she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels
in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet,
where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why
weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my
Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. And when she had thus
said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not
that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her Woman, why weepest thou? whom
seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him,
Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him,
and I will take Him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned
herself, and saith unto Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus
saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father:
but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and
your Father; and to my God, and your God. Mary Magdalene came and told
the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these
things unto her._'
There had been differences in the reports of the Evangelists
respecting the appearance of the angels to the women. St. Matthew had
said:--'_And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of
the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone
from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning,
and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did
shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto
the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was
crucified. He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the
place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell His disciples that
He is risen from the dead; and, behold, He goeth before you into
Galilee; there shall ye see Him: lo, I have told you. And they
departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did
run to bring His disciples word._' St. Mark had said:--'_And very
early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the
sepulchre at the rising of the sun. And they said among themselves,
Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And
when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was
very great. And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man
sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they
were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek
Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: He is risen; He is not here:
behold the place where they laid Him. But go your way, tell His
disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall
ye see Him, as He said unto you. And they went out quickly, and fled
from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said
they any thing to any man; for they were afraid._' St. Luke had
said:--'_And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And
they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came
to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, 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, Why seek ye the living
among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how He spake
unto you when He was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be
delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the
third day rise again. And they remembered His words, and returned from
the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all
the rest._'
I thank God that we belong to a Church which is not afraid to bring
these diversities before us, as it does those in the reports of the
Passion; a Church which believes so strongly in God, that it can leave
Him to interpret these differences to us without making any awkward
attempts at reconciliation. Our faith in the Resurrection is not
affected by them so long as we live upon God's word, and not upon the
letters of a book. When we change the one for the other, it must
perish; no arguments or explanations will keep it alive. St. John, in
some respects, differs from them all. I think many would have been
glad if he had differed more widely. There is a dislike in our day, in
Protestant countries, to any notice of angelical visitations.
Romanists, and some who are not Romanists, would denounce the feeling
as a sign that we are losing all faith in the spiritual world. I am
not willing to interpret it so harshly. I think there is a feeling
amongst us that we ought to be connected with the spiritual world now
as much as in the days of old, and that these reports seem to keep us
at a distance from it by drawing a line between us and former ages, by
affirming communications to have been made to them which are not made
to us. I partly considered this subject when I was speaking of the
angel who is said to have troubled the Pool of Bethesda; but I must
refer to it again, because we all feel, I think, that the angels who
sang to the shepherds of the Child who was born in Bethlehem, and the
angels who spake to the women at the tomb of Joseph, must have had a
different message to deliver from all others. What was the difference?
Surely this, that they came to tell of a union of earth and heaven, of
the spiritual and the visible world in the person of a Man. If there
were no such news to bring, we should indeed be left under the
dominion of angels; for we should not be able to get rid of the
thought--no nation ever has been able--that we are surrounded by
invisible creatures, and that they do in some way communicate with us.
But if there was such a truth to be told, should we not be rather
startled to find that there was none to tell it? Would not the absence
of these stories leave a blank, not in our imaginations, but in our
hearts and in our reason? Was not the appearance of these angels a
witness to men that we do not need, as former ages may have done,
special messengers to come from behind a veil which the Son of God has
rent asunder, but that hosts of such creatures may be working with us,
and ministering to us, and joining with us, the sinful spirits, who
present the sacrifice that was made once for all before the Father of
spirits?
St. John tells us, at once, of another apparition to Mary, which was
immeasurably more to her than the apparition of any angels. An actual
human form stood before her, the one which she had known best and
loved best in the world, and yet she took it to be the gardener's. It
was not, therefore, that it was too radiant for her to look upon, that
it had lost the signs and marks that belong to her race. But it was
not the figure or the countenance which revealed Him to her. It was
the voice calling her by her name, it was the voice which had bidden
the seven devils depart out of her, that brought her to own Him as her
Lord.
Then came those wonderful words which contain the deepest and most
blessed of all truths in the form of the most startling contradiction.
