The Four Thousand.
“In those days, when there was again a great multitude, and they
had nothing to eat, He called unto Him His disciples, and saith
unto them, I have compassion on the multitude, because they
continue with Me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and if I
send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way;
and some of them are come from far. And His disciples answered
Him, Whence shall one be able to fill these men with bread here in
a desert place? And He asked them, How many loaves have ye? And
they said, Seven. And He commandeth the multitude to sit down on
the ground: and He took the seven loaves, and having given thanks,
He brake, and gave to His disciples, to set before them; and they
set them before the multitude. And they had a few small fishes:
and having blessed them, He commanded to set these also before
them. And they did eat, and were filled: and they took up, of
broken pieces that remained over, seven baskets. And they were
about four thousand: and He sent them away. And straightway He
entered into the boat with His disciples, and came into the parts
of Dalmanutha.”—MARK viii. 1-10 (R.V.).
We now come upon a miracle strangely similar to that of the Feeding of the
Five Thousand. And it is worth while to ask what would have been the
result, if the Gospels which contain this narrative had omitted the former
one. Scepticism would have scrutinized every difference between the two,
regarding them as variations of the same story, to discover traces of the
growth of the myth or legend, and entirely to discredit it. Now however it
is plain that the events are quite distinct; and we cannot doubt but that
information as full would clear away as completely many a perplexity which
still entangles us. Archbishop Trench has well shown that the later
narrative cannot have grown out of the earlier, because it has not grown
at all, but fallen away. A new legend always “outstrips the old, but here
... the numbers fed are smaller, the supply of food is greater, and the
fragments that remain are fewer.” The latter point is however doubtful. It
is likely that the baskets, though fewer, were larger, for in such a one
St. Paul was lowered down over the wall of Damascus (Acts ix. 25). In all
the Gospels the Greek word for baskets in the former miracle is different
from the latter. And hence arises an interesting coincidence; for when the
disciples had gone into a desert place, and there gathered the fragments
into wallets, each of them naturally carried one of these, and accordingly
twelve were filled. But here they had recourse apparently to the large
baskets of persons who sold bread, and the number seven remains
unaccounted for. Scepticism indeed persuades itself that the whole story
is to be spiritualized, the twelve baskets answering to the twelve
apostles who distributed the Bread of Life, and the seven to the seven
deacons. How came it then that the sorts of baskets are so well
discriminated, that the inferior ministers are represented by the larger
ones, and that the bread is not dealt out from these baskets but gathered
into them?
The second repetition of such a work is a fine proof of that genuine
kindness of heart, to which a miracle is not merely an evidence, nor
rendered useless as soon as the power to work it is confessed. Jesus did
not shrink from thus repeating Himself, even upon a lower level, because
His object was not spectacular but beneficent. He sought not to astonish
but to bless.
It is plain that Jesus strove to lead His disciples, aware of the former
miracle, up to the notion of its repetition. With this object He
marshalled all the reasons why the people should be relieved. “I have
compassion on the multitude, because they continue with Me now three days,
and have nothing to eat: and if I send them away fasting to their home,
they will faint in the way; and some of them are come from far.” It is the
grand argument from human necessity to the Divine compassion. It is an
argument which ought to weigh equally with the Church. For if it is
promised that “nothing shall be impossible” to faith and prayer, then the
deadly wants of debauched cities, of ignorant and brutal peasantries, and
of heathenisms festering in their corruptions—all these, by their very
urgency, are vehement appeals instead of the discouragements we take them
for. And whenever man is baffled and in need, there he is entitled to fall
back upon the resources of the Omnipotent.
It may be that the disciples had some glimmering hope, but they did not
venture to suggest anything; they only asked, Whence shall one be able to
fill these men with bread here in a desert place? It is the cry of
unbelief—_our_ cry, when we look at our resources, and declare our
helplessness, and conclude that possibly God may interpose, but otherwise
nothing can be done. We ought to be the priests of a famishing world (so
ignorant of any relief, so miserable), its interpreters and intercessors,
full of hope and energy. But we are content to look at our empty
treasuries, and ineffective organizations, and to ask, Whence shall a man
be able to fill these men with bread?
