Bible Commentaries

The quotations at the head of Chapters are from the Authorised Version. Quotations in the body of the Commentary are mainly from the Revised Version.

Chapter1.
Mary and Her Alabaster Box

"After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take Him by craft, and put Him to death. But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people. 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. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her. And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on Me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but Me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint My body to the burying. 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."— Mark 14:1-9.

Our Lord at Simon's House.

A Striking Contrast.

Whenever John's account of the sequence of events differs from the account given by the Synoptics, my own inclination is always to accept John's account as the more accurate. For John wrote his Gospel last, when the three other Gospels were already widely known throughout the Church; and I cannot conceive of John giving a different account from that with which the Church was already familiar unless it was with the deliberate intention of correcting the accounts already current. Accordingly I accept John's date for the feast in Simon's house. From its position in Mark's narrative we might gather that it took place just two days before our Lord's Passion. But John in his record of the same feast, in chapter xii. of his Gospel, states definitely that it took place six days before the Passover: that is to say, according to John's chronology, it took place before the Triumphal Entry. If that be Luke 2:34). All would not love Him. All would not be drawn to Him. Some would oppose and antagonise Him. He was to be a "sign which is spoken against." And our Lord when He entered upon His ministry, took up Simeon's parable and reaffirmed his prophecy about Himself only in plainer and more emphatic language still. "Think not," He said, "that I came to send peace on the earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law" ( Matthew 10:34-35). He was to become a principle of division; and because of controversies and disputes and differences about Him, the closest and dearest of humanities would be snapped and severed.

A Prediction fulfilled.

That prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. The whole of Palestine was divided about Jesus. He drew some: He repelled others. He moved some to deepest devotion: He stirred others to wellnigh ungovernable rage. And that division of feeling with which men regarded Christ is all flashed upon us within the limits of these nine verses. Here you have, side by side, bitter hate and passionate love; blind fury and utter devotion; the high priests plotting and Mary anointing.

The Plot against Jesus.

Look at the first picture. "And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take Him with subtilty and kill Him." The chief priests and scribes—they were the religious leaders of the nation! Here is a strange occupation for ministers of religion—they were busy plotting murder. And it was near Passover time! Passover was the feast which reminded the Jews of the great deliverance which God had wrought out for them. And the chief priests and scribes gathered together on the eve of that glad and blessed season. For what? For prayer? For thanksgiving? No. "They sought how they might take Him with subtilty and kill Him." You may measure the intensity of their hate by the fact that they were planning murder even in Passover time. For times of gladness and rejoicing naturally dispose men's hearts to clemency and kindness. So in Palestine even the stern and impartial Roman law relaxed a little at the Passover season. To be in harmony with the prevailing spirit of rejoicing it was the custom of the Roman governor to release one prisoner at the feast. But the near approach of Passover did not move the hearts of these people to pity or kindness toward Christ. They hated Him with a hate as cruel as the grave. "The chief priests and scribes sought how they might take Him with subtilty and kill Him."

Causes of the Plot.

What stirred this cruel and deadly hate? Probably several reasons combined. I am willing to believe that some of the plotters honestly thought Christ a deceiver. They had been brought up to expect a certain type of Messiah, and their prejudices prevented them from seeing the "Desire of Nations" in Jesus. They thought that Christ was an impostor, leading the people astray; and Acts 10:9). But this does not apply to the great majority of those who now gathered together to plot the death of Christ. If you ask me why these people wanted to get rid of Christ, I answer that the reason is to be discovered in the history that Mark has narrated for us in the preceding chapters. Recall it. First of all, Christ swept the mob of traffickers out of the Temple court. By so doing He placarded the priests who permitted it as desecrators of the Temple, and at the same time interfered with their ill-gotten gains. Further, on the great day of questioning, again and again by His answers He humbled them in the sight of all the people. Then followed that tremendous indictment, in which Christ denounced these people as hypocrites, men whose religion was a deceit and a sham. Looking back over these chapters, I am not surprised they hated Him. It was the hate of men whose wickedness had been publicly exposed. It was the hate of bad men for a good Man.

Some of the Plotters.

In spite of the fact that these men were the religious leaders of their day, many of them were bad men. Dr Geikie, in his Life of Christ, describes some of the persons who were probably present at this murder council. Caiaphas would preside; and Caiaphas was known amongst the people as "the Oppressor." Annas, his father-in-law, and those five sons of his who all occupied the high-priestly office in succession one to another, were present. To Annas and his family for their cruel craftiness the people had given the nickname of "the vipers." And other priests were there equally infamous. Is it any wonder that men of this type wanted to put Christ out of the way? The mere presence of a good man is an offence to a bad man.

The Foes of the Just.

When Aristides was ostracised from Athens, one man who voted for his exile gave as his reason that he was tired of hearing him always spoken of as "Aristides the Just." Perhaps a better illustration still is to be found in the trial of Faithful in Vanity Fair as John Bunyan tells it for us. You remember the list of the Jurymen—Mr Blindman, Mr No-Good, Mr Malice, Mr Love-lust, Mr Live-loose, Mr Heady, Mr High-mind, Mr Enmity, Mr Lyar, Mr Cruelty, Mr Hate-light, and Mr Implacable. Is it any wonder that such a Jury condemned Faithful to death? Why, his very existence was an offence and an irritation to them. "I hate the very looks of him," said Mr Malice. "Away with such a fellow from the earth," said Mr No-good. "I never could endure him," said Mr Love-lust. "Nor I," said Mr Live-loose, "for he would always be condemning my way." And in Christ we have Faithful's Captain and Lord; and in these chief priests and scribes we have the High-mind and Heady, and Love-lust and Live-loose and Malice and No-good of that day. What wonder that they hated Him? What wonder that they "sought to take Him with subtilty and kill Him?" They never could endure Him—for He was always condemning their way.

—Self-Condemned.

But notice this, that in hating Christ and seeking to kill Him these people pronounced their own condemnation. "This is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil" ( John 3:19). In Jesus light had come into the world, purity had come, truth had come, love had come, absolute goodness had come. When these men plotted to kill Jesus it was proof that they had in their souls no love of truth and holiness and goodness. There could be no severer judgment. Thereby they declared to the world that their works and their hearts were evil. And that is why Scripture insists upon it that a man's destiny is settled by his attitude to Christ. There is nothing arbitrary or irrational about it. It is an infallible criterion of judgment. For, as Simeon said, Christ came "that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." The bias of the soul declares itself. Christ is the great touchstone of character. All who love goodness and purity will love Him. If men hate Him, it is because in their hearts they have said, "Evil, be thou my good."

