Bible Commentaries

Name and Surname

Matthew 26:6

Why these surnames? We do not want them, we do not like them; but there they are. Why not say "Simon," and let his identification be established by other means than by recalling the loathsomeness of the disease? Why these expansions of names, why these fringes and attachments? Why not identify men by something better than leprosy, or evil deed, or red shame of any kind?

We fall here upon a very profitable scene of investigation and instruction. There seems to be some policy in this way of naming men; this is no bare accident.

I. Let us take instances. "Matthew the publican." Why remind a man that he was a publican or tax-gatherer? Why remind a man of days that he wants to forget? Is a man always to be reminded that he was once a blasphemer? He ought to remind himself of that; there may be some greatness and wealthy fortune in the very reminiscences that we would gladly get rid of. Remember the hole, recall the mire, set up an image of the pit in your gayest parlour, to remind you that you did not come down from heaven, though by the grace of God you may be going up into it. You were once Simon the leper; remember it, and be kind to all lepers; "such were some of you". You were once Matthew the publican, the hard-natured, close-fisted tax-gatherer, felt to be an oppressor in the neighbourhood; remember, and be gentle.

The Lord was always talking thus to the people whom He made dear to His heart. He was saying to them every day almost, Remember thou also wast a stranger; bethink thee of the bondage days of old Egypt; recall the time when thou wouldst have been thankful for a mouthful of bread and a night's hospitable lodging; remember. There are men round thee to whom thou mayest show kindness for David's sake, for Jonathan's sake, for thy father's sake, for thy mother's sake, for auld lang syne's sake. The past will follow thee with name, and the intention of such pursuit is thy chastening, humbling; not a contemptuous humbling, but a stimulating and comforting humbling, so that thou mayest get rid of the old rags and put on the garments of duty. There must be a policy in this.

II. Take another instance, "Rahab the harlot". Why torment the woman by such memories? Was it not enough to call her "Rahab who received the spies"? Why is her sin to be even blackened and deepened and thrust in her face as a present-day memory and almost a present-day fact, so hot the breath, so damning the recollection? But this is the way; there must be a purpose in it. We cannot be satisfied until we find out the way into the heart of that purpose: always reminding a man that he was born blind, always refreshing his memory with the fact that once he had to beg his bread even at the beautiful gate of the temple; always reminding the soul that it was just as bad once as any other soul ever could be. Why these painful, shocking, heart-cutting reminiscences and reminders? She was saved by faith, yet she was Rahab the harlot. Again and again it is forced upon us that there must be some meaning in all this, that a certain process has not yet been completed. Regeneration has been completed, blessed be God, but resurrection has yet to begin; regeneration is completed, consummated, crowned by resurrection, the old foul body left with the worms, and the new body, that is to say, the heavenly and the spiritual, has assumed the wedding garment, made fit for the wedding feast.

III. We must take the case in both its aspects. Simon the leper, Paul the Apostle, this is the woman out of whom the seven devils were cast. Oh, do not talk always about the seven devils, they are gone; she is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Do not torment yourselves by too morbid a reference to and brooding on the melancholy past.

If we turn over a few pages of the New Testament we shall find that God gives His people a new name. He gives some of them a name which no man can read but the bearer thereof. Sometimes He will give us a name that will have no evil associations attaching to it. The name "sinner" will be forgotten, and no man will say to another in the city celestial, Is not this he that sat and begged? No; in that great home city there shall be no such reminder, for the former things are passed away. Neither shall there be any limiting names. We take no leprous garment into heaven, our evil deeds we leave far behind us—behind the back of God. Said the gracious Lord to His sinning but penitent Israel, "I will cast thy transgressions behind Me," and no line has been found that can measure the distance indicated by that word "behind". Then let us hope for liberation or redemption, full, complete.

—Joseph Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. Iv. p223.

References.—XXVI:6 , 7.—A. G. Mortimer, The Church's Lessons for the Christian Year, part ii. p318. XXVI:6-13.—F. D. Maurice, Christmas Day and Other Sermons, p184. W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. li1897 , p72. XXVI:6-16.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew XVIII-XXVIII. p221. XXVI:6-30.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xl. No2350.

Matthew 26:7

The best part of a woman's love is worship; but it is hard to her to be sent away with her precious spikenard rejected, and her long tresses, too, that were let fall ready to soothe the wearied feet.

—George Eliot.

When Mary anointed our Lord's feet, the act was a transient one; it was done for His burial: the holy feet which she anointed ceased soon after to walk on earth. Yet He declared that wheresoever His gospel was preached in the whole world, that act should also be told as a memorial of her. So has it ever been with what has been given to God, even though it were blindly and erringly. While all other things have perished, this has endured.

