13525* 
 
 
/ 
 
Bible Class Bypoeitions 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF ST. MARK 
 
THE 
 
 GOSPEL OF ST. MARK 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D.D. 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW 
 
 MDCCCXCIII 
 
Printed by Haze 11, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 r I A HESE chapters were written as a commentary 
 on the International Sunday School Lessons 
 for the American Sunday School Times, from which 
 they are reprinted with the concurrence of the pro- 
 prietors. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 LESS. PAGE 
 
 I. THE STRONG FORERUNNER AND THE STRONGER 
 
 SON 3 
 
 St. Mark i. i-ii. 
 
 II. MIGHTY IN WORD AND DEED . . . . .17 
 
 St. Mark i. 21-34. 
 
 III. THE LEPER AND THE LORD : A PARABLE . . 33 
 
 St. Mark i. 35-45. 
 iv. Christ's authority to forgive .... 47 
 St. Mark ii. 1-12. 
 
 V. CHRIST'S SAD INSIGHT INTO THE FATE OF HIS 
 
 WORDS 6l 
 
 St. Mark iv. 10-20. 
 
 VI. THE LORD OF DEMONS J 7 
 
 St. Mark v. 1-20. 
 
 VII. CHRIST ANSWERING AND EDUCATING IMPERFECT 
 
 FAITH 91 
 
 St. Mark v. 25-34. 
 
 VIII. THE MASTER REJECTED : THE SERVANTS SENT 
 
 FORTH IO5 
 
 St. Mark vi. 1-13. 
 
 ix. Christ's cross, and ours 121 
 
 St. Mark viii. 27 — ix. 1. 
 
viii Contents 
 
 LESS. PAGE 
 
 X. RECEIVING AND FORBIDDING 1 37 
 
 St. Mark ix. 33-42. 
 
 XI. LAVISH LOVE CONDEMNED AND COMMENDED. . 1 53 
 
 St. Mark xiv. 1-9. 
 
 XII. THE NEW PASSOVER 1 65 
 
 St. Mark xiv. 12-26. 
 
 XIII. THE CAPTIVE CHRIST AND THE CIRCLE ROUND 
 
 HIM 177 
 
 St. Mark xiv. 43-54. 
 
 XIV. THE CONDEMNATION WHICH CONDEMNS THE JUDGES 191 
 
 St. Mark xiv. 55-65. 
 
 XV. CHRIST AND PILATE : THE TRUE KING AND HIS 
 
 COUNTERFEIT 20$ 
 
 St. Mark xv. 1-20. 
 
 XVI. THE DEATH WHICH GIVES LIFE . . . . 219 
 
 St. Mark xv. 21-39. 
 
 XVII. HOW THE DISCIPLES RECEIVED THE TESTIMONY. 
 
 TO THE RESURRECTION 235 
 
 St. Mark xvi. 1-13. 
 
LESSON I 
 
 THE STRONG FORERUNNER AND THE 
 STRONGER SON 
 
LESSON I 
 
 The Strong Forerunner and the Stronger Son 
 
 St. Mark i. i-i I 
 
 1. "The beginning of the 
 gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son 
 of God ; 
 
 2. As it is written in the 
 prophets, Behold, I send My 
 messenger before Thy face, 
 which shall prepare Thy way 
 before Thee. 
 
 3. The voice of one crying in 
 the wilderness, Prepare ye the 
 way of the Lord, make His 
 paths straight. 
 
 4. John did baptize in the 
 wilderness, and preach the bap- 
 tism of repentance for the 
 remission of sins. 
 
 5. And there went out unto 
 him all the land of Judaea, and 
 they of Jerusalem, and were 
 all baptized of him in the river 
 of Jordan, confessing their sins. 
 
 6. And John was clothed 
 with camel's hair, and with a 
 girdle of a skin about his loins; 
 
 and he did eat locusts and wild 
 honey ; 
 
 7. And preached, saying, 
 There cometh one mightier 
 than I after me, the latchet of 
 whose shoes I am not worthy 
 to stoop down and unloose. 
 
 8. I indeed have baptized 
 you with water : but He shall 
 
 j baptize you with the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 9. And it came to pass in 
 I those days, that Jesus came 
 I from Nazareth of Galilee, and 
 j was baptized of John in Jordan. 
 
 10. And straightway coming 
 I up out of the water, He saw 
 J the heavens opened, and the 
 
 Spirit like a dove descending 
 j upon Him: 
 
 11. And there came a voice 
 from heaven, saying, Thou art 
 my beloved Son, in whom I am 
 well pleased." 
 
 'T^HE first words of " In Memoriam " might be taken 
 
 -*- to describe the theme of Mark's Gospel. It is the 
 
 " strong Son of God " whom he sets forth in his rapid, 
 
4 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap, i i-n 
 
 impetuous narrative, which is full of fiery energy, and 
 delights to paint the unresting continuity of Christ's filial 
 service. His theme is not the King, as in Matthew; 
 nor the Son of man, as in Luke ; nor the eternal Word 
 manifested in flesh, as in John. Therefore he neither 
 begins by tracing His kingly lineage, as does the first 
 evangelist ; nor by dwelling on the humanities of wedded 
 life and the sacredness of the family since He has been 
 born ; nor by soaring to the abysses of the eternal abiding 
 of the Word with God, as the agent of creation, the 
 medium of life and light ; but plunges at once into his 
 subject, and begins the Gospel with the mission of the 
 forerunner, which melts immediately into the appearance 
 of the Son. 
 
 I. We may note first, in this lesson, the prelude, 
 including verses i, 2, and 3. We need not discuss the 
 grammatical connection of these verses, or the relation 
 of verses 2 and 3 to the following section. However 
 that be settled, the result, for our present purpose, is 
 the same. Mark considers that John's mission is the 
 beginning of the gospel. Here are two noteworthy 
 points,— his use of that well-worn word, "the gospel," 
 and his view of John's place in relation to it. The 
 gospel is the narrative of the facts of Christ's life and 
 death. Later usage has taken it to be, rather, the 
 
Less. I] The Strong Forerunner and Stronger Son 5 
 
 statement of the truths deducible from these facts, and 
 especially the proclamation of salvation by the power of 
 Christ's atoning death ; but the primitive application of 
 the word is to the history itself. So Paul uses it in his 
 formal statement of the gospel which he preached, with 
 the addition, indeed, of the explanation of the meaning 
 of Christ's death (1 Cor. xv. 1-6). The very name 
 "good news" necessarily implies that the gospel is, 
 primarily, history; but we cannot exclude from the 
 meaning of the word the statement of the significance 
 of the facts, without which the facts have no message of 
 blessing. Mark adds the dogmatic element when he 
 defines the subject of the Gospel as being "Jesus Christ, 
 the Son of God." In the remainder of the book the 
 simple name " Jesus " is used ; but here, in starting, the 
 full, solemn title is given, which unites the contemplation 
 of Him in His manhood, in His office as fulfiller of 
 prophecy and crown of revelation, and in His mysterious, 
 Divine nature. 
 
 Whether we regard verses 2 and 3 as connected 
 grammatically with the preceding or the following verses, 
 they equally refer to John, and define his position in 
 relation to the Gospel. The Revised Version restores 
 the true reading, " in Isaiah the prophet," which some 
 unwise and timid transcriber has, as he thought, mended 
 
6 The Gospel of St. Mark [chap. i. i-it 
 
 into " the prophets," for fear that an error should be 
 found in Scripture. Of course, verse 2 is not Isaiah's, 
 but Malachi's ; but verse 3, which is Isaiah's, was upper- 
 most in Mark's mind, and his quotation of Malachi is, 
 apparently, an afterthought, and is plainly merely intro- 
 ductory of the other, on which the stress lies. The 
 remarkable variation in the Malachi quotation, which 
 occurs in all three evangelists, shows how completely 
 they recognised the Divinity of our Lord in their making 
 words which, in the original, are addressed by Jehovah 
 to Himself, to be addressed by the Father to the Son. 
 There is a difference in the representation of the office 
 of the forerunner in the two prophetic passages. In the 
 former " he " prepares the way of the coming Lord ; in 
 the latter he calls upon " his hearers " to prepare it. In 
 fact, John prepared the way, as we shall see presently, 
 just by calling on men to do so. In Mark's view, the 
 first stage in the gospel is the mission of John. He 
 might have gone further back — to the work of prophets 
 of old, or to the earliest beginnings in time of the self- 
 revelation of God, as the writer of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews does j or he might have ascended even higher 
 up the stream — to the true "beginning," from which 
 the fourth evangelist starts. But his distinctly practical 
 genius leads him to fix his gaze on the historical fact of 
 
Less. I] The Strong Forerunner and Stronger Son 7 
 
 John's mission, and to claim for it a unique position, 
 which he proceeds to develop. 
 
 II. So we have, next, the strong servant and fore- 
 runner (verses 4-8). The abruptness with which the 
 curtain is drawn, and the gaunt figure of the desert-loving 
 ascetic shown us, is very striking. It is like the way in 
 which Elijah, his prototype, leaps, as it were, full-armed, 
 into the arena. The parallel passage in Matthew links 
 his appearance with the events which it has been nar- 
 rating by the phrase " in these days," and calls him " the 
 Baptist." Mark has no such words, but lets him stand 
 forth in his isolation. The two accounts may profitably 
 be compared. Their likenesses suggest that they rest 
 on a common basis, probably of oral tradition, while 
 their differences are, for the most part, significant. 
 Mark differs in his arrangement of the common matter, 
 in omissions, and in some variations of expression. Each 
 account gives a general summary of John's teaching at 
 the beginning ; but Matthew puts emphasis on the 
 Baptist's proclamation that the kingdom of heaven was 
 at hand, to which nothing in Mark corresponds. His 
 Gospel does not dwell on the royalty of Jesus, but rather 
 represents Him as the servant than as the king. Mark 
 begins with describing John as baptizing, which only 
 appears later in Matthew's account. Mark omits all 
 
8 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. i-n 
 
 reference to the Sadducees and Pharisees, and to John's 
 sharp words to them. He has nothing about the axe 
 laid to the trees, nothing about the children of Abraham, 
 nothing about the fan in the hand of the great Husband- 
 man. All the theocratic aspect of the Messiah, as 
 proclaimed by John, is absent: and, as there is no 
 reference to the fire which destroys, so neither is there 
 to the fire of the Holy Ghost, in which he baptizes. 
 Mark reports only John's preaching and baptism of 
 repentance, and his testimony to Christ as stronger than 
 he, and as baptizing with the Holy Ghost. 
 
 So, on the whole, Mark's picture brings out prominently 
 the following traits in John's personality and mission : — 
 First, his preparation for Christ by preaching repentance. 
 The truest way to create in men a longing for Jesus, and 
 to lead to a true apprehension of His unique gift to 
 mankind, is to evoke the penitent consciousness of sin. 
 The preacher of guilt and repentance is the herald of 
 the bringer of pardon and purity. That is true in 
 reference to the relation of Judaism and Christianity, 
 of John and Jesus, and is as true to-day as ever it was. 
 The root of maimed conceptions of the work and nature 
 of Jesus Christ is a defective sense of sin. When men 
 are roused to believe in judgment, and to realise their 
 own evil, they are ready to listen to the blessed news 
 
Less. I] The Strong Forerunner and Stronger Son 9 
 
 of a Saviour from sin and its curse. The Christ whom 
 John heralds is the Christ that men need; the Christ 
 whom men receive, without having been out in the 
 wilderness with the stern preacher of sin and judgment, 
 is but half a Christ — and it is the vital half that is 
 missing. 
 
 Again, Mark brings out his personal asceticism. He 
 omits much ; but he could not leave out the picture of 
 the grim, lean solitary, who stalked among soft-robed 
 men, like Elijah come to life again, and held the crowds 
 by his self-chosen privations no less than by his fierce, 
 fiery eloquence. His desert life and contempt for ease 
 and luxury spoke of a strength of character and purpose 
 which fascinated commoner men, and make the next 
 point the more striking — namely, the utter humility 
 with which this strong, self-reliant, fiery rebuker of sin, 
 and despiser of rank and official dignities, flings himself 
 at the feet of the coming One. He is strong, as his life 
 and the awestruck crowds testified. How strong must 
 that Other be ! He feared not the face of man, nor 
 owned inferiority to any ; but his whole soul melted 
 into joyful submission, and confessed unworthiness even 
 to unlace the sandals of that mightier One. His tran- 
 sitional position is also plainly marked by our evangelist. 
 He is the end of prophecy, the beginning of the Gospel, 
 
io The Gospel of St. Marki [Chap. i. i-ii 
 
 belonging to neither or to both. He is not merely a 
 prophet, for he is prophesied of as well ; and he stands 
 so near Him whom he foretells, that his prediction is 
 almost fact. He is not an evangelist, nor, in the closest 
 sense, a servant of the coming Christ ; for his lowly 
 confession of unworthiness does not imply merely his 
 humility, but accurately defines the limits of his func- 
 tion. It was not for him to bear or to loose that Lord's 
 sandals. There were those who did minister to Him, 
 and the least of those, whose message to the world was 
 " Christ has come," had the honour of closer service 
 than that greatest among women-born, whose task was 
 to run before the chariot of the King and tell that He 
 was at hand. 
 
 III. We have the gentle figure of the stronger Son. 
 The introduction of Jesus is somewhat less abrupt than 
 that of John ; but if we remember whom Mark believed 
 Him to be, the quiet words which tell of His first 
 appearance are sufficiently remarkable. There is no 
 mention of His birth or previous years. His deeds will 
 tell who He is. The years before His baptism were of 
 no moment for Mark's purpose. Nor has he any report 
 of the precious conversation of Jesus with John, when 
 the forerunner testified to Christ's purity, which needed 
 no washing nor repentance, and acknowledged at once 
 
Less. I] The Strong Forerunner and Stronger Son 1 1 
 
 his own sinfulness and the Lord's cleansing power, and 
 when Christ accepted the homage, and, by implication, 
 claimed the character, purity, and power which John 
 attributed to Him. The omission may be accounted for 
 on a principle which seems to run through all this 
 Gospel — of touching lightly, or omitting indications of 
 our Lord's dignity, and dwelling by preference on His 
 acts of lowliness and service. The baptism is recorded ; 
 but the conversation, which showed that the King of 
 Israel, in submitting to it, acknowledged no need of it 
 for Himself, but regarded it as " fulfilling righteousness," 
 is passed by. The sinlessness of Jesus, and the special 
 meaning of His baptism, are sufficiently shown by the 
 descending Spirit and the approving voice. These 
 Mark does record ; for they warrant the great name by 
 which, in his first verse, he has described Jesus as " the 
 Son of God." 
 
 The brief account of these is marked by the evangelist's 
 vivid pictorial faculty, which we shall frequently have to 
 notice as we read the Gospel. Here he puts us, by a 
 word, in the position of eye-witnesses of the scene, as it 
 is passing, when he describes the heavens as " being 
 rent asunder "—a much more forcible and pictorial word 
 than Matthew's " opened." He says nothing of John's 
 share in the vision. All is intended for the Son. It is 
 
12 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. i-n 
 
 Jesus who sees the rending heavens and the descending 
 dove. The voice which Matthew represents as speaking 
 of Christ, Mark represents as speaking to Him. 
 
 The baptism of Jesus, then, was an epoch in His own 
 consciousness. It was not merely His designation to 
 John or to others as Messiah, but for Himself the sense 
 of sonship, and the sunlight of Divine complacency 
 filled His spirit in new measure or manner. Speaking 
 as we have to do from the outside, and knowing but 
 dimly the mysteries of his unique personality, we have 
 to speak modestly and little. But we know that our 
 Lord grew, as to His manhood, in wisdom, and that His 
 manhood was continually the receiver, from the Father, 
 of the Spirit ; and the reality of His Divinity, as dwell- 
 ing in His manhood from the beginning of that man- 
 hood, is not affected by the belief that when the dove- 
 like Spirit floated down on His meek head, glistening 
 with the water of baptism, His manhood then received 
 a new and special consciousness of His Messianic office 
 and of His Sonship. 
 
 Whilst that voice was for His sake, it was for others 
 too ; for John himself tells us (John i.) that the sign 
 had been told him beforehand, and that it was his sight 
 of the descending dove which heightened his thoughts 
 and gave a new turn to his testimony, leading him to 
 
Less. I] The Strong Forerunner and Stronger Son 13 
 
 know and to show " that this is the Son of God." The 
 rent heavens have long since closed, and that dread 
 voice is silent ; but the fact of that attestation remains 
 on record, that we, too, may hear through the centuries 
 God speaking of and to His Son, and may lay to heart 
 the commandment to us, which naturally follows God's 
 witness to Jesus, " Hear ye Him." 
 
 The symbol of the dove may be regarded as a prophecy 
 of the gentleness of the Son. Thus early in His course 
 the two qualities were harmonised in Him, which so 
 seldom are united, and each of which dwelt in Him in 
 Divinest perfection, both as to degree and manner. 
 John's anticipations of the strong coming One looked 
 for the manifestations of His strength in judgment and 
 destruction. How strangely his images of the axe, the 
 fan, the fire, are contrasted with the reality, emblemed 
 by this dove, dropping from heaven, with sunshine on 
 its breast, and peace in its still wings ! Through the 
 ages, Christ's strength has been the strength of gentle- 
 ness, and His coming has been like that of Noah's dove, 
 with the olive-branch in its beak, and the tidings of an 
 abated flood and of a safe home in its return. The 
 ascetic preacher of repentance was strong to shake and 
 purge men's hearts by terror; but the stronger Son 
 comes to conquer by meekness, and reign by the 
 
i 4 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. i-n 
 
 omnipotence of love. The beginning of the gospel was 
 the anticipation and the proclamation of strength like 
 the eagle's, swift of flight, and powerful to strike and 
 destroy. The gospel, when it became a fact, and not a 
 hope, was found in the meek Jesus, with the dove of 
 God, the gentle Spirit, which is mightier than all, nest- 
 ling in His heart, and uttering soft notes of invitation 
 through His lips. 
 
LESSON II 
 MIGHTY IN WORD AND DEED 
 
 15 
 
LESSON II 
 Mighty in Word and Deed 
 
 St. Mark i. 21-34 
 
 "21. And the}' went into 
 Capernaum ; and straightway 
 on the Sabbath day He entered 
 into the synagogue, and taught. 
 
 22. And they were astonished 
 at His doctrine : for He taught 
 them as one that had authority, 
 and not as the scribes. 
 
 33. And there was in their 
 synagogue a man with an un- 
 clean spirit; and he cried out, 
 
 24. Saying, Let us alone ; 
 what have we to do with Thee, 
 Thou Jesus of Nazareth ? art 
 Thou come to destroy us ? I 
 know Thee who Thou art, the 
 Holy One of God. 
 
 25. And Jesus rebuked him, 
 saying, Hold thy peace, and 
 come out of him. 
 
 26. And when the unclean 
 spirit had torn him, and cried 
 with a loud voice, he came out 
 of him. 
 
 27. And they were all 
 amazed, insomuch that they 
 questioned among themselves, 
 saying, What thing is this? 
 what new doctrine is this ? for 
 with authority commandeth He 
 
 even the unclean spirits, and 
 they do obey Him. 
 
 28. And immediately His 
 fame spread abroad throughout 
 all the region round about 
 Galilee. 
 
 29. And forthwith, when 
 they were come out of the 
 synagogue, they entered into 
 the house of Simon and Andrew, 
 with James and John. 
 
 30. But Simon*s wife's mother 
 lay sick of a fever, and anon 
 they tell Him of her. 
 
 31. And He came and took 
 her by the hand, and lifted her 
 up : and immediately the fever 
 left her, and she ministered 
 unto them. 
 
 32. And at even, when the sun 
 did set, they brought unto Him 
 all that were diseased, and them 
 that were possessed with devils. 
 
 33. And all the city was 
 gathered together at the door. 
 
 34. And He healed many 
 that were sick of divers diseases, 
 and cast out many devils ; and 
 suffered not the devils to speak, 
 because they knew Him." 
 
 AT ONE of the incidents in this lesson are peculiar to 
 ■*■ ^ Mark, but the special stamp of his Gospel is on 
 them all ; and, both in the narration of each and in the 
 
 17 2 
 
18 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 21-34 
 
 swift transition from one to another, the impression of 
 Christ's strength and unpausing diligence in filial service 
 is made. The short hours of that first sabbath's ministry 
 are crowded with work; and Christ's energy bears Him 
 through exhausting physical labours, and enables Him to 
 turn with unwearied sympathy and marvellous celerity to 
 each new form of misery, and to throw Himself with 
 freshness undiminished into the relief of each. The 
 homely virtue of diligence shines out in this lesson no 
 less clearly than superhuman strength, that tames demons 
 and heals all manner of sickness. There are four pictures 
 here, compressed and yet vivid. Mark can condense 
 and keep all the essentials, for his keen eye and sure 
 hand go straight to the heart of his incidents. 
 
 I. The strong Son of God teaching with authority. 
 "They enter." We see the little group, consisting of 
 Jesus and of the two pairs of brothers, in whose hearts 
 the mighty conviction of His Messiahship had taken 
 root. Simon and Andrew were at home, in Capernaum ; 
 but we may, perhaps, infer from the manner in which the 
 sickness of Peter's wife's mother is mentioned, that 
 Peter had not been to his house till after the synagogue 
 service. At all events, these four were already detached 
 from ordinary life and bound to Him as disciples. We 
 meet here with our first instance of Mark's favourite 
 
Less. II] Mighty in Word and Deed 19 
 
 " straightway," the recurrence of which, in this chapter, 
 so powerfully helps the impression of eager and yet 
 careful swiftness with which Christ ran His course, 
 "unhasting, unresting." From the beginning, Mark 
 stamps His life with the spirit of our Lord's own words, 
 " I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it 
 is day : the night cometh." And yet there is no hurry, 
 but the calm, equable rapidity with which planets move. 
 The unostentatious manner of Christ's beginning is 
 noteworthy. He seeks to set Himself in the line of the 
 ordinary teaching of the day. He knew all the faults 
 of the synagogue and the rabbis, and He had come to 
 revolutionise the very conception of religious teaching 
 and worship ; but He prefers to intertwine the new with 
 the old, and to make as little disturbance as possible. 
 It is easy to get the cheap praise of " originality," by 
 brushing aside existing methods. It is harder and nobler 
 to use whatever methods may be going, and to breathe 
 new value and life into them. Drowsy, hair-splitting 
 disputations about nothings and endless casuistry were 
 the staple of the synagogue talk ; but when He opened 
 His mouth there, the weary formalism went out of the 
 service, and men's hearts glowed again when they once 
 more heard a Voice that lived, speaking from a Soul that 
 saw the invisible. Mark has no mission to record much 
 
20 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 21-34 
 
 of our Lord's sayings. His Gospel deals more with deeds. 
 The sermon he does not give, but the hearer's comment 
 he does. Matthew has the same words at the close of 
 the Sermon on the Mount, from which it would seem 
 that they were part of the oral tradition which underlies 
 the written Gospels ; but Mark probably has them in 
 their right place. Very naturally, the first synagogue 
 discourse in Capernaum would surprise. Deeper impres- 
 sions might be made by its successors, but the first hearing 
 of that voice would be an experience that could never 
 be repeated. The feature of His teaching which astonished 
 the villagers most was its " authority." That fits in with 
 the impression of strength which Mark wishes to make. 
 Another thing that struck them was its unlikeness to 
 the type of synagogue teaching to which they had been 
 accustomed all their lives. They had got so accustomed 
 to the droning dreariness and trivial subtleties of the 
 rabbis that it had never entered their heads that there 
 could be any other way of teaching religion than boring 
 men with interminable pedantries about trifles of ritual 
 or outward obedience. This new teacher would startle 
 all, as an eagle suddenly appearing in a sanhedrin of 
 owls. He would shock many ; he would fascinate a 
 few. Nor was it only the dissimilarity of His teaching, 
 but also its authority, that was strange. The scribes 
 
Less. II] Mighty in Word and Deed 2 1 
 
 spoke with authority enough of a sort, lording it over 
 the despised common people — "men of the earth," as 
 they called them — and exacting punctilious obedience 
 and much obsequiousness ; but authority over the spirit 
 they had none. They pretended to no power but as 
 expositors of a law; and they fortified themselves by 
 citations of what this, that, and the other rabbi had said, 
 which was all their learning. Christ quoted no one. 
 He did not even say, " Moses has said." He did not 
 even preface His commands with a "Thus saith the 
 Lord." He spoke of His own authority : " Verily, / 
 say unto you." Other teachers explained the law ; He 
 is a lawgiver. Others drew more or less pure waters 
 from cisterns ; He is in Himself a well of water, from 
 which all may draw. To us, as to these rude villagers 
 in the synagogue of the little fishing-town, Christ's teach- 
 ing is unique in this respect. He does not argue ; He 
 affirms. He seeks no support from others' teachings ; 
 He alone is sufficient for us. He not only speaks the 
 truth, which needs no other confirmation than His own 
 lips, but He is the truth. We may canvass other men's 
 teachings, and distinguish their insight from their errors ; 
 we have but to accept His. The world outgrows all 
 others ; it can only grow up towards the fulness of His. 
 Us and all the ages He teaches with authority, and the 
 
22 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 21-34 
 
 guarantee for the truth of His teaching is Himself. 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you." No other man has a 
 right to say that to me. But Christ dominates the race, 
 and the strong Son of God is the world's Teacher. 
 
 II. The strong conqueror of demons. Again we 
 have " straightway." The language seems to imply that 
 this wretched sufferer burst hurriedly into the synagogue 
 and broke the utterance of astonishment by giving it 
 new food. Perhaps the double consciousness of the 
 demoniac may be recognised, the humanity being drawn 
 to Jesus by some disturbed longings, the demoniac 
 consciousness, on the other hand, being repelled. It 
 is no part of my business to discuss demoniacal posses- 
 sion. I content myself with remarking that I, for one, 
 do not see how Christ's credit as a Divine Teacher is to 
 be saved without admitting its reality, nor how such 
 phenomena as the demoniac's knowledge of His nature 
 are to be accounted for on the hypothesis of disease or 
 insanity. It is assuming rather too encyclopaediacal a 
 knowledge to allege the impossibility of such possession. 
 There are facts enough around us still, which would be 
 at least as satisfactorily accounted for by it as by natural 
 causes ; but as to the incident before us, Mark puts it 
 all into three sentences, each of which is pregnant with 
 suggestions. There is, first, the demoniac's shriek of 
 
Less, ii] Mighty in Word and Deed 23 
 
 hatred and despair. Christ had said nothing. If, as we 
 suppose, the man had broken in on the worship, drawn 
 to Jesus, he is no sooner in His presence than the other 
 power that darkly lodged in him overpowers him, and 
 pours out fierce passions from his reluctant lips. There 
 is dreadful meaning in the preposition here used, "a 
 man in an unclean spirit," as if his human self was 
 immersed in that filthy flood. The words embody three 
 thoughts — the fierce hatred, which disowns all connec- 
 tion with Jesus ; the wild terror, which asks or affirms 
 Christ's destructive might over all foul spirits (for the 
 " us " means not the man and the demon, but the demon 
 and his fellows) ; and the recognition of Christ's holiness, 
 which lashes unholiness into a paroxysm of mingled 
 despair and hate. Does this sound like a madman, or 
 an epileptic, or like a spirit which knew more than men 
 knew, and trembled and hated more than they could 
 do? There is nothing more terrible than the picture, 
 self-drawn in these spasmodic words, of a spirit which, 
 by its very foulness, is made shudderingly sensitive to 
 the disturbing presence of purity, and would fain have 
 nothing to do with Him whom it recognises for the 
 Holy One of God, and therefore its destroyer. Foul 
 things that lurk under stones hurry out of the light when 
 you lift the covering. Spirits that love the darkness are 
 
24 The Gospel of St. Mark [chap. i. 21-34 
 
 hurt by the light. It is possible to recognise Jesus for 
 what He is, and to hate Him all the more. What a 
 miserable state that is, to hope that we shall have nothing 
 to do with Him ! These wild utterances, seething with 
 evil passions and fierce detestation, do point to the 
 possible terminus for men. A black gulf opens in them, 
 from which we are meant to start back with the prayer, 
 " Preserve me from going down into that pit ! " 
 
 What a contrast to the tempest in the demoniac's wild 
 and whirling words is the calm speech of Christ ! He 
 knows His authority, and His word is imperative, curt, 
 and assured : " Hold thy peace"; literally, " Be muzzled," 
 as if the creature were a dangerous beast, whose raving 
 and snapping must be stopped. Jesus wishes no ac- 
 knowledgments from such lips. They who bear the 
 vessels of the Lord must be clean. He had taught with 
 authority, and now He in like manner commands. His 
 teaching rested on His own assurance. His miracle is 
 done by His own power. That power is put forth by 
 His simple word; that is to say, the bare exercise or 
 expression of His will is potent. 
 
 The third step in the narrative is the immediate 
 obedience of the demon. Reluctant but compelled, 
 malicious to the last, doing the house he has to leave 
 all the harm he can, and though no longer venturing 
 
Less. II] Mighty in Word and Deed 25 
 
 to speak, yet venting his rage and mortification, and 
 acknowledging his defeat by one parting howl, he comes 
 out. 
 
 Again, we are bid to note the impression produced. 
 The interrupted buzz of talk begins once more, and is 
 vividly reported by the fragmentary sentences of verse 
 27, and by the remark that it was "among themselves" 
 that they compared notes. Two things startled the 
 people : — First, the " new teaching " ; and second, the 
 authority over demons, into which they naturally gene- 
 ralise the one instance. The busy tongues were not 
 silenced when they left the synagogue. Verse 28 shows 
 what happened, in one direction, when the meeting 
 broke up. With another " straightway," Mark paints the 
 swift flight of the rumour over all the district, and some- 
 what overleaps the strict line of chronology. To let us 
 hear how far the echo of such a blow sounded, this first 
 miracle recorded by him is as a duel between Christ 
 and the strong man armed, who keeps his house. The 
 shield of the great oppressor is struck first in challenge 
 by the champion, and His first essay at arms proves 
 Him mightiest. Such a victory well heads the chronicle- 
 
 III. The tenderness of the strong Son. We come 
 back to the strict order of succession with another 
 "straightway," which opens a very different scene. The 
 
26 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 21-34 
 
 Authorised Version gives three " straightways " in the 
 three verses as to the cure of Peter's mother-in-law. 
 " Immediately " they go to the house ; " immediately " 
 they tell Jesus of her; "immediately" the fever leaves 
 her; and even if we omit the third of these, as the 
 Revised Version does, we cannot miss the rapid haste 
 of the narrative, which reflects the unwearied energy of 
 the Master. Peter and Andrew had apparently been 
 ignorant of the sickness till they reached the house, from 
 which the inference is not that it was a slight attack 
 which had come on after they went to the synagogue, 
 but that the two disciples had so really left house and 
 kindred, that, though in Capernaum, they had not gone 
 home till they took Jesus there for rest and quiet and 
 food after the toil of the morning. The owners would 
 naturally first know of the sickness, which would interfere 
 with their hospitable purpose; and so Mark's account 
 seems more near the details than Matthew's, inasmuch 
 as the former says that Jesus was "told" of the sick 
 woman, while Matthew's version is that He " saw " her. 
 Luke says that they "besought Him for her." No 
 doubt that was the meaning of " telling " Him ; but 
 Mark's representation brings out very beautifully the 
 confidence already beginning to spring in their hearts, 
 that He needed but to know in order to heal, and the 
 
Less, ii] Mighty in Word and Deed 27 
 
 reverence which hindered them from direct asking. The 
 instinct of the devout heart is to tell Christ all its troubles, 
 great or small ; and He does not need beseeching before 
 He answers. He did not need to be told either, but 
 He would not rob us of the solace of confiding all our 
 griefs to Him. 
 
 Their confidence was not misplaced. No moment 
 intervenes unused between the tidings and the cure. 
 "He came," as if He had been in some outer room, 
 or not yet in the house, and now passes into the sick- 
 chamber. Then comes one of Mark's minute and graphic 
 details, in which we may see the keen eye and faithful 
 memory of Peter. He "took her by the hand, and 
 lifted her up." Mark is fond of telling of Christ's taking 
 by the hand ; as, for instance, the little child whom He 
 set in the midst, the blind man whom He healed, the 
 child with the dumb spirit. His touch has power. His 
 grasp means sympathy, tenderness, identification of 
 Himself with us, the communication of upholding, re- 
 storing strength. It is a picture, in a small matter, of 
 the very heart of the gospel. He layeth not hold of 
 angels, but He layeth hold of the seed of Abraham. It 
 is a lesson for all who would help their fellows, that they 
 must not be too dainty to lay hold of the dirtiest hand, 
 both metaphorically and literally, if they want their 
 
28 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 21-34 
 
 sympathy to be believed. His hand banishes not 
 only the disease, but its consequences. Immediate 
 convalescence and restoration to strength follow; and 
 the strength is used, as it should be, in ministering to 
 the Healer who, notwithstanding His power, needed the 
 humble ministration and the poor fare of the fisherman's 
 hut. What a lesson for all Christian homes is here ! 
 Let Jesus know all that troubles them, welcome Him 
 as a guest, tell Him everything, and He will cure all 
 diseases and sorrows, or give the light of His presence 
 to make them endurable. Consecrate to Him the 
 strength which He gives, and let deliverances teach 
 trust, and inflame grateful love, which delights in serving 
 Him who needs no service, but delights in all. 
 