She was not to touch Him, _for_ He was not ascended. That which
appeared to invite intercourse was the bar to it; that which would
appear to put them at a hopeless distance would be the beginning of a
fellowship that could not be interrupted. The weak, penitent woman was
to learn the lesson which the Apostles had been taught at the Paschal
supper. He must go to His Father that they might know Him. The private
and exclusive communion into which they had entered so imperfectly,
must be merged in one in which all should share who would take up
their lot as brethren of each other and of Him; for He was to dwell
with His Father and their Father, with His God and their God. This was
a risen life indeed; and we see at each turn how a risen life implies
an ascension.
'_Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when
the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the
Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be
unto you. And when He had so said, He shewed unto them His hands and
His side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord._' You
think of these as sudden apparitions, glimpses granted and withdrawn,
of the Teacher who had once walked with them by day and sat with them
by night; and you think rightly. St. John's words give us that
impression of them. But do they give us no other at the same time? Is
it not the apparition of an actual Person, of an actual human body? He
may be seen, and may disappear; but He _is_. We are not among shadows
more than we were before. The air is freer, the light is clearer. He
only does not tarry in that room where the disciples are assembled for
fear of the Jews, because they are to learn that wherever two or three
are assembled in His name, there is He in the midst of them.
And consider His words to them. The last time they had met at the
Paschal supper He had said--'_Peace I leave with you, my peace I give
to you. And these things I have spoken to you that in me ye might have
peace._' Since they heard that language, they had known more of
fightings without and within than in all their lives before. And now
He repeats it again, and shows them His hands and His side. Now it
comes with power. If there was a moment of intense agonizing
excitement, you might have fancied it would have been that. There is
no excitement. There is perfect quietness in them all; in him who had
forsaken the Master, in him who had denied Him. He has spoken peace to
them, and they are at peace. The beloved disciple can only describe
what he felt, what all felt, in the simplest, calmest words--'_Then
were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord_.'
What had happened to them? He with whom they had been at war had
declared Himself at one with them. Christ had brought that message
from the grave. His hands and side assured them of it. Their
consciences were absolved. They were freed men.
'_Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath
sent me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on
them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever
sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye
retain, they are retained._'
The connexion between the two passages is too obvious to be
overlooked. He had come in His Father's name to bring them peace. He
sent them forth in His name with the same gift. The Spirit of peace
should go with them, that they might execute their commission. The
pierced hands and side, which had been the witness and pledge of it to
them, should be the witness and pledge of it to the world. Their
conscience had been absolved. A chain had been taken from them. They
should, in the name of Christ and of His Father, break the chains
which bind the consciences of others. They should remit, or send away,
the sins which keep men the prisoners and slaves of an evil and
accusing spirit, which prevent them from serving their Father in
heaven. But since it was _consciences_ they were to unbind--since they
were carrying a message of peace to voluntary creatures--the liberty
might be refused, the rebellion might be persevered in. The very word
which looses becomes then a word to bind. It is a tremendous fact,
asserted again and again in Scripture, certified by experience. The
message of reconciliation and deliverance holds in an iron gripe those
spirits which it does not emancipate. They cry out that it has come to
torment them; they have a sense of evil which they had not before;
they are bound by it as they were not before.
I cannot see _less_ in the words which were spoken that night--or in
the commission which was then given to the ministers of Christ--than I
have expressed. If you say that I ought to see _more_, I submit
willingly to the rebuke. But I deny that it _is_ more to talk of some
power of the keys being entrusted to the Apostles or their successors,
if by that power is meant only some outward authority to withdraw the
punishment for sins, or to enforce it. I cannot, in any case, read
'punishment,' where I find 'sin' written. I must regard remission of
punishment as a very poor and miserable substitute for remission of
sins. If it is said that we cannot imagine ministers who have received
such a power, for that remission of sins must belong to God only, I
answer, 'Most assuredly ministers can neither remit sins nor
punishments in their own name.' If they assume to do either, they
violate the charter upon which all their authority rests; they claim
to be what Christ did not claim to be, to do what He did not claim to
do. For He said that He was nothing, and could do nothing without His
Father. His glory was that He did not come in His own name. But if the
ministers of Christ _do_ confess that they are sent in His name, as He
was sent in His Father's name, then I say they can, in His name, speak
to the conscience and absolve the conscience, not from its punishment
but from its sin. And I say that the consciences of thousands and tens
of thousands have waited in all ages, do wait in our age, to receive
this blessing, and have actually received it, and are receiving it.