The Master's Friends.

Now turn to the other and contrasted picture. If Christ repelled some, He attracted others. If He filled some with cruel and malignant hate, He inspired others with uttermost and enthusiastic love. If in Jerusalem chief priests and scribes were plotting to kill Him, there were in Bethany lowly hearts who counted no honour too high to pay Him. There were some to whom Christ was the altogether lovely. There were some who kept the warmest place in their hearts for Him. There were some who reckoned their homes most blest when He was the honoured guest. And first and chiefest of these who loved Christ and honoured Christ and were ready to give their best to Christ was the little household at Bethany. Brother and sisters—they were Christ's dear friends. "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." And so while chief priests and scribes plot Christ's death in Jerusalem, kindly loving hearts make a great feast for Him in Bethany.

Simon and His Feast.

I ought, however, to say that behind this feast and Mary's sacrificial deed there was more than ordinary love—there was love intensified by gratitude for supreme mercies given. The feast was spread in the house of Simon the leper. Now various ingenious guesses have been made as to the relationship between Simon and Lazarus and his sisters. Some commentators suggest that he may have been Martha's husband. But all such guesses are futile, as Scripture gives us no indication of what the relationship was or indeed that any relationship at all existed. We had better be satisfied with what is told us. Simon had been a leper. "Had been," I say, for of course a feast at his house would have been impossible had he been a leper still. He had once suffered from that most loathsome of all diseases and had been cured of it. We are not told so in so many words, but I will hazard the guess, which with me is not a guess but a conviction, that Simon was one of the many lepers whom Jesus healed. And this feast of his was a feast inspired by gratitude to the Healer.

A Work of Love and Gratitude.

Behind Mary's sacrificial offering, again, there lay the memory of a great and unspeakable mercy. If you want to understand this lavish and splendid deed you must read again that eleventh chapter of St John's Gospel which tells how Lazarus sickened and died; and how at the call of the sisters Jesus came back out of Peraea, whither He had gone to seek shelter, and not only sympathised with the sisters but restored Lazarus to them alive and well, after he had been in the grave four days. Ever since that never-to-be-forgotten day, this was the question the one sister had put to the other, "What shall we render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward us?" Nothing was too great or good for this mighty Friend Who had done such great things for them. And this paragraph tells us their passionate gratitude sought to express itself.

Mary's Offering.

The busy, energetic Martha served at this great feast. But Mary did a far more startling and amazing thing. While the feast was in progress, she stole up to the couch upon which the Master lay, with an alabaster cruse of ointment of spikenard, very costly, in her hand, and broke it over the Lord's head and "feet," says John. Now in describing an act like this one would wish to eschew prosaic details. But a word or two must be said to make clear the sacrificial character of this deed. Anointing the head with oil was a common practice in the dry and hot East. It was a little attention which, like water for the feet, hosts were in the habit of paying to their guests. But this was no ordinary anointing oil. The cost of the ordinary anointing oil would not have been more than the widow's mite. This was spikenard ointment—the most costly of all the fragrant oils of the world. Except in drops, it was only used by kings and the richest classes, says Dr Sloon, and was costly enough to be made a royal present. Mary had bought an alabaster cruse of this ointment; she must have paid for it, said Judas, at least three hundred denarii—or shillings—let us say, taking money at its present value—about £60. And it was not a drop or two only of the costly oil which she used. She broke the cruse; she emptied its whole contents. Nothing of it was reserved for commoner use. And it was not upon the Lord's head alone she poured this precious ointment—she anointed His sacred feet with it as well—an unusual John 21:15-16, John 21:17). " 2 Corinthians 12:15, R.V. Margin). This willingness to be spent out is the proof of a genuine love. Does such a love dwell in us? Are we so enthusiastic in the cause of Christ, so prodigal of strength, and labour, and money, that the world criticises us and says, "What waste!"? Is not this the mischief with us today, that our love is so cold; that we are so prudent and calculating in all our religious service? There is no suggestion of abandonment in our love. This is the prayer for us—"Warm our coldness we implore." For it is when we begin to "spend" ourselves "out" that Jesus says, "They have wrought a good work."

Where are We?

The high priests plotting murder: Mary lavishing love. These are representations of the two classes into which Jesus divides mankind. Some hate Him; some love Him. Some reject Him; and some worship Him. There is no third class. When Christ is presented to us we inevitably take our place in one or other of these two classes—His deniers or His lovers. In which class do we stand? "Blessed is Mark 14:4.

The Contagion of Evil.

"A man is tried by his praise" ( Proverbs 27:21). His character is revealed by his admirations. It would be equally true to say, "A man is known by his blames"; by the things he dislikes and censures. These too reveal his character; and Judas" character stands revealed to us—sharp-cut and clear—in the criticisms he passed upon Mary. It is from John's account ( John 12:4-5) that we know Judas to have been the chief critic of Mary's act. Indeed, from John's account we might gather that the grumbling was confined to Judas. But there is really no contradiction between John and Mark. What happened, I imagine, was this. The grumbling began with Judas: his was the evil heart that Mary's deed filled with malice and rage. Then his plausible excuse of care for the poor stirred other disciples with some sort of indignation against the lavishness and extravagance of the deed. If this be Matthew 18:7).

The Motive of Judas.

In the case of Judas, not only was the criticism essentially false but it sprang from a bad motive. "This ointment," he said, "might have been sold for three hundred shillings and given to the poor." Now that sounds, at first hearing, a kindly and thoughtful thing to say. It is not known that Judas had himself been conspicuous in his concern for the poor up to this point. Possibly, when a beggar made an appeal to him, he tightened his purse-strings. But all of a sudden, when he saw the ointment poured over Christ's head and feet, he was seized with a tremendous sympathy for the poor. "Think of all the poor people the money that ointment cost would have helped!" he said, fuming with indignation. And the other disciples—good, kindly men—were deceived by it, and began to grumble against Mary's devoted act.

Selfishness.