 IV. The strong Son, unwearied by toil and sufficient 
 for all the needy. Each incident in this lesson has a 
 note of the impression it made appended. Verses 32-34 
 give the united result of all, on the people of Capernaum. 
 They wait till the Sabbath is past, and then, without 
 thought of His long day of work, crowd round the house 
 with their sick. The sinking sun brought no rest for 
 Him, but the new calls found Him neither exhausted 
 nor unwilling. Capernaum was but a little place, and 
 the whole city might well be " gathered together at the 
 door," some sick, some bearing the sick, all curious and 
 
Less. II] Mighty in Word and Deed 29 
 
 eager. There was no depth in the excitement. There 
 was earnestness enough, no doubt, in the wish for heal- 
 ing, but there was no insight into His message. Any 
 travelling European with a medicine chest can get the 
 same kind of cortege round his tent. These people, who 
 hung upon Him thus, were those of whom He had 
 afterwards to say that it would be more tolerable for 
 Sodom, in the day of judgment, than for them. But 
 though He knew the shallowness of the impression, He 
 was not deaf to the misery ; and, with power which knew 
 no weariness, and sympathy which had no limit, and a 
 reservoir of healing virtue which the day's draughts had 
 not emptied by a hair's-breadth, He heals them all. 
 Remarkable is the prohibition of the demons' speech. 
 They knew Him, while men were ignorant; for they 
 had met Him before to-day. He would have no witness 
 from them ; not merely, as has been said, because their 
 attestation would hinder, rather than further, His accept- 
 ance by the people, nor because they may be supposed 
 to have spoken in malice, but because a divine decorum 
 forbade that He should accept acknowledgments from 
 such tainted sources. 
 
 So ended this first of " the days of the Son of man," 
 which our evangelist records. It was a day of hard toil, 
 of merciful and manifold self-revelation. As teacher 
 
30 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 21-34 
 
 and doer, in the synagogue, and in the home, and in the 
 city ; as Lord of the dark realms of evil and of disease ; 
 as ready to hear hinted and dumb prayers, and able to 
 answer them all ; as careless of His own ease, and ready 
 to spend Himself for others' help, — Jesus showed Him- 
 self, on that Sabbath day, strong and tender, the Son of 
 God and the servant of men. 
 
LESSON III 
 THE LEPER AND THE LORD: A PARABLE 
 
 3* 
 
LESSON III 
 
 The Leper and the Lord : a Parable 
 
 St. Mark i. 35-45 
 
 35. "And in the morning, 
 rising up a great while before 
 day, He went out, and departed 
 into a solitary place, and there 
 prayed. 
 
 36. And Simon and they that 
 were with him followed after 
 Him. 
 
 37. And when they had found 
 Him, they said unto Him, All 
 men seek for Thee. 
 
 38. And He said unto them, 
 Let us go into the next towns, 
 that I may preach there also: 
 for therefore came I forth. 
 
 39. And He preached in their 
 synagogues throughout all Gali- 
 lee, and cast out devils. 
 
 40. And there came a leper 
 to Him, beseeching Him, and 
 kneeling down to Him, and 
 saying unto Him, If Thou wilt, 
 Thou canst make me clean. 
 
 41. And Jesus, moved with 
 compassion, put forth His hand, 
 
 and touched him, and said unto 
 him, I will ; be thou clean. 
 
 42. And as soon as He had 
 spoken, immediately the leprosy 
 departed from him, and he was 
 cleansed. 
 
 43. And He straitly charged 
 him, and forthwith sent him 
 away. 
 
 44. And saith unto him, See 
 thou say nothing to any man : 
 
 ! but go thy way, shew thyself 
 j to the Priest, and offer for thy 
 I cleansing those things which 
 Moses commanded, for a testi- 
 j mony unto them. 
 
 45. But he went out, and be- 
 gan to publish it much, and to 
 blaze abroad the matter, inso- 
 much that Jesus could no more 
 openly enter into the city, but 
 was without in desert places ; 
 and they came to Him from 
 every quarter." 
 
 IV IT ARK'S Gospel gives special prominence to Christ's 
 •***■*■ toilsome work. It is the Gospel of the Son who 
 is the Servant ; and, just because of this point of view, 
 
 S3 3 
 
34 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 35-45 
 
 it also makes very prominent the seasons of rest and 
 solitude by which Jesus repaired His wearied energy 
 and bathed His spirit in communion with the Father. 
 That long, hard day in Capernaum needed some short, 
 deep sleep, to restore His physical power. But it 
 needed more solitary prayer; and so the first verses 
 of this lesson tell of His stealing from the slumbering 
 town, and seeking the loneliness of the hills behind 
 Capernaum, to hold converse with God. The harder 
 our work, the more we need solitude and prayer, with- 
 out which work becomes mechanical and insincere. 
 Preachers, revivalists, and all those whose Christian 
 calling requires them to be much in public, and to 
 handle sacred things for the good of others, must live 
 much alone with God, and secure many an hour of still 
 communion, if their words are to be anything better 
 than sounding brass or tinkling cymbals. For want of 
 that, many a man has talked away his religion, and 
 never found out how little his words to others repre- 
 sented his real, indifferent self. Hence come all sorts 
 of unrealities, vehement efforts to pretend to an earnest- 
 ness which is not genuine. A Christian worker must 
 either pray much or deteriorate into an actor. What 
 Jesus needed we cannot do without. To Him solitude 
 was blessed. He with whom God dwells is never less 
 
Less. in] The Leper and the Lord: a Parable 35 
 
 alone than when alone ; for then he enjoys without 
 interruption God in himself, and himself in God. Soli- 
 tude is the mother-country of the strong. The true 
 "deepening of the spiritual life" is better sought in the 
 desert-place than in "conventions." 
 
 But Christ's retirement was no selfish seclusion, nor 
 did His desire for it keep remote for one moment from 
 the calls upon Him. While men slept, He prayed. But 
 when the eager group, headed by Peter, who already 
 takes the lead, burst in upon Him, He has no im- 
 patience, nor rebukes the scarcely-concealed tone of 
 almost remonstrance with which they tell Him how 
 everybody — by which big word they only meant the 
 handful of inhabitants in Capernaum — was seeking Him. 
 They all but say that He has deserted His duty, and they 
 take for granted that He will at once return. But while 
 He owns the call to service, and surrenders the sweetness 
 of His lonely morning hours without a sigh, He sees in 
 the excitement in Capernaum a reason for going "into 
 the next towns." Enough had been done in the former 
 place. More might be harmful ; and it was well that 
 the mere flutter of excitement should have time to quiet. 
 Many of us would have said, " Capernaum is ready for 
 evangelistic work. We must strike while the iron is 
 hot ! " Perhaps our work would gain in solidity what it 
 
36 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 35-45 
 
 wanted in noise if we pondered this act of Christ's, and 
 learned that there is an excitement which is no help, 
 but a positive hindrance to His work. Note, too, that 
 majestic though obscure implication of pre-existence, 
 in "therefore came I forth." From whence did He 
 come ? From the bosom of the Father. Thus early in 
 this Gospel, which ordinarily presents rather the lowli- 
 ness than the majesty of the Son, is He represented as 
 letting fall hints of His unique glory. 
 
 The swift activity, interrupted for a moment by that 
 morning of communion, is resumed ; and again He 
 traverses Galilee, rapid and beneficent as a sunbeam. 
 The story of the leper is connected with this journey, 
 marked by so many miracles. Some tidings of the new 
 Teacher had reached the huts where the lepers herded, 
 and had stirred in one poor wretch a faint flicker 
 of hope, which emboldened him to break through 
 ceremonial restrictions, and to force his tainted and un- 
 welcome presence into the shrinking crowd. He seems 
 to have stolen or burst in suddenly ; and we can see him 
 with his horrible, white face, his tightened, shining skin, 
 his eating ulcers, some frowsy rag over his face, and a 
 hunted look in his eyes, like a wild beast, as he passes 
 through the recoiling crowd, and flings himself down at 
 the feet of the calm Teacher, with his piteous cry. He 
 
Less. Hi] The Leper and the Lord: a Parable . 37 
 
 waited for no pause or question. Misery and earnest- 
 ness are not polite. 
 
 The true point of view for understanding this miracle 
 is to regard it as being a parable as well as a miracle. 
 Leprosy was exceptionally treated in the Mosaic law, 
 and the restrictions on its victim, as well as the ritual 
 for the rare cases in which the disease wore itself out, 
 are best regarded as symbolical, rather than as sanitary. 
 It was an emblem of sin, fitted to be such by its hideous 
 symptoms, its slow, stealthy, steady progress, and its 
 defiance of all known means of cure. Remembering 
 this deeper meaning, we find large truths in the story. 
 
 I. Note the leper's cry. His keen sense of misery 
 impels him to passionate desire for healing. A man 
 with the flesh dropping off his bones could not suppose 
 himself well. The parallel fails here ; for the misery of 
 sin is that its ravages are less known by the sufferer than 
 by the spectator. There are diseases in which the 
 victim thinks himself in health, while everybody else 
 can see death staring out of his eyes. So with sin. 
 The worse we are, the less we know it, and the more 
 we are in love with what is killing us. Hence the 
 eagerness of this poor man to get his leprosy cleansed 
 contrasts with the indifference of men as to soul-healing. 
 
 Note the leper's confidence. He was quite sure of 
 
3 8 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 35-45 
 
 Christ's power to heal. He had heard enough of His 
 doings to be so. Not that his confidence had any 
 religious element in it. Matthew makes him say, 
 " Lord . . . Thou canst " ; but Mark, in accordance with 
 his habit of passing lightly by the indications of our 
 Lord's dignity, leaves out the word, and so puts the 
 confidence as extending merely to the fact of healing, 
 without thought of His person, [ft was faith in the 
 making, but without any spiritual element. If we turn 
 from the symbol to the fact, we have to think of the 
 omnipotent ability of Jesus to deliver from sin, both as 
 regards its guilt and its power. His great sacrifice 
 atones for all sin; and His blood, applied to the soul 
 that walks in light, cleanses, by daily-renewed and 
 increasing power, from all sin. Forgiveness and sancti- 
 fying are possible for the foulest. However inveterate 
 and chronic the leprosy, however far the corruption may 
 have spread, and however deep it may have struck its 
 filthy fangs, there is perfect cure possible. Christ's 
 11 can " is omnipotent. 
 
 Note the leper's doubt. " If Thou wilt." He had 
 no right to presume on Christ's willingness. He knew 
 nothing of the principle on which the mercy was dis- 
 tributed; but, for all he knew, it might be from mere 
 accidental direction of capricious good-nature. There- 
 
Less in] The Leper and the Lord: a Parable 
 
 39 
 
 fore he comes with a modest prayer; but it breathes 
 entreaty quite as much as doubt. It means that nothing 
 stands between him and healing but Christ's will, and 
 it implies that to heal would be so easy ; that not to heal 
 would be cruel. It throws the responsibility of his 
 continued leprosy on Christ's shoulders, and so makes 
 a piteous appeal to Him. The leper's doubt is our 
 certainty. We know the principle on which Christ's 
 mercy flows. We know that it includes the whole 
 world, and that if any leper remains unhealed, the fault 
 lies not at Christ's door, but at his own. We know that 
 nothing can be more in accordance with the will of 
 Jesus, which is the will of God, than to deliver every 
 man from sin, which is the opposite of His will. " How 
 often would I . . . and ye would not ! " 
 
 II. The story gives us next the Lord's answer. Mark 
 narrates the actual miracle in very small compass, and 
 dilates on the attitude and disposition of Jesus, as if 
 apart from the supernatural element, that lovely picture 
 was worth gazing upon, till our hearts were touched by 
 its beauty, and drunk in its precious meaning. There 
 is, first, the gush of spontaneous compassion. We owe 
 the record of it to Mark alone. Jesus did not need to 
 be moved to help by the sufferer's cry. The leprous 
 lips were an appeal to His heart before any voice came, 
 
4 o The Gospel of St. Mark |_<- ha P- »• 35-45 
 
 hoarse and unnatural, from them. That compassion 
 dwells for ever in Him, and moves Him, seated on the 
 throne, as it did when in the humble house where He 
 was teaching. Show Him misery, and He .answers it 
 with pity. That compassion is the true source of His 
 work. He heals and helps, not because He is moved 
 by prayers to an else unwonted tenderness, but because 
 He has pity; and His whole work wells up from this 
 deep fountain. Nor is it Jesus only whom we see in 
 these wonderful words; for when we see Him, we see 
 God, and that compassion is not only the revelation of 
 a true brother's heart, but of a Father's pity. The 
 Christian's God is no impassive Divinity, careless of 
 mankind, but One who, " in His love and in His pity," 
 redeems, and bears, and carries. 
 
 Christ's touch follows His compassion. The instinc- 
 tive movement of pity was to thrust forth the hand to 
 the sufferer. How precious that touch must have been 
 to the poor wretch who, for all the period of his disease, 
 had been isolated from men, and had never felt the 
 pressure of a loving hand ! Whatever deeper meanings 
 we may see in that touch of Christ's, we must not lose 
 sight of its beauty as spontaneous, uncalculated obedience 
 to the instinct of pity. It may teach all would-be helpers 
 the condition of succeeding in their efforts. If they 
 
Less. ill] The Leper and the Lord: a Parable 41 
 
 would heal lepers, they must take them by the hand. 
 But note that this touch was either a deliberate putting 
 aside of Mosaic regulations or a deliberate assumption of 
 the priest's office. No Israelite but the priest could 
 touch a leper without defilement. Whichever of the two 
 it was, there is a claim of a very significant kind in the 
 act. Jesus asserts His superiority to law, or His true 
 sacerdotal character. He could touch pollution and be 
 unpolluted. His hand could stroke the feculent ulcers 
 and come away untainted. His cleansing is like that by 
 sunshine, which is not defiled. He took on Him the 
 likeness of the flesh of sin, and yet in Him is no sin. 
 
 Christ's word follows His touch. He shapes His 
 verbal answer so as to correspond exactly to the prayer, 
 thus showing us how tenderly He moulds His gifts to fit 
 our faith. But what dignity and conscious power there 
 are in that curt, authoritative, imperative " I will ; be 
 thou clean " ! He accepts the ascription of power in 
 His own will to heal. He does not say, as the king of 
 Israel said, " Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that 
 this man doth send unto me to' recover a man of his 
 leprosy ? " And He professes to have power to act on 
 material substances by the simple utterance of His will. 
 Surely He who does this must be either guilty of 
 unexampled arrogance or conscious of unexampled 
 
42 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 35-45 
 
 power. Surely He who does it, and proves His right to 
 do it, can be none other than the great power of God. 
 
 III. We have the immediate cure. Mark tells, with 
 emphasis, how, "straightway," the leprosy departed. 
 The healing of the leprosy of sin may be equally 
 immediate. True, the process of conquering its domin- 
 ion in the life is gradual and life-long ; but forgiveness 
 may be the act of a moment, and so may the entrance 
 into our tainted nature of that new life of God's spirit, 
 which will grow to entire sanctification one day. The 
 entrance of health may be instantaneous, though the 
 operation of the new purity on the tainted nature is a 
 work of time. There is no reason why the worst of men 
 should not in one moment pass from death to life, and be 
 healed of his plague. It is a bad sign when Christians 
 begin to suspect, and not to expect, immediate conver- 
 sions. 
 
 If the leper is to be cleansed, he must make personal 
 work of Christ's healing. It was of no use to him that 
 showers of blessing had been falling. What he needed 
 was that a rill of the great stream might flow to his lips. 
 So we have to make individual application to the foun- 
 tain of universal cleansing, and to appropriate for our 
 own the wide-flowing mercy, " Thou canst make me 
 clean." 
 
Less. Hi] The Leper and the Lord: a Parable 43 
 
 We need not dwell on the consequences of the 
 miracle. The charge to be silent, and to go to the 
 priest, was for the man's sake, as well as for the sake of 
 Christ's work. It was better for the healed leper to hold 
 his tongue than to talk ; it was better for Christ's mission 
 that the formal legal attestation of the reality of his cure 
 should be obtained, than that irresponsible curiosity 
 should have more materials for gossip. The man hurt 
 himself, and hampered Christ's activity, by his disobedi- 
 ence. The excitement which he stimulated had already 
 risen too high to be wholesome, and Christ could not 
 use so turbid a stream to float His words upon. So, 
 shunning and seeking to damp down the agitation, He 
 betook Himself to the desert, and avoided the towns, 
 teaching us a lesson of His method which we have much 
 need to lay to heart. 
 
LESSON IV 
 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY TO FORGIVE 
 
 45 
 
LESSON IV 
 Christ s Authority to Forgive 
 
 St. Mark ii. 
 
 1. "And again He entered 
 into Capernaum after some 
 days ; and it was noised that 
 He was in the house. 
 
 2. And straightway many 
 were gathered together, inso- 
 much that there was no room 
 to receive them, no, not so 
 much as about the door : and 
 He preached the word unto 
 them. 
 
 3. And they come unto Him, 
 bringing one sick of the palsy, 
 which was borne of four. 
 
 4. And when they could not 
 come nigh unto Him for the 
 press, they uncovered the roof 
 where He was : and when they 
 had broken it up, they let down 
 the bed wherein the sick of the 
 palsy lay. 
 
 5. When Jesus saw their 
 faith, He said unto the sick of 
 the palsy, Son, thy sins be 
 forgiven thee. 
 
 6. But there were certain of 
 the scribes sitting there, and 
 reasoning in their hearts, 
 
 7. Why doth this man thus 
 speak blasphemies ? who can 
 forgive sins but God only? 
 
 8. And immediately when 
 Jesus perceived in His spirit 
 that they so reasoned within 
 themselves, he said unto them, 
 Why reason ye these things in 
 your hearts ? 
 
 9. Whether is it easier to 
 say to the sick of the palsy, 
 Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or 
 to say, Arise, and take up thy 
 bed, and walk ? 
 
 10. But that ye may know 
 that the Son of man hath 
 power on earth to forgive sins, 
 (He saith to the sick of the 
 palsy,) 
 
 11. I say unto thee, Arise, 
 and take up thy bed, and go 
 thy way into thine house. 
 
 12. And immediately he arose, 
 took up the bed, and went 
 forth before them all ; insomuch 
 that they were all amazed, and 
 glorified God, saying, We never 
 saw it on this fashion." 
 
 1\ T ARK alone gives Capernaum as the scene of this 
 XYA. miracle. The excitement which had induced 
 our Lord to leave that place had been allowed " some 
 days " to quiet down, " after " which He ventures to 
 
 47 
 
48 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. i. 35-45 
 
 return, but does not seem to have sought publicity, 
 but to have remained in " the house " — probably Peter's. 
 There would be at least one woman's heart there, which 
 would love to lavish grateful service on Him. But 
 " He could not be hid," and, however little genuine or 
 deep the eagerness might be, He will not refuse to meet 
 it. Mark paints vividly the crowd flocking to the 
 humble home, overflowing its modest capacity, blocking 
 the doorway, and clustering round it outside as far as 
 they could hear Christ's voice. " He was speaking the 
 word to them," proclaiming His mission, as He had 
 done in their synagogue, when He was interrupted by 
 the events which follow, no doubt to the gratification 
 of some of His hearers, who wanted something more 
 exciting than " teaching." 
 
 I. We note the eager group of interrupters. Mark 
 gives one of the minute touches which betray an eye- 
 witness and a close observer when he tells us that the 
 palsied man was carried by four friends — no doubt one 
 at each corner of the bed, which would be some light 
 framework, or even a mere quilt or mattress. The 
 incident is told from the point of view of one sitting 
 beside Jesus; they "come to Him," "cannot come 
 near." The accurate specification of the process of 
 removing the roof, which Matthew omits altogether, and 
 
Less. IV | Christ's Authority to Forgive 49 
 
 Luke tells much more vaguely, seems also to point to 
 an eye-witness as the source of the narrative, who would, 
 of course, be Peter, who well remembered all the steps 
 of the unceremonious treatment of his property. His 
 house was, probably, one of no great pretensions or size, 
 but like hundreds of poor men's houses in Palestine 
 still — a one-storied building, with a low, flat roof, mostly 
 earth, and easily reached from the ground by some 
 outside stair. It would be somewhat difficult to get a 
 sick man and his bed up there, however low, and 
 somewhat free-and-easy dealing with another man's 
 house to burrow through the roof a hole big enough for 
 the purpose ; but there is no impossibility, and the 
 difficulty is part of the lesson of the incident, and is 
 recognised expressly in the narrative by Christ's notice 
 of their " faith." We can fancy the blank looks of the 
 four bearers, and the disappointment on the sick man's 
 thin face and weary eyes, as they got to the edge of the 
 crowd, and saw that there was no hope of forcing a 
 passage. Had they been less. certain of a cure, and less 
 eager, they would have shouldered their burden and 
 carried him home again. They could well have pleaded 
 sufficient reason for giving up the attempt. But " we 
 cannot" is the coward's word. "We must" is the 
 earnest man's. If we have any real consciousness of 
 
 4 
 
50 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. ii. 1-12 
 
 our need to get to Christ, and any real wish to do so, 
 it is not a crowd round the door that will keep us back. 
 Difficulties test, and therefore increase, faith. They 
 develop a sanctified ingenuity in getting over them, 
 and bring a rich harvest of satisfaction when at last 
 conquered. These four eager faces looked down through 
 the broken roof, when they had succeeded in dropping 
 the bed right at Christ's feet, with a far keener pleasure 
 than if they had just carried him in by the door. No 
 doubt their act was inconvenient ; for, however light the 
 roofing, some rubbish must have come down on the 
 heads of some of the notabilities below. And, no 
 doubt, it was interfering with property as well as with 
 propriety. But here was a sick man, and there was 
 his Healer ; and it was their business to get the two 
 together somehow. It was worth risking a good deal to 
 accomplish. The rabbis sitting there might frown at 
 rude intrusiveness ; Peter might object to the damage 
 to his roof; some of the listeners might dislike the 
 interruption to His teaching ; but Jesus read the action 
 of the bearers and the consent of the motionless figure 
 on the couch as the indication of " their faith," and His 
 love and power responded to its call. 
 
 II. Note the unexpected gift with which Christ answers 
 this faith. None of them speak a word throughout the 
 
Less. IV] Christ's Authority to Forgive 5 1 
 
 whole incident. The act of the bearers and the con- 
 dition of the sick man spoke loudly enough. Obviously, 
 all five must have had, at all events, so much " faith " 
 as went to the conviction that He could and would heal ; 
 and this faith is the occasion of Christ's gift. The 
 bearers had it, as is shown by their work. It was a 
 visible faith, manifest by conduct. He can see the 
 hidden heart ; but here He looks upon conduct, and 
 thence infers disposition. Faith, if worth anything, comes 
 to the surface in act. Was it the faith of the bearers, 
 or of the sick man, which Christ rewarded ? Both. As 
 Abraham's intercession delivered Lot, as Paul in the 
 shipwreck was the occasion of safety to all the crew, so 
 one man's faith may bring blessings on another. But 
 if the sick man had not had faith too, he would not 
 have let himself be brought at all, and would certainly 
 not have consented to reach Christ's presence by so 
 strange and, to him, dangerous a way — painfully hoisted 
 up some narrow stair, and then perilously let down, at 
 the risk of cords snapping, or hands letting go, or quilts 
 tearing. His faith, apparently, was deeper than theirs ; 
 for Christ's answer, though it went far beyond his or 
 their expectations, must have been moulded to meet his 
 deepest sense of need. We mark it in the tender 
 greeting " son," or, as the margin has it, " child " — 
 
52 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. ii. 1-12 
 
 possibly pointing to the man's youth, but more probably 
 an appellation revealing the mingled love and dignity 
 of Jesus, and taking this man into the arms of His 
 tenderness. The palsy may have been the consequence 
 of "fast" living; but, whether it were so or no, Christ 
 saw that in the dreary hours of solitary inaction to which 
 it had condemned the sufferer, remorse had been busy 
 gnawing at his heart, and that pain had done its best 
 work by leading to penitence. Therefore He spoke to 
 the conscience before He touched the bodily ailment, 
 and met the sufferer's deepest and most deeply felt 
 disease first. He goes to the bottom of the malady 
 with His cure. These great words are not only closely 
 adapted to the one case before Him, but contain a 
 general truth, worthy to be pondered by all philan- 
 thropists. It is of little use to cure symptoms unless 
 you cure diseases. The tap-root of all misery is sin; 
 and, until it is grubbed up, hacking at the branches is 
 sad waste of time. Cure sin, and you make the heart 
 a temple and the world a paradise. We Christians 
 should hail all efforts of every sort for making men 
 nobler, happier, better physically, morally, intellectually ; 
 but let us not forget that there is but one effectual cure 
 for the world's misery, and that is wrought by Him who 
 has borne the world's sins. 
 
Less. IV] Christ's Authority to Forgive 53 
 
 III. Note the snarl of the scribes. "Certain of the 
 scribes," says Mark — not being much impressed by their 
 dignity, which, as Luke tells us, was considerable. He 
 says that they were " Pharisees and doctors of the 
 law . . . out of every village of Galilee and Judea and 
 Jerusalem " itself, who had come on a formal errand of 
 investigation. Their tempers would not be improved 
 by the tearing up of the roof, nor sweetened by seeing 
 the "popularity" of this doubtful young Teacher, who 
 showed that He had the secret, which they had not, of 
 winning men's hearts. Nobody came crowding to them, 
 nor hung on their lips. Professional jealousy has often 
 a great deal to do in helping zeal for truth to sniff 
 out heresy. The whispered cavillings are graphically 
 represented. The scribes would not speak out, like 
 men, and call on Jesus to defend His words. If they 
 had been sure of their ground, they should have boldly 
 charged Him with blasphemy ; but perhaps they were 
 half suspicious that He could show good cause for His 
 speech. Perhaps they were afraid to oppose the tide of 
 enthusiasm for Him. So they content themselves with 
 comparing notes among themselves, and wait for Him 
 to entangle Himself a little more in their nets. They 
 affect to despise Him. " This man " is meant for 
 contempt. If He were so poor a creature, why were 
 
54 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. ii. 1-12 
 
 they there, all the way from Jerusalem, some of them ? 
 They overdo their part. The short, snarling sentences 
 of their muttered objections, as given in the Revised 
 Version, may be taken as shared among three speakers, 
 each bringing his quota of bitterness. One says, " Why 
 doth" He "thus speak"? Another curtly answers, 
 " He blasphemeth ; " While a third formally states the 
 great truth on which they rest their indictment. Their 
 principle is impregnable. Forgiveness is a Divine pre- 
 rogative, to be shared by none, to be grasped by none, 
 without, in the act, diminishing God's glory. But it is 
 not enough to have one premise of your syllogism right. 
 Only God forgives sins ; and if this man says that He 
 does, He, no doubt, claims to be, in some sense, God. 
 But whether He " blasphemeth " or no depends on what 
 the scribes do not stay to ask; namely, whether He 
 has the right so to claim : and, if He has, it is they, not 
 He, who are the blasphemers. We need not wonder 
 that they recoiled from the right conclusion, which is 
 the Divinity of Jesus. Their fault was not their jealousy 
 for the Divine honour, but their inattention to Christ's 
 evidence in support of His claims, which inattention had 
 its roots in their moral condition, their self-sufficiency, 
 and absorption in trivialities of externalism. But we 
 have to thank them for clearly discerning and bluntly 
 
Less. IV] Christ's Authority to Forgive 55 
 
 stating what was involved in our Lord's claims, and for 
 thus bringing up the sharp issue — blasphemer, or God 
 manifest in the flesh. 
 
 IV. Note our Lord's answer to the cavils. Mark 
 would have us see something supernatural in the swift- 
 ness of Christ's knowledge of the muttered criticisms. 
 He perceived it " straightway " and " in His Spirit," 
 which is tantamount to saying by Divine discernment, 
 and not by the medium of sense, as we do. His spirit 
 was a mirror, in which looking He saw externals. In 
 the most literal and deepest sense, He does " not judge 
 after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the 
 hearing of His ears." 
 
 The absence from our Lord's answer of any explana- 
 tion that He was only declaring the Divine forgiveness 
 and not Himself exercising a Divine prerogative, shuts 
 us up to the conclusion that He desired to be under- 
 stood as exercising it. Unless His pardon is something 
 quite different from the ministerial announcement of 
 forgiveness, which His servants are empowered to make 
 to penitents, He wilfully led the cavillers into error. 
 His answer starts with a counter-question — another 
 "why" to meet their "why." It then puts into words 
 what they were thinking; namely, that it was easy to 
 assume a power the reality of which could not be tested. 
 
56 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. ii. 1-12 
 
 To say " Thy sins be forgiven," and to say " Take up 
 thy bed," are equally easy. To effect either is equally 
 beyond man's power ; but the one can be verified and 
 the other cannot, and, no doubt, some of the scribes 
 were maliciously saying : " It is all very well to pretend 
 to do what cannot be tested. Let Him come out into 
 daylight, and do a miracle which we can see." He is 
 quite willing to accept the challenge to test His power 
 in the invisible realm of conscience by His power in 
 the visible region. The remarkable construction of the 
 long sentence in verses 10 and 11, which is almost 
 verbally identical in the three Gospels, parenthesis and 
 all, sets the suddenness of the turn from the scribes to 
 the patient before us with dramatic force. Mark that 
 our Lord claims " authority " to forgive, the same word 
 which has been twice in the people's mouths in reference 
 to His teaching and to His sway over demons. It 
 implies not only power, but rightful power, and that 
 authority He wields as " Son of man " and " on earth." 
 This is the first use of that title in Mark. It is Christ's 
 own designation of Himself, never found on other lips 
 except the dying Stephen's. It implies His Messianic 
 office, and points back to Daniel's great prophecy ; but 
 it also asserts His true manhood and His unique relation 
 to humanity, as being Himself its sum and perfection, 
 
Less. IV] Christ's Authority to Forgive 
 
 57 
 
 —not a, but the, Son of man. Now the wonder which 
 He would confirm by His miracle is that such a man- 
 hood, walking on earth, has lodged in it the Divine 
 prerogative. He who is the Son of man must be some- 
 thing more than man, even the Son of God. His power 
 to forgive is both derived and inherent, but, in either 
 aspect, is entirely different from the human office of 
 announcing God's forgiveness. 
 
 For once, Christ seems to work a miracle in response 
 to unbelief, rather than to faith. But the real occasion 
 of it was not the cavils of the scribes, but the faith and 
 need of the man and His friends ; while the silencing 
 of unbelief, and the enlightenment of honest doubt, was 
 but a collateral benefit. 
 
 V. Note the cure and its effect. This is another of 
 the miracles in which no vehicle of the healing power 
 is employed. The word is enough ; but here the word 
 is spoken, not as to the disease, but to the sufferer ; and 
 in his obedience he receives strength to obey. Tell a 
 palsied man to rise and walk ! His disease is that he 
 cannot. But if he believes that Christ has power to 
 heal, he will try to do as he is bid ; and, as he tries, the 
 paralysis steals out of the long-unused limbs. Jesus makes 
 us able to do what He bids us do. The condition 
 of healing is faith, and the test of faith is obedience. 
 
58 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. ii. 1-12 
 
 We do not get strength till we put ourselves into the 
 attitude of obedience. The cure was immediate ; and 
 the cured man, who was " borne of four " into the 
 healing presence, walked away, with his bed under his 
 arm, " before them all." They were ready enough to 
 make way for him then. And what said the wise 
 doctors to it all? We do not hear that any of them 
 were convinced. And what said the people ? They 
 were " amazed," and they " glorified God," and recognised 
 that they had seen something quite new. That was all. 
 Their glorifying God cannot have been very deep-seated, 
 or they would have better learned the lesson of the 
 miracle. Amazement was but a poor result. No 
 emotion is more transient or less fruitful than gaping 
 astonishment ; and that, with a little varnish of acknow- 
 ledgment of God's power, which led to nothing, was 
 all the fruit of Christ's mighty work. Let us hope that 
 the healed man carried his unseen blessing in a faithful 
 and grateful heart, and consecrated his restored strength 
 to the Lord who healed him ! 
 
