Bible Commentaries

Sacramental Thoughts

Luke 22:15

It seems almost unjust to these words to speak them loudly. Oh, that we had the power to whisper into the most distant, ear without raising the voice at all! There are far-reaching whispers. The Holy Spirit may now take up our poor weakness and whisper to each listening soul this mournful but most thrilling text.

We cannot get rid of the blood-shedding, because it was Jesus Himself who told us about the blood, and His own blood, and why it was shed, and for whom it was shed. That is the simple scene.

I. Let us notice, first, that it was all of Christ's own suggestion. The disciples suggested nothing—they were wise. Who would offer suggestions to the Eternal? It was Christ that said, Let us make a bigger and greater passover than the one that has been celebrated outside, let us have an inner and spiritual passover, let us get at the reality and the true music of the passover historic, let us dwell in the secret places of the tabernacles of the Most High. Everything is of Christ's suggestion, if we could but hold ourselves and not deafen ourselves with our own noises. The morning is a sacrament, and the evening star, and all growing things, and all things beautiful and living. Oh, how they do err, with such strange obliquity amounting almost to criminality, who have made this dear table now standing before us into something of a priestly kind! I love the white cloth. It has a symbolic meaning, and I love the redness of the cup, because it does suggest the redness of blood; the bread is the staff of life—Oh, give it to me, and let me eat it as my Lord's body! This was not an afterthought; this is not an anecdote in a history of surprises: the tree out of which the sacramental board was cut was growing before the forests were planted. This is the voice of eternity; this is the vision of things ineffable.

II. Then notice that all this was done in anticipation of the death. I repeat, this is not the general order. It was, however, Christ's order, and that is enough for us. Have we seen the picture in its vivid and impressive reality? Here is a Man celebrating his own death, doing something on the way to the final excruciating agony. Christ established a great preventive ministry, a great ministry that outran events and waited for them. He gave His followers bread lest they should faint by the way.

III. Now my Lord speaks a word which is seldom quoted, and which ought to rule the administration of the whole feast, when we come together in one place for one purpose. What said He? "Take this, and divide it among- yourselves. Was He ever so simple, was He ever so little mechanical? This was a mutual feast, a mutual covenant-making. Take this cup, take this bread, and divide it among yourselves, and you will find, what I showed you a little while ago, that you can never give the bread all away, and you can never empty the chalice.

Such simple things the Lord gave us. He said in reality, If you want to outdress Solomon cover yourselves with lilies—no, take one white-faced lily, and Solomon will be ashamed of his finery, if it be a question of competition, rivalry, and social envy. And now He says, the supper being ended, "This is My body, and My blood". There are people who wish to understand it. It never can be understood; no man can enter the kingdom of heaven by understanding it. He may think he has some initial notion of the meaning, and he will feel a strange warming of the heart, quite a glow in the innermost places of the soul, but he can never tell it in words; and yet some people have taken brush and paint and colour and have written what they believe, they have detailed their faith into a catalogue. Believest thou? The act is one, thrilling, consummating, self-attesting. God answers by fire.

—Joseph Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. vi. p136.

References.—XXII:15.—H. D. M. Spence, Voices and Silences, p235. J. Keble, Miscellaneous Sermons, p498. Expositor (5th Series), vol. viii. p90; ibid. vol. x. p250.

Christ Giving Thanks At the Supper Table

Luke 22:17

Let us remember how Jesus came to be engaged at this time as He was. The occasion of His instituting the rite which was to keep His memory fresh in the hearts of His followers was the observance of the most sacred of Jewish usages. No service—outside the Temple ritual—was so full or detailed as this; and amongst that little company, as in all the homes of the city that night, the unleavened cakes had been broken, the bitter herbs partaken of, and the cups raised, the prayers offered, and the Hallel sung, as had been done at the same annual season from time immemorial. But of all this we have here scarcely a trace. In the view of the writers of the Gospels all that had passed away, had been overlaid and obliterated by more sacred associations still. Nevertheless—and the more just on this account—it is needful to remember that the new was attached to the old, was its lineal descendant, and inherited various of its features.

I. Thus with regard to this giving of thanks; it appears in our Christian Sacrament, but it was a feature of the earlier ordinance also. At a certain point, towards the close of the ceremony, the cup was raised, and what was of the nature of a grace before meat was said in acknowledgment of the bounty of the Giver of all good. So that we have the example of Jesus Christ for what is amongst the most ordinary of the religious acts of our lives. It is characteristic of true religion not to ignore the Divine aspect of common things, but to seize upon it, and to dwell with relish upon their spiritual significance.

II. The ordinance He and the rest were engaged in celebrating was commemorative of the past, of those great events and experiences in which the history of the Chosen People had had its origin, and the entire ritual was full of reminiscences of these things. We are free to say that, besides what we have pointed out, that thanksgiving included a devout and adoring acknowledgment of the purpose of God's grace towards His people, which in these early days had been embodied in so express a deliverance from outward oppression, and which was waiting a fuller accomplishment on a more wonderful scale and after a more wonderful manner still.