And I say that when it is spoken to them, and they do not receive it,
they bear testimony to the other half of the sentence; they are bound
more closely, because they will not be loosed. Therefore I fear it is
because Christ's ministers do not care to exercise His powers, but
wish to exercise some powers of their own, that they fight so stoutly
for these rights to punish or forego punishment, to curse or to take
off curses, which, when they were most fully acknowledged and produced
most terror in the minds of men, were generally very feeble for any
good moral purpose, and were very dreadful temptations to tyranny and
lying in those who exercised them.
I am far, indeed, from saying that absolution consists only in
preaching the Gospel. The words, '_Peace be to you_,'--the hands and
the side,--spake to the consciences of the disciples. At what time
more than when we are kneeling and confessing, is the conscience
likely to receive the message, 'He pardoneth and absolveth?' What has
been more effectual than the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ
in carrying home the words to each heart, '_Son, thy sins be forgiven
thee, rise up and walk_'? And in both these cases it is not merely to
single hearts that the blessing is imparted. The gathering together in
Christ's name is a witness that we meet as a family just as the
Apostles did; and that, as a family, we want the peace and
reconciliation which a Father only can send us through His Son. Did we
understand the worth of that _communion_ more, and how all individual
blessings are associated with it and rise out of it, the power of
_excommunicating_ would not be something to boast of, or to fight for,
or to play with. To cut a man off from the Church would then, indeed,
be to deliver one who had sold himself to the service of evil to the
master he has chosen, that he may feel the bitterness of his yoke, and
so may return to his true Lord, and his spirit be saved when that Lord
appears. But till we know more of that Spirit which Jesus breathed on
His disciples, on that first day of the week, we shall be as little
competent to administer censures as we are to testify of
reconciliation and absolution.
'_But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them
when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have
seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in His hands
the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails,
and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe. And after
eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then
came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said,
Peace be unto you. Then saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger,
and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my
side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and
said unto Him, My Lord, and my God! Jesus saith unto him, Thomas,
because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that
have not seen, and yet have believed._'
By one class of readers, Thomas is described as a doubter, impatient
of all evidence but such as amounts to demonstration. By another
class, he is described as a man with the idolatrous tendency which
insists upon sensible tokens, because it has no apprehension of that
which is spiritual. By a third, the moral is drawn from his story,
that those who forsake the fellowship of their brethren, miss the
presence of their Lord and the grace of faith. There may be much of
truth in each of these observations, and they do not contradict each
other. We are all, at different times of our lives, greedy for proofs
that shall satisfy the logical understanding, and for signs that
address themselves to the senses. We have all thought that we should
gain more by lonely study than by intercourse with our fellows and by
common worship, and have been punished for our pride. But I do not
think that Thomas should be accused of asking for too complete a
demonstration. He asked for too weak a one. He wished to put his hands
into the print of the nails. That would not have convinced him. It was
another evidence addressing itself not to his eyes, but to his heart,
which forced him to cry, '_My Lord, and my God_!' And I cannot believe
that we have any right to cast stones at those who require outward
tokens to assist their faith; for Christ vouchsafed to this Apostle
the very tokens which he desired. And we ought to remember that we do
not bring Christ amongst us, or procure graces from Him, by
frequenting the assemblies of His disciples, but that we should go to
them because He is there speaking peace, and revealing Himself to
those who are willing to be members of a body, and who wish for no
privileges which all cannot share with them. Whatever reproof Thomas
needed, whatever encouragement we can desire, is gathered in our
Lord's last words to him. If he required the aid of seeing to sustain
his belief, it might be afforded him. But faith itself is a higher
evidence. Things not seen present themselves to it with a force and
demonstration as great as that with which the things seen present
themselves to the eye. The invisible Person who is the Light of men,
makes Himself known to that organ which is created to receive His
light. His life, His peace, are as near to us as they were to those to
whom He showed Himself alive after His Passion. Our knowledge that He
is risen may be as certain as theirs, and essentially of the same
kind.