LESSON V 
 
 CHRIST'S SAD INSIGHT INTO THE FATE 
 OF HIS WORDS 
 
 59 
 
LESSON V 
 
 Christ's Sad Insight into the Fate of His Words 
 
 St. Mark iv. 10-20 
 
 10. "And when He was alone, 
 they that were about Him with 
 the twelve asked of Him the 
 parable. 
 
 11. And He said unto them, 
 Unto you it is given to know 
 the mystery of the kingdom of 
 God : but unto them that are 
 without, all these things are 
 done in parables : 
 
 12. That seeing they may see, 
 and not perceive ; and hearing 
 they may hear, and not under- 
 stand ; lest at any time they 
 should be converted, and their 
 sins should be forgiven them. 
 
 13. And He said unto them, 
 Know ye not this parable ? and 
 how then will ye know all 
 parables ? 
 
 14. The sower soweth the 
 word. 
 
 15. And these are they by 
 the way side, where the word 
 is sown ; but when they have 
 heard, Satan cometh imme- 
 diately, and taketh away the 
 
 word that was sown in their 
 hearts. 
 
 16. And these are they like- 
 wise which are sown on stony 
 ground ; who, when they have 
 heard the word, immediately 
 receive it with gladness ; 
 
 17. And have no root in them- 
 selves, and so endure but for a 
 time : afterward, when afflic- 
 tion or persecution ariseth for 
 the word's sake, immediately 
 they are offended. 
 
 ' ■ 18. And these are they which 
 are sown among thorns; such 
 as hear the word, 
 
 19. And the cares of this 
 world, and the deceitfulness of 
 riches, and the lusts of other 
 things entering in, choke the 
 word, and it becometh unfruitful. 
 
 20. And these are they which 
 are sown on good ground ; such 
 as hear the word, and receive 
 it, and bring forth fruit, some 
 thirtyfold, some sixt} ? , and some 
 an hundred." 
 
 l^vEAN STANLEY and others have pointed out 
 
 -*-^ how the natural features of the land round the 
 
 lake of Gennesaret are reflected in the parable of the 
 
 61 
 
62 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. iv. 10-20 
 
 sower. But we must go deeper than that to find its 
 occasion. It was not because Jesus may have seen a 
 sower in a field which had these three varieties of soil 
 that He spoke, but because He saw the frivolous crowd 
 gathered to hear His words. The sad, grave description 
 of the threefold kinds of vainly-sown ground is the 
 transcript of His clear and sorrowful insight into the 
 real worth of the enthusiasm of the eager listeners on 
 the beach. He was under no illusions about it ; and, 
 in this parable, He seeks to warn His disciples against 
 expecting much from it, and to bring its subjects to a 
 soberer estimate of what His word required of them. 
 The full force and pathos of the parable is felt only 
 when it is regarded as the expression of our Lord's 
 keen consciousness of His wasted words. Our lesson 
 falls into two parts — the explanation of the reasons for 
 His use of parables, and the interpretation of the parable 
 itself. 
 
 I. Christ was the centre of three circles : the outer- 
 most consisting of the fluctuating masses of merely 
 curious hearers j the second, of true but somewhat 
 loosely-attached disciples, whom Mark here calls "they 
 that were about Him ; " and the innermost, the twelve. 
 The two latter appear, in our first verse, as asking 
 farther instruction of "the parables," a phrase which 
 
Less, v] The Fate of His Words 63 
 
 includes both parts of Christ's answer. The statement 
 of His reason for the use of parables is startling. It 
 sounds as if those who needed light most were to get 
 least of it, and as if the parabolic form was deliberately 
 adopted for the express purpose of hiding the truth. 
 No wonder that men have shrunk from such a thought, 
 and tried to soften down the terrible words. Inasmuch 
 as a parable is the presentation of some spiritual truth 
 under the guise of an incident belonging to the material 
 sphere, it follows, from its very nature, that it may either 
 reveal or hide the truth, and that it will do the former 
 to susceptible and the latter to unsusceptible souls. 
 The eye may either dwell upon the coloured glass or 
 on the light that streams through it ; and, as is the case 
 with all revelations of spiritual realities through sensuous 
 mediums, gross and earthly hearts will not rise above 
 the medium, which to them, by their own fault, becomes 
 a medium of obscuration, not of revelation. This double 
 aspect belongs to all revelation, which is both a savour 
 of life unto life and of death unto death. It is most 
 conspicuous in the parable, which careless listeners may 
 take for a mere story, and which those who feel and 
 see more deeply will apprehend in its depth. These 
 twofold effects are certain, and must therefore be em- 
 braced in Christ's purpose ; for we cannot suppose that 
 
64 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. iv. 10-20 
 
 issues of His teaching escaped His foresight; and all 
 must be regarded as part of His design. But may we 
 not draw a distinction between design and desire ? The 
 primary purpose of all revelation is to reveal. If the 
 only intention were to hide, silence would secure that, 
 and the parable were needless. But if the twofold 
 operation is intended, we can understand how mercy 
 and righteous retribution both preside over the use of 
 parables ; and how the thin veil hides that it may reveal ; 
 and how the very obscurity may draw some grosser souls 
 to a longer gaze, and so may lead to a perception of the 
 the truth, which, in its purer form, they are neither 
 worthy nor capable of receiving. No doubt, our Lord 
 here announces a very solemn law, which runs through 
 all the Divine dealings, "To him that hath shall be 
 given; and from him that hath not, shall be taken 
 away even that which he hath." 
 
 II. We turn to the exposition of the parable of the 
 sower, or rather of the fourfold soils in which he sows 
 the seed. A sentence at the beginning disposes of the 
 personality of the sower, which, in Mark's version, does 
 not refer exclusively to Christ, but includes all who 
 carry the word to men. The emblem of seed for the 
 word needs no explanation. The tiny, living nucleus of 
 force, which is thrown broadcast, and must sink under- 
 
Less.v] The Fate of His Words 65 
 
 ground in order to grow, which does grow, and comes 
 to light again in a form which fills the whole field where 
 it is sown, and nourishes life as well as supplies material 
 for another sowing, is the truest symbol of the truth in 
 its working on the spirit. The threefold causes of failure 
 are arranged in progressive order. At every stage of 
 growth there are enemies. The first sort never gets 
 into the ground at all ; the second grows a little, but 
 its greenness soon withers ; the third has longer life, 
 and a yet sadder failure, because a nearer approach to 
 fertility. The types of character represented are un _ 
 receptive carelessness, emotional facility of acceptance, 
 and earthly-mindedness, scotched, but not killed, by the 
 word. The dangers which assault, but too successfully, 
 the seed are the personal activity of Satan, opposition 
 from without, and conflicting desires within. On all the 
 soils the seed has been sown ; for drills are modern 
 inventions ; and sowing broadcast is the only right 
 husbandry in Christ's field with Christ's seed. He is 
 a poor workman, and an unfaithful one, who wants to 
 pick his ground. Sow everywhere. " Thou canst not 
 tell which shall prosper, whether this or that." The 
 character of the soil is not irrevocably fixed; but the 
 trodden path may be broken up to softness, and the 
 stony heart changed, and the soul filled with cares, and 
 
 5 
 
66 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. iv. 10-20 
 
 lusts be cleared, and any soil may become good ground. 
 So the seed is to be flung out broadcast; and prayer 
 for seed and soil will often turn the weeping sower into 
 the joyous reaper. 
 
 The seed sown on the trodden footpath running across 
 the field never gets beyond the surface. It lies there, 
 and has no real contact, nor any chance of growth. It 
 must be in, not on the ground, if its mysterious power 
 is to be put forth. A pebble is as likely to grow as a 
 seed, if both lie side by side, on the surface. Is not 
 this the description of a mournfully large proportion of 
 hearers of God's truth ? It never gets deeper than their 
 ears, or, at the most, effects a shallow lodgment on the 
 surface of their minds. So many feet pass along the 
 path, and beat it into hardness, that the truth has no 
 chance to take root. Habitual indifference to the gospel, 
 masked by an utterly unmeaning and unreal acceptance 
 of it, and by equally habitual decorous attendance on its 
 preaching, is the condition of a dreadfully large propor- 
 tion of church-goers. Their very familiarity with the 
 truth robs it of all penetrating power. They know all 
 about it, as they suppose; and so they listen to it as 
 they would to the clank of a mill-wheel to which they 
 were accustomed, missing its noise if it stops, and liking 
 to be sent to sleep by its hum. Familiar truth often 
 
Less.v] The Fate of His Words 67 
 
 lies " bedridden in the dormitory of the soul, beside 
 exploded errors." 
 
 And what comes of this idle hearing, without accept- 
 ance or obedience ? Truth which is common, and which 
 a man supposes himself to believe, without having ever 
 reflected on it, or let it influence conduct, is sure to die 
 out. If we do not turn our beliefs into practice they 
 will not long be our beliefs. Neglected impressions 
 fade; the seed is only safe when it is buried. There 
 are flocks of hungry, sharp-eyed, quick-flying thieves 
 ready to pounce down on every exposed grain. So Mark 
 uses here again his favourite " straightway " to express 
 the swift disappearance of the seed. As soon as the 
 preacher's voice is silent, or the book closed, the words 
 are forgotten. The impression of a passing keel on a 
 smooth lake is not more evanescent. 
 
 The distinct reference to Satan as the agent in remov- 
 ing the seed is not to be passed by lightly. Christ's 
 words about demons have been emptied of meaning by 
 the allegation that He was only accommodating Himself 
 to the superstition of the times, but no explanation of 
 that sort will do in this case. He surely commits 
 Himself here to the assertion of the existence and 
 agency of Satan; and surely those who profess to 
 receive His words as the truth ought not to make light 
 
68 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. iv. 10-20 
 
 of them, in reference to so solemn and awe-inspiring a 
 revelation. 
 
 The seed gets rather farther on the road to fruit in 
 the second case. A thin surface of mould above a shelf of 
 rock is like a forcing-house in hot countries. The stone 
 keeps the heat and stimulates growth. The very thing 
 that prevents deep rooting facilitates rapid shooting. . 
 The green spikelets will be above ground there long 
 before they show in deeper soil. There would be many 
 such hearers in the " very great multitude " on the shore, 
 who were attracted, they scarcely knew why, and were 
 the more enthusiastic the less they understood the real 
 scope of Christ's teaching. The disciple who pressed 
 forward with his excited and unasked " Master, I will 
 follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest ! " was one of 
 such — well-meaning, perfectly sincere, warmly affected, 
 and completely unreliable. Lightly come is lightly go. 
 When such people forsake their fervent purposes, and 
 turn their backs on what they have been so eagerly 
 pursuing they are quite consistent ; for they are obeying 
 the uppermost impulse in both cases, and, as they were 
 easily drawn to follow, without consideration, they are 
 easily driven back with as little. The first taste of sup- 
 posed good secured their giddy-pated adhesion ; the first 
 taste of trouble ensures their desertion. They are the 
 
Less. V] The Fate of His Words 69 
 
 same men acting in the same fashion at both times. 
 Two things are marked by our Lord as suspicious in 
 such easily-won discipleship — its suddenness and its 
 joyfulness. Feelings w T hich are so easily stirred are 
 superficial. A puff of wind sets a shallow pond in 
 wavelets. Quick maturity means brief life and swift 
 decay, as every revival shows. The more earnestly we 
 believe in the possibility of sudden conversions, the 
 more we should remember this warning, and make sure 
 that, if they are sudden, they shall be thorough, which 
 they may be. The swiftness is not so suspicious if it 
 be not accompanied with the other doubtful characteristic 
 — namely, immediate joy. Joy is the result of true accept- 
 ance of the gospel; but not the first result. Without 
 consciousness of sin and apprehension of judgment there 
 is no conversion. We lay down no rules as to depth 
 or duration of the "godly sorrow" which precedes all 
 well-grounded " joy in the Lord ; " but the Christianity 
 which has taken a flying leap over the valley of humilia- 
 tion will scarcely reach a firm standing on the rock. 
 He who " straightway with joy " receives the word, will 
 straightway, with equal precipitation, cast it away when 
 the difficulties and oppositions which meet all true 
 discipleship begin to develop themselves. Fair-weather 
 crews like these will desert when storms begin to blow. 
 
7 o The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. iv. 10-20 
 
 The third sort of soil brings things still farther on 
 before failure comes. The seed is not only covered and 
 germinating, but has actually begun to be fruitful. The 
 thorns are supposed to have been cut down, but their 
 roots have been left, and they grow faster than the 
 wheat. They take the " goodness " out of the ground, 
 and block out sun and air; and so the stalks, which 
 promised well, begin to get pale and droop, and the 
 half-formed ear comes to nothing, or, as the other version 
 of the parable has it, brings " forth no fruit to perfec- 
 tion." There are two crops righting for the upper hand 
 on the one ground, and the earlier possessor wins. The 
 " struggle for existence " ends with the " survival of the 
 fittest " ; that is, of the worst, to which the natural bent 
 of the desires and inclinations of the unrenewed man is 
 more congenial. The " cares of this world " and the 
 " deceitfulness of riches " are but two sides of one thing. 
 The poor man has cares ; the rich man has the illusions 
 of his wealth. Both men agree in thinking that this 
 world's good is most desirable. The one is anxious 
 because he has not enough of it, or fears to lose what 
 he has ; the other man is full of foolish confidence 
 because he has much. Eager desires after creatural 
 good are common to both ; and, what with the anxiety 
 lest they lose, and the self-satisfaction because they 
 
Less.v] The Fate of His Words 71 
 
 have, and the mouths watering for the world's good, 
 there is no force of will, nor warmth of love, nor clearness 
 of vision, left for better things. That is the history of 
 the fall of many a professing Christian, who never 
 apostatises, and keeps up a reputable appearance of 
 godliness to the end; but the old worldliness, which 
 was cut down for a while, has sprung again in his heart 
 and, by slow degrees, the word is "choked" — a most 
 expressive picture of the silent, gradual dying-out of 
 its power for want of sun and air — and "he" or "it 
 becometh unfruitful," relapsing from a previous condition 
 of fruit-bearing into sterility. No heart can mature two 
 crops. We must choose between God and Mammon — ■ 
 between the word and the world. 
 
 There is nothing fixed or necessary in the faults of 
 these three classes, and they are not so much the 
 characteristics of separate types of men as evils common 
 to all hearers, against which all have to guard. They 
 depend upon the will and affections much more than on 
 anything fixed and not to be got rid of in temperament. 
 So there is no reason why any one of the three should 
 not become " good soil ; " and it is to be noted that the 
 characteristic of that soil is simply that it receives and 
 grows the seed. Any heart that will, can do that ; and 
 that is all that is needed. But to do it, there will have 
 
72 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. iv. 10-20 
 
 to be diligent care, lest we fall into any of the evils 
 pointed at in the preceding parts of the parable, which 
 are ever waiting to entrap us. The true " accepting " 
 of the word requires that we shall not let it lie on the 
 surface of our minds, as in the case of the first ; nor be 
 satisfied with its penetrating a little deeper and striking 
 root in our emotions, like the second, of whom it is said 
 with such profound truth, that they "have no root in 
 themselves," their roots being only in the superficial 
 part of their being, and never going down to the true 
 central self; nor let competing desires grow up un- 
 checked, like the third ; but cherish the " word of the 
 truth of the gospel " in our deepest hearts, guard it 
 against foes, let it rule there, and mould all our conduct 
 in conformity with its blessed principles. The true 
 Christian is he who can truly say, " Thy word have I hid 
 in mine heart." If we do, we shall be fruitful, because 
 it will bear fruit in us. No man is obliged, by tempera- 
 ment or circumstances, to be wayside, or stony, or thorny 
 ground. Wherever a heart opens to receive the gospel, 
 and keeps it fast, there the increase will be realised — not 
 in equal measure in all, but in each according to faith- 
 fulness and diligence. Mark arranges the various yields 
 in ascending scale, as if to teach our hopes and aims a 
 growing largeness, while Matthew orders them in the 
 
Less. V] The Fate of His Words 
 
 73 
 
 opposite fashion, as if to teach that, while the hundred- 
 fold, which is possible for all, is best, the smaller yield 
 is accepted by the great Lord of the harvest, who 
 Himself not only sows the seed, but gives it its vitality, 
 blesses its springing, and rejoices to gather the wheat 
 into His barn. 
 
LESSON VI 
 THE LORD OF DEMONS 
 
LESSON VI 
 
 The Lord of Demons 
 
 St. Mark v. 1-20 
 
 1. " And they came over unto 
 the other side of the sea, into 
 the country of the Gadarenes. 
 
 2. And when He was come 
 out of the ship, immediately 
 there met Him out of the tombs 
 a man with an unclean spirit, 
 
 3. Who had his dwelling 
 among the tombs; and no man 
 could bind him, no, not with 
 chains : 
 
 4. Because that He had been 
 often bound with fetters and 
 chains, and the chains had been 
 plucked asunder by him, and 
 the fetters broken in pieces : 
 neither could any man tame 
 him. 
 
 5. And always, night and 
 day, he was in the mountains, 
 and in the tombs, crying, and 
 cutting himself with stones. 
 
 6. But when he saw Jesus 
 afar off, he ran and worshipped 
 Him. 
 
 7. And cried with a loud 
 voice, and said, What have I 
 to do with Thee, Jesus, thou 
 Son of the most high God ? I 
 adjure Thee by God, that Thou 
 torment me not. 
 
 8. For He said unto him, 
 
 Come out of the man, thou 
 unclean spirit. 
 
 9. And He asked him, What 
 is thy name ? And he answer- 
 ed, saying, My name is Legion ; 
 for we are many. 
 
 10. And he besought Him 
 much that He would not send 
 them away out of the country. 
 
 11. Now there was there 
 nigh unto the mountains a great 
 herd of swine feeding. 
 
 12. And all the devils be- 
 sought him, saying, Send us 
 into the swine, that we may 
 enter into them. 
 
 13. And forthwith Jesus gave 
 them leave. And the unclean 
 spirits went out, and entered 
 into the swine : and the herd 
 ran violently down a steep 
 place into the sea, (they were 
 about two thousand ;) and were 
 choked in the sea. 
 
 14. And they that fed the 
 swine fled, and told it in the 
 city, and in the country. And 
 they went out to see what it 
 was that was done. 
 
 1 5 . And they come to Jesus, 
 I and see him that was possessed 
 I with the devil, and had the 
 
 77 
 
78 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. v. 1-20 
 
 legion, sitting, and clothed, and [ Him that he might be with 
 
 in his right mind : and they 
 were afraid. 
 
 16. And they that saw it told 
 them how it befell to him that 
 was possessed with the devil, 
 and also concerning the swine. 
 
 17. And they began to pray 
 Him to depart out of their 
 
 Him. 
 
 19. Howbeit Jesus suffered 
 him not, but saith unto him, 
 Go home to thy friends, and 
 tell them how great things the 
 Lord hath done for thee, and 
 hath had compassion on thee. 
 
 20. And He departed, and 
 
 coasts. j began to publish in Decapolis 
 
 18. And when He was come 
 into the ship, he that had been 
 possessed with the devil prayed 
 
 how great things Jesus had 
 done for him : and all men did 
 marvel." 
 
 THE awful picture of this demoniac is either painted 
 from life, or it is one of the most wonderful feats 
 of the poetic imagination. Nothing more terrible, vivid, 
 penetrating, and real was ever conceived by the greatest 
 creative genius. If it is not simply a portrait, yEschylus 
 or Dante might own the artist for a brother. We see 
 the quiet landing on the eastern shore, and almost hear 
 the yells that broke the silence as the fierce, demon-ridden 
 man hurried to meet them, perhaps with hostile purpose. 
 The dreadful characteristics of his state are sharply and 
 profoundly signalised. He lives up in the rock-hewn 
 tombs which overhang the beach ; for all which belongs 
 to corruption and death is congenial to the subjects of 
 that dark kingdom of evil. He has superhuman strength, 
 and has known no gentle efforts to reclaim, but only 
 savage attempts to " tame " by force, as if he were a 
 beast. Fetters and manacles have been snapped like 
 
Less. VI] The Lord of Demons 
 
 79 
 
 rushes by him. Restless, sleepless, hating men, he has 
 made the night hideous with his wild shrieks, and fled, 
 swift as the wind, from place to place among the lonely 
 hills. Insensible to pain, and deriving some dreadful 
 satisfaction from his own wounds, he has gashed him- 
 self with splinters of rock, and howled, in a delirium of 
 pain and pleasure, at the sight of his own blood. His 
 sharpened eyesight sees Jesus from afar, and, with 
 the disordered haste and preternatural agility which 
 marked all his movements, he runs towards Him. Such 
 is the introduction to the narrative of the cure. It paints 
 for us not merely a maniac, but a demoniac. He is not 
 a man at war with himself, but a man at war with other 
 beings, who have forced themselves into his house of 
 life. At least, so says Mark, and so said Jesus ; and if 
 the story before us is true, its subsequent incidents 
 compel the acceptance of that explanation. What went 
 into the herd of swine ? 
 
 The narrative of the restoration of the sufferer has a 
 remarkable feature, which may help to mark off its stages. 
 The word " besought " occurs four times in it, and we 
 may group the details round each instance. 
 
 I. The demons beseeching Jesus through the man's 
 voice. He was, in the exact sense of the word, distracted 
 — drawn two ways. For it would seem to have been the 
 
8o The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. v. 1-20 
 
 self in him that ran to Jesus and fell at His feet, as if in 
 some dim hope of rescue ; but it is the demons in him 
 that speak, though the voice be his. They force him to 
 utter their wishes, their terrors, their loathing of Christ, 
 though he says " I " and " me," as if these were his 
 own. That horrible condition of a double, or, as in this 
 case, a manifold personality, speaking through human 
 organs, and overwhelming the proper self, mysterious 
 as it is, is the very essence of the awful misery of the 
 demoniacs. Unless we are resolved* to force meanings 
 of our own on Scripture, I do not see how we can avoid 
 recognising this. What black thoughts, seething with 
 all rebellious agitation, the reluctant lips have to utter ! 
 The self-drawn picture of the demoniac nature is as 
 vivid, and more repellant, than the evangelist's terrible 
 portrait of the outward man. Whatever dumb yearning 
 after Jesus may have been in the oppressed human con- 
 sciousness, his words are a shriek of terror and recoil. 
 The mere presence of Christ lashes the demons into 
 paroxysms ; but, before the man spoke, Christ had 
 spoken His stern command to come forth. He is 
 answered by this howl of fear and hate. Clear recogni- 
 tion of Christ's person is in it, and not difficult to explain, 
 if we believe that others than the sufferer looked through 
 his wild eyes, and spoke in his loud cry. They know 
 
Less, vi] The Lord of Demons 8t 
 
 Him who had conquered their prince long ago ; if the 
 existence of fallen spirits be admitted, their knowledge 
 is no difficulty. The next element in the words is 
 hatred, as fixed as the knowledge is clear. God's 
 supremacy and loftiness, and Christ's nature, are recog- 
 nised, but only the more abhorred. The name of God 
 can be used as a spell to sway Jesus, but it has no 
 power to touch this fierce hatred into submission. "The 
 devils — also believe and tremble." This, then, is a dark 
 possibility, which has become actual for real living 
 beings, that they should know God, and hate as heartily 
 as they know clearly. That is the terminus towards 
 which human spirits may be travelling. Christ's power 
 is recognised too, and His mere presence makes the 
 flock of obscene creatures nested in the man uneasy, 
 like bats in a cave, who flutter against a light. They 
 shrink from him, and shudderingly renounce all con- 
 nection with him, as if their cries would alter facts, or 
 make him relax his grip. The very words of the 
 question prove its folly. " What is there to me and 
 thee ? " implies that there were two parties to the answer ; 
 and the writhings of one of them could not break the 
 bond. To all this is to be added that, the "torment" 
 deprecated was the expulsion from the man, as if there 
 were some grim satisfaction and dreadful alleviation in 
 
 6 
 
82 The Gospel of St. Mar [Chap. v. 1-20 
 
 being there, rather than " in the abyss " — as Luke gives 
 it — which appears to be the alternative. If we put all 
 these things together, we get an awful glimpse into the 
 secrets of that dark realm, which it is better to ponder 
 with awe than flippantly to deny or mock. 
 
 How striking is Christ's unmoved calm in the face of 
 all this fury ! He is always laconic in dealing with 
 demoniacs ; and, no doubt, His tranquil presence helped 
 to calm the man, however it excited the demon. The 
 distinct intention of the question, " What is thy name ? " 
 is to rouse the man's self-consciousness, and make him 
 feel his separate existence, apart from the alien tyranny 
 which had just been using his voice and usurping his 
 personality. He had said " I " and me." Christ meets 
 him with, Who is the " I "? and the very effort to 
 answer would facilitate the deliverance. But for the 
 moment the foreign influence is still too strong, and the 
 answer, than which there is nothing more weird and 
 awful in the whole range of literature, comes. " My name 
 is Legion ; for we are many." Note the momentary 
 gleam of the true self in the first word or two, fading 
 away into the old confusion. He begins with "my," 
 but he drops back to " we." Note the pathetic force of 
 the name. This poor wretch had seen the solid mass 
 of the Roman legion, the instrument by which foreign 
 
Less. VI] The Lord of Demons 83 
 
 tyrants crushed the nations. He felt himself oppressed 
 and conquered by their multitudinous array. The voice 
 of the " legion," has a kind of cruel ring of triumph, 
 as if spoken as much to terrify the victim as to answer 
 the question. 
 
 Again the man's voice speaks, beseeching the direct 
 opposite of what he really would have desired. He 
 was not so much in love with his dreadful tenants as 
 to pray against their expulsion, but their fell power 
 coerces his lips, and he asks for what would be his 
 ruin. That prayer, clean contrary to the man's only 
 hope, is surely the climax of the horror. In a less 
 degree, we also too often deprecate the stroke which 
 delivers, and would fain keep the legion of evils which 
 riot within 
 
 II. The demons beseeching Jesus without disguise. 
 There seems to be intended a distinction between " he 
 besought," in verse 10, and " they besought," in verse 12. 
 Whether we are to suppose that, in the latter case, the 
 man's voice was used or no, the second request was 
 more plainly not his, but theirs. It looks as if, some- 
 how, the command was already beginning to take effect, 
 and " he " and " they " were less closely intertwined, 
 It is easy to ridicule this part of the incident, and as 
 easy to say that it is incredible ; but it is wiser to rem em-- 
 
84 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. v. 1-20 
 
 ber the narrow bounds of our knowledge of the unseen 
 world of being, and to be cautious in asserting that there 
 is nothing beyond the horizon but vacuity. If there be 
 unclean spirits, we know too little about them to say 
 what is possible. Only this is plain — that the difficulty 
 of supposing them to inhabit swine is less, if there be 
 any difference, than of supposing them to inhabit men, 
 since the animal nature, especially of such an animal, 
 would correspond to their impurity, and be open to their 
 driving. The house and the tenant are well matched. 
 But why should the expelled demons seek such an 
 abode ? It would appear that anywhere was better than 
 " the abyss," and that unless they could find some body 
 to enter, thither they must go. It would seem, too, that 
 there was no other land open to them — for the prayer 
 on the man's lips had been not to send them " out of 
 the country," as if that was the only country on earth 
 open to them. That makes for the opinion that 
 demoniacal possession was the dark shadow which 
 attended, for reasons not discoverable by us, the light 
 of Christ's coming, and was limited in time and space 
 by His earthly manifestation. But on such matters there 
 is not ground enough for certainty. Another difficulty 
 has been raised as to Christ's right to destroy property. 
 It was very questionable property, if the owners were 
 
Less. VI] The Lord of Demons 85 
 
 Jews. Jesus owns all things, and has the right and the 
 power to use them as He will; and if the purposes 
 served by the destruction of animal life or property are 
 beneficent and lofty, it leaves no blot on His goodness. 
 He used His miraculous power twice for destruction — 
 once on a fig-tree, once on a herd of swine. In both 
 cases, the good sought was worth the loss. Whether 
 was it better that the herd should live and fatten, or 
 that a man should be delivered, and that he and they 
 who saw should be assured of his deliverance and of 
 Christ's power? "Is not a man much better than a 
 sheep," and much more than a pig ? They are born to 
 be killed, and nobody cries out cruelty. Why should 
 not Christ have sanctioned this slaughter, if it helped to 
 steady the poor man's nerves, or to establish the reality 
 of possession and of his deliverance ? Notice that the 
 drowning of the herd does not appear to have entered 
 into the calculations of the unclean spirits. They desired 
 houses to live in after their expulsion, and for them to 
 plunge the swine into the lake would have defeated their 
 purpose. The stampede was an unexpected effect of the 
 commingling of the demonic with the animal nature, 
 and outwitted the demons. " The devil is an ass." 
 There is a lower depth than the animal nature ; and 
 even swine feel uncomfortable when the demon is 
 
86 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. v. 1-20 
 
 in them, and in their panic rush anywhere to get rid 
 of the incubus, and, before they know, find them- 
 selves struggling in the lake. " Which things are an 
 allegory." 
 
 III. The terrified Gerasenes beseeching Jesus to leave 
 them. They had rather have their swine than their 
 Saviour, and so, though they saw the demoniac sitting, 
 clothed, and in his right mind, at the feet of Jesus, they 
 in turn beseech that He should take Himself away. 
 Fear and selfishness prompted the prayer. The com- 
 munities on the eastern side of the lake were largely 
 Gentile ; and, no doubt, these people knew that they did 
 many worse things than swine-keeping, and may have been 
 afraid that some more of their wealth would have to go 
 the same road as the herd. They did not want instruc- 
 tion, nor feel that they needed a healer. Were their 
 prayers so very unlike the wishes of many of us? Is 
 there nobody nowadays unwilling to let the thought of 
 Christ into his life, because he feels an uneasy suspicion 
 that, if Christ comes, a good deal will have to go ? How 
 many trades and schemes of life really beseech Jesus to 
 go away and leave them in peace ! 
 
 And He goes away. The tragedy of life is that we 
 have the awful power of severing ourselves from His 
 influence. Christ commands unclean spirits, but He 
 
Less, vi] The Lord of Demons 87 
 
 can only plead with hearts. And if we bid Him depart, 
 He is fain to leave us for the time to the indulgence of 
 our foolish and wicked schemes. If any man open, He 
 comes in — oh, how gladly ! but if any man slam the 
 door in His face, He can but tarry without and knock. 
 Sometimes His withdrawing does more than His loudest 
 knocking ; and sometimes they who repelled Him as 
 He stood on the beach call Him back, as He moves 
 away to the boat. It is in the hope that they may, that 
 He goes. 
 
 IV. The restored man's beseeching to abide with Christ. 
 No wonder that the spirit of this man, all tremulous 
 with the conflict, and scarcely able yet to realise his 
 deliverance, clung to Christ, and besought Him to let 
 him continue by His side. Conscious weakness, dread 
 of some recurrence of the inward hell, and grateful love, 
 prompted the prayer. The prayer itself was partly right 
 and partly wrong. Right, in clinging to Jesus as the 
 only refuge from the past misery ; wrong, in clinging to 
 His visible presence as the only way of keeping near 
 Him. Therefore, He who had permitted the wish of 
 the demons, and complied with the entreaties of the 
 terrified mob, did not yield to the prayer, throbbing 
 with love and conscious weakness. Strange that Jesus 
 should put aside a hand that sought to grasp His in 
 
88 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. v. 1-20 
 
 order to be safe ; but His refusal was, as always, the 
 gift of something better, and He ever disappoints the 
 wish in order more truly to satisfy the need. The best 
 defence against the return of the evil spirits was in 
 occupation. It is the " empty " house which invites 
 them back. Nothing was so likely to confirm and 
 steady the convalescent mind as to dwell on the fact of 
 his deliverance. Therefore he is sent to proclaim it 
 among friends who had known his dreadful state, and 
 old associations which would help him to knit his new 
 life to his old, and to treat his misery as a parenthesis. 
 Jesus commanded silence or speech according to the 
 need of the subjects of His miracles. For some, silence 
 was best, to deepen the impression of blessing received ; 
 for others, speech was best, to engage and so to fortify 
 the mind against relapse. 
 
LESSON VII 
 
 CHRIST ANSWERING AND EDUCATING 
 IMPERFECT FAITH 
 
 89 
 
LESSON VII 
 Christ Answering and Educating Imperfect Faith 
 
 St. Mark v. 25-34 
 
 25. " And a certain woman, 
 which had an issue of blood 
 twelve years, 
 
 26. And had suffered many 
 things of many physicians, and 
 had spent all that she had, and 
 was nothing bettered, but 
 rather grew worse. 
 