—Julius Hare.

Matthew 26:8

There are more ways of doing good than almsgiving. All heavenly charity is not to be bound up in bags of flour.... And the form which God has given to the world we live in is in harmony with this judgment. The earth is not constructed merely on the principle of producing so much food for man's bodily wants. It has its cornfields, but it has also its wild-flowers on hill and moorland to give us the sense of a touching and simple beauty; it has its precipices, and wastes, and seas, to inspire us with a feeling of the sublime and infinite. The utilitarian looking on this side of things may say, and has said, "To what purpose is this waste? It might have been given to the poor." But the world was made by One who had in view not merely the physical wants of man but his intellectual and spiritual nature, and Who has constructed His dwelling-place so as to train that nature above the animal and earthly. The golden glory of the furze that brought tears to the eyes of Linnaeus is as true a gift of God as the joy of the harvest, and it is a most Christian endeavour to make the poor partakers of both. There is a "life which is more than meat," and herein lies part of the significance of this incident in the house of Bethany.

—Dr. John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life.

References.—XXVI:8. G. H. Morrison, Flood-Tide, p92.—F. R. M. Hitchcock, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv1898 , p324. J. A. Bain, Questions Answered by Christ, p81. T. Teignmouth Shore, The Life of the World to Come, p83. A. N. Obbard, Plain Sermons, p34. XXVI:8 , 9 , 10.—H. P. Liddon, Passion-Tide Sermons, p227.

Matthew 26:8-10

We men are always so ready and anxious to keep women right, like the wretched creature Laertes in "Hamlet," who reads his sister such a lesson on her maidenly duties, but declines almost with contempt to listen to a word from her as to any co-relative obligations on his side!

—George Macdonald.

References.—XXVI:10.—A. W. Potts, School Sermons, p102. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvi. No2126.

Matthew 26:2

Who is the beggar? The beggar is a man forced by fate to remind us of Christ: he is a brother of Christ; he is the bell of the Lord, and he rings in life to rouse our conscience, to arouse the satiety of the flesh of man. He stands by the window and sings out: "For the sake of Christ!" and by his singing he reminds us of Christ, of this holy commandment to help the neighbour.

—Maxim Gorky, The Man who was Afraid, chap. iv.

He is rich who hath enough to be charitable; and it is hard to be so poor that a noble mind may not find a way to this price of goodness. "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord;" there is more rhetorick in that one sentence than in a library of sermons. Upon this motive only I cannot behold a beggar without relieving his necessities with my purse, or his soul with my prayers. These scenical and accidental differences between us cannot make me forget that common and untouched part of us both; there is under these centres and miserable outsides, those mutilate and semi bodies, a soul of the same alloy with our own, whose genealogy is God as well as ours, and in as fair a way to salvation as ourselves. Statists that labour to contrive a commonwealth without poverty take away the object of our charity; not understanding only the commonwealth of a Christian but forgetting the prophecy of Christ.

—Sir Thomas Browne ("The prophecy of Christ" being, of course, the above-quoted words, the poor ye shall have always with you).

In Dreamthorp Alexander Smith observes that at Christmas "there is more charity than at any other time. The heart warms as the frost increases. Poverty, scant clothing, and fireless grates come home at this season to the bosoms of the rich, and they give of their abundance. The Master's words, "The poor ye have always with you," wear at this season a deep significance."

References.—XXVI:12.—James Vaughan, Fifty Sermons (9th Series), p301. XXVI:12 , 13.—W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches, p100. XXVI:13.—W. E. Blomfield, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxviii1905 , p24. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi. No286. XXVI:14 , 15.—J. Wright, The Guarded Gate, p147. XXVI:14-45.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. liii. No3033.

The Betrayal

Matthew 26:15

I. Three times, in the Gospel narrative, is Judas said to have been, in some special sense, the devil's instrument. And the first occasion was a year before the actual betrayal. "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" What did it mean? Already, to the eye of Christ, there was seen the line of moral cleavage between the one and the eleven. Even in despondency, and almost despair, they are ready to fling away the cherished hope of ambition, of personal gain, and cling to Him they loved. And yet not all. One has in secret made a different choice. He is still in external union with them. But he had fought for his own hand, when he joined what he thought the winning side, and he will fight for his own hand now that he foresees its failure—not openly, but secretly; in outward friendship and companionship, but with secret alienation of heart He was amongst the disciples, but, though perhaps they did not know it, he is no longer one of them.

So the old sin of Paradise is repeated. The Matthew 26:20

Imagine the situation. The hour which they had so eagerly expected had come. The peace of evening had fallen round them. The joyful recollection of the annual festival had no doubt taken possession of the little party. They were alone with their Master, Who had reassured them of His love with the most touching signs, and although there hung over them the sense of an impending danger, yet at any rate tonight there was nothing to disturb them. There all were friends, and all were dear to Him, and He was with them.