III. And further I cannot but think that there was included in this act of praise something in respect of which He drew from His own heart alone. It does not do justice to the Spirit of Jesus to say that notwithstanding His own suffering share in it He rejoiced that the Father's will was being brought to fulfilment. It was not in spite of the part He was to play in it that He rejoiced, but in a certain strange way because of it. For this also He gave thanks: "I delight to do Thy will, O My God: Thy law is within My heart."

—A. Martin, Winning the Soul, p299.

Reference.—XXII:17-20.—Expositor (5th Series), vol. x. p243.

The Demand of Christ

Luke 22:19

I. Notice Christ's longing to live in our memory. Love cannot bear to be forgotten. The heart would fain be solaced ere it ceases to beat by the assurance that its dear ones will turn with pensive pleasure to the pale shadow of the days that are no more.

II. Notice too Christ's lofty consciousness of His place in the world's history. He speaks not to a generation but to all time and all the world, and claims their remembrance.

III. Notice Christ witnessing to His death as the centre point of His work.

IV. Notice Christ's requirement of personal attachment to Him as true religion. He demands loving remembrance. He has remembered us, and shall we forget Him; He has given us everything, He asks only for our love; He has poured out His blood and He beseeches us that we despise it not. How blessed are they to whom the memory is full of Jesus!

—A. Maclaren.

Luke 22:19

Carlyle, summing up the theatrical displays of the French Revolutionaries at Lyons and elsewhere (French Revolution, vol. ii. bk. i. ix.), reflects: "How true also, once more, that no man or Nation of men, conscious of doing a great thing, was ever, in that thing, doing other than a small one! O Champ- Luke 22:24

We know almost nothing of St. Bartholomew. His saintly life was hidden in the knowledge of his Lord, and we may believe that he was content to have it so. There was a time when he was found disputing with the others which of them was the greatest—a sin which he would have looked back upon with shame and sorrow. What though our life is unknown amongst men, if it is hidden with Christ in God?

I. Temptation to become Notorious.—Yet our conscience tells us that perhaps this temptation to have our name known, to have our good works applauded before the public, is a temptation that is very real. Over how many of our churches, and our gatherings of Church workers; over how many of our guilds and societies, where Christians meet together, is there not good reason to say, "And there was also a strife among them which of them should be accounted greatest?" We are so human. Yet if our work is done because we wish to stand well with our clergy, or because it brings us into a certain prominence, or because we seek praise from human lips, then it is time for us to stop and consider our position.

II. Is our Life hid with Christ in God?—Are we content to let the world go by? If Luke 22:24

I. Faith and Love to Jesus, not knowledge nor perfectness, unite us to Him.

II. The faith which unites us with Christ may co-exist with much imperfection.

III. Notice the Lord's demeanour as the exhibition of the principle that Christ bears with and cleanses those who love Him.

IV. Partial faith will go on to perfection.

—A. Maclaren.

References.—XXII:24.—Phillips Brooks, The Law of Growth, p236. T. F. Crosse, Sermons (2Series), p129. XXII:24 , 25.—H. P. Liddon, Sermons on Some Words of Christ, p296. XXII:24-37.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Luke 22:31

Now, about a week or fortnight after this, I was much followed by this Scripture, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you. And sometimes it would sound so loud within me, yea, and as it were call so strongly after me, that once above all the rest, I turned my head over my shoulder, thinking verily that some man had, behind me, called me: being at a great distance, methought he called so loud. It came, as I have thought since, to have stirred me up to prayer and to watchfulness; it came to acquaint me that a cloud and storm was coming down upon me; but I understood it not.

—Bunyan, Grace Abounding, sec93.

References.—XXII:31.—C. Perren, Sermon Outlines, p289. E. A. Stuart, His Dear Luke 22:31-32

It Luke 22:32

Our guides, we pretend, must be sinless: as if those were not often the best teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistake.

—George Eliot.

When thou art converted [or hast turned, R.V.], strengthen thy brethren. But first, the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter.

—Pascal.

References.—XXII:32.—A. Shepherd, The Gospel and Social Questions, p147. J. Keble, Sermons for the Saints" Days, p296. J. A. Alexander, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, p233. Bishop Westcott, Village Sermons, p92. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No2035 , and vol. xlv. No2620. A. Maclaren. Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Luke 22:34

You know the Liar; you must have seen him diminishing, until he has become a face without features, withdrawn to humanity's preliminary sketch (some half-dozen frayed threads of woeful outline on our original tapestry-web); and he who did the easiest of things, he must from such time sweat in being the prodigy of inventive nimbleness, up to the day when he propitiates Truth by telling it again.

