18. "Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping, who were with her, He groaned in the spirit, and troubled Himself,' and said, Where have ye laid him?" Something there is, did we but know it, that He has suggested to us by groaning in the spirit, and troubling Himself. For who could trouble Him, save He Himself? Therefore, my brethren, first give heed here to the power that did so, and then look for the meaning. Thou art troubled against thy will; Christ was troubled because He willed. Jesus hungered, it is true, but because He willed; Jesus slept, it is true, but because He willed; He was sorrowful, it is true, but because He willed; He died, it is true, but because He willed: in His own power it lay to be thus and thus affected or not. For the Word assumed soul and flesh, fitting on Himself our whole human nature in the oneness of His person. For the soul of the apostle was illuminated by the Word; so was the soul of Peter, the soul of Paul, of the other apostles, and the holy prophets,--the souls of all were illuminated by the Word; but of none was it said, "The Word was made flesh;" of none was it said, “I and the Father are one." The soul and flesh of Christ is one person with the Word of God, one Christ. And by this [Word] wherein resided the supreme power, was infirmity made use of at the beck of His will; and in this way "He troubled Himself." tell us this? To show us what it was that the same course: what am I doing? whither occasioned the numerous concourse of people am I going? how shall I escape? When thou to be there when Lazarus was raised to life. speakest thus, Christ is already groaning; for For the Jews, thinking that her reason for thy faith is groaning. In the voice of one hastening away was to seek in weeping the who groaneth thus, there comes to light the solace of her grief, followed her; that the hope of his rising again. If such faith is great miracle of one rising again who had within, there is Christ groaning; for if there been four days dead, might have the presence is faith in us, Christ is in us. For what else of many witnesses. says the apostle: "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." Therefore thy faith in Christ is Christ Himself in thy heart. This is why He slept in the ship; and why, when His disciples were in danger and already on the verge of shipwreck, they came to Him and awoke Him. Christ arose, laid His commands on the winds and waves, and there ensued a great calm.5 So also with thee; the winds enter thy heart, that is, where thou sailest, where thou passest along this life as a stormy and dangerous sea; the winds enter, the billows rise and toss thy vessel. What are the winds? Thou hast received some insult, and art wroth: that insult is the wind; that anger, the waves. Thou art in danger, thou preparest to reply, to render cursing for cursing, and thy vessel is already nigh to shipwreck. Awake the Christ who is sleeping. For thou art in commotion, and making ready to render evil for evil, because Christ is sleeping in thy vessel. For the sleep of Christ in thy heart is the forgetfulness of faith. But if thou arousest Christ, that is, recallest thy faith, what dost thou hear said to thee by Christ, when now awake in thy heart? I[He says] have heard it said to me, "Thou hast a devil," and I have prayed for them. The Lord hears and suffers; the servant hears and is angry! But thou wishest to be avenged. Why so? I am already avenged. When thy faith so speaks to thee, command is exercised, as it were, over the winds and waves, and there is a great calm. As, then, to awaken Christ in the vessel is just to awaken faith; so in the heart of one who is pressed down by a great mass and habit of sin, in the heart of the man who has been a transgressor even of the holy gospel and a despiser of eternal punishment, let Christ groan, let such a man betake himself to self-accusation. Hear still more: Christ wept; let man bemoan himself. For why did Christ weep, but to teach man to weep? Wherefore did He groan and trouble Himself, but to intimate that the faith of one who has just cause to be displeased with himself ought to be in a sense groaning over the accusation of wicked works, to the end that the habit of sinning may give way to the vehemence of penitential sorrow? 19. I have spoken of the power: look now to the meaning. It is a great criminal that is signified by that four days' death and burial. Why is it, then, that Christ troubleth Himself, but to intimate to thee how thou oughtest to be troubled, when weighed down and crushed by so great a mass of iniquity? For here thou hast been looking to thyself, been seeing thine own guilt, been reckoning for thyself: I have done this, and God has spared me; I have committed this, and He hath borne with me; I have heard the gospel, and despised it; I have been baptized, and returned again to 6 .. I cluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." Therefore "take ye away the stone." 23. "Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been [dead] four days. Jesus saith unto her, Have I not said unto thee, that, if thou believest, thou shalt see the glory of God?" What does He mean by this, "thou shalt see the glory of God"? That He can raise to life even one who is putrid and hath been four days [dead]. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;"'" and, "Where sin abounded, grace also did superabound." 20. "And He said, Where have ye laid him?" Thou knewest that he was dead, and art Thou ignorant of the place of his burial? The meaning here is, that a man thus lost becomes, as it were, unknown to God. I have not ventured to say, Is unknown--for what is unknown to Him?