defended her act, or even have explained what she meant by it. She had
heard of the anointing of kings, and of the anointing in tombs. The
thought of royalty and of burial would become associated in her mind.
But why she should have done this thing,--why she had not reserved the
money for those who needed it,--she could not have told. Judas may
have seemed to her a prudent and religious man for rebuking her. And
the other Evangelists say that he was not alone in the complaint. The
Apostles generally seem to have agreed in it, and felt its
reasonableness.
Later knowledge led St. John to say, '_This he said, not that he cared
for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare
what was put therein_.' But at the time he may have shared the feeling
of the others. The covetousness of the betrayer may have been quite
concealed by his judicious charity; Mary's act may have been measured
by his rules. If it were so, John and his fellows showed that there
was in them that mind which was rapidly becoming the only mind in
Judas. It _might_ become victorious in them; it _might_ be overcome in
him. This perhaps was a very critical moment in their lives. Mary's
act was essentially a woman's act. No man would be commended for it; a
man who imitated it would not be doing what he could, but attempting
awkwardly to do what he could not. To rough men, therefore, it was a
trial to understand her and sympathise with her. They had need to pass
through many hard processes themselves--to be purged of the covetous
spirit,--to be under the guidance of a Spirit who was not yet
given,--before they could enter into the worth of services which they
were not called to perform, before they could judge them by their
origin, not by their immediate results, before they could see what a
force love may put into symbols, and how that force may be felt from
generation to generation by the humble and meek, whom words and
notions affect very little.
But there was one who knew Mary's meaning not only better than they
knew it, but better than she knew it. '_Then said Jesus, Let her
alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor
always ye have with you; but me ye have not always._' What the day of
His burying was, must have been unintelligible to the disciples
generally; but the reference to it, and to a time when He should not
be with them, may have had a solemnising effect upon them; they will
have been less ready to judge, more inclined to honour those whom He
honoured. Mary may have divined a little more of His meaning. The
thought of His burial might perplex her. But it could not cause her
despair. She knew that a body which had lain in the grave four days
had been safe there. Surely some anointing, better than hers, would
keep His body if it was laid in any tomb. In her the instinct of love
made the thought of death and sacrifice, however wonderful, not
incredible. On Judas it is evident that the sight of Mary's devotion
had a withering effect. First, it led him to hypocritical professions
about the poor, that he might persuade himself he had some benevolent
feelings; then, when Christ drove him from this ground,--when he was
reminded that he might always help the poor if he chose,--a conscious
hatred against goodness began to unfold itself in him. He went away
from that feast a traitor in heart, prepared to accomplish the
prophecy that Jesus had uttered concerning Himself. He was to be
present at one more feast,--to take one more sop,--then all would be
dark within him.
The Evangelist leaves a strong impression upon our minds of the hurry
and confusion in Jerusalem at that feast; the curiosity of the people
to see Jesus and to see Lazarus; the questionings of the council
whether the excitement could be removed without the death of both; the
half-formed thought, which might soon take shape and lead to some act,
that perhaps the king was among them after all. And then follows the
story of the entrance into Jerusalem, which is told at less length
than in the other Evangelists; but to which there are two additions
that are worthy of note. St. John quotes, as St. Matthew has done, the
prophecy of Zechariah:--'_Thy king cometh, meek, and sitting upon an
ass_:' and then adds, '_These things understood not His disciples at
the first: but when He was risen from the dead, then remembered they
that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these
things unto Him_.' The illumination of his own mind, and of the minds
of his fellow Apostles, respecting the sense and connexion of the
Scriptures,--how they learned to connect with Him the descriptions of
a King reigning in righteousness, which the Old Testament
contained,--how the resurrection from the dead identified Him as the
fulfiller of them,--how it linked His relation to God with His
relation to man,--this we learn more clearly from St. John than from
all the other apostolical writings. _They_ take the matter, in a
certain degree, for granted; he enables us to see the process of it. I
have spoken of this subject in considering the passage,--'_The zeal of
thine house hath eaten me up._' The more we meditate upon it, the
more, I believe, we shall be able to trace lines of thought running
through the Old Testament, by which the formal critic is puzzled,--the
more we shall find how little the word written in letters could
profit, if the Living Word did not expound it to the heart and
reason,--the more we shall be sure that the laws which governed men in
the old time are those which govern us; that we must have the same
Teacher as they had; or that while we seem to know everything we shall
know nothing.
The other addition is this:--'_The Pharisees therefore said among
themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is
gone after Him_.' The words may indicate a doubt whether the new
scheme which Caiaphas had devised was likely to succeed so well as
their own; whether the feeling of the people for the Christ would not
prove stronger than their submission to the Romans; whether it was not
better, therefore, to accuse Him of breaking a law which the multitude
did regard as sacred and Divine, however little they might understand
it. At any rate, they show how much men, who have lost all sympathy
with truth, are apt to overrate the power of mere numbers, and to
underrate the effects of one simple, humble, brave act. The crowds
that shouted 'Hosanna!' alarmed the Pharisees. Yet, in a few days, the
temper of those crowds was changed; they could cry that Barabbas might
be released, and Jesus crucified. The mere coming into Jerusalem
royally, yet without the outward signs of royalty, was nothing in
their eyes. Yet therein lay the real effective message to their city;
that was the hour of its visitation; that has been received by
generations of men, in the most cultivated nations of the earth, as
the warning of its doom.
'_And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at
the feast: the same came therefore to Philip, which was of
Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see
Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip
tell Jesus._' The event seemed to the disciples a little one. They
were used to see Greek proselytes at the great festivals; it was not
strange that some of them should have heard of the Teacher from
Galilee; or that, if they had heard of Him, they should wish to judge
of Him for themselves. Coming with such feelings, to perform what must
have seemed to them so easy a request, how they must have been
astonished to see the emotion which it caused their Lord, and to hear
Him answer them thus:--'_The hour is come, that the Son of man should
be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat
fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and
he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall
also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from
this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour._'