The concern of Judas for the poor was a deceit and a sham. That was not the real reason why Judas was angry with Mary. The real reason was too ugly to be mentioned. But John tells us the naked truth. "Now this he said," remarks Proverbs 19:17). And that is beautifully true. The Lord reckons every act of kindness done to the poor as done to Himself. But I could alter that proverb and make it read like this, "He that lendeth to the Lord hath pity on the poor," and it would be every whit as true. All that we do for Christ comes back in blessing upon men. The more we do for our Lord, the more we are moved to do for our brother also. No! what we spend on Christ is not waste. In the interests of the poor themselves, it is the best of all investments. Mary is always a better friend to the poor than Judas. The man who loves God is always the man who loves and serves his brother.

The Son of Waste.

Judas, when laying the charge of "waste" against Mary, was accusing her of a fault of which he himself was guilty. "What waste!" Judas said, when Mary lavished her love upon the Lord. But it was not waste; it was wisdom. Mary's love was laying up for her treasure in heaven and making her rich to all eternity. The "waste," the real "waste" was on the part of Judas himself. "Not one of them perished," said Jesus, speaking of His disciples, "but the son of perdition" ( John 17:12). Or as it might be translated, "Not one of them is lost save the son of loss." The "Son of Loss" or the "Son of Waste"—no other name fitted this man who seemed the very incarnation of worldly wisdom. The "Son of Loss!" What had he lost? What had he wasted? Opportunity, light, grace, character. He had lived for three years in closest fellowship with Jesus, the Incarnate goodness and truth. Yet all the splendid opportunities of those years were thrown away upon Judas. His opportunities of knowing the truth, of growing in grace, of winning heaven—he wasted them all. This man Judas—like Peter and James and John—might have had his name graven on the foundation of the new Jerusalem. Instead of that, this was his end—"He went away and hanged himself" ( Matthew 27:5). He was a "Son of Loss."

Loss and Gain.

Men make the same mistake still. Men allow their hearts to become absorbed with the love of the things of this life as Judas did. They regard devotion and worship and Christian zeal as "waste." They are practical men, and they sweat and strain after the more tangible rewards which this world offers! Men talk of them as rich. But are they really rich? There is nothing we need more than to revise our notion of loss and gain. A young lady of brilliant intellectual achievements went out to China as a missionary and died within the twelve months. "What waste!" Was it waste? "He that saveth his life shall lose it." On the other hand I read of men who were rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing. What wisely ordered lives! Were they? I read of a rich man who said to his soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods... eat, drink, be merry." He had made the best of life. But the Lord said, "Thou foolish one" ( Luke 12:19-20). He was not rich at all. He was "a son of loss." How can we sum up our lives? In terms of loss or gain? Are we laying hold of the good part, which shall never be taken away from us, or are we sons of waste? The only abiding wealth is the wealth of the soul. "Thou foolish one," said Christ of the rich man who thought of everything but his soul. And he added, "So is he that... is not rich toward God" ( Luke 12:21).

Chapter3.
Mary's Praise

"She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint My body to the burying. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the world whole, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her."— Mark 14:8, Mark 14:9.

In the previous chapter we considered the criticisms of the disciples, and especially of Judas, upon Mary's devoted act. In this we will look at the eulogy Christ pronounced upon the same loving deed.

Contrasted Judgments.

How amazingly people will differ in their judgments upon one and the self-same deed. Look at the marked contrast in this narrative. Mary came in and broke her alabaster box and the disciples said, "What waste!" while their Master said, "She hath done a beautiful deed." They saw precisely the same thing—but they formed absolutely contrasted judgments. The fact Mark 14:10, Mark 14:11.

Remembrance of the Just and the Unjust.

We pass now from Mary and her devoted act to Judas and his treachery. In the last clause of the previous paragraph, Jesus, speaking of Mary, had declared that her name and her deed should never be forgotten: "Wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her." But there are two kinds of remembrance: there is a remembrance of honour and glory; there is also a remembrance of infamy and shame. It was the former remembrance Christ promised to Mary, and she is enjoying it today. But the remembrance of her arch-critic Judas is just as sure. Only while it is an immortality of honour that Mary enjoys, an immortality of infamy and shame is the portion of Judas. Wherever the Gospel goes, the name of Judas goes too, to be remembered with loathing and contempt. He and his traitor's deed are for ever coupled together. Just as we never think of Mary without thinking also of her broken alabaster box, so we never think of Judas apart from his crime. He is always Judas Iscariot, "which also betrayed Him."

The Start—and the Finish.

Judas and Mary are as the poles asunder. The one illustrates the heights to which love can rise: the other the depths to which hate can stoop. Dr Bruce says somewhere in his Training of the Twelve that he would be compelled to believe in heaven and hell if only to find a place for Mary and Judas respectively. And he is right. Mary and Judas are types of heaven and hell; for heaven is love, and hell is hate; and Mary is the incarnation of love, while Judas is the incarnation of hate. Nevertheless, though in these verses Mary and Judas are as far as the poles asunder, as far apart as heaven and hell, they may have been much alike at the start.

Both were blessed with similar advantages in their upbringing: and both at the start had their feet set in the same direction. For did Mary love to sit at the Lord's feet and hear His word? Judas too was sufficiently earnest in his devotion to Jesus to be chosen as one of the Twelve who should be with Him, the Twelve whom He would send forth to preach His Gospel. And yet there was all the difference between heaven and hell separating them at the finish. Mary for love brought her alabaster box and broke it; Judas in his hate went away unto the chief priests, that he might deliver his Master unto them.

Together—Apart.

This is no isolated instance. Every age and every walk of life will furnish illustrations of men who started from the same mark but who finished far asunder. There were two famous brothers in the last century—John Henry Newman and Francis W. Newman—whose intellectual development worked out in precisely opposite directions. They began together; but one became the advocate of authority and the other of freedom, until they ended up with all the difference between Romanism and agnosticism between them. In the highest realm of all—in the region of morals and the spiritual life—the same amazing differences are to be found. Out of the very same household there will issue a Jacob and an Esau: a Reuben and a Joseph.

The Divide.

As you ride by rail between Dolgelley and Bala you come to a point in the hills which forms the watershed. And just at that point two streams take their rise. They have, it is practically true to say, the very same birthplace—but one tiny stream turns to the right and the other turns to the left and so the Dee and the Mawddach, born together, are the entire breadth of Wales apart at the finish. One falls into the sea facing the cold, grey north; the other ends its course facing the golden west. And that is how it is with men. They start together and the divergence sets in and they finish far apart.

"So from the heights of will,

Life's parting stream descends

And as a moment turns its slender rill,

Each widening torrent bends.

From the same cradle side,

From the same mother's knee,

One to long darkness and the frozen tide,

One to the peaceful sea.