-but, As it were unknown. And how do we prove this? Listen to the Lord, who will yet say in the judgment, "I know you not: depart from me. What does that mean, “I know you not "? I see you not in that light of mine-in that righteousness which I know. So here, also, as if knowing nothing of such a sinner, He said, "Where have ye laid him?" Similar in character was God's voice in Paradise after 24. Then they took away the stone. man had sinned: "Adam, where art thou?" And Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, “They say unto Him, Lord, come and see." Father, I thank Thee, that Thou hast heard What means this "see"? Have pity. For me. And I knew that Thou hearest me the Lord sees when He pities. Hence it is always: but because of the people that stand said to Him, "Look upon my humility [afflic. by I said it, that they may believe that Thou tion] and my pain, and forgive all my sins." "4 hast sent me. And when He had thus 21. "Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Be- spoken, He cried with a loud voice." He hold how He loved him!" "Loved him," groaned, He wept, He cried with a loud voice. what does that mean? "I came not to call With what difficulty does one rise who lies the righteous, but sinners to repentance."3 crushed under the heavy burden of a habit of "But some of them said, Could not this man, sinning! And yet he does rise: he is quickwho opened the eyes of the blind, have caused ened by hidden grace within; and after that that even this man should not die?" But loud voice he riseth. For what followed? He, who would do nought to hinder his dying," He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come had something greater in view in raising him from the dead. 22. 2 12 What forth. And immediately he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with band. "Jesus therefore again groaning in ages; and his face was bound about with a Himself, cometh to the tomb." May His napkin." Dost thou wonder how he came groaning have thee also for its object, if thou forth with his feet bound, and wonderest not wouldst re-enter into life! Every man who at this, that after four days' interment he rose lies in that dire moral condition has it said to from the dead? In both events it was the him, "He cometh to the tomb." "It was a power of the Lord that operated, and not the cave, and a stone had been laid upon it." strength of the dead. He came forth, and Dead under that stone, guilty under the law. yet still was bound. Still in his burial shroud, For you know that the law, which was given he has already come outside the tomb. to the Jews, was inscribed on stone. And does it mean? While thou despisest [Christ]. all the guilty are under the law: the right- thou liest in the arms of death; and if thy living are in harmony with the law. The contempt reacheth the lengths I have menlaw is not laid on a righteous man. What tioned, thou art buried as well: but when thou mean then the words, "Take ye away the makest confession, thou comest forth. For stone"? Preach grace. For the Apostle what is this coming forth, but the open acPaul calleth himself a minister of the New knowledgment thou makest of thy state, in Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit; quitting, as it were, the old refuges of dark"for the letter," he says, "killeth, but the ness? But the confession thou makest is spirit giveth life."7 The letter that killeth effected by God, when He crieth with a loud is like the stone that crusheth. "Take ye voice, or in other words, calleth thee in away," He saith, "the stone." Take away abounding grace. Accordingly, when the the weight of the law; preach grace. "For dead man had come forth, still bound; conif there had been a law given, which could fessing, yet guilty still; that his sins also have given life, verily righteousness should might be taken away, the Lord said to His be by the law. But the Scripture hath con- servants: "Loose him, and let him go." What does He mean by such words? What 6 soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' 25. Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on Him. But some of them went away to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done." All of the Jews who had come to Mary did not believe, but many of them did. But some of them," whether of the Jews who had come, or of those who had believed, "went away to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done:" whether in the way of conveying intelligence, in order that they also might believe, or rather in the spirit of treachery, to arouse their anger. But whoever were the parties, and whatever their motive, intelligence of these events was carried to the Pharisees. the divine sacramental fact that he was pon. tiff, which is to say, the high priest. It may, however, be a question in what way he is called the high priest of that year, seeing that God appointed one person to be high priest, who was to be succeeded only at his death by another. But we are to understand that ambitious schemes and contentions among the Jews led to the appointment afterwards of more than one, and to their annual turn of service. For it is said also of Zacharias: “And it came to pass that, while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord."3 From which it is evident that there were more than one, and that each had his turn: for it was lawful for the high priest alone to place the 26. "Then gathered the chief priests and incense on the altar. And perhaps also there the Pharisees a council, and said, What do were several in actual service in the same we?" But they did not say, Let us believe. year, who were succeeded next year by several For these abandoned men were more occupied others, and that it fell by lot to one of them in considering what evil they could do to to burn incense. What was it, then, that effect His ruin, than in consulting for their Caiaphas prophesied? "That Jesus should own preservation: and yet they were afraid, die for the nation; and not for the