 27. When she had heard of 
 Jesus, came in the press be- 
 hind, and touched His garment. 
 
 28. For she said, If I may 
 touch but His clothes, I shall 
 be whole. 
 
 29. And straightway the 
 fountain of her blood was dried 
 up ; and she felt in her body 
 that she was healed of that 
 plague. 
 
 30. And Jesus, immediately 
 
 knowing in Himself that virtue 
 had gone out of Him, turned 
 Him about in the press, and 
 said, Who touched My clothes ? 
 
 31. And His disciples said 
 unto Him, Thou seest the 
 multitude thronging Thee, and 
 sayest Thou, Who touched Me ? 
 
 32. And He looked round 
 about to see her that had done 
 this thing. 
 
 33. But the woman fearing 
 and trembling, knowing what 
 was done in her, came and fell 
 down before Him, and told Him 
 all the truth. 
 
 34. And He said unto her, 
 Daughter, thy faith hath made 
 thee whole ; go in peace, and 
 be whole of thy plague." 
 
 JESUS never needs to make haste. Jairus daughter 
 is " lying at the point of death," and her father must 
 have sorely grudged every moment spent on this 
 woman ; but Christ can afford to let the one sufferer 
 die while He heals the other. The gain of one is not 
 the loss of another, for His resources are infinite. So 
 
 9 1 
 
92 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. v. 25-34 
 
 His pause on the road to so pressing a case is eloquent 
 of His calm assurance of power, and of room in His 
 heart for every one. The story gives us three stages, all 
 bearing on the power of an imperfect faith and our 
 Lord's treatment of it. 
 
 I. We have the picture of a genuine though very 
 imperfect faith (verses 25-28). The woman is a poor, 
 shrinking creature, broken down by her long illness, 
 depressed by the failure of all attempts at cure, and 
 crushed by poverty, to which her doctors had brought 
 her. She does not venture to speak to Jesus, but lets 
 Him pass before she can come near Him, and then 
 creeps up in the crowd behind, and puts out her wasted, 
 trembling hand, through some opening wide enough to 
 let these transparent fingers pass, believing that the 
 touch will heal. It was very ignorant faith. She dimly 
 believes that, somehow or other, this miracle-working 
 rabbi will heal her; but the cure is to be a piece of 
 magic, secured by material contact of finger and robe. 
 Christ's knowledge, or will, or pity and love, are not 
 thought of as concerned. She thinks that she can filch 
 a cure from Him, and steal away, leaving Him none the 
 wiser nor the poorer. It is easy to say, " What blank 
 ignorance of Christ's character and way of working ! 
 What gross superstition ! " Yes ; so it is. But is there 
 
Less.vn] Imperfect Faith 
 
 93 
 
 nothing nobler visible in the act? Is there not a 
 hunger for His healing, and an absolute assurance that 
 one finger-tip on His robe is enough ? And is not that 
 the saving element which neutralises all the folly and 
 ignorance ? There may be a real faith in Jesus Christ, 
 though there be a very hazy apprehension of Him, and 
 of His work, and of the manner in which His blessings 
 come. Of course, every defect in clear and true con- 
 ceptions of Him and it reacts injuriously on a man, and 
 robs him of the blessings which flow from believing the 
 truth. But the vitality and power of faith are not 
 measured by the clearness and accuracy of belief. A 
 strong and living faith may be based upon very imper- 
 fect intellectual perception of very partial truth. Feel- 
 ing how short a distance our eyesight travels, and how 
 little, after all our systems, the bulk of men in Christian 
 countries know lucidly of theological truth, and how 
 wide are our differences of opinion, and how soon we 
 all come to the boundaries, it ought to be joy to know 
 that Christ accepts ignorant faith. If we know thus 
 much— that we are sick hopelessly unless He help and 
 heal, and that He will heal— and if our faith builds 
 upon that knowledge, then we shall be made whole. 
 
 The woman's particular error was like that of those 
 who attach importance to sacraments as channels of 
 
94 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. v. 25-34 
 
 grace, and in whose systems the hem of the garment 
 and the touch of the finger are apt to be put in the 
 place of the heart of the wearer of the robe, and the 
 grasp of faith on Himself. There is much in the set 
 of opinion at present which tends to the revival of 
 fullblown sacramentarian doctrines. Puritanism is un- 
 fashionable in these aesthetic and High-Church days. 
 We may regret this ; but the more we are called on to 
 resist the teachings of a system which has the most 
 disastrous effect on the whole conception of the gospel 
 and way of salvation, the more we should be careful to 
 remember that, side by side with it, there may be, and 
 often has been, a true faith, and that the clinging trust 
 with which many of its disciples have held to Jesus, 
 and the passion of love to Him which has animated 
 them, may put to shame the cold and wavering faith of 
 the believers in a purer gospel. 
 
 This woman's faith was selfish. She wanted healing ; 
 she did not want anything more to do with Jesus. She 
 felt little gratitude to Him, for she thought that she 
 had stolen, not that He had given, the blessing. Is not 
 this like what often marks the early stages of our faith ? 
 At first we are often driven rather than drawn to Jesus 
 by the consciousness of need. The soul, absorbed in 
 its own misery, sees from afar a great light, and 
 
Less. VII] Imperfect Faith 95 
 
 stumbles toward it. Its first desire is forgiveness and 
 deliverance. The uppermost motive in the earliest 
 stages of faith is generally self-regard. That is all 
 right. The most " selfish " wish to escape from hell 
 may be the beginning of a trust which lifts the soul to 
 sublimities of self-denial, and makes death itself sweet 
 for His dear love's sake. The starting-point may be 
 " Save, Lord, or I perish ; " but the goal is, " I live ; 
 yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." 
 
 This woman's faith was real, though marred by dis- 
 trust. She has not full reliance on Christ's love. She 
 dare not appeal to Him, but dreads His notice, and 
 lets Him pass before she puts out her hand. Cross- 
 currents agitate her. She doubts, yet believes. She 
 is afraid, and bold. She will fling herself on His power, 
 but she durst not invoke His pity. So is it ever with 
 our faith. It should be unbroken, continuous, undimmed 
 by any speck of doubt. But the actuality is far different. 
 We are often tempted to question the reality of our 
 faith, because we are so sure of the reality of our un- 
 belief and disbelief. But that is wrong. There may 
 be a centre of trust, with a nebulous surrounding of 
 doubt. There may be a germ, infinitesimal, yet living, 
 and destined to become a great tree. Where is it 
 written that faith must be perfect or else false? This 
 
96 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. v. 25-34 
 
 story teaches us the very opposite. And whoever is 
 conscious of the imperfection of a feeble, ignorant, 
 selfish faith, should tighten, not slacken, his grasp of 
 Christ, and be sure that the old prayer is never offered 
 in vain, if offered, as at first, with tears. " Lord, I 
 believe; help thou mine unbelief." 
 
 II. We have Christ's answer to imperfect faith. Mark 
 again uses his favourite " straightway " in describing the 
 cure. The finger on the robe brings immediate con- 
 sciousness of a change ; and the glad sense of health, to 
 which, for twelve long years, she had been a stranger, 
 springs up within her again. As we know, it was not the 
 garment, but the Wearer, who cured ; and the means 
 of contact between the Healer and the sufferer was not 
 the finger, but the faith. There was no real connection 
 between touching His robe and being cured ; but the 
 poor woman thought that there was, and therefore Christ 
 stoops to her childish thought, and allows her to pre- 
 scribe the path by which His gift shall reach her. He 
 does not say to her, " You must understand better, and 
 put away this foolish notion of yours, or else I cannot 
 heal you \ " but He says by His act, " If you think that 
 you are healed through your finger on the garment's 
 hem, then through your finger on the hem you shall be 
 cured. According to thy faith, be it unto thee." 
 
Less, vii] Imperfect Faith 97 
 
 That is always His way. As we shall see, He will 
 not leave the imperfection of faith undisclosed, or unin- 
 structed ; but these lessons come after the answer. It 
 must be rewarded first, and disciplined second. For it 
 cannot be disciplined till it has been rewarded. Our 
 faith largely determines the measure and the manner of 
 Christ's gift. He will put it into the vessel we bring, 
 whatever its form or size. Is a Christian's faith tied to 
 forms and sacraments ? Then the sacraments shall be 
 the vehicle of the blessing. We can cut the water- 
 courses, and Christ will let His grace flow to us in the 
 lines which our faith has dug. The measure of His 
 gifts, too, depends upon our capacity, which again 
 largely depends on our faith. " Open thy mouth wide, 
 and I will fill it." As long as we bring vessels, the oil 
 flows ; and when we stop it stops too. The practical 
 conclusion from such thoughts is not that therefore it 
 does not matter what our faith may be in purity or 
 strength, since it will win a blessing, but that, since the 
 blessings possible are infinite, and the only limit to our 
 possession of them is the width and firmness of our 
 faith, we should labour to enlarge it to the utmost 
 capacity, to refine it to the most perfect purity, to 
 strengthen it to the firmest grasp. The Christian's aim 
 should ever be to cultivate a faith proportioned to the 
 
 7 
 
9 8 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. v. 25-34 
 
 firm faithfulness and boundless grace with which it 
 unites him. Do not let us carry cups no bigger than 
 thimbles to the fountain of the water of life. It will fill 
 the largest vase we can carry. On the other hand, do 
 not let us fear lest our faith is too timid, ignorant, sense- 
 bound, or small, to get a blessing. The tiniest flower 
 has its little dewdrop glistening in its calyx. If we can 
 only get the tip of a finger to the hem of His garment, it 
 is enough. 
 
 III. We have Christ's correction and strengthening 
 of imperfect faith, in the very act of answering it. The 
 woman would fain have stolen away with her new-found 
 blessing ; but Christ forces her to stand out before all 
 the throng, and there, with all their eyes on her, to 
 conquer her diffidence and womanly shame, and to tell 
 all the truth. It strikes one as strangely unlike His 
 ordinary desire to avoid notoriety, and His ordinary 
 tender regard for shrinking weakness. What was the 
 reason ? He did not do thus for His own sake, nor 
 chiefly for the sake of the bystanders, but for the 
 woman's. Observe how the process of dealing with her 
 fits into all the flaws in her faith. She had thought of 
 the healing energy as independent of Christ's knowledge 
 and will. Therefore, His first word shows that He was 
 conscious of the healing power proceeding from Him, 
 
Less. VII] Imperfect Faith 99 
 
 and that it had gone forth by no magic, but by His will 
 answering the mute appeal which He had felt. " Who 
 touched Me ? " Amid all the jostling of the unmannerly 
 crowd that pressed round Him in rude contact, He had 
 felt one touch unlike all the rest, had known what it 
 meant, and, by an act of His own will, moved by His 
 love and pity, had sent forth the power which had healed. 
 The healing granted to imperfect faith became a lesson 
 in faith, when she was taught by it Christ's knowledge 
 of her thin finger on His garment, and the real relation 
 between the Giver and His gift. That question of 
 Christ's carries with it a truth for us. Though all 
 creatures crowd around Him, He distinguishes the 
 needs of each ; and amid all the press of suppliants who 
 wait before Him He feels and answers the touch of the 
 feeblest finger which the faintest faith puts forth. No 
 unit is lost in the crowd to His eye. He has leisure, a 
 heart and a hand for each. 
 
 The woman's faith had been selfish, absorbed in her 
 own need, and caring for no personal relation with 
 Jesus. She was taught that His gifts are all the fruit of 
 His love, and not stolen, but given. If she had slunk 
 out of the crowd, unhindered, and, as she thought, 
 unobserved, she would have had no further connection 
 with Jesus, and her first blessing from Him would have 
 
i oo The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. v. 25-34 
 
 been her last ; but she has to learn His love, that she 
 may trust His love in coming time, and may be led on 
 from blind reliance on His healing power to knowledge 
 and trust in His higher benefits. Her faith was cleansed 
 of any taint of selfishness by being answered ; and thus 
 it became the foundation of self-surrender, and the 
 Healer of the body became the centre and Saviour of 
 the soul. 
 
 Her faith had been timid, shrinking from public 
 acknowledgment. But she would have lost much if 
 she had not been made to tell all. The answer to her 
 faith makes her bold. The cowering invalid, shrinking 
 into herself, becomes in one moment, a confessor, ready 
 to bear the gaze of the crowd and to witness to His 
 power. Christ cures our cowardice by giving us, faint- 
 hearted though we be, the gift that, out of weakness, 
 makes us strong. He wills that we should not hide His 
 mercies in our hearts, and that for our own sake, as well 
 as the sake of others, since the plant grown in the dark 
 becomes pale and sickly, and bears neither bright 
 blossoms nor sweet fruit. 
 
 Finally, the woman's faith attached importance to the 
 touch by her finger, and our Lord's last word to her 
 sets that in its true place, and teaches her that not the 
 touch, but the faith that was in the touch, had been 
 
Less. VII] Imperfect Faith 101 
 
 the medium by which she received His healing power. 
 He confirms by His own authoritative word the furtive 
 blessing, and sends her away, perhaps to see Him no 
 more, but to live in health and thankfulness, cherishing 
 His love in her heart, and perfecting, as we may hope, 
 the very imperfect faith which had been so wondrously 
 answered and educated. 
 
LESSON VTII 
 
 THE MASTER REJECTED: THE SERVANTS 
 SENT FORTH 
 
 103 
 
LESSON VIII 
 The Master Rejected : the Servants Sent Forth 
 
 St. Mark vi. 1-13 
 
 1. "And He went out from 
 thence, and came into His own 
 country ; and His disciples fol- 
 low Him. 
 
 2. And when the Sabbath 
 day was come, He began to 
 teach in the synagogue : and 
 many hearing Him were aston- 
 ished, saying, From whence 
 hath this man these things? 
 and what wisdom is this which 
 is given unto Him, that even 
 such mighty works are wrought 
 by His hands ? 
 
 3. Is not this the carpenter, 
 the Son of Mary, the brother of 
 James, and Joses, and of Juda, 
 and Simon? and are not His 
 sisters here with us ? And they 
 were offended at Him. 
 
 4. But Jesus said unto them, 
 A prophet is not without hon- 
 our, but in his own country, 
 and among his own kin, and in 
 his own house. 
 
 5. And He could there do no 
 mighty work, save that He laid 
 His hands upon a few sick folk, 
 and healed them. 
 
 6. And He marvelled because 
 of their unbelief. And He went 
 round about the villages, teach- 
 ing, 
 
 7. And He called unto Him 
 the twelve, and began to send 
 them forth by two and two ; 
 and gave them power over un- 
 clean spirits; 
 
 8. And commanded them that 
 they should take nothing for 
 their journey, save a staff only ; 
 no scrip, no bread, no money in 
 their purse : 
 
 9. But be shod with sandals ; 
 and not put on two coats. 
 
 10. And He said unto them, 
 In what place soever ye enter 
 into an house, there abide till 
 ye depart from that place. 
 
 11. And whosoever shall not 
 receive you, nor hear you, when 
 ye depart thence, shake off the 
 dust under your feet for a testi- 
 mony against them. Verily I 
 say unto you, It shall be more 
 tolerable for Sodom and Go- 
 morrha in the day of judgment, 
 than for that city. 
 
 12. And they went out, and 
 preached that men should re- 
 pent. 
 
 13. And they cast out many 
 devils, and anointed with oil 
 many that were sick, and healed 
 them," 
 
 105 
 
106 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. vi. 1-13 
 
 A N easy day's journey would carry Jesus and His 
 ■^ *- followers from Capernaum, on the lake-side, to 
 Nazareth, among the hills. What took our Lord back 
 there? When last He taught in the synagogue of 
 Nazareth, His life had been in danger; and now He 
 thrusts Himself into the wolfs den. Why? Mark 
 seems to wish us to observe the connection between this 
 visit and the great group of miracles which he has just 
 recorded ; and possibly the link may be our Lord's hope 
 that the report of these might have preceded Him and 
 prepared His way. In His patient long-suffering He 
 will give His fellow-villagers another chance; and His 
 heart yearns for " His own country," and " His own 
 kin," and "His own house," of whom He speaks so 
 pathetically in the context. 
 
 I. We have here unbelief born of familiarity, and its 
 effects on Christ (verses 1-6). Observe the characteristic 
 avoidance of display, and the regard for existing means of 
 worship shown in His waiting till the Sabbath, and then 
 resorting to the synagogue. He and His hearers would 
 both remember His last appearance in it ; and He and 
 they would both remember many a time before that, 
 when, as a youth, he had sat there. The rage which 
 had exploded on His first sermon has given place to 
 calmer, but not less bitter, opposition. Mark paints the 
 
Less, viii] The Master Rejected 107 
 
 scene, and represents the hearers as discussing Jesus 
 while He spoke. The decorous silence of the synagogue 
 was broken by a hubbub of mutual questions. " Many " 
 spoke at once, and all had the same thing to say. The 
 state of mind revealed is curious. They own Christ's 
 wisdom in His teaching, and the reality of His miracles, 
 of which they had evidently heard ; but the fact that He 
 was one of themselves made them angry that He should 
 have such gifts, and suspicious of where He had got 
 them. They seem to have had the same opinion as 
 Nathanael — that no "good thing" could "come out 
 of Nazareth." Their old companion could not be a 
 prophet; that was certain. But He had wisdom and 
 miraculous power; that was as certain. Where had 
 they come from ? There was only one other source ; 
 and so, with many headshakings, they were preparing 
 to believe that the Jesus whom they had all known, 
 living His quiet life of labour among them, was in 
 league with the devil, rather than believe that He was 
 a messenger from God. 
 
 We note in their questions, first, the glimpse of our 
 Lord's early life. They bring before us the quiet, 
 undistinguished home and the long years of monotonous 
 labour. We owe to Mark alone the notice that Jesus 
 actually wrought at Joseph's handicraft. Apparently the 
 
108 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. vi. 1-13 
 
 latter was dead, and, if so, Jesus would be the head of 
 the house, and probably the " bread-winner." One of 
 the fathers preserves the tradition that He "made 
 plows and yokes, by which He taught the symbols of 
 righteousness and an active life." That good father 
 seems to think it needful to find symbolical meanings, 
 in order to save Christ's dignity; but the prose fact 
 that He toiled at the carpenter's bench, and handled 
 hammer and saw, needs nothing to heighten its value 
 as a sign of His true participation in man's lot, and as 
 the hallowing of manual toil. How many weary arms 
 have grasped their tools with new vigour and content- 
 ment when they thought of Him as their Pattern in 
 their narrow toils ! The Nazarenes' difficulty was but 
 one case of a universal tendency. Nobody finds it easy 
 to believe that some village child, who has grown up 
 beside him, and whose undistinguished outside life he 
 knows, has turned out a genius or a great man. The 
 last people to recognise a prophet are always his kin- 
 dred and his countrymen. " Far-away birds have fine 
 feathers." Men resent it as a kind of slight on them- 
 selves that the other, who was one of them but yesterday, 
 should be so far above them to-day. They are mostly 
 too blind to look below the surface, and they conclude 
 that, because they saw so much of the external life, they 
 
Less. VIII] The Master Rejected 109 
 
 knew the man that lived it. The elders of Nazareth 
 had seen Jesus grow up, and to them He would be " the 
 carpenter's son " still. The more important people had 
 known the humbleness of His home, and could not 
 adjust themselves to look up to Him, instead of down. 
 His equals in age would find their boyish remembrances 
 too strong for accepting Him as a prophet. All of them 
 did just what the most of us would have done, when 
 they took it for certain that the Man whom they had 
 known so well, as they fancied, could not be a prophet, 
 to say nothing of the Messiah so long looked for. It 
 is easy to blame them ; but it is better to learn the 
 warning in their words, and to take care that we are not 
 blind to some true messenger of God just because we 
 have been blessed with close companionship with him. 
 Many a household has had to wait for death to take 
 away the prophet before they knew him. Some of us 
 entertain angels unawares, and have bitterly to feel, 
 when too late, that our eyes were holden that we should 
 not know them. 
 
 These questions bring out strongly what we too often 
 forget in estimating Christ's contemporaries — namely, 
 that His 'presence among them, in the simplicity of His 
 human life, was a positive hindrance to their seeing 
 His true character. We sometimes wish that we had 
 
no The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. vi. 1-13 
 
 seen Him, and heard His voice. We should have 
 found it more difficult to believe in Him if we had. 
 " His flesh " was a " veil " in other sense than the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews means ; for, by reason of men's 
 difficulty in piercing beneath it, it hid from many what 
 it was meant and fitted to reveal. Only eyes purged 
 beheld the glory of " the Word " become flesh when it 
 " dwelt among us " — and even they saw Him more 
 clearly when they saw Him no more. Let us not be 
 too hard on these simple Nazarenes, but recognise our 
 kith and kin. 
 
 The facts on which the Nazarenes grounded their 
 unbelief are really irrefragable proof of Christ's Divinity. 
 Whence had this man His wisdom and mighty works ? 
 Born in that humble home, reared in that secluded 
 village, shut out from the world's culture, buried, as it 
 were, among an exclusive and abhorred people, how 
 came He to tower above all teachers, and to sway the 
 world ? " With whom took He counsel ? and who in- 
 structed Him, and taught Him ? " The character and 
 work of Christ, compared with the circumstances of His 
 origin and environment, are an insoluble riddle, except 
 on one supposition — that He was the word and power 
 of God. 
 
 The effects of this unbelief on our Lord were twofold. 
 
Less, viii] The Master Rejected m 
 
 It limited His power. Matthew says that " He did not 
 many mighty works." Mark goes deeper, and boldly 
 says " He could not." It is mistaken jealousy for 
 Christ's honour to seek to pare down the strong 
 words. The atmosphere of chill unbelief froze the 
 stream. The power was there, but it required for its 
 exercise some measure of moral susceptibility. His 
 miraculous energy followed, in general, the same law 
 as His higher exercise of saving grace does; that 
 is to say, it could not force itself upon unwilling 
 men. Christ " cannot " save a man who does not 
 trust Him. He was hampered in the outflow of His 
 healing power by unsympathetic disparagement and 
 unbelief. Man can thwart God. Faith opens the door, 
 and unbelief shuts it in His face. He "would have 
 gathered," but " ye would not," and therefore He 
 " could not." 
 
 The second effect of unbelief on Him was that He 
 " marvelled." He is twice recorded to have wondered 
 — once at a Gentile's faith, once at His townsmen's 
 unbelief. He wondered at the first because it showed 
 so unusual a susceptibility; at the second, because it 
 showed so unreasonable a blindness. All sin is a 
 wonder to eyes that see into the realities of things and 
 read the end ; for it is all utterly unreasonable (though it 
 
1T2 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. vi. 1-13 
 
 is, alas ! not unaccountable) and suicidal. " Be aston- 
 ished, O ye heavens, at this." Unbelief in Christ is, by 
 Himself, declared to be the very climax of sin, and its 
 most flagrant evidence (John xvi. 9) ; and of all the 
 instances of unbelief which saddened His heart, none 
 struck more chill than that of these Nazarenes. They 
 had known His pure youth ; He might have reckoned 
 on some touch of sympathy and predisposition to 
 welcome Him. His wonder is the measure of His pain 
 as well as of their sin. Nor need we wonder that He 
 wondered ; for He was true man, and all human emotions 
 were His. To one who lives ever in the Father's bosom, 
 what can seem so strange as that men should prefer 
 homeless exposedness and dreary loneliness ? To one 
 whose eyes ever behold unseen realities, what so 
 marvellous as men's blindness ? To one who knew so 
 assuredly His own mission and rich freightage of blessing 
 how strange it must have been that He found so few 
 to accept His gifts ! Jesus knew that bitter wonder 
 which all men who have a truth to proclaim which 
 the world has not learned, have to experience — the 
 amazement at finding it so hard to get any others to 
 see what they see. In His manhood, He shared the 
 fate of all teachers, who have, in their turn, to marvel 
 at men's unbelief, 
 
Less, vill] The Master Rejected 113 
 
 II. The new instrument which Christ fashions to cope 
 with unbelief. What does Jesus do when thus wounded 
 in the house of His friends ? Give way to despondency ? 
 No ; but meekly betakes Himself to yet obscurer fields 
 of service, and sends out the twelve to prepare His way, 
 as if He thought that they might have success where He 
 would fail. What a lesson for people who are always 
 hankering after conspicuous " spheres," and lamenting 
 that their gifts are wasted in some obscure corner, is that 
 picture of Jesus, repulsed from Nazareth, patiently 
 turning to the villages ! The very summary account of 
 the trial mission of the twelve here given presents only 
 the salient points of the charge to them, and in its 
 condensation makes these the more emphatic. Note the 
 interesting statement that ihey were sent out two-and- 
 two. The other evangelists do not tell us this, but their 
 lists of the apostles are arranged in pairs. Mark's list is 
 not so arranged, but he supplies the reason for the 
 arrangement, which he does not follow ; and the other 
 Gospels, by their arrangement, confirm his statement, 
 which they do not give. Two-and-two is a wise rule for 
 all Christian workers. It checks individual peculiarities 
 and self-will, helps to keep off faults, wholesomely 
 stimulates, strengthens faith by giving another to hear it 
 and to speak it, brings companionship, and admits of 
 
1 1 4 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. vi. 1-13 
 
 division of labour. One-and-one are more than twice 
 
 one. 
 
 The first point is the gift of power. Unclean spirits 
 are specified, but the subsequent verses show that 
 miracle-working power in its other forms was included. 
 We may call that Christ's greatest miracle. That He 
 could, by His mere will, endow a dozen men with such 
 power, is more, if degree come into view at all, than that 
 He Himself should exercise it. But there is a lesson in 
 the fact for all ages — even those in which miracles have 
 ceased. Christ gives before He commands, and sends 
 no man into the field without filling his basket with 
 seed-corn. His gifts assimilate the receiver to Himself, 
 and only in the measure in which His servants possess 
 the power which is like His own, and drawn from Him, 
 can they proclaim His coming, or prepare hearts for it. 
 The second step is their equipment. The special 
 commands here given were repealed by Jesus when He 
 gave His last commands. In their letter they apply only 
 to that one journey, but in their spirit they are of 
 universal and permanent obligation. The twelve were 
 to travel light. They might carry a staff to help them 
 along, and wear sandals to save their feet on rough roads ; 
 but that was to be all. Food, luggage, and money, the 
 three requisites of a traveller, were to be " conspicuous 
 
Less. VIII] The Master Rejected 115 
 
 by their absence." That was repealed afterwards, and 
 instructions given of an opposite character, because, after 
 His ascension, the Church was to live more and more by 
 ordinary means ; but in this journey they were to learn 
 to trust Him without means, that afterwards they might 
 trust Him in the means. He showed them the purpose 
 of these restrictions in the act of abrogating them. 
 " When I sent you forth without purse . . . lacked ye 
 anything ? " But the spirit remains unabrogated, and 
 the minimum of outward provision is likeliest to call out 
 the maximum of faith. We are more in danger from 
 having too much baggage than from too little. And the 
 one indispensable requirement is that, whatever the 
 quantity, it should hinder neither our march nor our 
 trust in Him who alone is wealth and food. 
 
 Next comes the disposition of the messengers. It is 
 not to be self-indulgent. They are not to change 
 quarters for the sake of greater comfort. They have not 
 gone out to make a pleasure tour, but to preach, and so 
 are to stay where they are welcomed, and to make the 
 best of it. Delicate regard for kindly hospitality, if 
 offered by ever so poor a house, and scrupulous abstin- 
 ence from whatever might suggest interested motives, 
 must mark the true servant. That rule is not out of 
 date. If ever a herald of Christ falls under suspicion of 
 
1 16 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. vi. 1-13 
 
 caring more about life's comforts than about his work, 
 good-bye to his usefulness. If ever he does so care, 
 whether he be suspected of it or no, spiritual power will 
 ebb from him. 
 
 The next step is the messengers' demeanour to the 
 rejectors of their message. Shaking the dust off the 
 sandal is an emblem of solemn renunciation of participa- 
 tion, and perhaps of disclaimer of responsibility. It 
 meant certainly, " We have no more to do with you," 
 and possibly, " our blood be on your own heads." 
 This journey of the twelve was meant to be of short 
 duration, and to cover much ground, and therefore no 
 time was to be spent unnecessarily. Their message was 
 brief, and as well told quickly as slowly. The whole 
 conditions of work now are different. Sometimes, 
 perhaps, a Christian is warranted in solemnly declaring 
 to those who receive not his message, that he will have 
 no more to say to them. That may do more than all 
 his other words. But such cases are rare ; and the rule 
 that it is safest to follow is rather that of love, which 
 despairs of none, and, though often repelled, returns 
 with pleading, and, if it have told often in vain, now 
 tells with tears, the story of the love that never abandons 
 the most obstinate. 
 
 Such were the prominent points of this first Christian 
 
Less, vili] The Master Rejected 117 
 
 mission. They who carry Christ's banner in the world 
 must be possessed of power, His gift, must be lightly 
 weighted, must care less for comfort than for service, 
 must solemnly warn of the consequences of rejecting the 
 message ; and they will not fail to cast out devils, and to 
 heal many that are sick. 
 
LESSON IX 
 CHRIST'S CROSS, AND OURS 
 
 119 
 
LESSON IX 
 Christ's Cross, and Ours 
 
 St. Mark viii. 27-ix. 1 
 
 27. "And Jesus went out, 
 and His disciples, into the towns 
 of Caesarea Philippi : and by the 
 way He asked His disciples, 
 saying unto them, Whom do 
 men say that I am ? 
 
 28. And they answered, John 
 the Baptist: but some say, Elias; 
 and others, One of the prophets. 
 
 29. And He saith unto them, 
 But whom say ye that I am ? 
 And Peter answereth and saith 
 unto Him, Thou art the Christ. 
 
 30. And He charged them 
 that they should tell no man of 
 of Him. 
 
 31. And He began to teach 
 them, that the Son of man must 
 suffer many things, and be re- 
 jected of the elders, and of the 
 chief priests, and scribes, and 
 be killed, and after three days 
 rise again. 
 
 32. And He spake that say- 
 ing openly. And Peter took 
 Him, and began to rebuke Him. 
 
 33. But when He had turned 
 about and looked on His dis- 
 ciples, He rebuked Peter, say- 
 ing, Get thee behind me, Satan: 
 for thou savourest not the things 
 that be of God, but the things 
 that be of men. 
 
 34. And when He had called 
 the people unto Him with His 
 disciples also, He said unto 
 them, Whosoever will come 
 after Me, let him deny himself, 
 and take up his cross, and fol- 
 low Me. 
 
 35. For whosoever will save 
 his life shall lose it ; but who- 
 soever shall lose his life for My 
 sake and the gospel's, the same 
 shall save it. 
 
 36. For what shall it profit a 
 man, if he shall gain the whole 
 world, and lose his own soul ? 
 
 37. Orwhat shall a man give 
 in exchange for his soul ? 
 
 38. Whosoever therefore 
 shall be ashamed of Me and of 
 My words in this adulterous 
 and sinful generation ; of him 
 also shall the Son of man be 
 ashamed, when He cometh in 
 the glory of His Father with 
 the holy angels. 
 
 1. And He said unto them, 
 Verily I say unto you, That 
 there be some of them that 
 stand here, which shall not taste 
 of death, till they have seen the 
 kingdom of God come with 
 power." 
 
 121 
 
i22 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. viii. 27-ix. 1 
 
 /^VUR Lord led His disciples away from familiar 
 ^S ground into the comparative seclusion of the 
 country round Caesarea Philippi, in order to tell them 
 plainly of His death. He knew how terrible the 
 announcement would be, and He desired to make it in 
 some quiet spot, where there would be collectedness and 
 leisure to let it sink into their minds. His consummate 
 wisdom and perfect tenderness are equally and beauti- 
 fully shown in His manner of disclosing the truth which 
 would try their faithfulness and fortitude. From the 
 beginning He had given hints, gradually increasing in 
 clearness ; and now the time had come for full disclosure. 
 What a journey that was ! He, with the heavy secret 
 filling His thoughts ; they, dimly aware of something 
 absorbing Him, in which they had no part. And, at 
 last, " in the way," as if moved by some sudden impulse 
 — like that which we all know, leading us to speak out 
 abruptly what we have long waited to say — He gives 
 them a share in the burden of His thought. But, even 
 then, note how He leads up to it by degrees. Our 
 lesson has the announcement of the Cross as its centre, 
 prepared for, on the one hand, by a question, and 
 followed, on the other, by a warning that His followers 
 must travel the same road. 
 