The Decisive Factor.

I dwell upon this to emphasise once again the old point—human destiny is not at the mercy of conditions. Environment is not the decisive factor, else men starting alike should finish alike, sharing the same advantages they should meet with a like success. Man himself is the decisive factor. You remember that verse in Omar Khayyam:

"I sent my soul through the Invisible,

Some letter of the after-life to spell;

And by and by my soul return"d to me

And answer"d "I myself am Heav"n and Hell."

Yes, that is true. "I myself am Heav"n or Hell." It is from the height of will life's parting stream descends. Life is a sort of raw material. The stuff of devilry and the stuff of sainthood are both in it. And it depends on ourselves—on the set of our wills—whether we end with Mary or with Judas—in heaven or in hell: amongst those who win eternal glory and renown, or amongst those who have a portion of shame and everlasting contempt.

The Way of the Fall.

"And Judas Iscariot, he that was one of the Twelve, went away unto the chief priests." He flung himself out of Simon's house with a fierce and bitter anger in his heart. Christ's commendation of Mary and His implied rebuke of Himself were the last straw. There and then Judas made up his mind to renounce his allegiance and to go over to the camp of Christ's enemies and foes. It was "the last straw"; for the perversion and apostasy of Judas were not sudden and unexpected. A whole train of circumstances led up to the betrayal. There is a history of moral deterioration behind Judas" appalling crime. The fact Mark 14:12-16.

The Date of the Last Supper.

I am not going to discuss at length the difficult question of the exact date of the Last Supper and the Resurrection. I think—in spite of all the efforts of commentators to harmonise the accounts—that John gives a different date from that of the Synoptists. If we were left to the Synoptists, we should conclude that the feast to which Jesus and the Twelve sat down together in the Upper Room was the actual Passover Feast, and that Jesus was crucified on the following day. But John is quite clear and emphatic that the feast Christ ate with His disciples anticipated the real Passover Feast by four and twenty hours, and that the Crucifixion took place on the day on which the lamb was sacrificed. As John wrote last, and with the three other Gospels before him, I am driven to believe that all his corrections are intentional and deliberate; and as there is something beautifully congruous in the thought of Christ dying on the day the Paschal lamb was sacrificed, I incline to accept John's account as being the one which is chronologically correct. But I do not know that we need to trouble to try and settle that vexed controversy. It is sufficient for us to know that Jerusalem was all astir with preparations for the Passover; and it was ordained that at that feast, when men offered a lamb in sacrifice in memory of their deliverance from bondage and death in Egypt, the Lamb of God should offer Himself up in sacrifice for the sins of the world.

The Lord and the Means of Grace.

I say, Jerusalem was all astir with preparations for the Passover. It was natural therefore that the disciples should come to Jesus and say, "Where wilt Thou that we go and make ready that Thou mayest eat the Passover?" You notice the form of the question: "Where wilt Thou that we make ready?" They do not ask Him if He means to observe it. They take that for granted. All they ask is as to the room He has arranged for its observance. All of which throws an interesting side-light upon the character and habits of Jesus. The fact that the disciples took it for granted that Jesus would observe the Passover shows that He had been in the habit of observing it. Jesus paid scrupulous respect to the forms and rites of the Jewish faith. He kept the Sabbath. He attended the synagogue. He observed the Passover. He did not brush them aside as mere empty forms. He "fulfilled all righteousness." He showed respect for the outward means of grace. He recognised that they were means of grace, and that they ministered to the life of the soul.

—An Example for His People.

In all this we may learn a lesson from our Lord. I know it is easy to make too much of forms. But it is possible also to make too little of them. Perhaps this latter is our particular peril. We say that the spirit is the essential thing, that God is a spirit, and that they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. That is all true enough; but, if we make the spirituality of religion an excuse for neglecting the forms and offices of religion, we seriously hurt and impoverish ourselves. For while it is true that you may have the form without the spirit—as in the case of the Pharisees of old—it is important to remember the complementary and balancing truth, that there can be no religious life without some measure of form. So let us follow our Lord in His respect for the means of grace. Let us cultivate the assembling of ourselves together, let us frequent the assemblies of the Church for prayer; above all things when the Table of the Lord is spread let us remember His dying love until He come. The preaching of the word, united worship, the sacraments—they are all designed for the nourishment of our spiritual life and that life inevitably suffers by their neglect.

The Chosen Place.

"Where wilt Thou that we go and make ready that Thou mayest eat the Passover?" asked His disciples. Instead of giving a direct answer and naming the house at which He had arranged to celebrate the feast, Jesus sent two of them (probably Peter and John) off into the city with these mysterious instructions—they were to go to a certain public fountain and there they would find a man bearing a pitcher of water. There would be no chance of failing to identify him—for water-carrying was, as a rule, a woman's business, and a man bearing a pitcher was always a more or less conspicuous object. This man they were to follow to the house to which he returned. Arrived there, they were to ask the goodman of the house for the guest-chamber he had promised to Christ. In the Upper Room which he would show them they were to make all the needful preparations for the observance of the feast.

—Prearranged.

Now it is obvious from all this that there had been an arrangement made between Jesus and this unknown friend of His. They had come to an understanding even as to this little plan by which the disciples were to be led to the chosen rendezvous. The goodman of the house had promised to send one of his servants to this particular fountain, and Jesus on His part arranged to send two of His disciples to follow him from that spot home. There was nothing haphazard or accidental about the meeting at the fountain. There was certainly nothing accidental about the choice of house. All had been planned and arranged beforehand between Jesus and His unknown host.

The Reason.

But the question at once arises—why was all this mystery made about the rendezvous? Why could not Christ have named the street and the house at which He had arranged to eat the feast? Why all this secrecy? Dr David Smith suggests the true answer. There was a traitor amongst the Twelve. Judas was on the look out for an opportunity to deliver Christ to His foes. Had Judas known exactly where Christ had determined to eat the feast, he might have arranged with the priests to seize Him in the very midst of the supper. But Jesus purposed to observe this feast with His disciples undisturbed. So with the goodman of the house He settled His plan. Judas got no clue from Christ's orders to Peter and John and he dared not track the messengers. That was the reason for the secrecy. Jesus was so beset with foes, that He could only secure these brief hours for quiet converse with His disciples, as it were by stealth!

The House and the Host.