They have ascertained however what resources are forthcoming, and these He
proceeds to use, first demanding the faith which He will afterwards
honour, by bidding the multitudes to sit down. And then His loving heart
is gratified by relieving the hunger which it pitied, and He promptly
sends the multitude away, refreshed and competent for their journey.
The Leaven Of The Pharisees.
“And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with Him,
seeking of Him a sign from heaven, tempting Him. And He sighed
deeply in His spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek a
sign? verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto
this generation. And He left them, and again entering into _the
boat_ departed to the other side. And they forgot to take bread;
and they had not in the boat with them more than one loaf. And He
charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned one with
another, saying, We have no bread. And Jesus perceiving it saith
unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? do ye not yet
perceive, neither understand? have ye your heart hardened? Having
eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not
remember? When I brake the five loaves among the five thousand,
how many baskets full of broken pieces took ye up? They said unto
Him, Twelve. And when the seven among the four thousand, how many
basketfuls of broken pieces took ye up? And they said unto Him,
Seven. And He said unto them, Do ye not yet understand?”—MARK
viii. 11-21 (R.V.).
Whenever a miracle produced a deep and special impression, the Pharisees
strove to spoil its effect by some counter-demonstration. By so doing, and
at least appearing to hold the field, since Jesus always yielded this to
them, they encouraged their own faction, and shook the confidence of the
feeble and hesitating multitude. At almost every crisis they might have
been crushed by an appeal to the stormy passions of those whom the Lord
had blessed. Once He might have been made a king. Again and again His
enemies were conscious that an imprudent word would suffice to make the
people stone them. But that would have spoiled the real work of Jesus more
than to retreat before them, now across the lake, or, just before, into
the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. Doubtless it was this constant avoidance of
physical conflict, this habitual repression of the carnal zeal of His
supporters, this refusal to form a party instead of founding a Church,
which renewed incessantly the courage of His often-baffled foes, and led
Him, by the path of steady ceaseless self-depression, to the cross which
He foresaw, even while maintaining His unearthly calm, amid the
contradiction of sinners against Himself.
Upon the feeding of the four thousand, they demand of Him a sign from
heaven. He had wrought for the public no miracle of this peculiar kind.
And yet Moses had gone up, in the sight of all Israel, to commune with God
in the mount that burned; Samuel had been answered by thunder and rain in
the wheat harvest; and Elijah had called down fire both upon his sacrifice
and also upon two captains and their bands of fifty. Such a miracle was
now declared to be the regular authentication of a messenger from God, and
the only sign which evil spirits could not counterfeit.
Moreover the demand would specially embarrass Jesus, because He alone was
not accustomed to invoke heaven: His miracles were wrought by the exertion
of His own will. And perhaps the challenge implied some understanding of
what this peculiarity involved, such as Jesus charged them with, when
putting into their mouth the words, This is the heir, come, let us kill
Him. Certainly the demand ignored much. Conceding the fact of certain
miracles, and yet imposing new conditions of belief, they shut their eyes
to the unique nature of the works already wrought, the glory as of the
Only-begotten of the Father which they displayed. They held that thunder
and lightning revealed God more certainly than supernatural victories of
compassion, tenderness and love. What could be done for moral blindness
such as this? How could any sign be devised which unwilling hearts would
not evade? No wonder that hearing this demand, Jesus sighed deeply in His
spirit. It revealed their utter hardness; it was a snare by which others
would be entangled; and for Himself it foretold the cross.
St. Mark simply tells us that He refused to give them any sign. In St.