As they were eating, He said, "Verily I say unto you, That one of you shall betray Me". One of them! The disciples looked upon one another, doubting of whom He spoke. And they began to say unto Him, every one, "Is it I, Lord? is it, surely it cannot be, I".

I. Was it Hard that such a Subject should be Mentioned at such a Time?—"One of you shall betray Me." They would know the truth soon enough. Might they not be spared the intrusion of such a thought in that peaceful hour? Is that what we think as we hear the story once again? But surely this is all of a piece with our Lord's compassion for human souls. This is the last appeal to the man who was most conscious of guilt, to pause and consider before it became too late. Surely this is the kindness of the surgeon who cuts deep that he may save. It was not too late for Judas to repent.

II. The Sweep of that Word Reached Further than the Conscience of Judas.—They began to say unto Him, every one, "Is it I, Lord?" It was a word which forced every one of them to search his conscience. A flood of light, as it were, is poured into the most secret recesses of their heart, and there they saw all the things which men are only too anxious to forget. There was that in them which did not make it so impossible, but that each of them might prove a traitor to his Lord. Do we not know those searching words of our Lord which every now and then spring up from the pages of the Gospel and tear through all the coverings that we wrap round our secret life and disposition, till they have laid bare those roots of evil which will ruin the whole nature if they are not exposed? Yes, the words flash out again and again, and haunt us.

III. The Word of the Lord Forced the Disciples to Look Closely Within, and should not we ask ourselves serious questions? The first stage in our progress is to know ourselves. Judas the traitor refused to allow the light to penetrate his soul, and the darkness flooded it instead, and one has seen lives break up into bits because men and women would not deal faithfully with themselves, would not look at their faults or look for them. Do not let us put this aside as though it were a tedious task, or just a matter of obligation. It is a matter of life and death to us, that we should be always searching to see what there is within us, for the evil weeds grow quickly in the garden of our souls. It does not seem to me to matter-much what method of self-examination we pursue, so long as it is done, so long as it is honest, real, and painstaking. Let every one do what is best and most natural to them, but let no one stop until they get to the root of all that may be wrong with them, for remember that all the time our lives are open to the Lord Jesus.

References.—XXVI:20-30.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. lii. No2982. XXVI:22.—C. Stanford, The Evening of the Lord's Ministry, p36. XXVI:22 , 26.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew XVIII-XXVIII. p232.

Matthew 26:23

There can be no treason, where is not some trust.

—Bishop Hall.

Matthew 26:24

At the close of his essay on The Civil Disabilities of the Jews, Macaulay protests against "the practice of confounding prophecy with precept, of setting up predictions which are often obscure against a morality which is always clear. If actions are to be considered as just and good merely because they have been predicted, what action was ever more laudable than that crime which our bigots are now, at the end of eighteen centuries, urging us to avenge on the Jews, that crime which made the earth shake and blotted out the sun from heaven? The same reasoning which is now employed to vindicate the disabilities imposed on our Hebrew countrymen will equally vindicate the kiss of Judas and the judgement of Pilate. "The Son of Man goeth as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed." And woe to those who, in any age or in any country, disobey His benevolent commands under pretence of accomplishing His predictions."

References.—XXVI:24.—Hugh Black, University Sermons, p4. S. A. Tipple, The Admiring Guest, p182. W. H. Simcox, The Cessation of Prophecy, p269. H. P. Liddon, Passion-Tide Sermons, p210. Archer Butler, Sermons (1Series), p75. Spurgeon, Sermon Notes on New Testament, p33. J. H. Thom, Laws of Life After the Mind of Christ (1Series), p251. A. K. H. B, Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, p268. New Outlines on New Testament, p47. Parker, Hidden Springs, p61; Inner Life of Christ, vol. iii. p11. In Christian World Pulpit, vol. i. p61 (Berg); vol. ii. p177 (Parker); vol. ii. p331 (Beecher); vol. v. p102 (Barfield); vol. viii. p37 (Hubbard); vol. viii. p305 (David Thomas, also in Pulpit Memorials, p417); vol. ii. p311 (Bantain); vol. xii. p394 (Beecher); vol. xv. p316 (Higgins); vol. xviii. p161 (Hird); vol. xx. p202 (Beecher); vol. xxvi. p102 (Tuck); vol. xxix. p90 (Beecher). Selections from Pusey, p326. Winterbotham, Sermons, p360. Aitken's Misson Sermons (2Series), p121.