 I. Note the preparation for the announcement of the 
 
Less. IX] Christ's Cross, and Ours 123 
 
 Cross (verses 27-30). Why did Christ begin by asking 
 about the popular judgment of His personality ? Appa- 
 rently in order to bring clearly home to the disciples 
 that, as far as the masses were concerned, His work and 
 theirs had failed, and had, for net result, total miscon- 
 ception. Who that had the faintest glimmer of what 
 He was could suppose that the stern, fiery spirits of 
 Elijah or John had come to life again in Him? The 
 second question, " But whom say ye that 1 am ? " with its 
 sharp transition, is meant to force home the conviction 
 of the gulf between His disciples and the whole nation. 
 He would have them feel their isolation, and face the 
 fact that they stood alone in their faith ; and he would 
 test them whether, knowing that they did stand alone, 
 they had courage and tenacity to reassert it. The 
 unpopularity of a belief drives away cowards, and draws 
 the brave and true. If none else believed in Him, that 
 was an additional reason for loving hearts cleaving to 
 Him ; and those only truly know and love Him who are 
 ready to stand by Him, if they stand alone — Athanasius 
 contra mundum. Mark, too, that this is the all-important 
 question for every man. Our own individual " thought " 
 of Him determines our whole worth and fate. 
 
 Mark gives Peter's confession in a lower key, as it 
 were, than Matthew does, omitting the full-toned clause, 
 
124 'J'he Gospel of St. Mark [chap. viii. 27-ix. 1 
 
 "The Son of the living God." This is not because 
 Mark has a lower conception than his brother evangelist, 
 for the first words of this Gospel announce that it is 
 " the Gospel of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God." 
 And, as he has identified the two conceptions at the 
 outset, he must, in all fairness, be supposed to consider 
 that the one implies the other, and to include both here. 
 But possibly there is truth in the observation that the 
 omission is one of a number of instances in which this 
 Gospel passes lightly over the exalted side of Christ's 
 nature, in accordance with its purpose of setting Him 
 forth rather as the servant than as the Lord. It is not 
 meant that that exalted side was absent from Mark's 
 thoughts, but that his design led him rather to empha- 
 size the other. Matthew's is the Gospel of the King ; 
 Mark's, of the Worker. 
 
 The omission of Christ's eulogium on Peter has 
 often been pointed out as an interesting corroboration 
 of the tradition that he was Mark's source ; and so that 
 the failure to record the praise, and the carefulness to 
 tell the subsequent rebuke, reveal the humble-hearted 
 "elder" into whom the self-confident young man had 
 grown. Flesh delights to recall praise ; faith and self- 
 knowledge find more profit in remembering errors for- 
 given and rebukes deserved, and in their severity, most 
 
Less, ix] Christ's Cross, and Ours 125 
 
 loving. How did these questions and their answers 
 serve as introduction to the announcement of the Cross ? 
 In several ways. They brought clearly before the 
 disciples the hard fact of Christ's rejection by the popular 
 voice, and defined their position as sharply antagonistic. 
 If His claims were thus unanimously tossed aside, a 
 collision must come. A rejected Messiah could not fail 
 to be, sooner or later, a slain Messiah. Then clear, firm 
 faith in His Messiahship was needed, to enable them to 
 stand the ordeal to which the announcement, and, still 
 more, its fulfilment, would subject them. A suffering 
 Messiah might be a rude shock to all their dreams ; but 
 a suffering Jesus, who was not Messiah, would have 
 been the end of their discipleship. Again, the signifi- 
 cance and worth of the Cross could only be understood 
 when seen in the light of that great confession. Even 
 as now, we must first believe that He who died was the 
 Son of the living God before we can see what that death 
 was and did. An imperfect conception of who Jesus is 
 takes the meaning and the power out of all His life, but, 
 most of all, impoverishes the infinite preciousness of His 
 death. 
 
 The charge of silence contrasts singularly with the 
 former employment of the apostles as heralds of Jesus. 
 The silence was partly punitive and partly prudential. 
 
126 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. viii. 27-ix. i 
 
 It was punitive, inasmuch as the people had already had 
 abundantly the proclamation of His gospel, and had 
 cast it away. It was in accordance with the solemn law 
 of God's retributive justice that offers rejected should 
 be withdrawn ; and from them that had not, even that 
 which they had should be taken away. Christ never 
 bids His servants be silent until men have refused to 
 hear their speech. The silence enjoined was also pru- 
 dential, in order to avoid hastening on the inevitable 
 collision ; not because Christ desired escape, but because 
 He would first fulfil His day. 
 
 II. We have here the announcement of the Cross 
 (verses 31-33). There had been many hints before 
 this ; for Christ saw the end from the beginning, however 
 far back in the depths of time or eternity we place that 
 beginning. We do not sufficiently realise that His 
 death was before Him, all through His days, as the 
 great purpose for which He had come. If the anticipa- 
 tion of sorrow is the multiplication of sorrow, even when 
 there is hope of escaping it, how much must His have 
 been multiplied, and a bitterness been diffused through 
 all His life, by that foresight, so clear and constant, of 
 the certain end ! How much more gracious and won- 
 derful His quick sympathy, His patient self-forgetfulness, 
 His unwearied toil, show against that dark background 1 
 
Less. IX] Christ's Cross, and Ours 127 
 
 Mark here the solemn necessity. Why " must " He 
 suffer? Not because of the enmity of the three sets of 
 rejecters. He recognises no necessity which is imposed 
 by hostile human power. The cords which bind this 
 sacrifice to the horns of the altar were not spun by men's 
 hands. The great " must " which ruled His life was a 
 cable of two strands — obedience to the Father, and 
 love to men. These haled Him to the Cross, and 
 fastened Him there. He would save ; therefore He 
 "must" die. The same "must" stretches beyond 
 death. Resurrection is a part of the whole work ; and, 
 without it, the death has no power, but falls into the 
 undistinguished mass. Bewildered as the disciples were, 
 that assurance of resurrection had little present force, 
 but even then would faintly hint at some comfort and 
 blessed mystery. What was to them a nebulous hope is 
 to us a sun of certitude and cheer. " Christ that died " 
 is no gospel until you go on to say, " Yea, rather, that is 
 risen again." 
 
 Peter's rash " rebuke," like most of his appearances in 
 the gospel, is strangely compounded of warm-hearted, 
 impulsive love and presumptuous self-confidence. No 
 doubt, the praise which he had just received had turned 
 his head, not very steady in these early days at its best, 
 and the dignity which had been promised him would 
 
T28 The Gospel of St. Mark L Cba P- viii - 27-ix. 1 
 
 seem to him to be sadly overclouded by the prospect 
 opened in Christ's forecast. But he was not thinking 
 of himself; and when he said, "This shall not be unto 
 Thee," probably he meant to suggest that they would all 
 draw the sword to defend their Master. Mark's use of 
 the word "rebuke," which is also Matthew's, seems to 
 imply that he found fault with Christ. For what ? 
 Probably for not trusting to his followers' arms, or for 
 letting himself become a victim to the " must " which 
 Peter thought of as depending only on the power of the 
 ecclesiastics in Jerusalem. He blames Christ for not 
 hoisting the flag of a revolt. 
 
 This blind love was the nearest approach to sympathy 
 which Christ received ; and it was repugnant to Him, so 
 as to draw the sharpest words from Him that He ever 
 spoke to a loving heart. In his eagerness, Peter had 
 taken Jesus on one side to whisper his suggestion ; but 
 Christ will have them all hear His rejection of the counsel. 
 Therefore He " turned about," facing the rest of the 
 group, and by the act putting Peter behind Him, and 
 speaks aloud the stern words. Not thus was He wont 
 to repel ignorant love, nor to tell out faults in public ; 
 but the act witnessed to the recoil of His fixed spirit 
 from the temptation which addressed His natural human 
 shrinking from death, as well as to His desire that, once 
 
Less. IX] Christ's Cross, and Ours 129 
 
 for all, every dream of resistance by force should be 
 shattered. He hears in Peter's voice the tone of that 
 other voice, which, in the wilderness, had suggested the 
 same temptation to escape the cross and win the crown 
 by worshipping the devil ; and he puts the meaning of 
 His instinctive gesture into the same words in which he 
 had rejected that earlier seducing suggestion. Jesus was 
 a man, and the things " that be of men " found a 
 response in His sinless nature. It shrank from pain and 
 the Cross with innocent and inevitable shrinking. Does 
 not the very severity of the rebuke testify to its having 
 set some chords vibrating in His soul? Note that it 
 may be the work of " Satan " to appeal to the things 
 " that be of men," however innocent, if by so doing 
 obedience to God's will is hindered. Note, too, that 
 Simon may be " Peter " at one moment, and " Satan " at 
 the next. 
 
 III. We have here the announcement of the Cross 
 as the law for the disciples too (verses 34-38). Christ's 
 followers must follow, but men can choose whether they 
 will be His followers or not. So the " must " is changed 
 into " let him," and the " if any man will " is put in the 
 forefront. The conditions are fixed, but the choice of 
 accepting the position is free. A wider circle hears the 
 terms of discipleship than heard the announcement of 
 
 9 
 
T30 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. viii.27-ix. i 
 
 Christ's own sufferings. The terms are for all and for 
 us. The law is stated in verse 34, and then a series of 
 reasons for it, and motives for accepting it, follow. 
 
 The law for every disciple is self-denial and taking up 
 his cross. How present His own Cross must have been 
 to Christ's vision, since the thought is introduced here, 
 though He had not spoken of it, in foretelling His own 
 death ! It is not Christ's Cross that we have to take up. 
 His sufferings stand alone, incapable of repetition and 
 needing none ; but each has his own. To slay the life 
 of self is always pain, and there is no discipleship with- 
 out crucifying " the old man." Taking up my cross 
 does not merely mean accepting meekly God-sent or 
 men-inflicted sorrows, but persistently carrying on the 
 special form of self-denial which my special type of 
 character requires. It will include these other meanings, 
 but it goes deeper than they. Such self-immolation is 
 the same thing as following Christ ; for, with all the 
 infinite difference between His Cross and ours, they are 
 both crosses, and on the one hand there is no real 
 discipleship without self-denial, and on the other there 
 is no full self-denial without discipleship. 
 
 The first of the reasons for the law, in verse 35, is 
 a paradox, and a truth with two sides. To wish to save 
 is to lose life ; to lose it for Christ's sake is to save it. 
 
Less. IX] Christ's Cross, and Ours 131 
 
 Both are true, even without taking the future into 
 account. The life of self is death; the death of the 
 lower self is the life of the true self. The man who 
 lives absorbed in the miserable care for his own well- 
 being is dead to all which makes life noble, sweet, and 
 real. Flagrant vice is not needed to kill the real life. 
 Clean, respectable selfishness does the work effectually. 
 The deadly gas is invisible, and has no smell. But 
 while all selfishness is fatal, it is self-surrender and 
 sacrifice, "for My sake and the gospel's," which is life- 
 giving. Heroism, generous self-devotion without love 
 to Christ, is noble, but falls short of discipleship, and 
 may even aggravate the sin of the man who exhibits it, 
 because it shows what treasures he could lay at Christ's 
 feet, if he would. It is only self-denial made sweet by 
 reference to Him that leads to life. Who is this who 
 thus demands that He should be the motive for which 
 men shall hate their own lives, and calmly assumes 
 power to reward such sacrifice with a better life ? The 
 paradox is true, if we include a reference to the future, 
 which is usually taken to be its only meaning ; but on 
 that familiar thought we need not enlarge. 
 
 The "for" of verse 36 seems to refer back to the law 
 in verse 34, and the verse enforces the command by an 
 appeal to self-interest, which, in the highest sense of the 
 
132 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. viii. 27-ix. 1 
 
 word, dictates self-sacrifice. The men who live for self 
 are dead, as Christ has been saying. Suppose their 
 self-living had been " successful " to the highest point, 
 what would be the good of all the world to a dead man ? 
 " Shrouds have no pockets." He makes a poor bargain 
 who sells his soul for the world. A man gets rich, and 
 in the process has dropped generous impulses, affections, 
 interest in noble things, perhaps principle and religion. 
 He has shrivelled and hardened into a mere fragment 
 of himself; and so, when the success comes, he cannot 
 much enjoy it, and was happier, poor and sympathetic, 
 and enthusiastic and generous, than he is now, rich and 
 dwindled. He who loses himself in gaining the world 
 does not win it, but is mastered by it. This motive, 
 too, like the preceding, has a double application — to 
 the facts of life here, when they are seen in their deepest 
 reality, and to the solemn future. 
 
 To that future our Lord passes, as His last reason for 
 the command and motive for obeying it, in verse 38. 
 One great hindrance to out-and-out discipleship is fear 
 of what the world will say. Hence come compromises 
 and weak compliance on the part of disciples too timid 
 to stand alone, or too sensitive to face a sarcasm and a 
 smile. A wholesome contempt for the world's cackle 
 is needed for following Christ. The geese on the 
 
Less. IX] Christ's Cross, and Ours 133 
 
 common hiss at the passer-by who goes steadily through 
 the flock. How grave and awful is that irony, if we may 
 call it so, which casts the retribution in the mould of 
 the sin! The judge shall be "ashamed" of such 
 unworthy disciples — shall blush to own such as His. 
 May we venture to put stress on the fact that He does 
 not say that He will reject them ? They who were 
 ashamed of Him were secret and imperfect disciples. 
 Perhaps, though He be ashamed of them, though they 
 have brought Him no credit, He will not wholly turn 
 from them. 
 
 How marvellous the transition from the prediction of 
 the Cross to this of the Throne ! The Son of man must 
 suffer many things, and the same Son of man shall come, 
 attended by hosts of spirits who own Him for their 
 King, and surrounded by the uncreated blaze of the 
 glory of God, in which He sits throned as His native 
 abode. We do not know Jesus unless we know Him 
 as the crucified Sacrifice for the world's sins, and as the 
 exalted Judge of the world's deeds. 
 
 He adds a weighty word of enigmatical meaning, lest 
 any should think that He was speaking only of some 
 far-off judgment. The destruction of Jerusalem seems 
 to be the event intended, which was, in fact, the begin- 
 ning of retribution for Israel, and the starting-point of 
 
134 The Gospel of St. Mark LChap. viii. 27-ix. 1 
 
 a more conspicuous manifestation of the kingdom of 
 God. It was, therefore, a kind of rehearsal, or picture 
 in little, of that coming and ultimate great day of the 
 Lord, and was meant to be a " sign " that it should 
 surely come. 
 
LESSON X 
 RECEIVING AND FORBIDDING 
 
 »35 
 
LESSON X 
 Receiving and Forbidding 
 
 St. Mark ix. 33-42 
 
 33. " And He came to Caper- 
 naum : and being in the house 
 He asked them, What was it 
 that ye disputed among your- 
 selves by the way? 
 
 34. But they held their peace : 
 for by the way they had dis- 
 puted among themselves who 
 should be the greatest. 
 
 35. And He sat down, and 
 called the twelve, and saith 
 unto them, If any man desire 
 to be first, the same shall be 
 last of all, and servant of all. 
 
 36. And He took a child, and 
 set him in the midst of them : 
 and when He had taken him in 
 His arms, He said unto them, 
 
 37. Whosoever shall receive 
 one of such children* in My 
 name, receiveth Me : and who- 
 soever shall receive Me, re- 
 ceiveth not Me, but Him that 
 sent Me. 
 
 38. And John answered Him, 
 saying, Master, we saw one 
 casting-out devils in Thy name, 
 and he followeth not us: and 
 we forbad him, because he 
 followeth not us. 
 
 39. But Jesus said, Forbid 
 him not : for there is no man 
 which shall do a miracle in My 
 name, that can lightly speak 
 evil of Me. 
 
 40. For he that is not against 
 us is on our part. 
 
 41. For whosoever shall give 
 you a cup of water to drink in 
 My name, because ye belong to 
 Christ, verily I say unto you, 
 he shall not lose his reward. 
 
 42. And whosoever shall 
 offend one of these little ones 
 that believe in Me, it is better 
 for him that a millstone were 
 hanged about his neck, and he 
 were cast into the sea." 
 
 SURELY the disciples might have found something 
 better to talk about on the road from C^esarea, 
 where they had heard from Jesus of His sufferings, 
 
 i37 
 
138 The Gospel of St. Mark [chap. ix. 33-42 
 
 than this miserable wrangle about rank ! Singularly 
 enough, each announcement of the Cross seems to have 
 provoked something of the sort. Probably they under- 
 stood little of His meaning, but hazily thought that 
 the crisis was at hand when He should establish the 
 kingdom ; and so their ambition, rather than their 
 affection, was stirred. Perhaps, too, the dignity bestowed 
 on Peter after his confession, and the favour shown to 
 the three witnesses of the transfiguration, may have 
 created jealousy. Matthew makes the quarrel to have 
 been about future precedence; Mark, about present. 
 The one was striven for with a view to the other. How 
 chill it must have struck on Christ's heart, that those 
 who loved Him best cared so much more for their own 
 petty superiority than for His sorrows ! 
 
 I. Note the law of service as the true greatness 
 (verses 33-35). " When He was in the house, He asked 
 them." He had let them talk as they would on the 
 road, walking alone in front, and they keeping, as they 
 thought, out of ear-shot ; but, when at rest together 
 in the house (perhaps Peter's) where He lived in 
 Capernaum, He lets them see, by the question, and 
 still more by the following teaching, that He knew what 
 He asked, and needed no answer. The tongues that 
 had been so loud on the road were dumb in the house 
 
Less. X] Receiving and Forbidding 139 
 
 — silenced by conscience. His servants still do and say 
 many things on the road which they would not do if 
 they saw Him close beside them, and sometimes fancy 
 that these escape Him. But when they are " in the 
 house " with Him, they will find that He knew all that 
 was going on ; and when He asks the account of it, 
 they, too, will be speechless. " A thing which does not 
 appear wrong by itself shows its true character when 
 brought to the judgment of God and the knowledge of 
 Jesus Christ " (Bengel). 
 
 Christ deals with the fault with much solemnity, 
 seating Himself, as teacher and superior, and summoning 
 the whole twelve to hear. We do not enter on the 
 difficult question of the relation of Mark's report of our 
 Lord's words to those of the other evangelists, but rather 
 try to bring out the significance of their form and 
 connection here. Note, then, that here we have not 
 so much the nature of true greatness as the road to it. 
 " If any man would be first," he is to be least and 
 servant, and thereby he will reach his aim. Of course, 
 that involves the conception of the nature of true 
 greatness as service, but still the distinction is to be 
 kept in view. Further, " last of all " is not the same 
 as " servant of all." The one expresses humility ; the 
 other, ministry. An indolent humility, so very humble 
 
140 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. ix. 33-42 
 
 that it does nothing for others, and a service which is 
 not humble, are equally incomplete, and neither leads 
 to nor is the greatness at which alone a Christian ought 
 to aim. There are two paradoxes here. The lowest 
 is the highest — the servant is the chief; and they may 
 be turned round with equal truth — the highest is the 
 lowest, and the chief is the servant. The former tell 
 us how things really are, and what they look like, when 
 seen from the centre by His eye. The latter prescribe 
 the duties and responsibilities of high position. In 
 fact and truth, to sink is the way to rise, and to serve is 
 the way to rule — only the rise and the rule are of 
 another sort than content worldly ambition, and the 
 Christian must rectify his notions of what loftiness and 
 greatness are. On the other hand, distinguishing gifts 
 of mind, heart, leisure, position, possessions, or anything 
 else, are given us for others, and bind us to serve. 
 Both things follow from the nature of Christ's kingdom, 
 which is a kingdom of love ; for in love the vulgar 
 distinctions of higher and lower are abolished, and 
 service is delight. This is no mere pretty sentiment, 
 but a law which grips hard and cuts deep. Christ's 
 servants have not learned it yet, and the world heeds 
 it not ; but, till it govern all human society, and cut 
 up ambition, domination, and pride of place by the 
 
Less, x] Receiving and Forbidding 141 
 
 roots, society will groan under ills which increase with 
 the increase of wealth and culture in the hands of a 
 selfish few. 
 
 II. Note the exhibition of the law in a life. Children 
 are quick at finding out who loves them, and there 
 would always be some hovering near for a smile from 
 Christ. With what eyes of innocent wonder the child 
 would look up at Him, as He gently set him there, in 
 the open space in front of Himself! Mark does not 
 record any accompanying words, and none were needed. 
 The unconsciousness of rank, the spontaneous acceptance 
 of inferiority, the absence of claims to consideration and 
 respect, which naturally belong to childhood, as it ought 
 to be, and give it winningness and grace, are the marks 
 of a true disciple, and are the more winning in such 
 because they are not of nature, but regained by self- 
 abnegation. What the child is we have to become. 
 This child was the example of one-half of the law, being 
 "least of all," and perfectly contented to be so; but 
 the other half was not shown in him, for his little hands 
 could do but small service. Was there, then, no ex- 
 ample in this scene of that other requirement ? Surely 
 there was j for the child was not left standing, shy in 
 the middle, but, before embarrassment became weeping, 
 was caught up in • Christ's arms, and folded to His 
 
I4 2 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. ix. 33-42 
 
 heart. He had been taken as the instance of humility 
 and he then became the subject of tender ministry. 
 Christ and he divided the illustration of the whole law 
 between them, and the very inmost nature of true 
 service was shown in our Lord's loving clasp and 
 soothing pressure to His heart. It is as if He had 
 said, " Look ! this is how you must serve ; for you 
 cannot help the weak unless you open your arms and 
 hearts to them." Jesus, with the child held to His 
 bosom, is the living law of service, and the child nestling 
 close to Him, because sure of His love, is the type of 
 the trustful affection which we must evoke if we are to 
 serve or help. This picture has gone straight to the 
 hearts of men ; and who can count the streams of tender- 
 ness and practical kindliness of which it has been the 
 source ? 
 
 Christ goes on to speak of the child, not as the 
 example of service, but of being served. The deep 
 words carry us into blessed mysteries which recompense 
 the lowly servants, and lift them high in the kingdom. 
 Observe the precision of the language, both as regards 
 the persons received and the motive of reception. " One 
 of such little children " means those who are thus lowly, 
 unambitious, and unexacting. " In My name " defines 
 the motive as not being simple humanity or benevolence, 
 
Less, x] Receiving and Forbidding 143 
 
 but the distinct recognition of Christ's command and 
 loving obedience to His revealed character. No doubt, 
 natural benevolence has its blessings for those who 
 exercise it ; but that which is here spoken of is some- 
 thing much deeper than nature, and wins a far higher 
 reward. That reward is held forth in unfathomable 
 words, of which we can but skim the surface. They 
 mean more than that such little ones are so closely 
 identified with Him that, in His love, He reckons good 
 done to them as done to Him. That is most blessedly 
 true. Nor is it true only because He lovingly reckons 
 the deed as done to Him, though it really is not ; but, 
 by reason of the derived life which all His children 
 possess from Him, they are really parts of Himself; and 
 in that most real though mystic unity, what is done to 
 them is, in fact, done to Him. Further, if the service 
 be done in His name, then, on whomsoever it may be 
 done, it is done to Him. This great saying unveils 
 the true sacredness and real recipient of all Christian 
 service. But more than that is in the words. When 
 we "receive" Christ's little ones by help and loving 
 ministry, we receive Him, and in Him God, for joy and 
 strength. Unselfish deeds in His name open the heart 
 for more of Christ and God, and bring on the doer 
 the blessing of fuller insight, closer communion, more 
 
i44 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. ix. 33-42 
 
 complete assimilation to his Lord. Therefore such 
 service is the road to the true superiority in His 
 kingdom, which depends altogether on the measure of 
 His own nature which has flowed into our emptiness. 
 III. The apostles' conscience-stricken confession of 
 their breach of the law (verses 38-40). Peter is not spokes- 
 man this time, but John, whose conscience was more 
 quickly pricked. At first sight, the connection of his 
 interruption with the theme of the discourse seems to be 
 merely the recurrence of the phrase, " in Thy name ; " 
 but, besides that, there is an obvious contrast between 
 "receiving" and "forbidding." The apostle is uneasy 
 when he remembers what they had done, and, like an 
 honest man, he states the case to Christ, half-confessing, 
 and half-asking for a decision. He begins to think that 
 perhaps the man whom they had silenced was " one such 
 little child," and had deserved more sympathetic treat- 
 ment. How he came to be so true a disciple as to share 
 in the power of casting out devils, and yet not to belong 
 to the closer followers of Jesus, we do not know, and 
 need not guess. So it was ; and John feels, as he tells 
 the story, that perhaps their motives had not been so 
 much their Master's honour as their own. " He follow- 
 eth not us," and yet he is trenching on our prerogatives. 
 The greater fact that he and they followed Christ was 
 
Less. X] Receiving and Forbidding 145 
 
 overshadowed by the lesser that he did not follow them. 
 There spoke the fiery spirit which craved the commission 
 to burn up a whole village, because of its inhospitality. 
 There spoke the spirit of ecclesiastical intolerance, which 
 in all ages has masqueraded as zeal for Christ, and taken 
 following us and following Him to be the same thing. 
 But there spoke, too, a glimmering consciousness that 
 gagging men was not precisely "receiving" them, and 
 that if " in Thy name " so sanctified deeds, perhaps the 
 unattached exorcist, who could cast out demons by it, 
 was " a little one," to be taken to their hearts, and not 
 an enemy to be silenced. Pity that so many listen to 
 the law, and do not, like John, feel it prick them ! 
 
 Christ forbids such " forbidding," and thereby sanctions 
 " irregularities " and " unattached " work, which have 
 always been the bugbears of sticklers for ecclesiastical 
 uniformity, and have not seldom been the life of 
 Christianity. That authoritative, unconditional " forbid 
 him not " ought, long ago, to have rung the funeral bell 
 of intolerance, and to have ended the temptation to 
 idolise " conformity," and to confound union to organ- 
 ised forms of the Christian community with union to 
 Christ. But bigotry dies hard. The reasons appended 
 serve to explain the position of the man in question. 
 If he had wrought miracles in Christ's name, he must 
 
 10 
 
r 4 6 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. ix. 33-42 
 
 have had some faith in it ; and his experience of its 
 power would deepen that. So there was no danger of 
 his contradicting himself, and speaking against Jesus. 
 The power of faith in the Name to hallow deeds, the 
 certainty that rudimentary faith will, when exercised, 
 increase the guarantee of experience as sure to lead to 
 blessing Jesus, are all involved in this saying. But its 
 special importance is as a reason for the disciples' action. 
 Because the man's action gives guarantees for his future, 
 they are not to silence him. That implies that they are 
 only to forbid those who do speak evil of Christ; and 
 that to all others, even if they have not reached the full 
 perception of truth, they are to extend patient forbear- 
 ance and guidance. " The mouth of them that speak 
 lies shall be stopped ; " but the mouth that begins to 
 stammer His name is to be taught and cherished. 
 
 The second reason still more plainly claims the man 
 for an ally. Commentators have given themselves a 
 great deal of trouble to reconcile this saying with the 
 other — " He that is not with Me is against Me." If by 
 reconciling is meant twisting both to mean the same 
 thing, it cannot be done. If preventing the appearance 
 of contradiction is meant, it does not seem necessary. 
 The two sayings do not contradict, but they complete 
 each other. They apply to different classes of persons, 
 
Less, x] Receiving and Forbidding 147 
 
 and common sense has to determine their application. 
 This man did, in some sense, believe in Jesus, and 
 worked deeds that proved the power of the Name. 
 Plainly, such work was in the same direction as the 
 Lord's and the disciples'. Such a case is one for the 
 application of tolerance. But the principle must be 
 limited by the other, else it degenerates into lazy in- 
 difference. " He that is not against us is for us," if it 
 stood alone, would dissolve the Church, and destroy 
 distinctions in belief and practice which it would be fatal 
 to lose. " He that is not with Me is against Me," if it 
 stood alone, would narrow sympathies, and cramp the 
 free development of life. We need both to understand 
 and get the good of either. 
 
 IV. We have the reward of receiving Christ's little 
 ones set over against the retribution that seizes those 
 who cause them to stumble (verses 41, 42). These verses 
 seem to resume the broken thread of verse 37, whilst 
 they also link on to the great principle laid down in 
 verse 40. He that is not against is for, even if he only 
 gives a cup of water because they are Christ's. That 
 shows that there is some regard for Jesus in him. It is 
 a germ which may grow. Such an one shall certainly 
 have his reward. That does not mean that he will 
 receive it in a future life, but that here his deed shall 
 
148 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. ix. 33-42 
 
 bring after it blessed consequences to himself. Of these, 
 none will be more blessed than the growing regard for 
 the Name, which already is, in some degree, precious to 
 him. The faintest perception of Christ's beauty, honestly 
 lived out, will be increased. Every act strengthens its 
 motive. The reward of living our convictions is firmer 
 and more enlightened conviction. Note, too, the person 
 spoken of belongs to the same class as the silenced 
 exorcist, thus reading the disciples a further lesson. 
 Jesus will look with love on the acts which even a John 
 wished to forbid. Note, also, that the disciples here are 
 the recipients of the kindness. They are no longer 
 being taught to receive the little ones, but are taught 
 that they themselves belong to that class, and need 
 kindly succour from these outsiders, whom they had 
 proudly thought to silence. 
 
 The awful, reticent words, which shadow forth and yet 
 hide the fate of those who cause the feeblest disciple to 
 stumble, are not for us to dilate upon. Jesus saw the 
 realities of future retribution, and deliberately declares 
 that death is a less evil than such an act. The little 
 ones are sacred because they are His. The same 
 relation to Him which made kindness to them so worthy 
 of reward, makes harm to them so worthy of punishment. 
 Under the one lies an incipient love to Him ; under the 
 
Less. X] Receiving and Forbidding i 49 
 
 other, a covert and perhaps scarcely-conscious opposition. 
 It is devils' work to seduce simple souls from allegiance 
 to Christ. There are busy hands to-day laying stumbling- 
 blocks in the way, especially of young Christians — 
 stumbling-blocks of doubt, of frivolity, of slackened 
 morality, and the like. It were better, says One who 
 saw clearly into that awful realm beyond, if the big 
 millstone were knotted about their necks, and they were 
 flung into the deepest place of the lake that lay before 
 Him as he spoke. He does not speak exaggerated 
 words ; and if a solemn strain of vehemence, unlike His 
 ordinary calm, is audible here, it is because what He 
 knew, and did not tell, gave solemn earnestness to His 
 veiled and awe-inspiring prophecy of doom. What 
 imagination shall fill out the details of the " worse than " 
 which lurks behind that " better " ? 
 
LESSON XI 
 LAVISH LOVE CONDEMNED AND COMMENDED 
 
 151 
 
LESSON XI 
 Lavish Love Condemned and Commended 
 
 St. Mark xiv. 
 
 1. "A f ler two days was the 
 feast of the Passover, and of un- 
 leavened bread : and the chief 
 priests and the scribes sought 
 how they might take Him by 
 craft, and put Him to death. 
 
 2. But they said, Not on the 
 feast day, lest there be an up- 
 roar of the people. 
 
 3. And being in Bethany in 
 the house of Simon the leper, 
 as He sat at meat, there came 
 a woman having an alabaster 
 box of ointment of spikenard 
 very precious ; and she brake 
 the box, and poured it on His 
 head. 
 
 4. And there were some that 
 had indignation within them- 
 selves, and said, Why was this 
 waste of the ointment made ? 
 
 5. For it might have been 
 
 sold for more than three hun- 
 dred pence, and have been 
 given to the poor. And they 
 murmured against her. 
 
 6. And Jesus said, Let her 
 alone ; why trouble ye her ? 
 she hath wrought a good work 
 on Me 
 
 7. For ye have the poor with 
 you always, and whensoever 
 ye will ye may do them good : 
 but Me ye have not always. 
 
 8. She hath done what she 
 could : she is come aforehand 
 to anoint My body to the bury- 
 ing. 
 
 9. Verily I say unto you, 
 Wheresoever this gospel shall 
 be preached throughout the 
 whole world, this also that she 
 hath done shall be spoken of 
 for a memorial of her." 
 
 WE might almost suppose that Mark had an artist's 
 eye for the power of contrast to heighten effects, 
 when he framed this sweetest story of uncalculating and 
 lavish love, in the black surroundings of the preceding 
 
 i53 
 
i 5 4 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 1-9 
 
 and following paragraphs. How fair it shows between 
 the calculating, cold-blooded hatred of the rulers and 
 the treacherous covetousness of Judas ! The vulpine 
 shrewdness of the one and the greed of the other look 
 uglier by the side of the woman's self-forgetting offering ; 
 and it gains even added tenderness and beauty from 
 their hideousness. Truly, Christ was a marvellous test, 
 revealing the thoughts of many hearts. The same 
 manifestation of Divine beauty and goodness drew out 
 Mary's burst of love, which found relief in devoting its 
 most precious possession to Him, and the malignant 
 cunning of scribes and priests, and the yet fouler 
 treachery of Judas. Contact with Him either betters or 
 worsens. 
 