nation and took counsel of a kind together. For only, but that also He should gather together they said, What do we? for this man doeth in one the children of God that were scattered many miracles; if we let him thus alone, all abroad." This is added by the evangelist; men will believe on him; and the Romans for Caiaphas prophesied only of the Jewish shall conie, and take away both our place and nation, in which there were sheep of whom nation. They were afraid of losing their the Lord Himself had said, “I am not sent temporal possessions, and thought not of life but unto the lost sheep of the house of eternal; and so they lost both. For the Romans, after our Lord's passion and entrance into glory, took from them both their place and nation, when they took the one by storm and transported the other: and now that also pursues them, which is said elsewhere, "But the children of the kingdom shall go into outer darkness." 2 But this was what they feared, that if all believed on Christ, there would be none remaining to defend the city of God and the temple against the Romans; just because they had a feeling that Christ's teaching was directed against Ephraim, and there continued with His disthe temple itself and their own paternal laws. 27. "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. And this spake he not of himself; but being high priest that year, he prophesied." We are here taught that the Spirit of prophecy used the agency even of wicked men to foretell what was future; which, however, the evangelist attributes to Israel." But the evangelist knew that there were other sheep, which were not of this fold, but which had also to be brought, that there might be one fold and one shepherd." But this was said in the way of predestination; for those who were still unbelieving were as yet neither His sheep nor the children of God. 28. "Then, from that day forth, they took counsel together for to put Him to death. Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called ciples." Not that there was any failure in His power, by which, had He only wished, He might have continued His intercourse with the Jews, and received no injury at their hands; but in His human weakness He furnished His disciples with an example of living, by which He might make it manifest that it was no sin in His believing ones, who are His members, to withdraw from the presence of their persecutors, and escape the fury of the wicked by concealment, rather than inflame it by showing themselves openly. TRACTATE L. CHAPTER XI. 55-57; XII. 1-II. There 1. YESTERDAY'Ss lesson in the holy Gospel, | heart refuse admission to His word. on which we spake as the Lord enabled us, fore, brethren, I have said, and I repeat it, is followed by to-day's, on which we purpose Christ's seal driveth from us the destroyer, if to speak in the same spirit of dependence. only we have Christ as an inmate of our Some passages in the Scriptures are so clear hearts. I have stated these things, lest any as to require a hearer rather than an ex- one's thoughts should be turning on the pounder: over such we need not tarry, that meaning of these festivals of the Jews. we may have sufficient time for those which Lord therefore came as it were to the victim's necessarily demand a fuller consideration. place, that the true passover might be ours, when we celebrated His passion as the real offering of the lamb. 2. "And the Jews' passover was nigh at hand." The Jews wished to have that feastday crimsoned with the blood of the Lord. On it that Lamb was slain, who hath consecrated it as a feast-day for us by His own blood. There was a plot among the Jews about slaying Jesus: and He, who had come from heaven to suffer, wished to draw near to the place of His suffering, because the hour of His passion was at hand. Therefore "many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to sanctify themselves." The Jews did so in accordance with the command of the Lord delivered by holy Moses in the law, that on the feast-day of the passover all should assemble from every part of the land, and be sanctified in celebrating the services of the day. But that celebration was a shadow of the future. And why a shadow? It was a prophetic intimation of the Christ to come, a prophecy of Him who on that day was to suffer for us: that so the shadow might vanish and the light come; that the sign might pass away, and the truth be retained. The Jews therefore held the passover in a shadowy form, but we in the light. For what need was there that the Lord should command them to slay a sheep on the very day of the feast, save only because of Him it was prophesied, He is led as a sheep to the slaughter"? The door-posts of the Jews were sealed with the blood of the slaughtered animal: with the blood of Christ are our foreheads sealed. And that sealing-for it had a real significance—was said to keep away the destroyer from the houses that were sealed: Christ's seal drives away the destroyer from us, if we receive the Saviour into our hearts. But why have I said this? Because many have their door-posts sealed while there is no inmate abiding within: they find it easy to have Christ's seal in the forehead, and yet at The But 3. Then sought they for Jesus: " but with evil intent. For happy are they who seek for Jesus in a way that is good. They sought for Him, with the intent that neither they nor we should have Him more: but in departing from them, He has been received by us. Some who seek Him are blamed, others who do so are commended; for it is the spirit animating the seeker that finds either praise or condemnation. Thence you have it also in the psalms, "Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: "3 such are those who sought with evil purpose. in another place he says, "Refuge hath failed me, and there is no one that seeketh after my soul." Those who sought, and those who did not, are blamed alike. Therefore let us seek for Christ, that He may be ours, that we may keep Him, and not that we may slay Him; for these men sought to get hold of Him, but only for the purpose of speedily getting quit of Him for ever. Therefore they sought for Him, and spake among themselves: What think ye, that He will not come to the feast?" 