Matthew He justifies this decision by rebuking the moral blindness which
demanded it. They had material enough for judgment. The face of the sky
foretold storm and fair weather, and the process of nature could be
anticipated without miracles to coerce belief. And thus they should have
discerned the import of the prophecies, the course of history, the signs
of the times in which they lived, so plainly radiant with Messianic
promise, so menacing with storm-clouds of vengeance upon sin. The sign was
refused moreover to an evil and adulterous generation, as God, in the Old
Testament, would not be inquired of at all by such a people as this. This
indignant rejoinder St. Mark has compressed into the words, “There shall
no sign be given unto this generation”—this which has proof enough, and
which deserves none. Men there were to whom a sign from heaven was not
refused. At His baptism, on the Mount of Transfiguration, and when the
Voice answered His appeal, “Father, glorify Thy name,” while the multitude
said only that it thundered—at these times His chosen ones received a sign
from heaven. But from those who had not was taken away even that which
they seemed to have; and the sign of Jonah availed them not.
Once more Jesus “left them” and crossed the lake. The disciples found
themselves with but one loaf, approaching a wilder district, where the
ceremonial purity of food could not easily be ascertained. But they had
already acted on the principle which Jesus had formally proclaimed, that
all meats were clean. And therefore it was not too much to expect them to
penetrate below the letter of the words, “Take heed, beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees, and the leaven of Herod.” In giving them this enigma to
discover, He acted according to His usage, wrapping the spiritual truth in
earthly phrases, picturesque and impressive; and He treated them as life
treats every one of us, which keeps our responsibility still upon the
strain, by presenting new moral problems, fresh questions and trials of
insight, for every added attainment which lays our old tasks aside. But
they understood Him not. Some new ceremonial appeared to them to be
designed, in which everything would be reversed, and the unclean should be
those hypocrites, the strictest observers of the old code. Such a mistake,
however blameworthy, reveals the profound sense of an ever-widening chasm,
and an expectation of a final and hopeless rupture with the chiefs of
their religion. It prepares us for what is soon to come, the contrast
between the popular belief and theirs, and the selection of a rock on
which a new Church is to be built. In the meantime the dire practical
inconvenience of this announcement led to hot discussion, because they had
no bread. And Jesus, perceiving this, remonstrated in a series of
indignant questions. Personal want should not have disturbed their
judgment, remembering that twice over He had fed hungry multitudes, and
loaded them with the surplus of His gift. Their eyes and ears should have
taught them that He was indifferent to such distinctions, and His doctrine
could never result in a new Judaism. How was it that they did not
understand?
Thereupon they perceived that His warning was figurative. He had spoken to
them, after feeding the five thousand, of spiritual bread which He would
give, even His flesh to be their food. What then could He have meant by
the leaven of the Pharisees but the imparting of _their_ religious
tendencies, their teaching, and their insincerity?
Was there any real danger that these, His chosen ones, should be shaken by
the demand for a sign from heaven? Did not Philip presently, when Christ
spoke of seeing the Father, eagerly cry out that this, if it were granted,
would suffice them? In these words he confessed the misgiving which
haunted their minds, and the longing for a heavenly sign. And yet the
essence of the vision of God was in the life and the love which they had
failed to know. If they could not see Him in these, He must for ever
remain invisible to them.
We too require the same caution. When we long for miracles, neglecting
those standing miracles of our faith, the gospel and the Church: when our
reason is satisfied of a doctrine or a duty, and yet we remain irresolute,
sighing for the impulse of some rare spiritual enlightenment or
excitement, for a revival, or a mission, or an oration to lift us above
ourselves, we are virtually asking to be shown what we already confess, to
behold a sign, while we possess the evidence.
And the only wisdom of the languid, irresolute will, which postpones
action in hope that feeling may be deepened, is to pray. It is by the
effort of communion with the unfelt, but confessed Reality above us, that
healthy feeling is to be recovered.
Men As Trees.
“And they come unto Bethsaida. And they bring to Him a blind man,
and beseech Him to touch him. And He took hold of the blind man by
the hand, and brought him out of the village; and when He had spit
on his eyes, and laid His hands upon him, He asked him, Seest thou
aught? And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I behold _them_
as trees, walking. Then again He laid His hands upon his eyes; and
he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw all things
clearly. And He sent him away to his home, saying, Do not even
enter into the village.”—MARK viii. 22-26 (R.V.).