The Real Presence of Christ Jesus in the Holy Eucharist

Matthew 26:26

There are two classes of difficulties which keep men from the Sacrament of the Altar. One class is intellectual and the other moral. The first is met by faith and the second by repentance. The one comes from want of appreciation of Divine mysteries and from the consequent absence of experimental self-surrender to those mysteries. The other comes from sin which, through self-indulgence, is unrepented of.

I. Let us be sure that there is something mysterious about our Eucharist, whatever that mystery may be. Christ's words, which are repeated at every celebration, "This is My Body"—" This is My Blood," are undoubtedly mysterious, but yet quite patent of a literal sense, and as Hooker says, "I hold it for a most infallible rule in expositions of Sacred Scripture that where a literal construction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst". The Primitive Church, again, witnesses to the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist St. Augustine says: "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost that the Lord's Body should be the first food to enter the Christian's mouth, in order that due honour should be shown to so great a Sacrament, and this custom is observed throughout the world". Again, the Church of England not only explicitly receives the testimony of the early Church as an authoritative interpretation of Scripture, but she also unmistakably declares her own belief in the Real Presence of her Lord. She speaks of Christ's Body being "given, taken, and received," of Its being "verily and indeed taken and received," where "verily and indeed" point not to a logical certainty, but to a real presence and real communion: she speaks of "holy mysteries," of our "eating the flesh of Christ and drinking His blood," of Christ being "veiled under the forms of bread and wine".

II. Some considerations drawn from allied truths may help us to accept more unreservedly, and to use more thankfully, the great gift associated with the altar.

1. In the first place, Sacraments are not isolated phenomena in the dispensation of the Spirit. Christianity is itself Sacramental. The Son of God took to Himself the whole of man's nature, and joined it to His own nature in indissoluble union. The two natures found their unity in the one Person of the Eternal Word. This is the Sacrament of the Incarnation, the mystery which reveals the most ancient of all mysteries, that of the Blessed Trinity. Throughout the earthly life of the Son of God the Godhead which was concealed within was ever manifesting forth its glory by words and deeds of power. But yet to most men the inward part of the Sacrament of the Incarnation was hidden. The Son of Man was known of every passer-by as one having no form nor comeliness; the Son of God was recognized by few. Others, however, found that virtue went out of Him at the touch of faith. Then, as now in the Sacrament of the Altar, to touch His outermost robe was to find His manhood beneath, and to realize that that manhood was the channel through which there flowed the power of the Godhead.

Again, is not the mystical body of Christ, the Church, a great Sacrament? Its outward part is formed of all who are baptized into the name of the Blessed Trinity. Some are good and some are evil, and the evil is at all times so prevalent that the face of the Bride of Christ, like that of her Spouse, is so marred that, when men see it, there is no beauty in it that they should desire it. Yet is she holy because of the indwelling of the Spirit of holiness who is her life and soul. This is her "inward part," that with which she is anointed; but it is hidden, except for those whose eyes are open to spiritual realities.

2. A second truth which bears closely on the Sacrament of the Altar is that of the nature of our Lord's Resurrection Body. It is that spiritual Body, a Body "invisible, indivisible," and not subject to the laws of physics, which is now sacramentally present at our altars. The mode of its existence is beyond our ken, the laws according to which it works are not revealed to us in consciousness. It is a spiritual Body, and Christ's presence Matthew 26:33

"Tis not the many oaths that make the truth,

But the plain single vow, that is vowed true.

—Shakespeare.

References.—XXVI:33.—C. Wordsworth, Primary Witness to the Truth of the Gospel, p138. XXVI:35.—S. D. McConnell, A Year's Sermons, p67. XXVI:35 , 40.—E. Griffith Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii1900 , p133. XXVI:36.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii. No693. J. Halsey, The Spirit of Truth, p133. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p199. A. Whyte, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxiii1903 , p375. C. Stanford, The Evening of the Lord's Ministry, p171. XXVI:36-46.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xl. No2376. T. Binney, Sermons Preached in the King's Weigh-House Chapel, p150. J. Laidlaw, Studies in the Parables, p177. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew XVIII-XXVIII. p261. XXVI:38.—E. Fowle, Plain Preaching to Poor People (1Series), p15. V. R. Lennard, Passion-Tide and Easter, p73. T. T. Carter, Lent Lectures, 1860-66 , p115. W. P. Balfern, Glimpses of Jesus, p237. XXVI:38-46.—Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher, p38.

Christ Shrinking From the Cross

Matthew 26:39

Why did Jesus so shrink from His cross? The answer cannot be given in a single confident word or two. Only as we realize what Christ was, and Matthew 26:39

I. To Christian hearts no name is so sacred as Gethsemane. In Gethsemane Jesus was in anguish. The heart is awed at the sight of the Son of God on His knees in the garden.