The two disciples went and they found it even as the Master had said. There at the fountain was the slave with his pitcher of water, obviously watching and waiting for some one. As soon as he caught sight of Peter and John (for no doubt he would know them) he took up his pitcher and made straight for his master's house and there the disciples found "the large Upper Room furnished" which in some private conversation with Jesus the goodman of the house had already offered. Many are the guesses that commentators have made as to the identity of this goodman of the house. Some guess Nicodemus, some Joseph of Arimathea, and others, with greater probability, John Mark. But who he really was we shall never surely know till that great day when all secrets are revealed. One thing however is quite obvious from the narrative—and that Mark 14:14. "The Master saith—where is My guest-chamber?" "The Master" saith! Such language could only be addressed to one who acknowledged Christ's authority and rule. "Where is My guest-chamber?" Such language could only be addressed to one who looked upon all that he possessed as belonging to Jesus Christ. Mark 14:17-21.

We come now to that paragraph, that poignant little paragraph, which tells how, when Christ and the Twelve had taken their places for the festal meal, He made the announcement that it was one of the chosen band who should betray Him.

The Context.

But before I begin the study of the paragraph itself, let me say again that Mark's account is not a complete account of what happened in the Upper Room. Mark's is the briefest of all the Gospels. He picks out what seem to him the salient parts of the story, and these he narrates for us in an incomparably vivid way. But if you want the complete story, an accurate scheme of the sequence of events, you must compare Mark's Gospel with the other three, and insert here and there with his abbreviated narrative various scenes and incidents passed over by him but preserved for us in the records of the other evangelists. At this point, e.g. the announcement of the betrayal follows immediately upon the verse in which Mark describes their assembly in the Upper Room. Had we been left to Mark we should have concluded that this was the very first thing that happened when they had gathered together in that quiet chamber. But, when we compare the accounts of the other evangelists, we find Mark has passed over without notice a good many things, such, e.g. as the strife among the disciples as to which of them was greatest, and that most moving and pathetic incident of the washing of the disciples" feet. You must insert all that between Mark 14:17 and Mark 14:18 if you would have the full and complete sequence of events before you.

The Things Unrecorded.

It must also be remembered, as Dr Glover points out, that a good many things had happened which are mentioned by none of the evangelists. They had gathered in that Upper Room for the Paschal meal, and the Paschal meal was observed with a certain amount of fixed and definite ritual. Jesus, no doubt, had taken His place at the head of the table as the Master of the Feast. Following the usual practice He had explained the significance of the Passover, and spoken of the mighty deliverance of which it was the memorial—with what thoughts of that grander and more glorious Exodus which He was about to accomplish for all mankind on the morrow who shall tell? And then they had sung some of the appointed Psalm—Psalm breathing of gratitude and rest and hope. Very likely they had already passed round that cup which was so essential a part of the Passover celebration. All these things had happened in the Upper Room, before there fell from the lips of Christ this tragic announcement which changed their festal gladness into grief and fear.

The Prediction of the Betrayal.

Why did Christ make the announcement at all? Some commentators suggest that He had a design in making it. He was just about to institute the feast of the Supper. "He had gathered the Twelve in the Upper Room," says Dr David Smith, "not merely that He might eat the Passover with them, but that He might institute a sacred rite which should perpetuate the remembrance of His immortal love." Now the Supper is the family feast, at which only those who really and sincerely love the Lord have any right to sit. That is the reason why the Apostle says, "Let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup" ( 1 Corinthians 11:28). It is no feast in which a traitor has any right to participate. Our Lord could not celebrate that first Passover with Judas present, and so He makes this fateful announcement in order to be freed from Judas" oppressive presence, and to be at liberty to celebrate His love-feast with those who were really and sincerely His own. There is a good deal of plausibility about the suggestion, but personally I do not feel inclined to accept it. For you have to assume that Judas left before the Supper, which is itself a very doubtful point. And it seems to me to artificialise the whole narrative.

Not a Disclosure but a Cry.

If you ask how I think this tragic announcement came to be made, I reply, Christ could not bear the awful burden a moment longer. I do not think there was any design in it. I do not think it was meant to cure the pride of the disciples. I do not even think it was meant to give Judas a glimpse of the perdition before him and thus awake repentance. I think Dr Chadwick comes nearest the truth when he says this was not so much a disclosure as a cry! A cry from the Lord's bruised and wounded spirit! He could not help Himself! After all, our Lord was not only "very God" but also "very Psalm 41:9). There are two passages in Shakespeare's great play of "Julius Caesar" which illustrate by contrast the bitterness of being betrayed by a friend. The first is a sentence Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Brutus himself. Brutus had seen his cause overwhelmed with disaster and he was just upon the point of falling upon his sword. But with ruin overtaking him and death staring him in the face he had one deep source of joy. "Countrymen," he said,

The Bitter Thought

"My heart doth joy that yet in all my life,

I found no man but he was true to me."

Now turn by way of contrast to the scene in which Shakespeare describes the assassination of great Caesar himself. You remember how, under pretence of presenting a petition, the conspirators crowded round Caesar's seat. Decius, Cassius, Casca—they were all there. When the petition was refused, Casca gave the sign for attack by saying, "Speak, hands, for me." He aimed his dagger at Caesar's breast; and at once Decius and Cassius, and China had their daggers out too. Caesar resisted for a time until he saw Brutus—one of the most cherished of his friends—also with his dagger raised to strike. But when he saw Brutus—his friend—he ceased to struggle. "Et tu, Brute," he cried, "And thou, Brutus.—Then fall Caesar." And through that bitter experience our Lord had to pass. He had not the joy of feeling that however much his enemies might rage, his friends had been true to Him. It was a friend who betrayed Him: it was a friend who sold Him. It was one who ate His bread who lifted his heel against Him. The very thought of it wrung Christ's heart with anguish, and provoked this cry from His lips. "One of you shall betray Me, even he that eateth with Me." "Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow" ( Lamentations 1:12).

Does Judas stand Alone?

I am tempted, before I pass on, to ask a question like this—"Is Judas the only friend who has ever betrayed the Lord?" Is he the only one who has eaten the Lord's bread, and then lifted up his heel against Him? Of course I know that there is a sense in which the crime of Judas can never be again committed. Never again can Christ be betrayed into the hands of men. Never again can He be sold to the shame of the whipping-post and the tree. And yet, from another point of view, He is not beyond the reach of wounds and treachery and shame. Why, one of the sacred writers declares that it is in our power to "crucify Christ afresh." And we do it. Yes, we often do it; we, His Psalm 19:13).