With this sign to the unbelieving Apostle, I suppose St. John's
narrative originally closed; for he adds immediately: '_And many other
signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not
written in this book. But these are written, that ye might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might
have life through His name_.'
I have taken these words for my text, because they express with
peculiar terseness the characteristics of the Gospel as they have come
out gradually before us. It is a book of _Signs_. Every event that
has been recorded has been significant. It has been the index to a
truth. These signs have been selected out of _many_ others, all
bearing the same import. Each of these signs declares--all of them
together declare--that _Jesus is the Son of God_. Their design is to
awaken _belief_ in Him as the Son of God. Those who have this belief
have _life_ through His name. He does not, then, merely compile a
story of certain acts; he honours all previous Gospels which do not
bring forth a collection of stories, but make known a living Person;
he desires to remove the confusions which had beset those who believed
in a Son of God, but not in an actual man; in a man who was not a Son
of God. He desires that that Son of God should speak to the spirit of
man, to that in man which exercises faith. He wishes us to feel that
the Son of God is the one Source of life, that only through Him as the
Son of Man can men receive life.
When St. John had been enabled to give this perfect explanation of
what he had written, he might well think that his task was done. If he
had been an artist instead of an evangelist, he would have been afraid
to disturb the symmetry of his work by making any additions to it. But
he was under other guidance than his own judgment; what it was good
for the world to hear, the Spirit within him would not suffer him to
keep back. Another vision rose before him, a vision so clear and
bright, that he knew it could not have been given to him for his own
sake; men in distant lands and ages were to be blessed by it. He was
again by the Lake of Tiberias, amidst old friends. '_There were
together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana
in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of His
disciples._' We ask ourselves for what great purpose they were
assembled there. The very names are for us full of wonder and mystery.
Those who bore them had been witnesses of the death and resurrection
of the Son of God. He had breathed on them; as His Father had sent
Him, He had sent them; they were to loose and to bind. The next verse
answers our question: '_Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing.
They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered
into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing_.' We
thought that when Jesus called them from mending their nets, that
occupation was for ever abandoned. Who would have dreamed of their
resuming it now? They had been admitted behind the veil; One from the
grave had come back to them. Were they to become common fishermen
again? They evidently go into their boats with no misgiving of
conscience. They set about their toil as freshly and earnestly as
ever. _As_ freshly and earnestly? Was there nothing in that lake, and
in all that had happened to them upon it, which made every labourer
more free and joyous? Did not the water speak to them of Him who had
walked upon it? Did not the shore beyond tell them of the bread which
He had blessed? Was not the still night full of voices that echoed the
voice which had said to them, '_Peace be with you; my peace I give to
you_'? Had not the curse been taken from the earth and from the labour
of man, since He had been called 'the carpenter's son,' since He had
been proved to be the Son of God with power?
There must have been the sense of His presence everywhere; and it was
not merely _the sense of a presence_: He was there. '_But when the
morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew
not that it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have
ye any meat? They answered Him, No. And He said unto them, Cast the
net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast
therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of
fishes._'
The old sign is given again. They had been taught that He cared for
their craft and blessed it, when they had only a dim notion of Him as
a great Prophet and King. They find that He cares for it and blesses
it still. The risen Christ is the same as the Christ who told them
words, hard to believe, about rejection and crucifixion. Only He does
not sit with _them_ in the boat, as if He were caring for one
particular band of fishermen. He has chosen them to tell all workers
everywhere, that He is watching over them, that their work is not a
barrier between them and Him, but a means of grace, a road to
intercourse with Him. '_Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith
unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the
Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did
cast himself into the sea. And the other disciples came in a little
ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred
cubits,) dragging the net with fishes. As soon then as they were come
to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and
bread. Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now
caught. Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great
fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so
many, yet was not the net broken. Jesus saith unto them, Come and
dine. And none of the disciples durst ask Him, Who art thou? knowing
that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth
them, and fish likewise._'