This was the temptation of the life of Jesus. The cup of human guilt was held out to Him. He trembled to stretch out His hand to take the cup. He longed to avoid the ordeal.

Having the redemptive love, Jesus saw that the cup was inevitable. To save, He must die. To find, He must lose. In His distress He prayed, and His prayer was a cry. "O My Father! if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless: not as I will, but as Thou wilt." A second time He prayed, and in the interval He had seen more clearly that the cup was unavoidable. "O My Father! if this cup may not pass from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done." A third time He prayed, using the same words.

That prayer stamps Jesus as the world's religious leader. It is religion epitomized. It is spirituality in a word.

II. There are Gethsemanes in human life. Life for the most part is on the path of the commonplace, but, ever and anon, we pass into the garden of gloom.

Death is the common gate into Gethsemane. Gethsemane may be a home where sickness lingers. Gethsemane may be a lonely life. Gethsemane may be a wilderness of impoverishment. Sometimes Gethsemane is long foreseen. Jesus had the prescience of His Gethsemane for years, and it is the sign of His high courage that He stepped forward to meet it. But sometimes we plunge into it unexpectedly. The soul is always alone in Gethsemane. Jesus was alone. All that the soul can do in Gethsemane is to pray. Jesus prayed. Prayers in Gethsemane are always broken. But those who have prayed in Gethsemane never doubt the blessedness of prayer.

III. The most precious truth in Gethsemane is that of the Divine Fatherhood. "O My Father!" was the cry of Jesus. The soul can only pray when God is known as Father. When we think of God as our Father, then we assume our true relationship. It is the filial He seeks in us.

We can exercise every freedom in our speech with our Father. Jesus did. He showed His fear to His Father. "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." The intenser our assurance of His Fatherliness, the freer our confessions will be.

True religion is the reverent acceptance of the Father's will. The deep religion of the soul of Jesus is shown in this. He was prepared to abide His Father's will.

—J. G. Bowran, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxii1907 , p347.

References.—XXVI:39.—G. Tyrrell, Oil and Wine, p251. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. i. p260. E. L. Hull, Sermons Preached at King's Lynn (3Series), p58. W. Baker, Penny Pulpit, vol. xii. No707. p325. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xl. No2376; vol. xlvii. No2715. XXVI:39-42.—C. J. Vaughan, Last Words in the Parish Church of Doncaster, p165. XXVI:40 , 41.—Mandell Creighton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlv1894 , p219. XXVI:41.—F. W. Farrar, Everyday Christian Life, p159. E. Meyrick Goulburn, Three Counsels of the Divine Master, vol. i. p133. XXVI:43.—A. F. W. Ingram, Addresses in Holy Week, 1902 , p41. XXVI:45.—R. Rainy, Sojourning With God, p95. XXVI:45 , 46.—J. Percival, Some Helps for School Life, p146. XXVI:46.—J. Halsey, The Spirit of Truth, p65. XXVI:47.—J. G. Stevenson, The Judges of Jesus, p11. James Moffatt, The Second Things of Life, p70.

Judas Iscariot

Matthew 26:49

We have all of us one human heart. The blackest criminal is a man of like passions with ourselves. His crime comes from the yielding to tendencies which are in us all, and his nature grows to be capable of it by slow degrees. We never need to remember this more than in thinking of that man who is gibbeted for ever as "Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him".

I. Consider First His Gradual Downward Progress, and note:—

1. How it illustrates the power of one sinful tendency to overgrow and destroy the whole soul. His fault was one the love of money. It grew and increased in his soul till it swallowed up everything.

2. The conflict of Divine love and human sinful will. Christ chose him for an Apostle not for his badness, but for what he might have been. He gave him all His teaching. At the last He tried to win him back, giving him the sop in loving familiarity, making a last appeal to his heart. Striking hard on conscience, by letting him see he was known, "That thou doest," and by urging him as a last request to do it "at once". Then the tenderness, the firmness, the absence of all rebuke, "Friend, wherefore art thou come?"

And so with us all. It is the awful mystery of human will that it can and does turn itself against all Divine appeals, and annihilates and thwarts the loving purposes and mercy of Jesus Christ.

II. The Actual Crime.—Remember that his knowledge of Christ's higher nature was dim and vague. He did not fully know what he was doing.

This illustrates, (1) the essential character of all sin, as blinding a man to the true nature of what he is doing. (2) The real nature of all sin is preferring self to Christ. (3) The real aggravation of sin, ingratitude. The form may differ but the substance is the same.