—George Meredith.

References.—XXII:34.—Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p471. XXII:35.—Church Family Newspaper, vol. xv. p979. XXII:35 , 36.—Newman Smyth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p283. XXII:36.—C. S. Home, London Signal, No36 , p1. XXII:37.—John Kelman, Ephemera Eternitatis, p75. Expositor (6th Series), vol. v. p369. XXII:39 , 40. —Expositor (5th Series), vol. v. p114. XXII:39-46.—J. Laidlaw, Studies in the Parables, p177. XXII:39-53.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Luke 22:40

Truly this thing is to this day of such weight and awe upon me, that I dare not, when I come before the Lord, go off my knees until I entreat Him for help and mercy against the temptations that are to come.

—Bunyan, Grace Abounding, sec239.

References.—XXII:41-43.—R. Higinbotham, Sermons, p149. XXII:41-44.—C. J. Vaughan, The Prayers of Jesus Christ, p83.

Luke 22:42

My Luke 22:44

Labour, wide as Earth, has its summit in Heaven. Sweat of the brow; and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; which includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroines, Martyrdoms—up to that "agony of bloody sweat," which all men have called divine!

—Carlyle, Past and Present.

References.—XXII:44.—Bishop Gore, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lv. p184. W. P. Balfern, Lessons from Jesus, p195. J. H. Jellett, The Elder Luke 22:45

In his funeral sermon for Juxon, Archbishop of Canterbury, Jeremy Taylor used these words: "As the Apostles in the vespers of Christ's passion, so Luke 22:48

Hypocrisy, the deadly crime which, like Judas, kisses Hell at the lips of Redemption.

—Coleridge.

References.—XXII:48.—W. P. Balfern, Lessons from Jesus, p199. C. Bosanquet, The Consoler and the Sufferer, p146.

Luke 22:49

Saint Peter asked permission to strike Malchus, and struck before having the answer; Jesus Christ answered afterwards.

—Pascal.

Reference.—XXII:49.—Expositor (6th Series), vol. ix. p73.

Luke 22:50

If the sword turns preacher, and dictates propositions by empire instead of arguments, and engraves them in men's hearts with a poniard, it must needs be unsafe to try the spirits, to try all things, to make inquiry.... This is inordination of zeal; for Christ, by reproving St. Peter drawing his sword even in the cause of Christ, for his sacred and yet injured person, teaches us not to use the sword, though in the cause of God, or for God Himself.

—Jeremy Taylor.

Reference.—XXII:51.—Expositor (6th Series), vol. vii. p114.

A Transient Hour

Luke 22:53

Their hour—appropriate for their deeds: the hour in which they had it all their own way. But even in the very expression there lies concealed the ideas:—

I. Of their apparent triumph being permitted them by Divine decree.

II. Of the brevity of their triumph. The hour seems to be yours. But tomorrow is mine.

III. The transiency of the antagonistic forces that resist Christ.

—A. Maclaren.

References.—XXII:53.—H. H. Almond, Sermons by a Lay Head Master, p253. Expositor (5th Series) vol. v. p106. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Luke 22:54-62

Why does Christ turn as they lead Him to the guardroom, and gaze into the lights and shadows of the court? "And the Lord turned and looked on Peter." For one brief instant their eyes met. And if ever, since man was Luke 22:61

It is very easy to underrate the character of Simon Peter; it is very easy for us to adopt a superior kind of air, and criticise him as if we should have done so very much better in his place.

I. Let us first then look at his virtues. What did Jesus have in Peter which made Him undoubtedly love him very much, trust him very much, and allow him constantly to be the leader and spokesman of the rest? (1) He had first a man of undoubted personal loyalty. (2) He had in him a friend of undoubted courage. (3) Jesus had in this friend of His a quick and apt pupil.

II. Are we quite sure, before we go on to think of Peter's faults, that we have his virtues? (1) Have we got that touching sense of personal devotion? (2) Or, again, take his courage. (3) Or, again, are we apt pupils?

III. Face the sad question why a man who had all this could have failed as Peter did at the crucial point. (1) First, no doubt, from his besetting sin of self-confidence. (2) And side by side with that, as always happens, went his dread of adverse criticism. (3) And Luke 22:61

With that look St. Peter's penitence begins. It was not with him a first repentance. It was restoration; a recovery from a fall. "Conversion" certainly it was, for Christ calls it so—"When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren". But conversion—in the sense in which we all want to be converted every day of our lives—a turning round; a coming back from a wandering and a separation.