When the disciples arrived at Bethsaida, they were met by the friends of a
blind man, who besought Him to touch him. And this gave occasion to the
most remarkable by far of all the progressive and tentative miracles, in
which means were employed, and the result was gradually reached. The
reasons for advancing to this cure by progressive stages have been much
discussed. St. Chrysostom and many others have conjectured that the blind
man had but little faith, since he neither found his own way to Jesus, nor
pleaded his own cause, like Bartimæus. Others brought him, and interceded
for him. This may be so, but since he was clearly a consenting party, we
can infer little from details which constitutional timidity would explain,
or helplessness (for the resources of the blind are very various), or the
zeal of friends or of paid servants, or the mere eagerness of a crowd,
pushing him forward in desire to see a marvel.
We cannot expect always to penetrate the motives which varied our
Saviour’s mode of action; it is enough that we can pretty clearly discern
some principles which led to their variety. Many of them, including all
the greatest, were wrought without instrumentality and without delay,
showing His unrestricted and underived power. Others were gradual, and
wrought by means. These connected His “signs” with nature and the God of
nature; and they could be so watched as to silence many a cavil; and they
exhibited, by the very disproportion of the means, the grandeur of the
Worker. In this respect the successive stages of a miracle were like the
subdivisions by which a skilful architect increases the effect of a
_façade_ or an interior. In every case the means employed were such as to
connect the result most intimately with the person as well as the will of
Christ.
It must be repeated also, that the need of secondary agents shows itself,
only as the increasing wilfulness of Israel separates between Christ and
the people. It is as if the first rush of generous and spontaneous power
had been frozen by the chill of their ingratitude.
Jesus again, as when healing the deaf and dumb, withdraws from idle
curiosity. And we read, what is very impressive when we remember that any
of the disciples could have been bidden to lead the blind man, that Jesus
Himself drew Him by the hand out of the village. What would have been
affectation in other cases was a graceful courtesy to the blind. And it
reveals to us the hearty human benignity and condescension of Him Whom to
see was to see the Father, that He should have clasped in His helpful hand
the hand of a blind suppliant for His grace. Moistening his eyes from His
own lips, and laying His hands upon him, so as to convey the utmost
assurance of power actually exerted, He asked, Seest thou aught?
The answer is very striking: it is such as the knowledge of that day could
scarcely have imagined; and yet it is in the closest accord with later
scientific discovery. What we call the act of vision is really a two-fold
process; there is in it the report of the nerves to the brain, and also an
inference, drawn by the mind, which previous experience has educated to
understand what that report implies. For want of such experience, an
infant thinks the moon as near him as the lamp, and reaches out for it.
And when Christian science does its Master’s work by opening the eyes of
men who have been born blind, they do not know at first what appearances
belong to globes and what to flat and square objects. It is certain that
every image conveyed to the brain reaches it upside down, and is corrected
there. When Jesus then restored a blind man to the perfect enjoyment of
effective intelligent vision, He wrought a double miracle; one which
instructed the intelligence of the blind man as well as opened his eyes.
This was utterly unknown to that age. But the scepticism of our century
would complain that to open the eyes was not enough, and that such a
miracle would have left the man perplexed; and it would refuse to accept
narratives which took no account of this difficulty, but that the cavil is
anticipated. The miracle now before us refutes it in advance, for it
recognises, what no spectator and no early reader of the marvel could have
understood, the middle stage, when sight is gained but is still
uncomprehended and ineffective. The process is shown as well as the
completed work. Only by their motion could he at first distinguish living
creatures from lifeless things of far greater bulk. “He looked up,” (mark
this picturesque detail,) “and said, I see men; for I behold them as
trees, walking.”
But Jesus leaves no unfinished work: “Then again laid He His hands upon
his eyes, and he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw all things
clearly.”
In this narrative there is a deep significance. That vision, forfeited
until grace restores it, by which we look at the things which are not
seen, is not always quite restored at once. We are conscious of great
perplexity, obscurity and confusion. But a real work of Christ may have
begun amid much that is imperfect, much that is even erroneous. And the
path of the just is often a haze and twilight at the first, yet is its
light real, and one that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
The Confession And The Warning.