III. The End.—Immediate remorse. "I have sinned." Judas goes to the priests, and flings down the money—then his suicide.

This brings out, (1) The unprofitableness of sin. Judas gets his reward, and with it a bitter conscience. (2) The remorse which leads to desperation. His crime was not unpardonable. Suppose he had gone to the cross, and cried there, "I have sinned," would He Who forgave them all, not have forgiven him? His condemnation was not his betrayal of Christ, but his own non-acceptance of pardon for his betrayal. So the last lesson is that the only thing which binds sin upon a man and leads to death is unbelief. And we who have betrayed, denied, crucified Christ, may have all pardoned.

—A. Maclaren.

References.—XXVI:50.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew XVIII-XXVIII. p270. XXVI:51-56.—W. M. Taylor, The Miracles of Our Saviour, p426.

Matthew 26:52

The grace of God shall never want champions, for by her own almighty power she makes them for herself. She requires hearts pure and disengaged; and she herself purifies and disengages them from worldly interests incompatible with the truths of the Gospel.

—Pascal.

Reference.—XXVI:52.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Sheathed Sword, p14.

Holy Angels (Feast of St. Michael and All Angels)

Matthew 26:53

The unprayed prayer of the Lord Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, is not only a standing marvel of self-sacrificing love, and an example of the voluntary endurance of educative pain, it is also a revelation that the earthly lives of God's children are enfolded by intelligences invisible, who, under the command of God, act as ministers and protectors. And this is true of all, because, "as He Matthew 26:56

I. Surely that appeal must be heard—"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Tarry ye here, and watch with Me!" But the disciples" eyes were heavy, and their hearts were sad, and hope had gone, and dull, helpless resignation had settled down upon their souls. And when the Master returned He found them sleeping. Yet there is no word of censure, only something of sadness—may we not say, of disappointment? "What, could ye not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." Again, and a third time, He comes and finds them sleeping still. They have been tried, and failed. They could not watch. "Sleep on now, and take your rest" It sounds almost like the echo of those words to Judas, "What thou doest do quickly". The moment of trial is past. It is all over. The only one of the twelve who was wakeful on that night was Judas the betrayer, who watched, but didn"t love. The betrayer is near; and the disciples, who loved, but could not watch, saw their Master taken; and they who, in the strength of enthusiastic hope, once "forsook all, and followed Him," now, all in panic fear, "forsook Him, and fled". It was but for a little while. There was no thought of treachery or disloyalty in their hearts, only the cowardice and faintheartedness which comes of despondency and sloth.

II. Can we not see here a true picture of ourselves? What of the cowardly, despondent, faint-hearted Christians? Are they few amongst ourselves? What of the slothful ones who cannot "watch," cannot "endure hardness," who have committed themselves to Christianity as if it were a sort of "forlorn hope" for the world, but have not the heart to fight for it and believe in it as a conquering power?

In our day there are few arguments more common in the mouth of the enemies of this faith than the reproach that Christianity is a failure. And has not it sometimes, even while we resented it and put it away from us, reacted on our belief, and made us sad and halfhearted and hopeless?

III. And, on the other hand, faith and effort react on one another, as do despondency and sloth. Is not it so in the service of man? When we hear of all the misery and wretchedness and vice of some great city, it seems so hopeless, we are ready to fold our hands and let things go; but if, in some little corner of the great field of work, we bestir ourselves to do what little we may, is not it wonderful how, with that effort, faith and hope and love grow strong and strengthen one another?

Surely sloth and unwillingness to make the effort, intellectual and moral, which is necessary for a real hold of truth, is largely to blame for what is vaguely called unbelief, in these days of ours.

Can we better gather up our thoughts on this desertion of Christ than in those words of His to them in the garden, "Watch and pray"? If the moral struggle is what it ever was for those who would live the Christlike life, the intellectual struggle was never keener than it is for us now. And we are quite wrong to suppose that the battle can be fought out for us. Every thinking man and woman must take his part or hers, must fight for Christ, or, like the slothful sleepers in the garden, look on while the traitor betrays, and the enemies assail the Master they claim to love.

—Aubrey L. Moore, Some Aspects of Sin, p117.

Forsaking Christ

Matthew 26:56

In a great piece of music a composer strikes the note in his prelude which is to be recurring and dominant—the keynote of his message. This grave and saddening line is the keynote of the story of the day of the cross. It was a sign, as Jesus had foreteld, that His hour had come. It was His first step down into the waters of His baptism of sorrow. It was His first draught of the cup. To be forsaken by all turned His pie-vision of the cross into an experience.

With the story of the garden before us, let us look into this forsaking of Christ. Let us see the reasons why men are disloyal to Him, and mark how we may be safeguarded against the sin.