4. "Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where He were, he should show it, that they might take Him." Let us for our parts show the Jews where Christ is. Would, indeed, that all the seed of those who had given commandment to have it shown them where Christ was, would but hear and apprehend! Let them come to the church and hear where Christ is, and take Him. They may hear it from us, they may hear it from the gospel. He was slain by their forefathers, He was buried, He rose again, He was recognized by the disciples, He ascended before their eyes into heaven, and there sitteth at ent. 5. "Then Jesus, six days before the passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom Jesus raised from the dead. And there they made Him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that reclined at the table." To prevent people thinking that the man had become a phantom, because he had risen from the dead, he was one of those who reclined at table; he was living, speaking, feasting: the truth was made manifest, and the unbelief of the Jews was confounded. The Lord, therefore, reclined at table with Lazarus and the others; and they were waited on by Martha, one of the sisters of Lazarus. If the right hand of the Father; and He who give to the poor, and thou hast wiped the feet was judged is yet to come as Judge of all: let of the Lord; for the hair seems to be the them hear, and hold fast. Do they reply, superfluous part of the body. Thou hast How shall I take hold of the absent? how something to spare of thy abundance: it is shall I stretch up my hand into heaven, and superfluous to thee, but necessary for the take hold of one who is sitting there? Stretch feet of the Lord. Perhaps on this earth the up thy faith, and thou hast got hold. Thy Lord's feet are still in need. For of whom forefathers held by the flesh, hold thou with but of His members is He yet to say in the the heart; for the absent Christ is also pres- end, "Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the But for His presence, we ourselves were least of mine, ye did it unto me"? Ye spent unable to hold Him. But since His word is what was superfluous for yourselves, but ye true, "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the have done what was grateful to my feet. end of the world," He is away, and He is 7. "And the house was filled with the here; He has returned, and will not forsake odor." The world is filled with the fame of us; for He has carried His body into heaven, a good character: for a good character is as but His majesty He has never withdrawn a pleasant odor. Those who live wickedly from the world. and bear the name of Christians, do injury to Christ: of such it is said, that through them "the name of the Lord is blasphemed." through such God's name is blasphemed, through the good the name of the Lord is honored. Listen to the apostle, when he says, "We are a sweet savor of Christ in every place." As it is said also in the Song of Songs, "Thy name is as ointment poured forth." Attend again to the apostle: "We are a sweet savor," he says, "of Christ in every place, both in them that are saved, and in them that perish. To the one we are the savor of life unto life, to the other the savor of death unto death: and who is sufficient for these things?"7 The lesson of the holy Gos6. But "Mary," the other sister of Laza- pel before us affords us the opportunity of rus, "took a pound of ointment of pure nard, so speaking of that savor, that we on our part very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, may give worthy utterance, and you diligent and wiped His feet with her hair; and the heed, to what is thus expressed by the apostle house was filled with the odor of the oint- himself, "And who is sufficient for these ment. Such was the incident, let us look things?" But have we any reason to infer into the mystery it imported. Whatever soul from these words that we are qualified to atof you wishes to be truly faithful, anoint like tempt speaking on such a subject, or you to Mary the feet of the Lord with precious oint- hear? We, indeed, are not so; but He is ment. That ointment was righteousness, and sufficient, who is pleased to speak by us what therefore it was [exactly] a pound weight: but it may be for your profit to hear. The aposit was ointment of pure nard [nardi pistici], tle, you see, is, as he calls himself, "a sweet very precious. From his calling it "pistici,' savor:" but that sweet savor is "to some the we ought to infer that there was some locality savor of life unto life, and to others the savor from which it derived its preciousness: but of death unto death;' and yet all the while this does not exhaust its meaning, and it har-“a sweet savor" in itself. For he does not monizes well with a sacramental symbol. say, does he, To some we are a sweet savor The root of the word ["pure"] in the Greek unto life, to others an evil savor unto death? is by us called "faith. Thou wert seeking. He called himself a sweet savor, not an evil; to work righteousness: the just shall live by and represented himself as the same sweet faith. Anoint the feet of Jesus: follow by a savor, to some unto life, to others unto death. good life the Lord's footsteps. Wipe them Happy they who find life in this sweet savor! with thy hair: what thou hast of superfluity, but what misery can be greater than theirs, to whom the sweet savor is the messenger of death? 3 1 Matt. xxviii. 20. " 2 |