“And Jesus went forth, and His disciples, into the villages of
Cæsarea Philippi: and in the way He asked His disciples, saying
unto them, Who do men say that I am? And they told Him, saying,
John the Baptist: and others, Elijah; but others, One of the
prophets. And He asked them, But Who say ye that I am? Peter
answereth and saith unto Him, Thou art the Christ. And He charged
them that they should tell no man of Him. And He began to teach
them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected
by the elders, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be
killed, and after three days rise again. And He spake the saying
openly.”—MARK viii. 27-32 (R.V.).
We have now reached an important stage in the Gospel narrative, the
comparative withdrawal from evangelistic effort, and the preparation of
the disciples for an approaching tragedy. We find them in the wild country
to the north of the Lake of Galilee, and even as far withdrawn as to the
neighbourhood of the sources of the Jordan. Not without a deliberate
intention has Jesus led them thither. He wishes them to realise their
separation. He will fix upon their consciousness the failure of the world
to comprehend Him, and give them the opportunity either to acknowledge
Him, or sink back to the lower level of the crowd.
This is what interests St. Mark; and it is worthy of notice that he, the
friend of Peter, mentions not the special honour bestowed upon him by
Christ, nor the first utterance of the memorable words “My Church.”
“Who do men say that I am?” Jesus asked. The answer would tell of
acceptance or rejection, the success or failure of His ministry, regarded
in itself, and apart from ultimate issues unknown to mortals. From this
point of view it had very plainly failed. At the beginning there was a
clear hope that this was He that should come, the Son of David, the Holy
One of God. But now the pitch of men’s expectation was lowered. Some said,
John the Baptist, risen from the dead, as Herod feared; others spoke of
Elijah, who was to come before the great and notable day of the Lord; in
the sadness of His later days some had begun to see a resemblance to
Jeremiah, lamenting the ruin of his nation; and others fancied a
resemblance to various of the prophets. Beyond this the apostles confessed
that men were not known to go. Their enthusiasm had cooled, almost as
rapidly as in the triumphal procession, where they who blessed both Him,
and “the kingdom that cometh,” no sooner felt the chill of contact with
the priestly faction, than their confession dwindled into “This is Jesus,
the prophet of Nazareth.” “But Who say ye that I am?” He added; and it
depended on the answer whether or not there should prove to be any solid
foundation, any rock, on which to build His Church. Much difference, much
error may be tolerated there, but on one subject there must be no
hesitation. To make Him only a prophet among others, to honour Him even as
the first among the teachers of mankind, is to empty His life of its
meaning, His death of its efficacy, and His Church of its authority. And
yet the danger was real, as we may see by the fervent blessing (unrecorded
in our Gospel) which the right answer won. For it was no longer the bright
morning of His career, when all bare Him witness and wondered; the noon
was over now, and the evening shadows were heavy and lowering. To confess
Him then was to have learned what flesh and blood could not reveal.
But Peter did not hesitate. In answer to the question, “Who say _ye_? Is
your judgment like the the world’s?” He does not reply, “We believe, we
say,” but with all the vigour of a mind at rest, “Thou art the Christ;”
that is not even a subject of discussion: the fact is so.
Here one pauses to admire the spirit of the disciples, so unjustly treated
in popular exposition because they were but human, because there were
dangers which could appal them, and because the course of providence was
designed to teach them how weak is the loftiest human virtue.
Nevertheless, they could part company with all they had been taught to
reverence and with the unanimous opinion of their native land, they could
watch the slow fading out of public enthusiasm, and continue faithful,
because they knew and revered the Divine life, and the glory which was
hidden from the wise and prudent.
The confession of Peter is variously stated in the Gospels. St. Matthew
wrote for Jews, familiar with the notion of a merely human Christ, and St.