I. Men Forsake Christ Through Fear.—We understand at a glance the fear of these men. They were Galilean fishermen and strangers in a large city. They were surprised at night in the depths of an olive garden. The sudden Roman faces, with Judas at their head, the flashing lamps and gleaming spears, the rough and insolent soldiery, Christ captive, submissive, seemingly helpless in the soldiers" hands, death menacing themselves, in the rude gestures of their assailants, shook their nerve and blanched their courage, and they forsook Him, and fled.

II. Men Forsake Christ Through Weariness.— These disciples were disloyal not only through fear, but their temptation assailed them in an hour of extreme weariness. They had walked as Passover pilgrims from Capernaum to Jerusalem. They were guests in strange homes, and that is always a straining experience. They had spent a week of unusual and exhausting excitement. Since they had entered Jerusalem with Jesus to the shouting of Hosanna they had lived out a full round of six long and eventful days. They had been stinted of rest and robbed of sleep. Even while they were witnesses of Christ's agony in the garden and listeners to His prayers they fell asleep in sheer weariness. It was when worn, spent, drained of energy both of mind and of body, that they forsook Him, and fled.

We all understand these sad experiences. It was when we were weary, at the close of a long day, in our hour of failure, in the month when some great hope had been finally quenched, in the mood of discouragement and of despair, when the unexpected misfortune had overwhelmed us, as it overwhelmed the disciples in the garden, that we took that step, and did that deed, in which we forsook Christ, and fled.

III. Men Forsake Christ Through Spiritual Reaction.—Behind their fear and their weariness there lay a deeper cause of failure. That was spiritual reaction. We sometimes forget how intense had been the life which these men had lived, and how dazzling had been the light in which they had rejoiced. Transforming and illumining as had been their years of fellowship with Jesus, these last days in Jerusalem had brought them into a religious wonderland. They had companied with the Lord Jesus, and beheld His glory. They had heard the great parables spoken in the Temple. They had sat at Martha's feast in Bethany and looked on Lazarus risen from the dead. On the last day of the feast they had passed into the Holy of Holies. They had spent the early hours of the evening in the Upper Room, and at the supper table which Christian men and women consider their holiest memorial. They had listened to Jesus when He had unlocked His heart in counsel and in prophecy. All religious experiences are costly and exhausting. Every excitement exacts its toll of energy. The human spirit cannot sustain any rapture without times of relief. But the most exhausting of all emotion is an elating spiritual experience. It always has its after hours of dull and jaded mood. To have lived with Christ through this holy week must have set the spiritual fervour of these men of religious genius on fire. Then came the reaction of the night and the darkness, and the sudden peril of the garden, and then they forsook Him, and fled.

IV. There are two counsels which may safeguard us against our forsaking Christ.

1. The first of these is to be found in that word with which Christ sought to safeguard His disciples against their hour of trial—the word "Watch".

2. The second counsel we shall take from one who was loyal to Christ in a day when many were tempted to forsake Him. It is the counsel given as his message after the recital of the deeds of the cloud of witnesses who seldom faltered in their loyalty to God. That counsel is—"Looking unto Jesus".

—W. M. Clow, The Day of the Cross, p57.

Desertion

Matthew 26:56

I. Whom? Not an enemy; nor a faithless leader; but their best friend.
Sometimes we are justified in forsaking people; the fuller our acquaintance with them, the less desirable it appears. But the more Christ was known, the better He was loved.

II. When?

1. At a time of peculiar peril and sorrow.

2. After many proofs of His Messiahship.

3. After receiving many favours.

4. After strong professions of attachment.

5. After expressing indignation at the treachery of another.

III. Why?—Because they were:—

6. Timid.

7. Selfish.

8. Impulsive.

9. Unbelieving.

See how one man influences another; all forsook Him.

Let us take heed to our company.

Let us take heed to ourselves.

—F. J. Austin, Seeds and Saplings, p41.

Caiaphas

Matthew 26:57

The leader of the Sadducees was Caiaphas. He was the High Priest that same—that fateful year. The high priesthood had been the petty gift of all the foreign rulers of Judaea, bestowing it as their pleasure or their passion prompted. Caiaphas held the office for the long period of eighteen years, from the year a. d18 to the year a.d36. It was this High Priest and leader of the Sadducees who was the chief agent in the Crucifixion of Christ.