Chapter8.
The Last Supper—II

"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. And He took the cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And He said unto them, This is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many. 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."— Mark 14:22-25.

The Lord's Supper is primarily, as His words show, a memorial of Christ's dying; but it is also something more, and it is with that something more I want to occupy myself in this chapter. What is it more than a memorial feast?

The Sacrament of Friendship.

I answer first it is the sacrament of friendship. Dr David Smith reminds us in his Life of Christ of the sacredness attached in the East to the common meal. It constitutes, he says, a solemn and indissoluble bond. He tells a story of the lengths to which the Arabs carry this idea that when men have broken bread with one another, they become perpetual friends. "Zail-al-khail, a famous warrior in the days of Mohammad," so the legend runs, "refused to slay a vagabond who carried off his camels because the chief had surreptitiously drunk from his father's milk-bowls before committing the theft." We have a little of that feeling even in these more prosaic Northern regions. If we accept the hospitality of another, we feel bound at any rate to keep within the conventional obligation of friendship. "A breach of hospitality" is regarded as an ugly and hateful thing even in England. Now, the supper was a common meal. Jesus invited these men to accept His hospitality. They broke the bread and shared the cup with Him. It was a sacrament of friendship. The one disciple who was no friend but a traitor in disguise, had probably gone out to do his nefarious deed, but the eleven who remained, whatever their faults, were brave and loyal souls, and when they shared this meal with their Master, He declared Himself their friend, and they declared themselves His friends, and pledged themselves, that, come weal come woe, He should always have the love of their devoted and loyal hearts. Do you know what I have been reminded of as I thought of Christ and that little company of eleven sharing this meal together? I have been reminded of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The presence of the Knights, at that table was the outward sign and symbol that they had pledged allegiance to Arthur. You remember how Tennyson makes them sing,

"The King will follow Christ and we the King

In whom high God hath breathed a sacred thing,

Fall battleaxe and flash brand! Let the King reign!"

And these eleven disciples were to Jesus what his Knights were to Arthur. When they sat at His table they pledged themselves to His service.

A Double Tie.

It was a beautiful sacrament of friendship. And that is what the Supper is still. It is only for the friends of Christ. In it Christ offers us His hospitality, and when we accept it, we proclaim ourselves His friends and pledge ourselves to His cause. It is an ugly thing to sit at the Lord's table, and then to deny Him. It is a base thing to accept His hospitality and then betray Him! Better never eat the bread and drink the cup at all, than eat and drink and then by our life repudiate our Lord. That is why Paul says that every man ought to examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For this common meal is a sacrament of friendship, of Christ's friendship for us, and our friendship for Him, and only the friends of the Lord have a right to participate in it. And let me add this word, this common meal is not only a sacrament of friendship between Christ and those who share in it, but it is a sacrament of friendship between one disciple and another. When we sit down to this meal together it means that we are not only all of us friends of the Lord, it means also that we are friends of one another. We all eat of the same bread and drink of the same cup in token that we all share in the same life. We "commune" not simply with our Lord, but also with one another. I wonder whether this aspect of the Supper is not often forgotten or ignored by us. The Supper is the family meal, the perpetually recurring reminder that we are all members of one great household. It always strikes me as a strange and pitiable thing that men and women can sit down together at the table of the Lord and clean forget one another outside; that there is so much distance, lack of sympathy, absence of friendship between members of the same Church. It would alter the climate of many a Church, and bring cheer into many a lonely heart if we only remembered that this blessed feast is a sacrament of friendship with one another. Shall we try to remember? Shall we try henceforth to enter into one another's joys and sorrows? To bear one another's burdens? And to show special love to them that are of the household of faith? You will remember the Supper is a "communion of Saints" as well as a communion of the body and blood of Christ. It is a sacrament of friendship with one another as well as with Him. The man who sits down to the Supper and then neglects his brother has denied the faith.

Christ, the Giver of the Feast.

I pass on next to say that this is a feast of which Christ is the giver and we are the recipients. There is a beautiful and significant sequence of verses in one of the most familiar of Psalm that runs like this, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me?" asks the Psalmist. And he answers his own question by Baying, "I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord." I had read those two verses scores and hundreds of times and not noticed their point. It was my friend, Mr Elvet Lewis, who first called my attention to the beauty of the sequence. Here is a Psalmist overwhelmed by a sense of God's infinite goodness, and as he thinks of it, in a perfect transport of gratitude he cries, "What shall I render to the Lord? What shall I give to Him? What shall I pay back to Him for all His benefits?" And in the answer he gives to his own question, I find nothing about paying back, giving, rendering to God. He talks of taking once again. "What shall I render?... I will take the cup of salvation." Taking yet again is the only way of rendering to God. Receiving once again is the only way of paying back to God. Opening the heart still wider to the reception of His blessings is the only way of thanking Him for blessings already given. And this is all illustrated in the Supper. No one can think of the mighty sacrifice of Christ, of the Exodus He accomplished, of the deliverance He won, without being constrained to say, "What shall I render?" You remember how Isaac Watts, facing the Cross, bursts out into that impassioned verse,

Man Receives and Repays.

"Were the whole realm of Nature mine,

That were a present far too small.

Love so amazing, so Divine,

Demands my life, my soul, my all."

We all feel like that when we stand before the Cross and realise its meaning. What shall we give is our dominating thought. And instead of giving we are asked to take once again. "What shall I render unto the Lord," we cry, "for all His benefits toward me?" And the Lord Himself answers us and says, "Take ye, this is My body." And He hands to us the cup saying, "This is My blood of the covenant, which is shed for many." Instead of paying back we are asked to receive once again. Indeed the only payment the Lord asks of us is that we should be willing to receive the yet larger grace He is willing to bestow. "As they were eating He took bread, and when He had blessed it, He brake it and gave to them and said, Take ye, this is My body. And He took a cup and when He had given thanks, He gave to them. And they all drank of it. And He said unto them, This is My blood of the new Covenant which is shed for many," "Take ye," He says. Christ in this feast is the Giver. We are the recipients.

The Giver of Himself.