Luke for mixed Churches. Therefore the first Gospel gives the explicit
avowal not only of Messiahship, but of divinity; and the third Gospel
implies this. “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”—“the Christ
of God.” But St. Mark wrote for Gentiles, whose first and only notion of
the Messiah was derived from Christian sources, and steeped in Christian
attributes, so that, for their intelligence, all the great avowal was
implied in the title itself, Thou art the Christ. Yet it is instructive to
see men insisting on the difference, and even exaggerating it, who know
that this Gospel opens with an assertion of the Divine sonship of Jesus,
and whose theory is that its author worked with the Gospel of St. Matthew
before his eyes. How then, or why, do they suppose the confession to have
been weakened?
This foundation of His Church being secured, His Divine Messiahship being
confessed in the face of an unbelieving world, Jesus lost no time in
leading His apostles forward. They were forbidden to tell any man of Him:
the vain hope was to be absolutely suppressed of winning the people to
confess their king. The effort would only make it harder for themselves to
accept that stern truth which they were now to learn, that His matchless
royalty was to be won by matchless suffering. Never hitherto had Jesus
proclaimed this truth, as He now did, in so many words. It had been,
indeed, the secret spring of many of His sayings; and we ought to mark
what loving ingenuity was lavished upon the task of gradually preparing
them for the dread shock of this announcement. The Bridegroom was to be
taken away from them, and then they should fast. The temple of His body
should be destroyed, and in three days reared again. The blood of all the
slaughtered prophets was to come upon this generation. It should suffice
them when persecuted unto death, that the disciple was as His Master. It
was still a plainer intimation when He said, that to follow Him was to
take up a cross. His flesh was promised to them for meat and His blood for
drink. (Chap. ii. 20; John ii. 19; Luke xi. 50; Matt. x. 21, 25; 38; John
vi. 54.) Such intimations Jesus had already given them, and doubtless many
a cold shadow, many a dire misgiving had crept over their sunny hopes. But
these it had been possible to explain away, and the effort, the attitude
of mental antagonism thus forced upon them, would make the grief more
bitter, the gloom more deadly, when Jesus spoke openly the saying,
thenceforth so frequently repeated, that He must suffer keenly, be
rejected formally by the chiefs of His creed and nation, and be killed.
When He recurs to the subject (ix. 31), He adds the horror of being
“delivered into the hands of men.” In the tenth chapter we find Him
setting His face toward the city outside which a prophet could not perish,
with such fixed purpose and awful consecration in His bearing that His
followers were amazed and afraid. And then He reveals the complicity of
the Gentiles, who shall mock and spit upon and scourge and kill Him.
But in every case, without exception, He announced that on the third day
He should arise again. For neither was He Himself sustained by a sullen
and stoical submission to the worst, nor did He seek so to instruct His
followers. It was for the joy that was set before Him that He endured the
cross. And all the faithful who suffer with Him shall also reign together
with Him, and are instructed to press toward the mark for the prize of
their high calling. For we are saved by hope.
But now, contrast with the utmost courage of the martyrs, who braved the
worst, when it emerged at the last suddenly from the veil which mercifully
hides our future, and which hope can always gild with starry pictures,
this courage that looked steadily forward, disguising nothing, hoping for
no escape, living through all the agony so long before it came, seeing His
wounds in the breaking of bread, and His blood when wine was poured.
Consider how marvellous was the love, which met with no real sympathy, nor
even comprehension, as He spoke such dreadful words, and forced Himself to
repeat what must have shaken the barb He carried in His heart, that
by-and-by His followers might be somewhat helped by remembering that He
had told them.
And yet again, consider how immediately the doctrine of His suffering
follows upon the confession of His Christhood, and judge whether the
crucifixion was merely a painful incident, the sad close of a noble life
and a pure ministry, or in itself a necessary and cardinal event, fraught
with transcendent issues.
The Rebuke Of Peter.
“And He spake the saying openly. And Peter took Him, and began to
rebuke Him.” ... “And He said unto them, Verily I say unto you,
There be some here of them that stand by, which shall in no wise
taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with
power.”—MARK viii. 32-ix. 1 (R.V.).