Caiaphas stands out so clearly upon the page of Scripture that we cannot mistake his character. His unflinching and implacable enmity imprinted itself indelibly on the minds of the Apostles. In scene after scene he is distinctively drawn. We see him in the Council with the note of scorn in his speech, his easy mastery of the moods and fears of men, his bold, definite counsel. We see him in the interview with Jesus, rending his robes with histrionic fervour, in a finely simulated horror at the blasphemy of Christ. We see him playing his game with Pilate, and using that able Roman as his tool. We see him when Judas, torn with relentless remorse, bursts into the Council Chamber, turning away from the conscience-stricken Matthew 26:60

In the fourth chapter of his History, Macaulay, after narrating the fearful punishment inflicted on Titus Oates, the detected informer, adds: "Horrible as were the sufferings of Oates, they did not equal his crimes. The old law of England, which had been suffered to remain obsolete, treated the false witness, who had caused death by means of perjury, as a murderer. This was wise and righteous; for such a witness Matthew 26:65

These horror-stricken Matthew 26:72

"Let us look to it," pleads Ruskin, "whether that strong reluctance to utter a definite religious profession, which so many of us feel, and which, not very carefully examining into its dim nature, we conclude to be modesty, or fear of hypocrisy or other such form of amiableness, be not, in very deed, neither less nor more than Infidelity; whether Peter's "I know not the man" be not the sum and substance of all these misgivings and hesitations; and whether the shamefacedness which we attribute to sincerity and reverence, be not such shamefacedness as may at last put us among those of whom the Son of Man shall be ashamed."

Matthew 26:72

"Once launched upon such a course," says De Quincey of Pope, "he became pledged and committed to all the difficulties which it might impose. Desperate necessities would arise, from which nothing but desperate lying and hard swearing could extricate him."

The Denial

Matthew 26:74

I. It is a remarkable thing that, in the Gospel narrative, two of the disciples, and two only, are spoken of as having been in some special way exposed to the assaults of Satan. The one was Judas the traitor; the other that disciple who, on any view we may take of the words, was singled out for special honour by the Lord—St. Peter. It seems as if St. Peter stood side by side with Judas in danger.

And here it is worth while to pause and remind ourselves that temptation always comes to us through that which is most natural to us, and our danger lies very near to that which, rightly used, is our strength.

It was directly after St. Peter's great confession, and the Lord's words, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona," that there came that stern rebuke, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" The love which could see in Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ of God, could not see him in the Man of Sorrows, the Persecuted, the Betrayed, the Forsaken.

It was this instinctively self-trusting nature, the nature which had not learned to know itself, its own strength and weakness, that Satan sought to claim as his own. "Simon, Simon," said Christ after the Last Supper, "Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." Did Christ pray for Judas too? Surely it must have been so.

St. Peter had to learn a deeper lesson of disappointment—the disappointment with self. All his self-confidence had to be destroyed before he could give his real self to Christ. Even Peter could not watch; and when the traitor drew near, he gave way to the momentary impulse of resistance, and then forsook his Lord, and fled.

II. In that hour of sadness and desolation, we can trace again the likeness and the difference between Judas and St. Peter. When the Messiah is condemned, and Judas and St Peter alike realize their moral failure, the one "repented himself," the other "wept bitterly." What a difference is implied in those words! The one knew but remorse; the other entered on the toilsome road of penitence. Judas flung back the hated silver to the priests, and went and hanged himself; St. Peter, in that sad look of Christ, saw, even in the reproach, the hope of restoration, and he went out, and wept bitterly.

III. How shall we test our love? "Lord, help us to know ourselves!" We cannot trust our feelings; we must go to. facts. How shall we be sure that our love is real?

1. Love must be love for a person, not a system. It must be love for Christ, not for Christianity; devotion to One "Who first loves us". It is the distinguishing mark of religion that it implies a moral and personal relationship between God and man.

2. It will prove its reality by its moral strength3. And then it will distrust itself, and be trustful only of its Lord; content to be unknown, the least among the servants of God, to fill a little place in God's world, to be thought worthy just to give a cup of cold water to one of God's poor. Covetousness, ambition, self-assertion, all are gone, only when we have learned to say, "Not I, but Christ in me". It is the Christian reading of the teaching of the Muslim mystic:—"One knocked at the door of the beloved, and a voice from within said, "Who is there?" The lover answered, "It is I". The voice replied, "This house will not hold me and thee". So the door remained shut. The lover went into the wilderness and spent a year in solitude and fasting and prayer. Then again he returned and knocked at the door. And the voice of the beloved said, "Who is there?" The lover answered, "It is Thyself". Then the door was opened."

—Aubrey L. Moore, Some Aspects of Sin, p129.

References.—XXVI:74.—D. L. Ritchie, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxiii1903 , p218. B. D. Johns, Pulpit Notes, p66. A. F. Wilmington Ingrain, Addresses in Holy Week, p19. XXVI:75.—W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches, p77. T. B. Dover, Some Quiet Lenten Thoughts, p62.—XXVII:1-27.—J. Burns, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxiii1903 , p214.