What is it He gives? His body and blood under the symbols of bread and wine. Now, I dislike even glancing at controversial topics in connection with a theme so sacred as this. And yet I should be scarcely a faithful minister, I should not be declaring the whole counsel of God, if I did not refer to certain misunderstandings of these words which have had disastrous consequences for the Christian Church. The doctrine of Transubstantiation is based upon a literal interpretation of the words, "This is My body," and "This is My blood." Now, if this were the time I think I could prove that the doctrine of Transubstantiation has been the source of much harm. It has externalised the Sacrament. It has converted it from a spiritual Communion with a living Christ, into a magical rite. It has made the virtue of the Sacrament to depend upon the act of participation, quite apart from the spiritual condition of the receiver. It has, as a result, been inimical, not to say fatal, to deep, earnest, serious religious life. But I am not concerned at the moment with its evil results, what I want to emphasise just now is that there is absolutely no Scriptural or rational ground for the doctrine.

Christ's Language.

To understand this phrase, "This is My body," literally, is to forget that the words were spoken by Christ Himself to eleven men who were sitting at table with Him. The eleven never for one moment imagined that the bread was changed into Christ's body or the wine into His blood, for there their Lord was living, breathing, talking to them. Then, to take these words literally is to forget the Eastern fondness for vivid, figurative language. Christ was in the habit of speaking in this bold and vivid way. He said among other things, "I am the Door." "I am the True Vine." There is as little reason for interpreting the phrase, "This is My body," literally, as there would be for interpreting, "I am the Door," literally. And then, finally, as if specially to guard against this from a materialistic interpretation of His words, our Lord uttered an express warning against it. All commentators are agreed that for the interpretation of what Christ means by "taking His body," and "drinking His blood," we must turn to that great chapter in St John's Gospel in which He speaks of Himself as the Bread of Life. The "bread," He proceeds to explain, is His own flesh which He is to give for the life of the world. The Jews like the Romanists made the mistake of taking Him literally, and asked, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?" Then Jesus, seeing the mistake which the Jews and some of His own disciples were making, after asserting once again that His flesh was meat indeed, and His blood was drink indeed, adds this word, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." It is as if the Lord foresaw the mistake so many in His Church have made and forewarned them against it. The mere physical participation in the bread and the wine of itself profits nothing; we gain no benefit from the Supper until we enter into spiritual communion with the Christ, and especially, the suffering and dying Christ of Whom the bread and the wine speak.

Spiritual Feeding on Christ.

But if on the one hand the Romanists are guilty of asserting about this feast more than is true, I think sometimes we Protestant folk, and especially Free Church folk, are apt to assert of it less than is true. I mean that so many are content to regard the Supper as a memorial feast and nothing more. The bread and the wine help us to remember how on Calvary's Hill Christ gave His body to be broken and His blood to be shed for our redemption. But the feast is more than that. We do not simply remember Christ. He gives Himself to us. We impoverish the meaning of the feast if we forget this truth. He gives, we receive, at this feast. He gives Himself to us for our sustenance and support. The bread and the wine signify, He says, His body and blood. Body and Blood again together signify His life—His human life. And the meaning of the Sacrament is that Christ's life is to us, what bread and wine are to the physical existence. Bread and wine are the emblem, as Dr Chadwick says, of food in its most nourishing and its most stimulating form. And in the same way—such is the teaching of the Sacrament—the life of Christ, the body and blood of Christ, the sacrificed and distributed life of Christ, nourishes and sustains the soul. And He gives Himself to us at this feast.

The double aspect of the rite.

"If," says St Paul ( Romans 5:10), "while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Mark 14:27-31, Mark 14:54, Mark 14:66-72.

The Story of the Fall.

The first thing to be done in studying the pitiful account of Peter's fall is to reconstruct the actual story. For there are considerable differences in the Gospel narratives; though when sceptical writers try, by magnifying these differences, to cast doubt upon the whole episode, they clean over-reach themselves. There is perhaps no event in the whole of the Gospel story which is more clearly and fully attested. The evangelists tell the story from their own special points of view, and with slight variations; but upon the fact that, in the high priest's palace, Peter did three times deny his Lord they are all agreed. The variations can practically all be harmonised, and in any case they detract nothing from the reliability of the narrative, they rather add to it. They only show how wide-spread and familiar the story was in the very earliest days of the Christian Church.

The Boldness of Peter and John.

Comparing Gospel with Gospel, the course of events seems to have been something like this. First there is the Lord's solemn announcement, "All ye shall be offended because of Me this night," followed by Peter's confident assurance of his own loyalty. Then the prophecy of Peter's fall, and his vehement protest. The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane is swiftly followed by the arrest. After this, sudden panic seems to have seized the disciples. "They all left Him and fled." But in the case of at any rate two out of the eleven, the panic does not seem to have lasted very long. Peter and John seem to have recovered some measure of courage, and instead of running away, they followed the procession as it made its way to the house of Annas. They followed "afar off" says Mark 14:32-42.

The discussion of the central significance of the Agony by no means exhausts the lessons this paragraph has to teach. First of all, let us study reverently the conduct of our Lord in the Garden.

Christ and Solitude.

And herein notice our Lord's use of solitude. This was in accord with His custom. He often resorted to secret and solitary prayer. "When thou prayest," such was His counsel to His disciples, "enter into thine inner chamber and pray to thy Father Who seeth in secret." And this counsel He gave to others He practised Himself. Night after night He would steal away to the mountain to pray. During the whole of Passion Week He had sought out Gethsemane. "Judas knew the place," the Fourth Evangelist says, "for He oft resorted thither with His disciples." So that, from one point of view, it was in accordance with His usual habit that, on the night in which He was betrayed, He should resort to the Garden to seek strength in private prayer. But I do not think I am fanciful in thinking that there was a special solitariness about Christ in the Garden. He took the eleven with Him to Gethsemane. But He left eight of them somewhere near the gate. He took Peter and James and Mark 14:43-60.

The Traitor.