I. It was the Penitence of a Fallen Believer.—The "cock" had just "crowed twice," and St. Peter, according to tradition, had just denied his Master three times. St. Peter's fall had been very gradual. First, as always, came the pride of self-confidence—a feeling of superiority to other men: "Though all men be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended". "Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee." And with it there was the putting aside of a kind and needful warning. Then came the rashness of undisciplined zeal. And then the reaction, the reaction which always comes at the dread of cowardice. Then the running into danger with unguarded and indolent mind. Then the fear of man. Then the hasty speech. Then the climax and the wretched baseness, thrice repeated, though each time more reckless and more violent and unfaithful to Him to whom he owed every joy and every hope of his soul. Then cursing and swearing! And then treachery and lies! Oh, how deep the precipices of our grandest heights! How tremendous the temptations of saints! How mean the defeats of the bravest heroes! How awful the sins of Christians! See St. Peter at that moment. He stood in the presence of his outraged Master and his insulted Friend, a dastard at heart, a traitor before men to his Master's cause: "And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter".

II. What a Delicate and Sensitive Thing is Memory!—We all have found that a touch will awaken it. A breath, an accent, a flower, a scene. And it is one of the best offices of the Holy Spirit to stir up and strengthen memory. Where would many of our holiest memories be but for this? And is it not very often He who gives the power to those little things to wake the sleeping memories? No wonder that the eye of Jesus woke the half-slumbering affection of the disciple whom Satan had too truly—as Jesus told him—"sifted as wheat". I say half-slumbering—never quite asleep! Had it altogether slept, had love ceased in that heart, how would he have known that Jesus was looking? Would his eye have met his Master's eye? Oh, strange fascination! St. Peter, in the depths of his sin, was looking at Jesus! That "look" was enough. It was all-eloquent, needing nor word, nor Luke 22:61

I. The Lord's Look.—Has there ever been a painter who had genius enough—it would have to be genius direct from heaven—to paint the look that Christ cast upon St. Peter? There would be, at least, three things in that look—sorrow, love, and encouragement. Sorrow that St. Peter, after his promise "I am ready to go with Thee both to prison and to death," should prove so sorry a coward. And love—a love so great, so strong, that it cannot be quenched even by a denial such as this. And encouragement—"I have prayed for thee". Has there ever been a poet—the man who is supposed to know most about the human heart—who could write down on paper what St. Peter must have felt when the Lord turned and looked upon him?

II. The Denial.—Now what is the use of a story like this? You say, if I had been in St. Peter's place I should not have acted as he did. But you are not in St. Peter's place: you are here. St. Peter denied Christ. Do we ever deny Christ today? Every time we do Christ turns and looks upon us. On the first Good Friday, Pontius Pilate asked the question: "Which do you choose, Jesus or Barabbas". Which do you choose today? It is no good just saying you choose Christ. It is so easy to say it. There were men who called out one day, "Hosannah! Hosannah!" and a few days after, just as cheerily cried, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" With all of us who make the chief aim of our life other than this—trying to become perfect like God—it is a choosing of Barabbas, it is a denying of Christ. That same Christ turns and looks upon us as He looked upon Peter of old.

III. The Right Choice.—If we only all chose Christ, what a bringing down of that great city the Holy Jerusalem out of heaven there would be! And when we do so choose Him, the Lord turns and looks upon us; but the look is altered. It is no longer a sad one; it is a glad one. We say we love Christ. Do we not want to make Him glad? And Luke 22:61-62

We find here four outstanding characteristics of the state of penitence:—I. It is a Divine thing. It began with God. Peter did not turn. But "the Lord turned and looked upon Peter". Now the result of this distinction is this: that there are two kinds of sorrow for sin. And these are different in their origin, in their religious value, and in their influence on our life. (1) The commoner kind is when a man does wrong, and, in the ordinary sense of the word, is sorry that he has done it. But it is no true sorrow for sin. It is sorrow that we were weak enough to sin. (2) Contrast with such a penitence the publican's prayer of penitence in the temple. It was no chagrin nor wounded pride with him. The difference between the publican's penitence and the first-named sorrow is just the difference between the Divine and the human. The one is God turning and looking upon Luke 22:62

A great captain profits, we are told, by the mistakes of his enemy; he is yet greater who can profit fearlessly by his own.

—From Lady Dilke, The Book of the Spiritual Life.

References.—XXII:61 , 62.—E. A. Bray, Sermons, vol. i. p137. W. P. Balfern, Lessons from Jesus, p39. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlviii. No2771. XXII:63.—H. H. Almond, Sermons by a Lay Head Master, p253. XXII:63-65.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlix. No2825.

Luke 22:65

Excepting in one word, the betrayal of Jesus, the defection of Peter, the examination before Pilate and Herod, and the crucifixion, are recorded, as Spedding notices, without any vituperation. The excepted word, not named by Spedding, is "blasphemously" ( Luke 22:65). Even this word disappears in the Revised Version, where the Greek is translated "reviling Him".

—Mark Rutherford.

References.—XXIII:1-12.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Luke , p279. XXIII:2.—W. P. Balfern, Lessons from Jesus, p202.