The doctrine of a suffering Messiah was strange in the time of Jesus. And
to the warm-hearted apostle the announcement that his beloved Master
should endure a shameful death was keenly painful. Moreover, what had just
passed made it specially unwelcome then. Jesus had accepted and applauded
a confession which implied all honour. He had promised to build a new
Church upon a rock; and claimed, as His to give away, the keys of the
kingdom of heaven. Hopes were thus excited which could not brook His stern
repression; and the career which the apostle promised himself was very
unlike that defence of a lost cause, and a persecuted and martyred leader,
which now threatened him. The rebuke of Jesus clearly warns Peter, that he
had miscalculated his own prospect as well as that of his Lord, and that
he must prepare for the burden of a cross. Above all, it is plain that
Peter was intoxicated by the great position just assigned to him, and
allowed himself an utterly strange freedom of interference with his
Master’s plans. He “took Him and began to rebuke Him,” evidently drawing
Him aside for the purpose, since Jesus “turned about” in order to see the
disciples whom He had just addressed. Thus our narrative implies that
commission of the keys to him which it omits to mention, and we learn how
absurd is the infidel contention that each evangelist was ignorant of all
that he did not record. Did the appeal against those gloomy forebodings of
Jesus, the protest that such evil must not be, the refusal to recognise a
prophecy in His fears, awaken any answer in the sinless heart? Sympathy
was not there, nor approval, nor any shade of readiness to yield. But
innocent human desire for escape, the love of life, horror of His fate,
more intense as it vibrated in the apostle’s shaken voice, these He
assuredly felt. For He tells us in so many words that Peter was a
stumbling-block to Him, although He, walking in the clear day, stumbled
not. Jesus, let us repeat it again and again, endured not like a Stoic,
deadening the natural impulses of humanity. Whatever outraged His tender
and perfect nature was not less dreadful to Him than to us; it was much
more so, because His sensibilities were unblunted and exquisitely strung.
At every thought of what lay before Him, his soul shuddered like a rudely
touched instrument of most delicate structure. And it was necessary that
He should throw back the temptation with indignation and even vehemence,
with the rebuke of heaven set against the presumptuous rebuke of flesh,
“Get thee behind Me ... for thou art mindful not of the things of God, but
the things of men.”
But what shall we say to the hard word, “Satan”? Assuredly Peter, who
remained faithful to Him, did not take it for an outbreak of bitterness,
an exaggerated epithet of unbridled and undisciplined resentment. The very
time occupied in looking around, the “circumspection” which was shown,
while it gave emphasis, removed passion from the saying.
Peter would therefore understand that Jesus heard, in his voice, the
prompting of the great tempter, to whom He had once already spoken the
same words. He would be warned that soft and indulgent sentiment, while
seeming kind, may become the very snare of the destroyer.
And the strong word which sobered him will continue to be a warning to the
end of time.
When love of ease or worldly prospects would lead us to discourage the
self-devotion, and repress the zeal of any convert; when toil or
liberality beyond the recognised level seems a thing to discountenance,
not because it is perhaps misguided, but only because it is exceptional;
when, for a brother or a son, we are tempted to prefer an easy and
prosperous life rather than a fruitful but stern and even perilous course,
then we are in the same danger as Peter of becoming the mouthpiece of the
Evil One.
Danger and hardness are not to be chosen for their own sake; but to reject
a noble vocation, because these are in the way, is to mind not the things
of God but the things of men. And yet the temptation is one from which men
are never free, and which intrudes into what seems most holy. It dared to
assail Jesus; and it is most perilous still, because it often speaks to
us, as then to Him, through compassionate and loving lips.
But now the Lord calls to Himself all the multitude, and lays down the
rule by which discipleship must to the end be regulated.
The inflexible law is, that every follower of Jesus must deny himself and
take up his cross. It is not said, Let him devise some harsh and ingenious
instrument of self-torture: wanton self-torture is cruelty, and is often
due to the soul’s readiness rather to endure any other suffering than that
which God assigns. Nor is it said, Let him take up My cross, for the
burden Christ bore devolves upon no other: the fight He fought is over.