 The differences between Mark's account and John's 
 are full of interest. In the former, all the actors are 
 anonymous, but the house of feasting is named as 
 Simon's. In the latter, the " woman " is named as 
 Mary, the sister of Lazarus ; and the sour critic, who 
 objected to love's lavishness in the name of practical 
 charity, turns out to be Judas. These two figures are 
 the incarnation of abiding opposites. There may have 
 been prudential reasons for the suppression of Mary's 
 name by the earlier evangelist, which had ceased to 
 operate when John wrote ; or we may have here only 
 
Less. XI] Lavish Love Condemned and Commended 155 
 
 another instance of His habit of supplying the names 
 which are wanting in the Synoptics — a habit which 
 seems to indicate at once His later date and His position 
 as an eyewitness. His other variations point in the 
 same direction. He remembers how strange it was to 
 see Lazarus sitting at the table, perhaps with a far-away 
 look in his eyes, and how Martha could only speak her 
 gratitude by bustling service ; and He knows the weight 
 of the spikenard, and recalls, through all the intervening 
 years, the fragrance that gushed from the opened box. 
 He alone tells how, with the sweet mingling of humility 
 and boldness which love alone knows how to blend, 
 Mary anointed Christ's feet, and wiped them with her 
 hair. He alone omits the promise of her deed being 
 told as widely as the gospel, though to Him the " whole 
 world " owes the name of the doer. 
 
 The characteristics of Mary's deed, which give it all 
 its value, are its impulsiveness and its lavishness. She 
 was anticipated in every needful form of service by the 
 troop whom Martha marshalled. There were probably 
 few superfluities in her home, but she had at least one 
 precious thing — the costly flask of alabaster and its 
 costly fragrant contents ; and so, having nothing else 
 that she can do to unburden her heart of its great load 
 of thankfulness for her brother given back, she catches 
 
156 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 1-9 
 
 up her solitary piece of woman's luxury, and pours it 
 out, not stopping to ask if He needed to receive it, but 
 feeling that she needed to give it. It could have been 
 no more precious if it had been ever so " useful " ; for 
 all its worth came from the impulse to devote to Him 
 her most valuable possession. It is the very absence of 
 calculation which gives all its charm to the action. 
 Just because so fragrant and costly a thing was expended 
 for no practical purpose, was the expenditure " an odour 
 of a sweet smell " more fragrant than the spikenard ; and 
 the heart which held such a depth of love was more 
 precious than the translucent vase. 
 
 The " indignation," which began with Judas, and 
 appears from Mark to have been taken up as admirable 
 common sense by some, at least, of the others, does not 
 show more wisdom, but less love, and, according to 
 John, was, in Judas, simply irritation at seeing a valuable 
 prey escape him. Fifty dollars, which might have been 
 his — to say nothing of the vase so needlessly broken ! 
 Unloving selfishness is a poor critic either of the heroisms 
 or of the sacrifices of love. " Practical " men with little 
 religion see nothing but " waste " in most of the expen- 
 diture of money and effort which Christians lay at 
 Christ's feet. The original author of the criticism does 
 not recommend it, and, perhaps, usually the reproducers 
 
Less, xi] Lavish Love Condemned and Commended 157 
 
 of it care as little for the practical objects, to which they 
 would have us confine ourselves, as He did. 
 
 Our Lord's answer goes very deep into the whole 
 subject of Christian consecration, both of self and of 
 possessions. 
 
 He lays down first the great motive of it all — " she 
 hath wrought a good work on Me." The absolute 
 singleness of its reference to Him made it " good." 
 The question is not, "To what purpose?" but "For 
 whose sake ? " Everything done from the impulse of 
 simple love to Jesus Christ is "good." All other devo- 
 tion of powers or possessions is " waste " ; for surely He 
 who has given Himself for and to us deserves, and He 
 in whom all sweetness and sufficiency dwell alone can 
 satisfy the love of the soul, and make blessed the sur- 
 render of self and all. Christ's love to us and the 
 capacities and yearnings of our nature alike show that 
 the one " good " is to know and love Him, and the only 
 "good work " — correspondent to the highest law of con- 
 duct — is a work which springs from the single-hearted 
 love to Him as its motive, and tends to Him as its end. 
 That is Christian morality. Whosoever understands 
 that need have little care of carping critics. 
 
 Christ next strips the cavil of its disguise, and shows 
 its insincerity: "Ye have the poor with you always, 
 
158 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 1-9 
 
 and whensoever ye will ye may do them good ; but Me 
 ye have not always." The solicitude for the poor which 
 had seized the objectors so suddenly would have ample 
 opportunities to express itself. Nothing was required 
 for constant help to constant poverty but the will. That 
 "whensoever ye will" is a sharp prick to conscience, 
 and is meant to disclose the insincerity of the care 
 which is so occasional, though the misery which it 
 affects to pity is so continual. True benevolence is not 
 an intermittent fountain, but a perennial stream. The 
 same taint of insincerity is plain enough in the objectors, 
 nowadays, to various forms of Christian effort. The 
 people who tell us that foreign missions are waste, and 
 that the money should be spent at home, spend very 
 little of theirs at home. A lectures B about squandering 
 wealth and work in such a way ; but A's care for the 
 domestic heathen goes no farther than thinking that B 
 should do something for them. A does nothing, any 
 more than Judas backed up his objection by a sub- 
 scription for the poor of Bethany. 
 
 Further, our Lord here lays down the principle that 
 circumstances may arise when our supreme love to Him 
 not only warrants, but demands, the temporary neglect of 
 perpetual and ordinary objects of liberality, in order to 
 consecrate all our resources on some great act, which 
 
Less. XI J Lavish Love Condemned and Commended 159 
 
 shall worthily express our love, and can only be done 
 once. He is not to be blamed as slothful or unfaithful 
 who sequesters himself from many calls of need, that 
 he may devote himself and his possessions to some one 
 great act of service. 
 
 "She hath done what she could." There our Lord 
 lays down the measure of acceptable consecration. It 
 is an apology or vindication of the form of the offering j 
 but it is a stringent demand as to its amount. If Mary 
 had had half-a-dozen more alabaster vases, which she 
 kept unbroken, would she have been so praised ? 
 Capacity regulates obligation, both as to the manner 
 and the measure. " Power to its last particle is duty." 
 Another man's way of serving and honouring Christ is 
 little guide for me. There is a woeful lack of originality 
 in Christian service, because so few Christians take 
 stock of their individualities of character and specialties 
 of position, and honestly try to learn from them what 
 they should do. 
 
 " Give all thou canst. High Heaven rejects the lore 
 Of nicely-calculated less or more." 
 
 And, on the other hand, " it is accepted according 
 to that a man hath, and not according to that he 
 hath not." 
 
T 6o The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 1-9 
 
 We have next set forth the significance which our 
 Lord puts into the service which He accepts. " She is 
 come aforehand to anoint My body to the burying," said 
 He, with a sad smile, as we may venture to picture. 
 Probably no such purpose had been in Mary's thoughts, 
 but she had simply obeyed the promptings of love, 
 whose very life-breath is the yearning to give. But love 
 is wiser than it knows, and the purposes which Christ 
 can make its offerings serve are higher and sacreder 
 than the offerer's intent. So it ever is. He puts meaning 
 into our poor work, weaving it into the great fabric of 
 His designs ; and one joy of heaven will be the sur- 
 prises at finding how much more we did than we 
 supposed. " Lord, when saw we Thee — and visited 
 Thee ? " We — did we do that ? If we take care of the 
 motive, which is our end of the deed, He will take care 
 of the result, which is His end. 
 
 Finally, we have Christ's promise of perpetuity for 
 the service which He accepts. The fragrance of the 
 spikenard soon vanished from Simon's house; but it 
 smells sweet through all the world to-day, and will con- 
 tinue for ever. As we have noticed, the evangelists who 
 give the promise of perpetual remembrance do not give 
 Mary's name ; and John's Gospel gives the name, and 
 not the promise. It matters little whether or no our 
 
Less, xi] Lavish Love Condemned and Commended 161 
 
 names live in men's memories. If we lay our best in 
 any kind at Christ's feet, He will take our poor offerings 
 and melt them down to form part of His eternal crown. 
 They will abide for ever in ever-widening consequences 
 to our happy selves, and in His memory who has said, 
 " Surely I will never forget any of their works." 
 
LESSON XII 
 
 THE NEW PASSOVER 
 
 163 
 
LESSON XII 
 The New Passover 
 
 Mark xiv. 12-26 
 
 12. "And the first day of 
 unleavened bread, when they 
 killed the Passover, His dis- 
 ciples said unto Him, Where 
 wilt Thou that we go and pre- 
 pare that Thou mayest eat the 
 Passover ? 
 
 13. And He sendeth forth 
 two of His disciples, and saith 
 unto them, Go ye into the city, 
 and there shall meet you a man 
 bearing a pitcher of water : 
 follow him. 
 
 14. And wheresoever he shall 
 go in, say ye to the goodman 
 of the house, The Master saith, 
 Where is the guestchamber, 
 where I shall eat the Passover 
 with My disciples? 
 
 15. And he will shew you a 
 large upper room furnished and 
 prepared : there make ready 
 for us. 
 
 16. And His disciples went 
 forth, and came into the city, 
 and found as He had said unto 
 them : and they made ready the 
 Passover. 
 
 17. And in the evening He 
 cometh with the twelve. 
 
 18. And as they sat and did 
 eat, Jesus said, Verily I say 
 unto you, One of you which 
 eateth with Me shall betray 
 Me. 
 
 19. And they began to be 
 sorrowful, and to say unto Him 
 one by one, Is it I ? and an- 
 other said, Is it I ? 
 
 20. And He answered and 
 said unto them, It is one of the 
 twelve, that dippeth with Me 
 in the dish. 
 
 21. The Son of man indeed 
 goeth, as it is written of Him : 
 but woe to that man by whom 
 the Son of man is betrayed ! 
 good were it for that man if he 
 had never been born. 
 
 22. And as they did eat, 
 Jesus took bread, and blessed, 
 and brake it, and gave to them, 
 and said, Take, eat : this is My 
 body. 
 
 23. And He took the cup, 
 and when He had given thanks, 
 He gave it to them : and they 
 all drank of it. 
 
 24. And He said unto them, 
 This is My blood of the new 
 testament, which is shed for 
 many. 
 
 25. Verily I say unto you, I 
 will drink no more of the fruit 
 of the vine, until that day that 
 I drink it new in the kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 26. And when they had sung 
 an hymn, they went out into 
 the mount of Olives." 
 
 165 
 
1 66 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 12-26 
 
 r I A HIS lesson falls into three sections — the secret pre- 
 -*- paration for the Passover (verses 12-17), the sad 
 announcement of the betrayer (verses 18-21), and the 
 institution of the Lord's Supper (verses 22-26). It may 
 be interesting to notice that in the two former of these 
 Mark's account approximates to Luke's, while in the 
 third he is nearer Matthew's. A comparison of the three 
 accounts, noting the slight, but often significant varia- 
 tions, should be made. Nothing in the Gospels is trivial. 
 " The dust of that land is gold." 
 
 I. The secret preparation for the Passover. The 
 three evangelists all give the disciples' question, but only 
 Luke tells us that it was in answer to our Lord's com- 
 mand to Peter and John to go and prepare the Passover. 
 They very naturally said, " Where ? " as they were all 
 strangers in Jerusalem. Matthew may not have known 
 of our Lord's initiative ; but if Mark were, as he is, with 
 apparent correctness, said to. have been, Peter's mouth- 
 piece in his Gospel, the reticence as to the prominence 
 of that apostle is natural, and explains the omission of 
 all but the bare fact of the despatch of the two. The 
 curiously roundabout way in which they are directed to 
 the " upper room " is only explicable on the supposition 
 that it was intended to keep them in the dark till the 
 last moment, so that no hint might leak from them to 
 
Less, xii] The New Passover 167 
 
 Judas. Whether the token of the man with the water- 
 pot was a preconcerted signal or an instance of our 
 Lord's supernatural knowledge and sovereign sway, his 
 employment as a silent and probably unconscious guide 
 testifies to Christ's wish for that last hour to be undis- 
 turbed. A man carrying a water-pot, which was woman's 
 special task, would be a conspicuous figure even in the 
 festival crowds. The message to the householder im- 
 plies that he recognised " the Master " as his Master, 
 and was ready to give up at His requisition even the 
 chamber which he had prepared for his own family 
 celebration of the feast. 
 
 Thus instructed, the two trusted apostles left Bethany, 
 early in the day, without a clew of their destination 
 reaching Judas's hungry watchfulness. Evidently they 
 did not return, and in the evening Jesus led the others 
 straight to the place. Mark says that He came " with 
 the twelve " ; but he does not mean thereby to specify 
 the number, but to define the class, of His attendants. 
 
 Each figure in this preparatory scene yields important 
 lessons. Our Lord's earnest desire to secure that still 
 hour before pushing out into the storm speaks pathetically 
 of His felt need of companionship and strengthening, as 
 well as of His self-forgetting purpose to help His handful 
 of bewildered followers and His human longing to live 
 
1 68 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 12-26 
 
 in faithful memories. His careful arrangements bring 
 vividly into sight the limitations of His manhood, in that 
 He, by whom " all things consist," had to contrive and 
 plan in order to baffle for a moment His pursuers. 
 And, side by side with the lowliness, as ever, is the 
 majesty; for while He stoops to arrange, He sees with 
 superhuman certitude what will happen, moves with 
 secret and sovereign sway, unconscious feet, and in royal 
 tones claims possession of His servant's possessions. 
 
 The two messengers, sent out with instructions which 
 would only guide them half-way to their destination, and 
 obliged, if they were to move at all, to trust absolutely to 
 His knowledge, are but specimens of the obedience still 
 required. He sends us out still on a road full of sharp 
 turnings round which we cannot see. We get light 
 enough for the first stage ; and when it is traversed, the 
 second will be plainer. 
 
 The man with the water-pot reminds us how little we 
 may be aware of the Hand which guides us, or of our 
 uses in His plans. "I girded thee, though thou hast 
 not known Me." How little the poor water-bearer knew 
 who were following, or dreamed that he and his load 
 would be remembered for ever ! 
 
 The householder responded at once, and gladly, to 
 the authoritative message, which does not ask a favour, 
 
Less, xii] The New Passover 169 
 
 but demands a right. Probably he had intended to 
 celebrate the Passover with his own family, in the large 
 chamber on the roof, with the cool evening air about it, 
 and the moonlight sleeping around. But he gladly gives 
 it up. Are we as ready to surrender our cherished 
 possessions for His use ? 
 
 II. The sad announcement of the traitor (verses 18-21). 
 As the Revised Version indicates more clearly than 
 the Authorised, the purport of the announcement was 
 not merely that the betrayer was an apostle, but that 
 he was to be known by his dipping his hand into the 
 common dish at the same moment as our Lord. The 
 prophetic psalm would have been abundantly fulfilled 
 though Judas's fingers had never touched Christ's ; but 
 the minute accomplishment should teach us that Jewish 
 prophecy was the voice of Divine foreknowledge, and 
 embraced small details as well as large tendencies. 
 Many hands dipped with Christ's, and so the sign was 
 not unmistakably indicative, and hence was privately 
 supplemented, as John tells us, by the giving of the sop. 
 The uncertainty as to the indications of the token is 
 reflected by the reiterated questions of the apostles, 
 which, in the Greek, are cast in a form which anticipates 
 a negative answer : " Surely not I ? " Mark omits the 
 audacious hypocrisy of Judas's question in the same 
 
170 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 12-26 
 
 form, and Christ's curt, sad answer which Matthew gives. 
 His brief and vivid sketch is meant to fix attention on 
 the unanimous shuddering horror of these faithful hearts 
 at the thought that they could be thus guilty — a horror 
 which was not the child of presumptuous self-confidence, 
 but of hearty, honest love. They thought it impossible, 
 as they felt the throbbing of their own hearts — and yet 
 — and yet — might it not be ? As they probed their 
 hearts deeper, they became dimly aware of dark gulfs of 
 possible unfaithfulness half visible there, and so betook 
 themselves to their Master, and strengthened their 
 loyalty by the question which breathed at once detesta- 
 tion of the treason and humble distrust of themselves. 
 It is well to feel and speak the strong recoil from sin of 
 a heart loyal to Jesus. It is better to recognise the 
 sleeping snakes, the possibilities of evil in ourselves, and 
 to take to Christ our ignorance and self-distrust. It is 
 wiser to cry " Is it I ? " than to boast " Although all shall 
 be offended, yet will not I." " Hold Thou me up, and 
 I shall be safe." 
 
 Our Lord answers the questions by a still more em- 
 phatic repetition of the distinctive mark, and then, in 
 verse 21, speaks deep words of mingled pathos, dignity, 
 and submission. The voluntariness of His death, and its 
 uniqueness as His own act of return to His eternal 
 
Less, xii] The New Passover 171 
 
 home, are contained in that majestic " goeth," which 
 asserts the impotence of the betrayer and his employers, 
 without the Lord's own consent. On the other hand, 
 the necessity to which He willingly bowed is set forth in 
 that "as it written of Him." And what sadness and 
 lofty consciousness of His own sacred personality and 
 judicial authority are blended in the awful sentence on 
 the traitor ! What was He that treachery to Him should 
 be a crime so transcendant ? What right had He thus 
 calmly to pronounce condemnation ? Did He see into 
 the future? Is it the voice of a Divine Judge, or of 
 a man judging in his own cause, which speaks this 
 passionless sentence ? Surely none of His sayings are 
 more fully charged with His claims to pre-existence, 
 Divinity, and judicial authority, than this which He 
 spoke at the very moment when the traitor's plot was on 
 the verge of success. 
 
 III. The institution of the Lord's Supper (verses 
 22-26). Mark's account is the briefest of the three, and 
 his version of Christ's words the most compressed. It 
 omits the affecting "do this for remembering Me," as 
 pre-supposed by the very act of instituting the ordi- 
 nance, which is nothing if not memorial ; and it makes 
 prominent two things — the significance of the elements, 
 and the command to partake of them. To these must 
 
172 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 12-26 
 
 be added Christ's attitude in blessing the bread and cup, 
 and His distribution of them among the disciples. The 
 Passover was to Israel the commemoration of their 
 redemption from captivity and their birth as a nation. 
 Jesus puts aside this Divinely-appointed and venerable 
 festival to set in its stead the remembrance of Himself. 
 That night, " to be much remembered of the children of 
 Israel," is to be forgotten, and come no more into the 
 number of the months; and its empty place is to be 
 filled by the memory of the hours then passing. Surely 
 His act was either arrogance or the calm consciousness 
 of the unique significance and power of His death. 
 Think of any mere teacher or prophet doing the like ! 
 The world would meet the preposterous claim with 
 deserved and inextinguishable laughter. Why does it 
 not do so with His ? 
 
 Christ's view of His death is written unmistakably on 
 the Lord's Supper. It is not merely that He wishes it 
 rather than His life, His miracles, or words, to be kept 
 in thankful remembrance, but that He desires one 
 aspect of it to be held high and clear, above all others. 
 He is the true Passover Lamb, whose shed and sprinkled 
 blood establishes new bonds of amity and new relations, 
 with tender and wonderful reciprocal obligations between 
 God and the " many " who truly partake of that sacrifice. 
 
Less, xii] The New Passover 173 
 
 The key-words of Judaism — sacrifice, covenant, sprink- 
 ling with blood — are taken over into Christianity, and 
 the ideas they represent are set in its centre, to be 
 cherished as its life. The Lord's Supper is the conclu- 
 sive answer to the allegation that Christ did not teach 
 the sacrificial character and atoning power of His death. 
 What, then, did He teach when He said, " This is My 
 blood of the covenant, which is shed for many " ? 
 
 The Passover was a family festival, and that character- 
 istic passes over to the Lord's Supper. Christ is not 
 only the food on which we feed, but the head of the 
 family and distributor of the banquet. He is the feast 
 and the Governor of the feast, and all who sit at that 
 table are brethren. One life is in them all, and they are 
 one as partakers of One. 
 
 The Lord's Supper is a visible symbol of the Christian 
 life, which should not only be all lived in remembrance 
 of Him, but consists in partaking by faith of His life, 
 and incorporating it in ours until we come to the 
 measure of perfect men, which we reach when we can 
 say, " I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." 
 
 There is a prophetic element, as well as a commemor- 
 ative and symbolic, in the Lord's Supper, which is 
 prominent in Christ's closing words. He does not 
 partake of the symbols which He gives ; but there 
 
174 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 12-26 
 
 comes a time, in that perfected form of the kingdom, 
 when perfect love shall make all the citizens perfectly 
 conformed to the perfect will of God. Then, whatsoever 
 associations of joy, of invigoration, of festal fellowship, 
 clustered round the wine-cup here, shall be heightened, 
 purified, and perpetuated in the calm raptures of the 
 heavenly feast, in which He will be Partaker, as well as 
 Giver and Food. " Thou shalt make them drink of the 
 river of Thy pleasures." The King's lips touch the 
 golden cup filled with unfoaming wine, ere He com- 
 mends it to His guests. And from that feast they "go 
 no more out," neither shall the triumphant music of its 
 great " hymn " be followed by any Olivet or Gethsemane, 
 or any denial, or any Calvary ; but there shall be no 
 more sorrow, nor sin, nor death ; for the former things are 
 passed away, and He has made all things new. 
 
LESSON XIII 
 
 THE CAPTIVE CHRIST AND THE CIRCLE 
 ROUND HIM 
 
 175 
 
LESSON XIII 
 The Captive Christ and the Circle Round Him 
 
 St. Mark xiv. 43-54 
 
 43. "And immediately, while 
 He yet spake, (cometh Judas, 
 one of the twelve, and with 
 him a great multitude with 
 swords and staves from the 
 chief priests and the scribes 
 and the elders. 
 
 44. And he that betrayed 
 Him had given them a token, 
 saying, Whomsoever I shall 
 kiss, that same is He; take 
 Him and lead Him away safely. 
 
 45. And as soon as he was 
 come, he goeth straightway to 
 Him, and saith, Master, master ; 
 and kissed Him. 
 
 46. And they laid their hands 
 on Him, and took Him. 
 
 47. And one of them that 
 stood by drew a sword, and 
 smote a servant of the high 
 priest, and cut off his ear. 
 
 48. And Jesus answered and 
 said unto them, Are ye come 
 out, as against a thief, with 
 
 swords and with staves to take 
 me? 
 
 49. I was daily with you 
 in the temple teaching, and ye 
 took Me not : but the Scriptures 
 must be fulfilled. 
 
 50. And they all forsook 
 Him, and fled. 
 
 51. And there followed Him 
 a certain young man, having 
 a linen cloth cast about his 
 naked body ; and the young 
 men laid hold of him : 
 
 52. And he left the linen 
 cloth and fled from them naked. 
 
 53. And they led Jesus away 
 to the high priest : and with 
 him were assembled all the 
 chief priests and the elders and 
 the scribes. 
 
 54. And Peter followed Him 
 afar off, even into the palace 
 of the high priest ; and He sat 
 with the servants, and warmed 
 Himself at the fire." 
 
 A COMPARISON of the three first Gospels in this 
 ■**• section shows a degree of similarity, often verbal, 
 which is best accounted for by supposing that a common 
 177 12 
 
178 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap, xi v. 43-54 
 
 (oral) " Gospel," which had become traditionally fixed 
 by frequent and long repetition, underlies them all. 
 Mark's account is briefest, and grasps with sure instinct 
 the essential points ; but, even in his brevity, he pauses 
 to tell of the young man who so nearly shared the Lord's 
 apprehension. The canvas is narrow and crowded ; 
 but we may see unity in the picture, if we regard as the 
 central fact the sacrilegious seizure of Jesus, and the 
 other incidents and persons as grouped round it and 
 Him, and reflecting various moods of men's feelings 
 towards Him. 
 
 I. The avowed and hypocritical enemies of incarnate 
 love. Again we have Mark's favourite " straightway," 
 so frequent in the beginning of the Gospel, and occur- 
 ring twice here, vividly painting both the sudden inburst 
 of the crowd which interrupted Christ's words and broke 
 the holy silence of the garden, and Judas' swift kiss. 
 He is named — the only name but our Lord's in the 
 section ; and the depth of his sin is emphasized by 
 adding " one of the twelve." He is not named in the 
 next verse, but gibbeted for immortal infamy by the 
 designation, " he that betrayed Him." There is no 
 dilating on his crime, nor any bespattering him with 
 epithets. The passionless narrative tells the criminal 
 and his crime with unsparing, unmoved tones, which 
 
Less, xiii] The Captive Christ 
 
 79 
 
 have caught some echo beforehand at the Judge's 
 voice. To name the sinner, and to state without cloak 
 or periphrasis what his deed really was, is condemnation 
 enough. Which of us could stand it ? 
 
 Judas was foremost of the crowd. What did he feel 
 as he passed swiftly into the shadow of the olives, and 
 caught the first sight of Jesus ? That the black depths 
 of his spirit were agitated is plain from two things 
 — the quick kiss, and the nauseous repetition of it. 
 Mark says, "Straightway ... he kissed Him much." 
 Probably the swiftness and vehemence, so graphically 
 expressed by these two touches, were due, not only to 
 fear lest Christ should escape, and to hypocrisy over- 
 acting its part, but reveal a struggle with conscience and 
 ancient affection, and a fierce determination to do the 
 thing and have it over. Judas is not the only man who 
 has tried to drown conscience by hurrying into and 
 reiterating the sin from which conscience tries to keep 
 him. The very extravagances of evil betray the divided 
 and stormy spirit of the doer. In the darkness and 
 confusion, the kiss was a surer token than a word or a 
 pointing finger would have been ; and simple convenience 
 appears to have led to its selection. But what a long 
 course of hypocrisy must have preceded, and how com- 
 plete the alienation of heart must have become, before 
 
180 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap, xi v. 43-54 
 
 such a choice was possible ! That traitor's kiss has 
 become a symbol for all treachery cloaked in the garb 
 of affection. Its lessons and warnings are obvious, but 
 this other may be added — that such audacity and 
 nauseousness of hypocrisy is not reached at a leap, but 
 presupposes long underground tunnels of insincere 
 discipleship, through which a man has burrowed, unseen 
 by others, and perhaps unsuspected by himself. Much 
 hypocrisy of the unconscious sort precedes the deliberate 
 and conscious. 
 
 How much less criminal and disgusting was the rude 
 crowd at 1 Judas's heels ! Most of them were mere passive 
 tools. The evangelist points beyond them to the 
 greater criminals by his careful enumeration of all 
 classes of the Jewish authorities, thus laying the respon- 
 sibility directly on their shoulders, and indirectly on the 
 nation whom they represented. The semi-tumultuous 
 character of the crowd is shown by calling them " a 
 multitude," and by the medley of weapons which they 
 carried. Half-ignorant hatred, which had had ample 
 opportunities of becoming knowledge and love, offended 
 formalism, blind obedience to ecclesiastical superiors, 
 the dislike of goodness — these impelled the rabble who 
 burst into the garden of Gethsemane. 
 
 II. Incarnate love bound and patient. We may bring 
 
Less, xiil] The Captive Christ 181 
 
 together verses 46, 48, and 49, the first of which tells 
 in simplest, briefest words the sacrilegious violence done 
 to Jesus, while the others record His calm remonstrance. 
 "They laid hands on Him." That was the first stage 
 in outrage— the quick stretching of many hands to 
 secure the unresisting prisoner. They " took Him," or, 
 as perhaps we might better render, " They held Him 
 fast," as would have been done with any prisoner. 
 Surely, the quietest way of telling that stupendous fact 
 is the best ! It is easy to exclaim, and, after the fashion 
 of some popular writers of lives of Christ, to paint 
 fancy pictures. It is better to be sparing of words, like 
 Mark, and silently to meditate on the patient long- 
 suffering of the love which submitted to these indignities, 
 and on the blindness which had no welcome but this 
 for God manifest in the flesh. Both are in full opera- 
 tion to-day, and the germs of the latter are in us all. 
 
 Mark confines himself to that one of Christ's sayings 
 which sets in the clearest light His innocence and meek 
 submissiveness. With all its calmness and patience, it 
 is majestic and authoritative, and sounds as if spoken 
 from a height far above the hubbub. Its question is 
 not only an assertion of His innocence, and therefore 
 of his captors' guilt, but also declares the impotence of 
 force as against Him — " Swords and staves to take 
 
i§ 2 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 43-54 
 
 Me ! " All that parade of arms was out of place, for He 
 was no evil-doer ; needless, for He did not resist ; and 
 powerless, unless He chose to let them prevail. He 
 speaks as the stainless, incarnate Son of God. He 
 speaks also as Captain of " the noble army of martyrs," 
 and His question may be extended to include the truth 
 that force is in its place when used against crime, but 
 ludicrously and tragically out of place when employed 
 against any teacher, and especially against Christianity. 
 Christ, in His persecuted confessors, puts the same 
 question to the persecutors which Christ in the flesh 
 put to His captors. 
 
 The second clause of Christ's remonstrance appeals to 
 their knowledge of Him and His words, and to their 
 attitude towards Him. For several days He had daily 
 been publicly teaching in the temple. They had laid 
 no hands on Him. Nay, some of them, no doubt, had 
 helped to wave the palm-branches and swell the hosannas. 
 He does not put the contrast of then and now in its 
 strongest form, but spares them even while He says 
 enough to bring an unseen blush to some cheeks. He 
 would have them ask, " Why this change in us, since 
 He is the same ? " Did He deserve to be hailed as 
 King a few short hours ago? How, then, before the 
 palm-branches are withered, can He deserve rude 
 
Less.xiliJ The Captive Christ 183 
 
 hands ? Men change in their feelings to the unchanging 
 Christ j and they who have most closely marked the rise 
 and fall of the tide in their own hearts will be last to 
 wonder at Christ's captors, and will most appreciate the 
 gentleness of His rebuke and remonstrance. 
 
 The third clause rises beyond all notice of the human 
 agents, and soars to the Divine purpose which wrought 
 itself out through them. That Divine purpose does not 
 make them guiltless, but it makes Jesus submissive. 
 He bows utterly, and with no reluctance, to the Father's 
 will, which could be wrought out through unconscious 
 instruments, and had been declared of old by half- 
 understanding prophets, but needed the obedience of 
 the Son to be clear-seeing, cheerful, and complete. We, 
 too, should train ourselves to see the hand that moves 
 the pieces, and to make God's will our will, as becomes 
 sons. Then Christ's calm will be ours, and, ceasing 
 from self and conscious of God everywhere and yielding 
 our wills, which are the self of ourselves, to Him, we 
 shall enter into rest. 
 
 III. Rash love defending its Lord with wrong weapons 
 (verse 47). Peter may have felt that he must do some- 
 thing to vindicate his recent boasting, and, with his usual 
 headlong haste, stops neither to ask what good his sword 
 is likely to do, nor to pick his man and take deliberate 
 
1 84 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 43-54 
 
 aim at him. If swords were to be used, they should 
 do something more effectual than hacking off a poor 
 servant's ear. There was love in the foolish deed, and 
 a certain heroism in braving the chance of a return 
 thrust or capture, which should go to Peter's credit. If 
 he alone struck a blow for his Master, it was because 
 the others were more cowardly, not more enlightened, 
 Peter has had rather hard measure about this matter, 
 and is condemned by some of us who would not venture 
 a tenth part of what he ventured for his Lord then. No 
 doubt, this was blind and blundering love, with an alloy 
 of rashness and wish for prominence ; but that is better 
 than unloving enlightenment and caution, which is 
 chiefly solicitous about keeping its own ears on. It is 
 also worse than love which sees and reflects the image 
 of the meek Sufferer whom it loves. Christ and His 
 cause are to be defended by other weapons. Christian 
 heroism endures and does not smite. Not only swords, 
 but bitter words, which wound worse than they, are for- 
 bidden to Christ's soldier. We are ever being tempted 
 to fight Christ's battles with the world's weapons ; and 
 many a " defender of the faith " in later days, perhaps 
 even in this very enlightened day, has repeated Peter's 
 fault with less excuse than he, and with very little of 
 either his courage or his love. 
 
Less, xiii] The Captive Christ 185 
 
 IV. Cowardly love forsaking its Lord (verse 50). 
 "They all forsook Him, and fled/' And who will venture 
 to say that he would not have done so too ? The tree 
 that can stand such a blast must have deep roots. The 
 Christ whom they forsook was, to them, but a fragment 
 of the Christ whom we know; and the fear which 
 scattered them was far better founded and more power- 
 ful than anything which the easy-going Christians of 
 to-day have to resist. Their flight may teach us to place 
 little reliance on our emotions, however genuine and 
 deep, and to look for the security for our continual 
 adherence to Christ, not to our fluctuating feelings, but 
 to His stedfast love. We keep close to Him, not be- 
 cause our poor fingers grasp His hand — for that grasp 
 is always feeble, and often relaxed — but because His 
 strong and gentle hand holds us with a grasp which 
 nothing can loosen. Whoso trusts in his own love to 
 Christ builds on sand, but whoso trusts in Christ's love 
 to him builds on rock. 
 
