2 He says, He was not there. For His own sake doubtless He was not glad, but rather grieved. But this is an instance of the self-restraint of love. Love can, for others' sake, control its own emotions. Love can exile itself. Love can nerve the hand to that which weakness or self-love shrinks from. Had He been there, He must have interposed before. So Lazarus might have been kept from death and the grave; but where had then been that opportunity for manifesting the Divine glory, and for strengthening the faith of the Disciples? For we are to bear in mind that they were gradually enlightened. Faith was not forcibly imparted to them. They did not attain to their measure of grace all at once. Light was by degrees let in upon them. Theirs was a gradual illumination. It was by such displays as this, such manifestations of Divine power and intensest human sympathy, that the Lord wrought upon the hearts and minds of His followers, and opened their eyes to recognize in Him a Messiah of a higher order than they had looked for. But did they not believe, that the Lord here so speaks? Doubtless they in some sense believed, though their faith was feeble and often obscured, and sometimes there seemed feelings and ideas almost incompatible with its existence. Still the Divine seed, the Heavenly spark, was there. Gradually, and by such means as these, it grew up to be a great tree, and was fanned into a lasting flame. an argument of our resurrection from the dead."--Funeral Sermon for Abp. Bramhall. So that we may see the deep piety of Bp. Ken's familiar Evening Hymn, "Teach me to live that I may dread The grave as little as my bed." See also South, Ser. xxxiv. Upon the Resurrection. 1 66 "Strong for Love's sake its woe to hide. The Christian Year, Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. 2 St. John ii. 11. CCCXCVI. THE SAME SUBJECT—continued. St. John xi. 16. Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. At length the Lord's words rouse their lethargic minds. Thomas too adds his persuasion and urges them likewise. They had sought at first to find in His words a reason to prevent their going. But now, on a second appeal,—though there seemed after this declaration of their friend's death even less reason than before,-better thoughts prevail; selfishness is put aside; and Thomas is the first to break the silence with the resolved proposal, "Let us also go." "Thomas, which is called Didymus." For our Evangelist is writing for Gentiles, and therefore in the Greek tongue. So he gives the Gentile interpretation of the Jewish word; Thomas in the later Hebrew,' and Didymus in the Greek, both meaning the same thing; that is, a twin; he being thus one of two. He seems to have been of that temperament which in any circumstances of life dwells ever on the darker side. In this journey into Judæa he can see nothing before them but death. But since our Master is resolved to go, let us not leave Him to go by Himself. Let us also go with Him, though the result be that we have to die with Him. Now he cannot believe but that death will be the end; by and by he cannot believe in the return to life. Here he forebodes that their Lord shall die; afterwards he refuses to believe that He has risen again. From the progress of the narrative hitherto we have seen that delay does not argue desertion. The permitting much sorrow is not inconsistent with feeling much love. Let not a man, because he is in great misery and like unto him that is at the point to die, argue therefore that God hath forsaken him. Here are a sick brother, and The Syriac, Syro-Chaldee, or Aramaic, the language of the Jews at the time the Lord appeared. two sorrowful sisters; a dying man and two lone women. They send to their Friend, and He comes not. And yet we read, and fully the sequel shows, "Now Jesus loved Martha and her Sister and Lazarus." "God hath gracious intentions even in seeming delays."1 CCCXCVII. THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. St. John xi. 17-19. Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off: and many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. On the outskirts of the village He is told what by His Divine omniscience He already knew. Lazarus is not only dead, but buried. Dying the very day the messenger was despatched to inform the Lord of his sickness, he was, as the manner of the Jews is to bury, laid in his grave that same day; and for two days the Lord remains in that same place where He was. One day more is consumed in the journey to Bethany. This then is already the fourth day since the grave hath shut her mouth upon him.2 Our Evangelist, who writes for Gentiles and for strangers, gives us another of his topographical notes, to explain how it was that so many of the Jews could come from Jerusalem. Concerning these comforters who came thus to comfort the sisters in this first stage of their sorrow, some we may not doubt were sincere, and came moved by real neighbourly kindness; a few perhaps touched also with genuine sympathy. But with the Jews, mourning was a regular institution; having its Henry. See Heb. xii. 6, 11; Job xiii. 15. 2 See the original, v. 39. In v. 17 it is put synecdochically, according to Greek usage, as in the case of our Lord's own interment. 3 3 See the original phrase. "Martha and Mary and . . . the women mourning with them."-Alford. See Acts xiii. 13. fixed laws and received customs no less than feasting had.. Thus "the days of grief were fixed at thirty; of which it was prescribed that the three first should be for weeping, the next seven for lamentation, and so forth." Everything was formal and by rule. The ceremonial was loud but cold, That which once had heart in it was now ossified into a mere form, the petrifaction of its former self. "Happily for the sisters, a better Comforter was on His way to their dwelling." 1 CCCXCVIII. THE SAME SUBJECT-continued. St. John xi. 20-24. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming. went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Mary retired, absorbed in grief, sat within ; while Martha, the less contemplative of the two, of more active temperament, was, we may suppose, occupied in the court without; busied, so far as her natural grief admitted, in receiving those visits of condolence; and so she is the first to hear that He is coming. And in her eager haste, without returning even to inform her sister, she hastens forth to meet Him. In her address to the Lord we are not to suppose any reproach implied, as though He might have prevented their grief and would not; as though when they had sent to Him, He had not cared to come. For we have seen 1 A Plain Commentary. 2 Prov. xiv. 10. So Achilles is represented in Homer (Il. I. 348) though there was gall mingled with his grief. The word siguities was sitting. The still, it will be observed, is not in the original. 3 The verb in v. 20 is in the present tense. 1 already that Lazarus must have died shortly after they despatched their messenger to inform the Lord. But she is only, in the depth of her anguish, imagining what might have been, and what might not have been, had it been possible for Him to be at hand. But mingled with all this grief, there is yet a half-formed hope which she still ventures to cherish and to express. Are they even now past all aid? We see however in her words her still inadequate idea of Him. She speaks as though He should obtain things at second hand; as though He could not by His own power or holiness make this man to live again. He for the perfecting of her faith, purposely addressing her in words which admitted of a double meaning, but which in the imperfection of her faith she cannot take in the sense intended, proclaims on the very threshold of the scene His gracious purpose. What she had not ventured to ask, He is prompt to offer. Observe too the endearing term he uses, "thy brother;" honouring this family affection. She however can only suppose Him to be gently putting aside her present thought, putting her off with the remote prospect of a future good. So we observe the slight impatience of her answer, the shadow of the passing cloud over her half-formed hopes. She can only understand His words as having reference to that general resurrection in which her brother should have a part.2 This at any other time she would be far from being disposed to undervalue; but now it seems to her so remote. 1 Of the word which Martha uses (there are two different Greek words for ask) Abp. Trench (Synonyms of the N. T.) remarks, "It is very noticeable, and witnesses for the remarkable accuracy in the employment of words, and in the record of that employment, which prevails throughout the New Testament, that our Lord never uses" this "of Himself. . . His is not the petition of a creature to the Creator, but the request of the Son to the Father. The consciousness of His equal dignity, of his potent and prevailing intercession, speaks out in this, that often as He asks, or declares that He will ask, anything of the Father, 2 It is evident from this, as Grotius notes, that the Resurrection must have been a subject of conversation between our Lord and the Family of Bethany, though Martha had as yet failed to connect it with Christ, to make it contingent upon our union with Him. St. John vi. 27, 33, 40, 47, 50, 51, 54, 58, 68. |