But it speaks of some cross allotted, known, but not yet accepted, some
lowly form of suffering, passive or active, against which nature pleads,
as Jesus heard His own nature pleading when Peter spoke. In taking up this
cross we must deny self, for it will refuse the dreadful burden. What it
is, no man can tell his neighbour, for often what seems a fatal besetment
is but a symptom and not the true disease; and the angry man’s
irritability, and the drunkard’s resort to stimulants, are due to remorse
and self-reproach for a deeper-hidden evil gnawing the spiritual life
away. But the man himself knows it. Our exhortations miss the mark when we
bid him reform in this direction or in that, but conscience does not err;
and he well discerns the effort or the renouncement, hateful to him as the
very cross itself, by which alone he can enter into life.
To him, that life seems death, the death of all for which he cares to
live, being indeed the death of selfishness. But from the beginning, when
God in Eden set a barrier against lawless appetite, it was announced that
the seeming life of self-indulgence and of disobedience was really death.
In the day when Adam ate of the forbidden fruit he surely died. And thus
our Lord declared that whosoever is resolved to save his life—the life of
wayward, isolated selfishness—he shall lose all its reality, the sap, the
sweetness, and the glow of it. And whosoever is content to lose all this
for the sake of the Great Cause, the cause of Jesus and His gospel, he
shall save it.
It was thus that the great apostle was crucified with Christ, yet lived,
and yet no longer he, for Christ Himself inspired in his breast a nobler
and deeper life than that which he had lost, for Jesus and the gospel. The
world knows, as the Church does, how much superior is self-devotion to
self-indulgence, and that one crowded hour of glorious life is worth an
age without a name. Its imagination is not inflamed by the picture of
indolence and luxury, but by resolute and victorious effort. But it knows
not how to master the rebellious senses, nor how to insure victory in the
struggle, nor how to bestow upon the masses, plunged in their monotonous
toils, the rapture of triumphant strife. That can only be done by
revealing to them the spiritual responsibilities of life, and the beauty
of His love Who calls the humblest to walk in His own sacred footsteps.
Very striking is the moderation of Jesus, Who does not refuse discipleship
to self-seeking wishes but only to the self-seeking will, in which wishes
have ripened into choice, nor does He demand that we should welcome the
loss of the inferior life, but only that we should accept it. He can be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
And striking also is this, that He condemns not the vicious life only: not
alone the man whose desires are sensual and depraved; but all who live for
self. No matter how refined and artistic the personal ambitions be, to
devote ourselves to them is to lose the reality of life, it is to become
querulous or jealous or vain or forgetful of the claims of other men, or
scornful of the crowd. Not self-culture but self-sacrifice is the vocation
of the child of God.
Many people speak as if this text bade us sacrifice the present life in
hope of gaining another life beyond the grave. That is apparently the
common notion of saving our “souls.” But Jesus used one word for the
“life” renounced and gained. He spoke indeed of saving it unto life
eternal, but His hearers were men who trusted that they had eternal life,
not that it was a far-off aspiration (John vi. 47, 54).
And it is doubtless in the same sense, thinking of the freshness and joy
which we sacrifice for worldliness, and how sadly and soon we are
disillusionised, that He went on to ask, What shall it profit a man to
gain the whole world and forfeit His life? Or with what price shall he buy
it back when he discovers his error? But that discovery is too often
postponed beyond the horizon of mortality. As one desire proves futile,
another catches the eye, and somewhat excites again the often baffled
hope. But the day shall come when the last self-deception shall be at an
end. The cross of the Son of man, that type of all noble sacrifice, shall
then be replaced by the glory of His Father with the holy angels; and
ignoble compromise, aware of Jesus and His words, yet ashamed of them in a
vicious and self-indulgent age, shall in turn endure His averted face.
What price shall they offer then, to buy back what they have forfeited?
Men who were standing there should see the beginning of the end, the
approach of the kingdom of God with power, in the fall of Jerusalem, and
the removal of the Hebrew candlestick out of its place.