 V. Adventurous curiosity put to flight (verses 51, 52). 
 Probably this young man was Mark. Only he tells the 
 incident, which has no bearing on the course of events, 
 and was of no importance but to the person concerned. 
 He has put himself unnamed in a corner of his picture, 
 as monkish painters used to do, content to associate 
 
1 86 The Gospel of St.Jttark [Chap. xiv. 43-54 
 
 himself even thus with his Lord. His hastily cast on 
 covering seems to show that he had been roused from 
 sleep. Mingled love and curiosity and youthful adven- 
 turousness made him bold to venture where apostles 
 had fled. No effort appears to have been made to stop 
 their flight ; but he is laid hold of, and, terrified at his 
 own rashness, wriggles himself out of his captors' hands. 
 The whole incident singularly recalls his behaviour 
 on Paul's first missionary journey. There are the same 
 adventurousness, the same inconsiderate entrance on 
 perilous paths, the same ignominious and hasty retreat 
 at the first whistle of the bullets. A man who pushes 
 himself needlessly into difficulties and dangers without 
 estimating their force is pretty sure to take to his heels 
 as soon as he feels them, and to cut as undignified a 
 figure as this naked fugitive. 
 
 VI. Love frightened, but following (verse 54). Fear had 
 driven Peter but a little way. Love soon drew him and 
 John back. Sudden and often opposite impulses moved 
 his conduct and ruffled the surface of his character, but, 
 deep down the core, was loyal love. He followed, but 
 afar off: though afar off, he did follow. If the distance 
 betrayed his terror, the following witnessed his bravery. 
 He is not a coward who is afraid, but he who lets his 
 fear hinder him from duty or drive him to flight. What 
 
Less, xiii] The Captive Christ 187 
 
 is all Christian living but following Christ afar off? 
 And do the best of us do more, though we have less 
 apology for our distance than Peter had ? " Leaving us 
 an example, that ye should follow His steps," said he, 
 long after, and perhaps remembered both that morning 
 and the other by the lake when he was bidden to leave 
 other servants' tasks to the Master's disposal, and, for 
 his own part, to follow Him. 
 
 His love pushed him into a dangerous place. He 
 was in bad company among the inferior sort of servants 
 huddled around the fire that cold morning, at the lower 
 end of the hall ; and as its light flickered on his face, he 
 was sure to be recognised. But we have not now to do 
 with his denial. Rather he is the type of a true disciple, 
 coercing his human weakness and cowardice to yield to 
 the attraction which draws him to his Lord, and restful 
 in the humblest place where he can catch a glimpse of 
 His face, and so be, as he long after alleged it as his 
 chief title to authority to have been, " a witness of the 
 sufferings of Christ." 
 
LESSON XIV 
 
 THE CONDEMNATION WHICH CONDEMNS 
 THE JUDGES 
 
 189 
 
LESSON XIV 
 The Condemnation which Condemns the Judges 
 
 St. Mark xiv. 55-65 
 
 55. " And the chief priests 
 and all the council sought for 
 witness against Jesus to put 
 Him to death ; and found none. 
 
 56. For many bare false wit- 
 ness against Him, but their 
 witness agreed not together. 
 
 57. And there arose certain, 
 and bare false witness against 
 Him, saying, 
 
 58. We heard Him say, I 
 will destroy this temple that is 
 made with hands, and within 
 three days I will build another 
 made without hands. 
 
 59. But neither so did their 
 witness agree together. 
 
 60. And the high priest stood 
 up in the midst, and asked 
 Jesus, saying, Answerest Thou 
 nothing? what is it which these 
 witness against Thee? 
 
 61. But He held His peace, 
 
 and answered nothing. Again 
 the high priest asked Him, 
 and said unto Him, Art Thou 
 the Christ, the Son of the 
 Blessed ? 
 
 62. And Jesus said, I am : 
 and ye shall see the Son of 
 man, sitting on the right hand 
 of power, and coming in the 
 clouds of heaven. 
 
 63. Then the high priest rent 
 his clothes, and saith, What 
 need we any further witnesses ? 
 
 64. Ye have heard the blas- 
 phem}' : what think ye ? And 
 they all condemned Him to be 
 guilty of death. 
 
 65. And some began to spit 
 on Him, and to cover His face, 
 and to buffet Him, and to say 
 unto Him, Prophesy : and the 
 servants did strike Him with 
 the palms of their hands 
 
 TV /T ARK brings out three stages in our Lord's trial 
 
 -*-»*• by the Jewish authorities — their vain attempts 
 
 to find evidence against Him, which were met by His 
 
 silence ; His own majestic witness to Himself, which 
 
 191 
 
192 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 55-65 
 
 was met by a unanimous shriek of condemnation ; and 
 the rude mockery of the underlings. The other evange- 
 lists, especially John, supply many illuminative details ; 
 but the essentials are here, and it is only in criticising 
 the Gospels that a summary and a fuller narrative are 
 dealt with as contradictory. These three stages naturally 
 divide our lesson. 
 
 I. The judges with evil thoughts, the false witnesses, 
 and the silent Christ (verses 55-61). The criminal is 
 condemned before He is tried. The judges have made 
 up their minds before they sit, and the Sanhedrin is not 
 a court of justice, but a slaughter-house, where murder 
 is to be done under sanction of law. Mark, like Matthew, 
 notes the unanimity of the "council," to which Joseph 
 of Arimathea — the one swallow which does not make a 
 summer — appears to have been the only exception ; and 
 he probably was absent, or, if present, was silent. He 
 did " not consent " ; but we are not told that he opposed. 
 That ill-omened unanimity measures the nation's sin. 
 Flagrant injustice and corruption in high places is 
 possible only when society as a whole is corrupt or 
 indifferent to corruption. This prejudging of a case 
 from hatred of the accused as a destroyer of sacred 
 tradition, and this hunting for evidence to bolster up a 
 foregone conclusion, are pre-eminently the vices of 
 
Less. XIV] A Condemnation Condemning Judges 193 
 
 ecclesiastical tribunals not of Jewish Sanhedrin or papal 
 inquisition only. Where judges look for witnesses for 
 the prosecution, plenty will be found ready to curry 
 favour by lies. The eagerness to find witnesses against 
 Jesus is witness for Him, as showing that nothing in 
 His life or teaching was sufficient to warrant their 
 murderous purpose. His judges condemn themselves 
 in seeking grounds to condemn Him, for they thereby 
 show that their real motive was personal spite, or, as 
 Caiaphas suggested, political expediency. 
 
 The single specimen of the worthless evidence given 
 may be either a piece of misunderstanding or of malicious 
 twisting of innocent words ; nor can we decide whether 
 the witnesses contradicted one another or each himself. 
 The former is the more probable, as the fundamental 
 principle of the Jewish law of evidence (" two or three 
 witnesses ") would, in that case, rule out the testimony. 
 The saying which they garble meant the very opposite 
 of what they made it mean. It represented Jesus as 
 the restorer of that which Israel should destroy. It 
 referred to His body which is the true temple ; but the 
 symbolic temple " made with hands " is so inseparably 
 connected with the real, that the fate of the one deter- 
 mines that of the other. Strangely significant, therefore, 
 is it, that the rulers heard again, though distorted, at 
 
 13 
 
1 94 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 55-65 
 
 that moment when they were on their trial, the far- 
 reaching sentence, which might have taught them that 
 in slaying Jesus they were throwing down the temple 
 and all which centred in it, and that by His resurrection, 
 His own act, He would build up again a new polity 
 which yet was but the old transfigured, even " the 
 church, which is His body ? " His work destroys 
 nothing but " the w r orks of the devil.'' He is the restorer 
 of* the Divine ordinances and gifts which men destroy, 
 and His death and resurrection bring back in nobler 
 form all the good things lost by sin, " the desolations 
 of many generations." The history of all subsequent 
 attacks on Christ is mirrored here. The foregone con- 
 clusion, the evidence sought as an after-thought to give 
 a colourable pretext, the material found in twisting His 
 teaching, the blindness which accuses Him of destroying 
 what He restores, and fancies itself as preserving what 
 it is destroying, have all reappeared over and over again. 
 Our Lord's silence is not only that of meekness, " as 
 a sheep before her shearers is dumb." It is the silence 
 of innocence, and, if we may use the word concerning 
 Him, of scorn. He will not defend Himself to such 
 judges, nor stoop to repel evidence which they knew to 
 be worthless. But there is also something very solemn 
 and judicial in His locked lips. They had ever been 
 
Le?s. XIV] A Condemnation Condemning Judges 195 
 
 ready to open in words of loving wisdom ; but now they 
 are fast closed, and this is the penalty for despising, that 
 He ceases to speak. Deaf ears make a dumb Christ. 
 What will happen when Jesus and His judges change 
 places, as they will one day do ? When He says to 
 each, " Answerest thou nothing ? What is it which 
 these, thy sins, witness against thee ? " each will be 
 silent with the consciousness of guilt and of just con- 
 demnation by His all-knowing justice. 
 
 II. Christ's majestic witness to Himself received with 
 a shriek of condemnation. What a supreme moment 
 that was when the head of the hierarchy put this ques- 
 tion and received the unambiguous answer ! The veriest 
 impostor asserting Messiahship had a right to have His 
 claims examined ; but a howl of hypocritical horror is all 
 which Christ's evoke. The high priest knew well enough 
 what Christ's answer would be. Why, then, did he not 
 begin by questioning Jesus, and do without the witnesses ? 
 Probably because the council wished to find some pre- 
 text for His condemnation without bringing up the real 
 reason ; for it looked ugly to condemn a man for claiming 
 to be Messias, and to do it without examining His 
 credentials. The failure, however, of the false witnesses 
 compelled the council to " show their hands," and to 
 hear and reject our Lord solemnly and, so to speak, 
 
i 9 6 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 55-65 
 
 officially, laying His assertion of dignity and office before 
 them, as the tribunal charged with the duty of examining 
 His proofs. The question is so definite as to imply a 
 pretty full and accurate knowledge of our Lord's teaching 
 about Himself. It embraces two points— office and 
 nature ; for " the Christ" and " the Son of the Blessed " 
 are not equivalents. The latter points to our Lord's 
 declarations that He was the Son of God, and is an 
 instance of the later Jewish superstition which avoided 
 using the Divine name. Loving faith delights in the 
 name of the Lord. Dead formalism changes reverence 
 into dread, and will not speak it. Sham reverence, 
 feigned ignorance, affected wish for information, the 
 false show of judicial impartiality, and other lies and 
 vices not a few, are condensed in the question ; and the 
 fact that the judge had to ask it and to hear the answer, 
 is an instance of a Divine purpose working through evil 
 men, and compelling reluctant lips to speak words the 
 meaning and bearing of which they little know. Jesus 
 could not leave such a challenge unanswered. Silence 
 then would have been abandonment of His claims. It 
 was fitting that the representatives of the nation should, 
 at that decisive moment, hear Him declare Himself 
 Messiah. It was not fitting that He should be con- 
 demned on any other ground. In that answer, and its 
 
Less, xiv] A Condemnation Condemning Judges 197 
 
 reception by the council, the nation's rejection of Jesus 
 is, as it were, focussed and compressed. This was the 
 end of centuries of training by miracle, prophet and 
 psalmist — the saddest instance in man's long, sad history 
 of his awful power to frustrate God's patient educating ! 
 Our Lord's majestic " I am," in one word answers both 
 parts of the question, and then passes on, with strange 
 calm and dignity, to point onwards to the time when the 
 criminal will be the judge, and the judges will stand at 
 His bar. " The Son of man," His ordinary designation 
 of Himself, implies His true manhood, and His repre- 
 sentative character, as perfect man, or, to use modern 
 language, the " realised ideal : ' of humanity. In the 
 present connection, its employment in the same sentence 
 as His assertion that He is the Son of God, goes deep 
 into the mystery of His twofold nature, and asserts that 
 His manhood had a supernatural origin, and wielded 
 Divine prerogatives. Accordingly there follows the 
 explicit prediction of His assumption of the highest of 
 these after His death. The cross was as plain to Him 
 as ever ; but beyond it gleamed the crown and the throne. 
 He anticipates " sitting on the right hand of power," 
 which implies repose, enthronement, judicature, investi- 
 ture with omnipotence, and administration of the 
 universe. He anticipates " coming in the clouds of 
 
198 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 55-65 
 
 heaven," which distinctly claims to be the future Judge 
 of the world. His hearers could scarcely fail to discern 
 the reference to Daniel's prophecy. 
 
 Was ever the irony of history more pungently exem- 
 plified than in an Annas and Caiaphas holding up hands 
 of horror at the " blasphemies " of Jesus ? They rightly 
 took His words to mean more than the claim of Messiah- 
 ship as popularly understood. To say that He was the 
 Christ was not " blasphemy," but a claim demanding 
 examination ; but to say that He, the Son of man, was 
 Son of God, and supreme Judge, was so, according to 
 their canons. How unconsciously the exclamation, 
 " What need we further witnesses ? " betrays the purpose 
 for which the witnesses had been sought, as being simply 
 His condemnation ! They were " needed " to compass 
 His death, which the council now gleefully feels to be 
 secured. So with precipitate unanimity they vote. 
 And this was Israel's welcome to their King, and the 
 outcome of all their history ! And it was the destruction 
 of the national life. That howl of condemnation pro- 
 nounced sentence on themselves and on the whole 
 order of which they were the heads. The prisoner's 
 eyes alone saw then what we and all men may now see 
 — the handwriting on the wall of the high priest's palace : 
 " Weighed in the balances, and found wanting." 
 
Less, xiv] A Condemnation Condemning Judges 199 
 
 III. The savage mockers and the patient Christ (verse 
 65). There is an evident antithesis between the "all" 
 of verse 64 and the " some " of verse 65, which shows 
 that the inflictors of the indignities were certain members 
 of the council, whose fury carried them beyond all bounds 
 of decency. The subsequent mention of the " servants " 
 confirms this, especially when we adopt the more 
 accurate rendering of the Revised Version, " received 
 Him with blows." Mark's account, then, is this : that, 
 as soon as the unanimous howl of condemnation had 
 been uttered, some of the "judges" (!) fell upon Jesus 
 with spitting, and clumsy ridicule, and downright violence, 
 and that afterwards He was handed over to the under- 
 lings, who were not slow to copy the example set them 
 at the upper end of the hall. It was not an ignorant 
 mob who thus answered His claims, but the leaders 
 and teachers — the creme de la crime of the nation. A 
 wild beast lurks below the Pharisee's long robes and 
 phylacteries ; and the more men have changed a living 
 belief in religion for a formal profession, the more 
 fiercely antagonistic are they to every attempt to realise 
 its precepts and hopes. The "religious" men who 
 mock Jesus in the name of traditional religion are by no 
 means an extinct species. It is of little use to shudder 
 at the blind cruelty of dead scribes and priests. Let us 
 
200 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xiv. 55-65 
 
 rather remember that the seeds of their sins are in us 
 all, and take care to check their growth. What a 
 volcano of hellish passion bursts out here ! "Spitting" 
 expresses disgust ; blinding and asking for the names 
 of the smiters is a clumsy attempt at wit and ridicule ; 
 " buffeting " is the last unrestrained form of hate and 
 malice. The world has always paid its teachers and 
 benefactors in such coin; but all other examples pale 
 before this saddest, transcendant instance. Love is 
 repaid by hate ; a whole nation is blind to supreme 
 and unspotted goodness ; teachers steeped in law and 
 prophets cannot see Him of and for whom law and 
 prophets witnessed and were, when He stands before 
 them. The sin of sins is the failure to recognise Jesus 
 for what He is. His person and claims are the touch- 
 stone which tries every beholder of what sort he is. 
 
 How wonderful the silent patience of Jesus ! He 
 withholds not His face " from shame and spitting." He 
 gives " His back to the smiters." Meek endurance and 
 passive submission are not all which we have to behold 
 there. This is more than an uncomplaining martyr. 
 This is the sacrifice for the world's sin ; and His bearing 
 of all that men can inflict is more than heroism. It- 
 is redeeming love. His sad, loving eyes, wide open 
 below their bandage, saw and pitied each rude smiter, 
 
Less, xiv] A Condemnation Condemning Judges 201 
 
 even as He sees us all. They were and are eyes 
 of infinite tenderness, ready to beam forgiveness ; but 
 they were and are the eyes of the Judge, who sees 
 and repays His foes, as those who smite Him will 
 one day find out. 
 
LESSON XV 
 
 CHRIST AND PILATE: THE TRUE KING AND 
 HIS COUNTERFEIT 
 
 203 
 
LESSON XV 
 Christ and Pilate : the True King and His Counterfeit 
 
 St. Mark xv. 1-20 
 
 I. " And straightway in the 
 morning the chief priests held 
 a consultation with the elders 
 and scribes and the whole 
 council, and bound Jesus, and 
 carried Him away, and delivered 
 Him to Pilate. 
 
 .2. And Pilate asked Him, 
 Art Thou the King of the Jews ? 
 And He answering said unto 
 him, Thou sayest it. 
 
 3. And the chief priests 
 accused Him of many things : 
 but He answered nothing. 
 
 4. And Pilate asked Him 
 again, saying, Answerest Thou 
 nothing ? behold how many 
 things they witness against 
 Thee. 
 
 5. But Jesus 3 T et answered 
 nothing; so that Pilate mar- 
 velled. 
 
 6. Now at that feast he 
 released unto them one prisoner, 
 whomsover they desired. 
 
 7. And there was one named 
 Barabbas, which lay bound 
 with them that had made insur- 
 rection with him, who had com- 
 mitted murder in the insurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 8. And the multitude crying 
 aloud began to desire Him to 
 do as He had ever done unto 
 them. 
 
 9. But Pilate answered them, 
 saying, Will ye that I release 
 unto you the King of the Jews ? 
 
 10. For He knew that the 
 chief priests had delivered Him 
 for envy. 
 
 11. But the chief priests 
 moved the people, that he 
 should rather release Barabbas 
 unto them. 
 
 12. And Pilate answered and 
 said again unto them, What 
 will ye then that I shall do 
 unto Him whom ye call the 
 King of the Jews? 
 
 13. And they cried ©ut again, 
 Crucify Him. 
 
 14. Then Pilate said unto 
 them, Why, what evil hath He 
 done ? And they cried out the 
 more exceedingly, Crucify Him. 
 
 15. And so Pilate, willing to 
 content the people, released 
 Barabbas unto them, and de- 
 livered Jesus, when he had 
 scourged Him, to be crucified. 
 
 16. And the soldiers led Him 
 
 205 
 
2o6 
 
 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 1-20 
 
 away into the hall, called Prse- 
 torium : and they call together 
 the whole band. 
 
 17. And they clothed Him 
 with purple, and platted a 
 crown of thorns, and put it 
 about His head. 
 
 18. And began to salute Him, 
 Hail, King of the Jews ! 
 
 19. And they smote Him on 
 the head with a reed, and did 
 spit upon Him, and bowing 
 their knees worshipped Him. 
 
 20. And when they had 
 mocked Him, they took off the 
 purple from Him, and put His 
 own clothes on Him, and led 
 Him out to crucify Him." 
 
 THE so-called trial of Jesus by the rulers turned 
 entirely on His claim to be Messias ; His exam- 
 ination by Pilate turns entirely on His claim to be king. 
 The two claims are indeed one, but the political aspect 
 is distinguishable from the higher one ; and it was the 
 Jewish rulers' trick to push it exclusively into prominence 
 before Pilate in the hope that he might see in the claim 
 an incipient insurrection, and might mercilessly stamp it 
 out. It was a new part for them to play to hand over 
 leaders of revolt to the Roman authorities, and a 
 governor with any common sense must have suspected 
 that there was something hid below such unusual loyalty. 
 What a moment of degradation and of treason against 
 Israel's sacredest hopes that was when its rulers dragged 
 Jesus to Pilate on such a charge ! Mark follows the 
 same method of condensation, and discarding of all but 
 the essentials, as in the other parts of his narrative. He 
 brings out three points — the hearing before Pilate, the 
 popular vote for Barabbas, and the soldiers' mockery. 
 
Less, xv] Christ and Pilate 207 
 
 I. The true King at the bar of the apparent ruler 
 (verses 1-6). The contrast between appearance and 
 reality was never more strongly drawn than when Jesus 
 stood as a prisoner before Pilate. The One is helpless, 
 bound, alone ; the other, invested with all the externals 
 of power. But which is the stronger ? and in which hand 
 is the sceptre ? On the lowest view of the contrast it is 
 ideas versus swords. On the higher and truer, it is the 
 incarnate God, mighty because voluntarily weak, and 
 man " dressed in a little brief authority," and weak 
 because insolently "making his power his god." Impo- 
 tence, fancying itself strong, assumes sovereign authority 
 over omnipotence clothed in weakness. The phantom 
 ruler sits in judgment on the true King. Pilate holding 
 Christ's life in his hand is the crowning paradox of 
 history and the mystery of self-abasing love. One 
 exercise of the Prisoner's will and His chains would have 
 snapped, and the governor lain dead on the marble 
 " pavement." 
 
 The two hearings are parallel, and yet contrasted. In 
 each there are two stages — the self-attestation of Jesus 
 and the accusations of others ; but the order is different. 
 The rulers begin with the witnesses, and, foiled there, 
 fall back on Christ's own answer. Pilate, with Roman 
 directness and a touch of contempt for the accusers, 
 
208 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 1-20 
 
 goes straight to the point, and first questions Jesus. 
 His question was simply as to our Lord's regal preten- 
 sions. He cared nothing about Jewish " superstitions " 
 unless they threatened political disturbance. It was 
 nothing to him whether or no one crazy fanatic more 
 fancied himself " the Messiah," whatever that might be. 
 Was He going to fight ? That was all which Pilate had 
 to look after. He is the very type of the hard, practical 
 Roman, with a " practical " man's contempt for ideas 
 and sentiments, sceptical about the possibility of getting 
 hold of " truth," and too careless to wait for an answer 
 to his question about it ; loftily ignorant of and indifferent 
 to the notions of the troublesome people he ruled, but 
 alive to the necessity of keeping them in good humour, 
 and unscrupulous enough to strain justice and unhesita- 
 tingly sacrifice so small a thing as an innocent life to 
 content them. What could such a man see in Jesus but 
 a harmless visionary ? He had evidently made up his 
 mind that there was no mischief in Him, or he would 
 not have questioned Him as to His kingship. It was a 
 new thing for the rulers to hand over dangerous patriots, 
 and Pilate had common sense enough to suspect that 
 such unusual loyalty concealed something else, and that 
 if Jesus had really been an insurrectionary leader, He 
 would never have fallen into Pilate's power. Accordingly, 
 
Less. XV] Christ and Pilate 209 
 
 he gives no serious attention to the case, and his 
 question has a certain half-amused, half-pitying ring 
 about it. " Thou a king? " — poor, helpless peasant ! A 
 strange specimen of royalty this ! How constantly the 
 same blindness is repeated, and the strong things of this 
 world despise the weak, and material power smiles pity- 
 ingly at the helpless impotence of the principles of 
 Christ's gospel, which yet will one day shatter it to 
 fragments, like a potter's vessel ! The phantom ruler 
 judges the real King to be a powerless shadow, while 
 himself is the shadow and the other the substance. 
 There are plenty of Pilates to-day who judge and mis- 
 judge the King of Israel. 
 
 The silence of Jesus in regard to the eager accusations 
 corresponds to His silence before the false witnesses. 
 The same reasons dictated both. His silence is His 
 most eloquent answer. It calmly passes by all that 
 babble of envenomed tongues as needing no answer, and 
 as utterly irrelevant. Answered, they would have lived 
 in the Gospels ; unanswered, they are buried. Christ 
 can afford to let many of His foes alone. Contradic- 
 tions and confutations keep slanders and heresies above 
 water, which the law of gravitation would dispose of, if 
 they were left alone. 
 
 Pilate's wonder might and should have led him further. 
 
 14 
 
2io The Gospel of St. -Mark [Chap. xv. 1-20 
 
 It should have prompted to further inquiry, and that 
 might have issued in clearer knowledge. It was the 
 little glimmer of light at the far-off end of his cavern, 
 which, travelled towards, might have brought him into 
 free air and broad day. One great part of his crime was 
 neglecting the faint monitions of which he was conscious. 
 His light may have been faint, but it would have 
 brightened ; and he quenched it. He stands as a 
 tremendous example of possibilities missed, and of the 
 tragedy of a soul that has looked on Jesus, and has not 
 yielded to the impressions made on him by the sight. 
 
 II. The people's favourite (verses 7-15). " Barabbas " 
 means "son of the father." His very name is a kind 
 of caricature of the " Son of the Blessed," and His 
 character and actions present in gross form the sort of 
 Messias whom the nation really wanted. He had headed 
 some one of the many small riots against Rome which 
 were perpetually sputtering up and being trampled out 
 by an armed heel. There had been bloodshed, in 
 which he had himself taken part (" a murderer," Acts 
 iii. 14). And this coarse, red-handed desperado is the 
 people's favourite, because he embodied their notions 
 and aspirations, and had been bold enough to do what 
 every man of them would have done if he had dared. 
 He thought and felt, as they did, that freedom was to be 
 
Less, xv] Christ and Pilate 211 
 
 won by the sword. The popular hero is like a mirror 
 which reflects the popular mind. He echoes the popular 
 voice, a little improved or exaggerated. Jesus had 
 taught what the people did not care to hear, and given 
 blessings which even the recipients soon forgot, and 
 lived a life whose beauty of holiness oppressed and 
 rebuked the common life of men. What chance had 
 truth and goodness and purity, against the sort of bravery 
 that slashes with a sword, and is not elevated by incon- 
 venient reach of thought or beauty of character above 
 the mob ? Even now, after nineteen centuries of 
 Christ's influence have modified the popular ideals, what 
 chance have they ? Are the popular " heroes " of Chris- 
 tian nations saints, teachers, lovers of men, in whom 
 their Christ-likeness is the thing venerated ? The old 
 saying that the voice of the people is the voice of God 
 receives an instructive commentary in the vote for 
 Barabbas and against Jesus. That was what a plebiscite 
 for the discovery of the people's favourite came to. 
 What a reliable method of finding the best man universal 
 suffrage, manipulated by wire-pullers like these priests, 
 is ! and how wise the people are who let it guide their 
 judgments, or, still wiser, who fret their lives out in 
 angling for its approval ! Better be condemned with 
 Jesus than adopted with Barabbas, 
 
212 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 1-20 
 
 That fatal choice revealed the character of the 
 choosers, both in their hostility and admiration; for 
 excellence hated shows what we ought to be and are not, 
 and grossness or vice admired shows what we would fain 
 be if we dared. It is the tragic sign that Israel had not 
 learned the rudiments of the lesson which "at sundry 
 times and in divers manners " God had been teaching 
 them. In it the nation renounced its Messianic hopes, 
 and with its own mouth pronounced its own sentence. 
 It convicts them of insensibility to the highest truth, 
 of blindness to the most effulgent light, of ingratitude for 
 the richest gifts. It is the supreme instance of short- 
 lived, unintelligent emotion, inasmuch as many who on 
 Friday joined in the roar, " Crucify Him ! " had on Sunday 
 shouted " Hosanna ! " till they were hoarse. 
 
 Pilate plays a cowardly and unrighteous part in the 
 affair, and tries to make amends to himself for his politic 
 surrender of a man whom he knew to be innocent, by 
 taunts and sarcasm. He seems to see a chance to release 
 Jesus, if he can persuade the mob to name Him as the 
 prisoner to be set free, according to custom. His first 
 proposal to them was apparently dictated by a genuine 
 interest in Jesus, and a complete conviction that Rome 
 had nothing to fear from this " King." But there are 
 also a sneer in the question, at such pauper royalty, as it 
 
Less. XV] Christ and Pilate 213 
 
 looked to him, and a kind of scornful condescension in 
 acknowledging their right of choice. He consults their 
 wishes for once, but there is haughty consciousness of 
 mastery in his way of doing it. His appeal is to the 
 people, as against the priests, whose motives he had 
 penetrated. But in his very effort to save Jesus he 
 condemns himself; for, if he knew that they had delivered 
 Christ for envy, his plain duty was to set the prisoner 
 free, as innocent of the only crime of which he ought to 
 take cognizance. So his attempt to shift the responsi- 
 bility off his own shoulders is a piece of cowardice and 
 a dereliction of duty. His second question plunges him 
 deeper in the mire. The people had a right to decide 
 which was to be released, but none to settle the fate of 
 Jesus. To put that in their hands was an unconditional 
 surrender by Pilate, and the sneer in "whom ye call the 
 King of the Jews " is a poor attempt to hide from them 
 and himself that he is afraid of them. Mark puts his 
 finger on the damning blot in Pilate's conduct when he 
 says that his motive in condemning Jesus was his wish 
 to content the people. The life of one poor Jew was a 
 small price to pay for popularity. So he let policy 
 outweigh righteousness, and, in spite of his own clear 
 conviction, did an innocent man to death. That would 
 be his reading of his act, and, doubtless, it did not trouble 
 
214 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 1-20 
 
 his conscience much or long, but he would leave the 
 judgment seat tolerably satisfied with his morning's work. 
 How little he knew what he had done ! In his ignorance 
 lies his palliation. His crime was great, but his guilt is 
 measured by his light, and that was small. He prostituted 
 justice for his own ends, and he did not follow out the 
 dawnings of light that would have led him to know 
 Jesus. Therefore he did the most awful thing in the 
 world's history. Let us learn the lesson which he 
 teaches ! 
 
 III. The soldiers' mockery (verses 16-20). This is 
 characteristically different from that of the rulers. They 
 jeered at his claim to supernatural enlightenment, and 
 bade Him show His Messiahship by naming His smiters. 
 The rough legionaries knew nothing about a Messiah, 
 but it seemed to them a good jest that this poor, scourged 
 prisoner should have called Himself a King, and so they 
 proceed to make coarse and clumsy merriment over it. 
 It is like the wild beast playing with its prey before 
 killing it. The laughter is not only rough, but cruel. 
 There was no pity for the Victim "bleeding from the 
 Roman rods," and soon to die. And the absence of any 
 personal hatred made this mockery more hideous. Jesus 
 was nothing to them but a Prisoner whom they were to 
 crucify, and their mockery was sheer brutality and savage 
 
Less. XV] Christ and Pilate 215 
 
 delight in torturing. The sport is too good to be kept 
 by a few, so the whole band is gathered to enjoy it. 
 How they would troop to the place ! They get hold of 
 some robe or cloth of the imperial colour, and of some 
 flexible shoots of some thorny plant, and out of these 
 they fashion a burlesque of royal trappings. Then they 
 shout, as they would have done to Caesar, " Hail, King 
 of the Jews ! " repeating again with clumsy iteration, the 
 stale jest which seems to them so exquisite. Then their 
 mood changes, and naked ferocity takes the place of 
 ironical reverence. Plucking the mock sceptre, the reed, 
 from His passive hand, they strike the thorn-crowned 
 Head with it, and spit on Him while they bow in mock 
 reverence before Him, and at last, when tired of their 
 sport, tear off the purple, and lead Him away to the 
 Cross. 
 
 If we think of who He was who bore all this, and of 
 why He bore it, we may well bow, not the knee, but the 
 heart, in endless love and thankfulness. If we think of 
 the mockers — rude Roman soldiers, who probably could 
 not understand a word of what they heard on the streets 
 of Jerusalem — we shall do rightly to remember our 
 Lord's own plea for them — " they know not what they 
 do " — and reflect that many of us with more knowledge 
 do really sin more against the King than they did. Their 
 
216 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 1-20 
 
 insult was an unconscious prophecy. They foretold the 
 basis of His dominion in the crown of thorns, and its 
 character in the sceptre of reed, and its extent in their 
 mocking salutations; for His Kingship is founded in 
 suffering, wielded with genueness, and to Him every 
 knee shall one day bow, and every tongue confess that 
 the King of the Jews is monarch of mankind. 
 
LESSON XVI 
 THE DEATH WHICH GIVES LIFE 
 
 217 
 
LESSON XVI 
 The Death which Gives Life 
 
 St. Mark xv. 21-39 
 
 21. "And they compel one 
 Simon a Cyrenian, who passed 
 by, coming out of the country, 
 the father of Alexander and 
 Rufus, to bear His cross. 
 
 22. And they bring Him 
 unto the place Golgotha, which 
 is, being interpreted, The place 
 of a skull. 
 
 23. And they gave Him to 
 drink wine mingled with myrrh : 
 but He received it not. 
 
 24. And when they had 
 crucified Him, they parted His 
 garments, casting lots upon 
 them, what every man should 
 take. 
 
 25. And it was the third 
 hour, and they crucified Him. 
 
 26. And the superscription 
 of His accusation was written 
 over, THE KING OF THE 
 JEWS. 
 
 27. And with Him they 
 crucify two thieves ; the one 
 on His right hand, and the 
 other on His left. 
 
 28. And the Scripture was 
 fulfilled, which saith, And He 
 was numbered with the trans- 
 gressors. 
 
 29. And they that passed 
 
 by railed on Him, wagging 
 their heads, and saying, Ah, 
 Thou that destroyest the temple, 
 and buildest it in three days, 
 
 30. Save Thyself, and come 
 down from the cross. 
 
 31. Likewise also the chief 
 priests mocking said among 
 themselves with the scribes, 
 He saved others ; Himself He 
 cannot save. 
 
 32. Let Christ the King of 
 Israel descend now from the 
 cross, that we may see and 
 believe. And they that were 
 crucified with Him reviled 
 Him. 
 
 33. And when the sixth hour 
 was come, there was darkness 
 over the whole land until the 
 ninth hour. 
 
 34. And at the ninth hour 
 Jesus cried with a loud voice, 
 saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabach- 
 thani ? which is, being inter- 
 preted, My God, my God, why 
 hast Thou forsaken Me ? 
 
 35. And some of them that 
 stood by, when they heard it, 
 said, Behold, He calleth Elias. 
 
 36. And one ran and filled 
 a spunge full of vinegar, and 
 
 219 
 
The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 21-39 
 
 put it on a reed, and gave Him was rent in twain from the 
 to drink, saying, Let alone ; top to the bottom. 
 
 let us see whether Elias will 
 come to take Him down. 
 
 37. And Jesus cried with a 
 loud voice, and gave up the 
 ghost. 
 
 39. And when the centurion, 
 which stood over against Him, 
 saw that He so cried out, and 
 gave up the ghost, he said, 
 Truly this man was the Son of 
 
 38. And the veil of the temple God. 
 
 r I ^HE narrative of the crucifixion is, in Mark's hands, 
 ■*■ almost entirely a record of what was done to Jesus, 
 and scarcely touches what was done by Him. We 
 are shown the executioners, the jeering rabble, the 
 triumphant priests, the fellow-sufferers reviling ; but the 
 only glimpses we get of Him are His refusal of the 
 stupefying draught, His loud cries, and His giving up 
 the ghost. The narrative is perfectly calm, as well as 
 reverentially reticent. It would have been well if our 
 religious literature had copied the example, and treated 
 the solemn scene in the same fashion. Mark's inartificial 
 style of linking long paragraphs with the simple "and" 
 is peculiarly observable here, where every verse but 30 
 and 32, which are both quotations, begins with it. The 
 whole section is one long sentence, each fresh number 
 of which adds a fresh touch to the tragic picture. The 
 monotonous repetition of "and," "and," "and," gives 
 the effect of an endless succession of the waves of sorrow, 
 pain, and contumely which broke over that sacred head. 
 We shall best simply note each billow as it breaks. 
 
Less, xvi] The Death which Gives Life 221 
 
 The first point is the impressing of Simon to bear the 
 Cross. That was not dictated by compassion so much as 
 by impatience. Apparently the weight was too heavy for 
 Jesus, and the pace could be quickened by making the 
 first man they could lay hold of help to carry the load. 
 Mark adds that Simon was the " father of Alexander and 
 Rums," whom he supposes to need no introduction to 
 his readers. There is a Rufus mentioned in Romans xvi. 
 13 as being, with his mother, members of the Roman 
 Church. Mark's Gospel has many traces of being 
 primarily intended for Romans. Possibly these two 
 Rufuses are the same; and the conjecture may be 
 allowable that the father's fortuitous association with the 
 crucifixion led to the conversion of himself and his 
 family, and that his sons were of more importance or 
 fame in the Church than he was. Perhaps, too, he is 
 the " Simeon called Niger " (bronzed by the hot African 
 sun), who was a prophet of Antioch, and stands by the 
 side of a Cyrenian (Acts xiii. 1). It is singular that he 
 should be the only one of all the actors in the crucifixion 
 who is named; and the fact suggests his subsequent 
 connection with the Church. If so, the seeking love of 
 God found him by a strange way. On what apparently 
 trivial accidents a life may be pivoted, and how much 
 may depend on turning to right or left in a walk ! In 
 
222 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 21-39 
 
 this bewildering network of interlaced events, which each 
 ramify in so many directions, the only safety is to keep 
 fast hold of God's hand, and to take good care of the 
 purity of our motives, and let results alone. 
 
 The next verse brings us to Golgotha, which is 
 translated by the three evangelists, who give it as meaning 
 " the place of a skull." The name may have been given 
 
 to the place of execution with grim suggestiveness ; 
 or, more probably, Conder's recent identification, is 
 plausible, which points to a little, rounded, skull-shaped 
 knoll, close outside the northern wall, as the site of the 
 crucifixion. 1 In that case, the name would originally 
 describe the form of the height, and be retained as 
 specially significant in view of its use as the place of 
 execution. 
 
 That was the " place " to which Israel led its King ! 
 The place of death becomes a place of life, and from the 
 mournful soil where the bones of evil-doers lay bleaching 
 in the sun springs the fountain of water of life. 
 
 1 The proposal of identifying this hill with Calvary was made 
 nearly thirty years before it was accepted by Captain Conder. It 
 was advocated in print by Otto Thenius, a German, in 1849. and 
 by Fisher Howe, an American, in 1 87 1. All this was shown by 
 Dr. Merrill in The Sunday School Times for June 23rd, 1888. It 
 will be observed that Canon Tristram speaks of having recognised 
 this hill as the site of Calvary as long ago as 1858— twenty years 
 prior to its mention by Captain Conder. 
 
Less, xvi] The Death which Gives Life 223 
 
 Arrived at that doleful place, a small touch of kindness 
 breaks the monotony of cruelty, if it be not merely a part 
 of the ordinary routine of executions. The stupefying 
 potion would diminish, but would therefore protract the 
 pain, and was possibly given for the latter rather than the 
 former effect. But Jesus " received it not." He will 
 not, by any act of His, lessen the bitterness. He will 
 drink to the dregs the cup which His Father hath given 
 Him, and therefore He will not drink of the numbing 
 draught. It is a small matter comparatively, but it is all 
 of a piece with the greater things. The spirit of His 
 whole course of voluntary, cheerful endurance of all the 
 sorrows needful to redeem the world, is expressed in His 
 silent turning away from the draught which might have 
 alleviated physical suffering, but at the cost of dulling 
 conscious surrender. 
 
 The act of crucifixion is but named in a subsidiary 
 clause, as if the writer turned away, with eyes veiled in 
 reverence, from the sight of man's utmost sin and Christ's 
 utmost mystery of suffering love. He can describe the 
 attendant circumstances, but his pen refuses to dwell 
 upon the central fact. The highest art and the simplest 
 natural feeling both know that the fewest words are the 
 most eloquent. He will not expressly mention the 
 indignity done to the sacred Body in which " dwelt all 
 
224 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 21-39 
 
 the fulness of the Godhead," but leaves it to be inferred 
 from the parting of Christ's raiment, the executioner's 
 perquisite. He had nothing else belonging to Him, and 
 of even that poor property He is spoiled. According to 
 John's more detailed account, the soldiers made an equal 
 parting of His garments except the seamless robe, for 
 which they threw lots. So the " parting " applies to one 
 portion, and the " casting lots " to another. The 
 incident teaches two things : on the one hand, the 
 stolid indifference of the soldiers, who had crucified 
 many a Jew, and went about their awful work as a mere 
 piece of routine duty ; and, on the other hand, the depth 
 of the abasement and shame to which Jesus bowed for 
 our sakes. "Naked shall I return thither" was true 
 in the most literal sense of Him whose earthly life began 
 with His laying aside His garments of Divine glory, and 
 ended with rude legionaries parting " His raiment " 
 among them. 
 
 Mark alone tells the hour at which Jesus was nailed to 
 the Cross (verse 25). Matthew and Luke specify the sixth 
 and ninth hours as the times of the darkness and of the 
 death ; but to Mark we owe our knowledge of the fact 
 that for six slow hours Jesus hung there, tasting death 
 drop by drop. At any moment of all these sorrow-laden 
 moments He could have come down from the Cross, if 
 
Less, xvi] The Death which Gives Life 225 
 
 He would. At each, a fresh exercise of His loving will 
 to redeem kept Him there. 
 
 The writing on the Cross is given here in the most 
 condensed fashion (verse 26). The one important point is 
 that His "accusation " was " King of the Jews." It was 
 the official statement of the reason for His crucifixion, 
 put there by Pilate as a double-barrelled sarcasm, hitting 
 both Jesus and the nation. The rulers winced under the 
 taunt, and tried to get it softened ; but Pilate sought to 
 make up for his unrighteous facility in yielding Jesus to 
 death, by obstinacy and jeers. So the inscription hung 
 there, a truth deeper than its author or its angry readers 
 knew, and a prophecy which has not received all its 
 fulfilment yet. 
 
 The narrative comes back, in verse 27, to the sad 
 catalogue of the insults heaped on Jesus. Verse 28 is 
 probably spurious here, as the Revised Version takes it 
 to be ; but it truly expresses the intention of the cruci- 
 fixion of the thieves as being to put Him in the same 
 class as they, and to suggest that He was a ringleader, 
 pre-eminent in evil. Possibly the two robbers may have 
 been part of Barabbas's band, who had been thieves 
 disguised as patriots ; and, if so, the insult was all the 
 greater. But, in any case, the meaning of it was to 
 bring him down, in the eyes of beholders, to the level 
 
 15 
 
226 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 21-39 
 
 of vulgar criminals. If a Cranmer or a Latimer had 
 been bound to the stake with a housebreaker or a cut- 
 throat, that would have been a feeble image of the 
 malicious contumely thus flung at Jesus ; but His love 
 had identified Him with the worst sinners in a far 
 deeper and more real way, and not a crime had stained 
 these men's hands but its weight pressed on Him. He 
 numbers Himself with transgressors, that they may be 
 numbered with His saints. 
 
 Then follows (verses 29-32) the threefold mockery by 
 people, priests, and fellow-sufferers. That is spread 
 over three hours, and is all which Mark has to tell of 
 them. Other evangelists give us words spoken by Jesus ; 
 but this narrative has only one of the seven " words 
 from the Cross," and gives us the picture rather of the 
 silent Sufferer, bearing in meek resolution all that men 
 can lay on Him. Both pictures are true, for the words 
 are too few to make notable breaches in the silence. 
 The mockery harps on the old themes,' and witnesses 
 at once the malicious cruelty of the mockers and the 
 innocence of the Victim, at whom even such malice 
 could find nothing to fling except these stale taunts. 
 The chance passengers, of whom there would be a 
 stream to and from the adjacent city gate, " wag their 
 heads " in gratified and fierce hate. The calumny of 
 
Less, xvi] The Death which Gives Life 227 
 
 the discredited witnesses, although even the biassed 
 judges had not dared to treat it as true, has lodged in 
 the popular mind, and been accepted as proved. Lies 
 are not killed when they are shown to be lies. They 
 travel faster than truth. Ears were greedily open for 
 the false witnesses' evidence which had been closed to 
 Christ's gracious teaching. The charge that He was 
 a would-be destroyer of the Temple obliterated all 
 remembrance of miracles and benefits, and fanned the 
 fire of hatred in men whose zeal for the Temple was 
 the substitute for religion. Are there any of them left 
 nowadays — people who have no real heart-hold of 
 Christianity, but are fiercely antagonistic to supposed 
 destroyers of its externals, and not over-particular as to 
 the evidence against them ? These mockers thought 
 that Christ's being fastened to the Cross was a reductio 
 ad absurdum of His claim to build the Temple. How 
 little they knew that it led straight to that rebuilding, or 
 that they, and not He, were indeed the destroyers of 
 the holy house which they thought they honoured, and 
 had really made " desolate " ! 
 
 The priests do not take up the people's mockery, for 
 they know that it is based upon a falsehood ; but they 
 scoff at His miracles, which they assume to be disproved 
 by His crucifixion. Their venomous gibe is profoundly 
 
228 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 21-39 
 
 true, and goes to the very heart of the gospel. Precisely 
 because " He saved others," therefore " Himself He 
 cannot save " — not, as they thought, for want of power, 
 but because His will was fixed to obey the Father and to 
 redeem His brethren ; and therefore He must die and 
 cannot deliver Himself. But the necessity and inability 
 both depend on His will. The priests, however, take up 
 the other part of the people's scoff. They unite the two 
 grounds of condemnation in the names " the Christ, the 
 King of Israel," and think that both are disproved by 
 His hanging there. But the Cross is the throne of the 
 King. A sacrificial death is the true work of the Messiah 
 of law, prophecy, and psalm ; and because He did not 
 come down from the Cross, therefore is He crowned with 
 glory and honour in heaven, and rules over grateful and 
 redeemed hearts on earth. 
 
 The midday darkness lasted three hours, during which 
 no word or incident is recorded. It was nature Divinely 
 draped in mourning over the sin of sins, the most tragic 
 of deaths. It was a symbol of the eclipse of the Light 
 of the world ; but ere He died it passed, and the sun 
 shone on His expiring head, in token that His death 
 scattered the darkness and poured day on our sad night. 
 The solemn silence was broken at last by that loud cry, 
 the utterance of strangely-blended consciousness of 
 
Less, xvi] The Death which Gives Life 229 
 
 possession of God and abandonment by Him, the depths 
 of which we can never fathom. But this we know : that 
 our sins, not His, wove the veil which separated Him 
 from His God. Such separation is the real death. 
 Where cold analysis is out of place, reverent gratitude 
 may draw near. Let us adore, for what we can under- 
 stand speaks of a love which has taken the iniquity of 
 us all on itself. Let us silently adore, for all words are 
 weaker than that mystery of love. 
 
 The first hearers of that cry misunderstood it, or 
 cruelly pretended to do so, in order to find fresh food for 
 mockery. " Eloi " sounded like enough to " Elijah " to 
 suggest a travesty of the piteous appeal to some of the 
 flinty hearts around. They must have been Jews, for 
 the soldiers knew nothing about the prophet ; and if they 
 were scribes, they could scarcely fail to recognise the 
 reference to the Twenty-second Psalm, and to under- 
 stand the cry. But the opportunity for one more cruelty 
 was too tempting to be resisted, and savage laughter was 
 man's response to the most pitiful prayer ever uttered. 
 One man in all that crowd had a small touch of human 
 pity, and, dipping a sponge in the sour drink provided 
 for the soldiers, reached it up to the parched lips. That 
 was no stupefying draught, and was accepted. Matthew's 
 account is more detailed, and represents the words 
 
230 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xv. 21-39 
 
 spoken as intended to hinder even that solitary bit of 
 kindness. 
 
 The end was near. The lips, moistened by the 
 "vinegar," opened once more in that loud cry which 
 both showed undiminished vitality and conscious victory ; 
 and then He "gave up the ghost," sending away His 
 spirit, and dying, not because the prolonged agony had 
 exhausted His energy, but because He chose to die. 
 He entered through the gate of death as a conqueror, 
 and burst its bars when He went in, and not only when 
 He came out. 
 
 His death rent the Temple veil. The innermost 
 chamber of the Divine Presence is open now, and sinful 
 men have access with confidence by the faith of Him 
 wherever He has gone before. Right into the secret of 
 God's pavilion we can go, now and here, knowledge and 
 faith and love treading the path which Jesus has opened, 
 and coming to the Father by Him. Right into the blaze 
 of the glory we shall go hereafter ; for He has gone to 
 to prepare a place for us, and when He overcame the 
 sharpness of death He opened the gate of heaven to all 
 believers. 
 
 Jews looked on, unconcerned and unconvinced by 
 the pathos and triumph of such a death. But the rough 
 soldier who commanded the executioners had no pre- 
 
Less, xvi] The Death which Gives Life 231 
 
 judices or hatred to blind his eyes and ossify his 
 heart. The sight made its natural impression on him ; 
 and his exclamation, though not to be taken as a Chris- 
 tian confession or as using the phrase " Son of God " in 
 in its deepest meaning, is yet the beginning of light. 
 Perhaps, as he went thoughtfully to his barrack that 
 afternoon, the process began which led him at last to 
 repeat his first exclamation with deepened meaning and 
 true faith. May we all gaze on that Cross, with fuller 
 knowledge, with firm trust, and endless love ! 
 
LESSON XVII 
 
 HOW THE DISCIPLES RECEIVED THE TESTI- 
 MONY OF THE RESURRECTION 
 
 233 
 
LESSON XVII 
 
 How the Disciples Received the Testimony to the 
 Resurrection 
 
 Mark xvi. 1-13 
 
 1. "And when the sabbath 
 was past, Mary Magdalene, and 
 Mary the mother of James, 
 and Salome, had bought sweet 
 spices, that they might come 
 and anoint Him. 
 
 2. And very early in the 
 morning the first day of the 
 week, they came unto the se- 
 pulchre at the rising of the sun. 
 
 3. And they said among 
 themselves, Who shall roll us 
 away the stone from the door 
 of the sepulchre ? 
 
 4. And when they looked, 
 they saw that the stone was 
 rolled away : for it was very 
 great. 
 
 5. And entering into the 
 sepulchre, they saw a young 
 man sitting on the right side, 
 clothed in a long white gar- 
 ment; and they were affrighted. 
 
 6. 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. 
 
 7. 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. 
 
 8. 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. 
 
 9. Now when Jesus was risen 
 early the first day of the week, 
 He appeared first to Mary 
 Magdalene, out of whom He 
 had cast seven devils. 
 
 10. And she went and told 
 them that had been with Him, 
 as they mourned and wept. 
 
 11. And they, when they had 
 heard that He was alive, and had 
 been seen of her, believed not. 
 
 12. After that He appeared 
 in another form unto two of 
 them, as they walked, and 
 went into the country. 
 
 13. And they went and told 
 it unto the residue : neither 
 believed they them." 
 
 ■35 
 
236 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xvi. 1-13 
 
 T T is not my business to discuss questions of harmo- 
 -*- nising or of criticism. These are in more competent 
 hands, and I have only to deal with the narrative as 
 it stands. Its peculiar character is very plain. The 
 manner in which the first disciples learned the fact of 
 the resurrection, and the disbelief with which they re- 
 ceived it, much rather than the resurrection itself, come 
 into view in this section. The disciples, and not the 
 risen Lord, are shown us. There is nothing here of the 
 earthquake, or of the descending angel, or of the terrified 
 guard, or of our Lord's appearance to the women. The 
 two appearances to Mary Magdalene and to the. travellers 
 to Emmaus, which, in the hands of John and Luke, 
 are so pathetic and rich, are here mentioned with the 
 utmost brevity, for the sake chiefly of insisting on the 
 disbelief of the rest who heard of them. Mark's theme 
 is mainly what the disciples thought of the testimony to 
 the resurrection. 
 
 I. He shows us, first, bewildered love and sorrow. 
 We leave the question whether this group of women is 
 the same as that of which Luke records that Joanna was 
 one, as well as the other puzzle as to harmonising the 
 notes of time in the evangelists. May not the difference 
 between the time of starting and that of arrival solve 
 some of the difficulty ? When all the notes are more 
 
Less, xvii] The Disciples and the Resurrection 237 
 
 or less vague, and refer to the time of transition from 
 dark to day, when every moment partakes of both and 
 may be differently described as belonging to either, is 
 precision to be expected ? In the whirl of agitation of 
 that morning, would anybody be at leisure to take much 
 note of the exact minute ? Are not these " discrepan- 
 cies " much more valuable as confirmation of the story 
 than precise accord would have been ? It is better to 
 try to understand the feelings of that little band than 
 to carp at such trifles. Sorrow wakes early, and love 
 is impatient to bring its tribute. So we can see these 
 three women, stealing through the silent streets, leaving 
 their abode as soon as the doleful grey of morning 
 permitted, and reaching the rock-cut tomb while the sun 
 was rising over Olivet. Where were Salome's ambitious 
 hopes for her two sons now ? Dead, and buried in the 
 Master's grave. The completeness of the women's 
 despair, as well as the faithfulness of their love, is 
 witnessed by their purpose. They had come to anoint 
 the body of Him to whom in life they had ministered. 
 They had no thought of a resurrection, plainly as they 
 had been told of it. The waves of sorrow had washed 
 the remembrance of His assurances on that subject clean 
 out of their minds. Truth that is only half understood, 
 however plainly spoken, is always forgotten when the 
 
238 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap.xvi. 1-13 
 
 time to apply it comes. We are told that the disbelief 
 of the disciples in the resurrection, after Christ's plain 
 predictions of it, is " psychologically " impossible. Such 
 big words are imposing, but the objection is shallow. 
 These disciples are not the only people who forgot in 
 the hour of need the thing which it most concerned 
 them to remember, and let the clouds of sorrow hide 
 starry promises which would have turned mourning into 
 dancing, and night into day. Christ's sayings about His 
 resurrection were not understood in their, as it appears 
 to us, obvious meaning when spoken. No wonder, then, 
 that they were not expected to be fulfilled in their 
 obvious meaning when He was dead. We shall have 
 a word to say presently about the value of the fact that 
 there was no anticipation of resurrection on the part of 
 the disciples. For the present it is enough to note how 
 these three loving souls confess their hopelessness in 
 their errand. Did they not not know, too, that Joseph 
 and Nicodemus had been beforehand with them in 
 their labour of love ? Apparently not. It might easily 
 happen, in the confusion and dispersion, that no know- 
 ledge of this had reached them ; or perhaps sorrow and 
 agitation had driven it out of their memories ; or 
 perhaps they felt that, whether others had done the 
 same before or no, they must do it too, not because 
 
Less. XVII] The Disciples and the Resurrection 239 
 
 the loved form needed it, but because their hearts 
 needed to do it. It was the love which must serve, 
 not calculation of necessity, which loaded their hands 
 with costly spices. The living Christ was pleased with 
 the " odour of a sweet smell," from the needless spices, 
 meant to re-anoint the dead Christ, and accepted the 
 purpose, though it came from ignorance and was never 
 carried out, since its deepest root was love, genuine, 
 though bewildered. 
 
 The same absence of calm " practical common sense " 
 is seen in the too late consideration, which never occurred 
 to the three women till they were getting near the tomb, 
 as to how to get into it. They do not seem to have 
 heard of the guard ; but they know that the stone is too 
 heavy for them to move, and none of the men among 
 the disciples had been taken into their confidence. 
 " Why did they not think of that before ? What a want 
 of foresight ! " says the cool observer. " How beautifully 
 true to nature ! " says a wiser judgment. To obey the 
 impulse of love and sorrow without thinking, and then 
 to be arrested on their road by a difficulty, which they 
 might have thought of at first, but did not till they were 
 close to it, is surely just what might have been expected 
 of such mourners. Mark gives a graphic picture in 
 that one word " looking up," and follows it with pic- 
 
240 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap.xvi. 1-13 
 
 turesque present tenses. They had been looking down 
 or at each other in perplexity, when they lifted their 
 eyes to the tomb, which was probably on an eminence. 
 What a flash of wonder would pass through their minds 
 when they saw it open ! What that might signify they 
 would be eager to hurry to find out ; but, at all events, 
 their difficulty was at an end. When love to Christ is 
 brought to a stand in its venturous enterprises by diffi- 
 culties occurring for the first time to the mind, it is well 
 to go close up to them ; and it often happens that when 
 we do, and look steadily at them, we see that they are 
 rolled away, and the passage clear which we feared was 
 hopelessly barred. 
 
 II. The calm herald of the resurrection and the 
 amazed hearers. Apparently Mary Magdalene had 
 turned back as soon as she saw the opened tomb, and 
 hurried to tell that the body had been carried off, as 
 she supposed. The guard had also probably fled before 
 this ; and so the other two women enter the vestibule, 
 and there find the angel. Sometimes one angel, some- 
 times two, sometimes none, where visible there. These 
 varying numbers are not contradiction. Many angels 
 hovered round the spot where the greatest wonder of the 
 universe was to be seen, " eagerly desiring to look into " 
 that grave. The beholder's eye may have determined 
 
Less, xvii] The Disciples and the Resurrection 241 
 
 their visibility. Their number may have fluctuated. 
 Mark does not use the word " angel " at all, but leaves 
 us to infer what manner of being he was who first pro- 
 claimed the resurrection. Note his youth, his attitude, 
 and his attire. The angelic life is vigorous, progressive, 
 buoyant, and alien from decay. Immortal youth belongs 
 to them who " excel in strength," because they " do his 
 commandments." That waiting minister shows us what 
 the children of the resurrection shall be, and so his 
 presence as well as his speech expounds the blessed 
 mystery of our life in the risen Lord. The serene 
 sitting " on the right side " is not only a vivid touch 
 of description, but significant of restfulness and fixed 
 contemplation, as well as of the calmness of a higher 
 life. That still watcher knows too much to be agitated ; 
 but 'the less he is moved, the more he adores. His 
 quiet contrasts with and heightens the impression of the 
 storm of conflicting feelings in the women's tremulous 
 natures. His garments symbolise purity and repose. 
 How sharply the difference between heaven and earth 
 is given in the last words of verse 5 ! " They were 
 amazed," swept out of themselves in an ecstasy of be- 
 wilderment _ in which hope had no place. Terror, 
 surprise, curiosity, wonder, blank incapacity to know 
 what all this meant, made chaos in them. 
 
 16 
 
242 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xvi. 1-13 
 
 The angel's words are broken up into short sentences, 
 which have a certain dignity, and break up the astound- 
 ing revelation he has to make into small pieces, which 
 these bewildered minds can grasp. He calms their 
 tumult of spirit. He shows them that He knows their 
 errand. He adoringly names his Lord and theirs by 
 the names of His manhood — His lowly home, and His 
 ignominious death. He lingers on the thought, to him 
 covering so profound a mystery of Divine love, that his 
 Lord had been born, had lived in the obscure village, 
 and died on the Cross. Then, in one word, he pro- 
 claims the stupendous fact of His resurrection as His 
 own act, — "He is risen." This crown of all miracles, 
 which brings life and immortality to light, and changes 
 the whole outlook of humanity, which changes the Cross 
 into victory, and without which Christianity is a dream 
 and a ruin, is announced in a single word — the mightiest 
 ever spoken but by Christ's own lips. It was fitting that 
 angel lips should proclaim the Resurrection, as they did 
 the Nativity, though in both " He taketh not hold of 
 angels," and they had but a secondary share in the 
 blessings. Yet that empty grave opened to " princi- 
 palities and powers in heavenly places " a new unfolding 
 of the manifold wisdom and love of God. The angel — 
 a true evangelist — does not linger on the wondrous 
 
Less, xvii] The Disciples and the Resurrection 243 
 
 intimation, but points to the vacant place, which would 
 have been so drear but for his previous words, and 
 bids them approach to verify his assurance, and with 
 reverent wonder to gaze on the hallowed and now happy 
 spot. A moment is granted for feeling to overflow, and 
 certainty to be attained, and then the women are sent 
 on their errand. Even the joy of that gaze is not to be 
 selfishly prolonged, while others are sitting in sorrow for 
 want of what they know. That is the law for all the 
 Christian life. First make sure work of one's own 
 possession of the truth, and then hasten to tell it to 
 those who need it. 
 
 " And Peter." Mark alone gives us this. The other 
 evangelists might pass it by ; but how could Peter ever 
 forget the balm which that message of pardon and 
 restoration brought to him, and how could Peter's mouth- 
 piece leave it out ? Is there anything in the Gospels 
 more beautiful, or fuller of long-suffering and thoughtful 
 love, than that message from the risen Saviour to the 
 denier ? And how delicate the love which, by calling 
 him Peter, not Simon, reinstates him in his official 
 position by anticipation, even though in the subsequent 
 full restoration scene by the lake he is thrice called 
 Simon, before the complete effacement of the triple 
 denial by the triple confession ! 
 
244 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap.xvi. 1-13 
 
 Galilee is named as the rendezvous, and the word 
 employed — "goeth before you" — is that appropriate to 
 the Shepherd in front of His flock. They had been 
 " scattered," but are to be drawn together again. He is 
 to precede them there — lightly indicating the new form 
 of their relations to Him, marked during the forty days 
 by a distance which prepared for his final withdrawal. 
 Galilee was the home of most of them, and had been 
 the field of His most continuous labours. There would 
 be many disciples there, who would gather to see their 
 risen Lord (five hundred at once) ; and there, rather 
 than in Jerusalem, which had slain Him, was it fitting 
 that He should show himself to His friends. The 
 appearances in Jerusalem were all within a week (if we 
 except the Ascension), and the connection in which 
 Mark introduces them (if verse 14 be his) seems to treat 
 them as forced on Christ by the disciples' unbelief, rather 
 than as His original intention. It looks as if He meant 
 to show Himself in the city only to one or two, such as 
 Mary, Peter, and some others, but to reserve His more 
 public appearance for Galilee. 
 
 How did the women receive the message? Mark 
 represents them as trembling in body and in an ecstasy 
 in mind, and as hurrying away silent with terror. 
 Matthew says that they were full of " fear and great joy," 
 
Less, xvii] The Disciples and the Resurrection 245 
 
 and hurried away to tell the disciples. In the whirl of 
 feeling, there were'opposites blended or succeeding one 
 another ; and the one evangelist lays hold of one set, and 
 the other of the other. It is as impossible to catalogue 
 the swift emotions of such a moment as to separate and 
 tabulate the hues of sunrise. The silence which Mark 
 tells of can only refer to their demeanour as they " fled." 
 His object is to bring out the very imperfect credence 
 which, at the best, was given to the testimony that Christ 
 was risen, and to paint the tumult of feeling in the 
 breasts of its first recipients. His picture is taken from 
 a different angle from Matthew's ; but Matthew's con- 
 tains the same elements, for he speaks of " fear," though 
 he completes it by "joy." 
 
 III. The incredulity of the disciples. The two appear- 
 ances to Mary Magdalene and the travellers to Emmaus 
 are introduced mainly to record the unbelief of the 
 disciples. A strange choice that was, of the woman who 
 had been rescued from so low a debasement to be first 
 to see Him ! But her degradation was the measure of 
 her love. Longing eyes, that have been washed clean 
 by many a tear of penitent gratitude, are purged to see 
 Jesus; and a yearning heart ever brings Him near. 
 The unbelief of the story of the two from Emmaus seems 
 to conflict with Luke's account, which tells that they 
 
246 The Gospel of St. Mark [Chap. xvi. 1-13 
 
 were met by the news of Christ's appearance to Simon. 
 But the two statements are not contradictory. If we 
 remember the excitement and confusion of mind in 
 which they were, we shall not wonder if belief and 
 unbelief followed each other, like the flow and recoil of 
 the waves. One moment they were on the crest of the 
 billows, and saw land ahead; the next day they were 
 down in the trough, and saw only the melancholy surge. 
 The very fact that Peter was believed, might make them 
 disbelieve the travellers ; for how could Jesus have been 
 in Jerusalem and Emmaus so nearly at once ? 
 
 However the two narratives be reconciled, it remains 
 obvious that the first disciples did not believe the first 
 witnesses of the resurrection, and that their unbelief is 
 an important fact. It bears very distinctly on the worth 
 of their subsequent conviction. It has special bearing 
 on the most modern form of disbelief in the resurrection, 
 which accounts for the belief of the first disciples on 
 the ground that they expected Christ to rise, and that 
 they then persuaded themselves, in all good faith, that 
 He had risen. That monstrous theory is vulnerable at 
 all points, but one sufficient answer is — the disciples 
 did not expect Christ to rise again, and were so far from 
 it that they did not believe He had risen when they were 
 told. Their original unbelief is a strong argument for 
 
Less, xvii] The Disciples and the Resurrection 247 
 
 the reliableness of their final faith. What raised them 
 from the stupor of despair and incredulity ? Only one 
 answer is " psychologically " reasonable : they at last 
 believed because they saw. It is incredible that they 
 were conscious deceivers ; for such lives as they lived, 
 and such a gospel as they preached, never came from 
 liars. It is as incredible that they were unconsciously 
 mistaken; for they were wholly unprepared for the 
 Resurrection, and sturdily disbelieved all witnesses for it, 
 till they saw with their own eyes, and had "many 
 infallible proofs." Let us be thankful for their unbelief 
 and its record, and let us seek to possess the blessing of 
 those " that have not seen, and yet have believed " ! 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, <S= Viney, Ld., London and Aylcsbur 
 
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 The Gospel of St. Mark 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
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