All the disciples had not followed Christ to the Garden. His little circle of chosen associates numbered twelve, but there were only eleven with Him in the hour of His desolation and sorrow. One had left the Upper Room some time before Jesus and the rest sang their hymn and set their faces towards the Mount of Olives. At a certain stage in the proceedings in the Upper Room Judas Iscariot had left the little company. Nobody save Jesus knew why or whither he had gone. They had heard Christ say to him, "That thou doest, do quickly," and they had inferred that as Treasurer of the Apostolic band Judas had some purchases to make for the feast, or some charities to distribute to the poor. But it was upon no such kindly errand that Judas was bent when he left the Upper Room. There was treachery and a deadly purpose in his soul. Avarice and ambition had played havoc with Judas. Whatever enthusiasm or love he had had for Jesus at the start had died out of his heart and had given place to sullen and embittered resentment. Already in this bitter resentment he had made a bargain with the priests to betray Jesus to them. And when he left the Upper Room it was to go to the priests to tell them that he was prepared to carry out his bargain that very night. Psalm 55:12-14). The sorrows of the Psalmist suggest the sorrows of One still greater. And, even in the presence of the acute physical suffering of our Lord, we can see that this sorrow was a real one. An injury that we can take philosophically when inflicted by a foe wellnigh breaks our heart when inflicted by a friend. Hard words, that would not give us even a twinge if uttered by an opponent, cut to the very quick when spoken by a comrade and colleague. And our Lord suffered that added ignominy and sorrow. He was wounded in the house of His friends; betrayed by one whom He had Himself chosen and called; delivered to His foes by one of His own company.

The Sorrow of a Lost Soul.

It was Judas "one of the twelve" that led the traitor band. His Master was about to die to save men from their sins. And here in Judas" crime, as Dr Chadwick puts it, He is confronted with the very tragedy which He was sacrificing Himself to avert, the loss of a soul—lost in spite of multiplied privileges, in spite of repeated pleadings, in spite of all that love could do, in spite of plain and searching appeals. Do you not think that the sight of Judas, at the head of the traitor band, would suggest to Christ the thought, the chilling and almost heartbreaking thought, of the multitudes who would receive the grace of God in vain, to whom the Cross would make no appeal, and who would spurn and reject His own dying love? That was the supreme sorrow of our Lord! That is His supreme sorrow still. The Lord has died for men! And they go on their way unmoved, untouched. They pass the Cross by as if it did not concern them.

The Meekness of Christ.

The second thing to notice is the meekness of Christ. It was said by the Prophet ( Isaiah 53:7), speaking by the Spirit of the suffering of our Lord, that, though He was oppressed yet He would humble Himself and open not His mouth: that He should be led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb, so He would open not His mouth. And all that was fulfilled in an amazing and touching way in the Garden. When Judas came up to Him he called Him Rabbi, and kissed Him. Kissed Him effusively, the Greek suggests. A man knowing the treachery in Judas" heart, knowing the kiss was a lying and poisoned kiss, would have shrunk from it in repugnance and horror. But Jesus submitted even to that loathsome kiss! He made no attempt to push Judas away. He flung at him no angry or indignant word. "Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?" He said; and that was all! Matthew 5:39). It is a hard and difficult precept to obey, but in the Garden our Lord practised what He preached. We look at Him then, submitting to be kissed, "bearing shame and insult rude," when He might have summoned twelve legions of angels to His help had He wished, and we know what meekness is. Those who witnessed His behaviour in the Garden never forgot it. It burned itself into the memory of Peter for example, and in his Epistle, with the Garden in his mind, he recalls how Jesus when He was reviled, reviled not again, when He suffered threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously (1Peter ii, 23). And in nothing is Jesus more divine than in His meekness. It would have been human to reproach and denounce and resist. It was divine to bear and endure and suffer without a word. If I had to construct an argument for the divinity of Christ, I would base it in part upon His meekness.

The Courage of Christ.

Observe, too, the courage of Christ as illustrated in His behaviour at the arrest. How calm and collected He was! He was the only calm, collected, unruffled person in the Garden! The traitor having offered his treacherous kiss, slunk into the background and went his way out of the Garden, a tortured soul. Mark says no more about him. But the other Gospels tell us, how Judas never knew what peace was after that night, and how in a brief space of time he put an end to an existence that had become unbearable, and so went to "his own place." The soldiers were flurried and excited. When Jesus calmly asked them whom they sought, and, in answer to their reply, said, that He was the object of their search, struck by some mysterious terror they all went backward and fell to the ground. The disciples in their excitement first wanted to fight and then ran away. The one person absolutely calm and serene was Jesus Himself. He takes command of the proceedings. He hands Himself over to the trembling soldiers. He bids His disciples put their swords back into their sheaths. He begs the soldiers as it was Himself they were in search of to let the disciples go away. Calm, serene, absolutely unruffled, our Lord moves through this scene. Now consider the behaviour of the disciples.

The Men and the Swords.

When the disciples saw their Master in the hands of His foes, they were at first for making a fight of it. Perhaps we have been too hard on these disciples. It is true that the story ends with this shameful sentence, "They all forsook Him and fled." But they were not cowards. I have almost come to the conclusion that it was not fear that prompted their flight, but despair. I believe they would have fought for Christ and died for Him if He had fulfilled their expectation as to the Messiah. But when they saw Jesus meekly surrendering Himself, their faith in Him as Messiah collapsed. That was the cause of their flight. Their faith was shattered. But they were not cowards, these men. They had only two swords amongst them, but with those two swords they would have faced the soldiers and the Temple mob in defence of their Lord. "Lord," they cried, "shall we smite with the sword?" And before Jesus had had time to reply, Peter's sword was out of its scabbard; he had struck an uncertain and excited blow, and had cut off the high priest's servant's ear. It was done in a moment. But swift upon the blow came the word of Christ. "Put up again thy sword into its place, they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Violence had no place in Christ's scheme of things. The sword was a useless weapon to further His interests. The weapons of His warfare were not carnal but spiritual.

Compulsion and Faith.

Christ's rebuke is for us as well as for Peter, and the Law is as binding upon the Church of today as it was upon the prince of the Apostles. Christ's Kingdom is not to be advanced by the sword. In the affairs of the Kingdom force is no remedy. It is a lesson the Church of Christ has been slow to learn. Again and again the Church has invoked the help of the secular arm. She has again and again used pressure and compulsion to advance her interests. In the early days of the Arian controtroversy the power of the Roman Empire was used to crush out heresy. In our own England here the conversion of one of the old Saxon kings was signalised by the compulsory conversion of all his people. Again and again the Church has used fire and prison and scaffold. Often, no doubt, it was done honestly and sincerely. But it was all very pitiful and tragic. It was a repudiation of Christ's own teaching. Religion is free, the response of the soul to God. A forced religion is a contradiction in terms.

The Better Way.

"Allow me just to move My right hand," said Jesus. And He used it to restore the ear of the injured servant. That was the last miracle Christ performed—a gracious act of mercy to a foe. That is the way to advance Christ's Kingdom, not by imitating the violence of Peter, but by imitating the gentleness, mercy and healing ministry of the Lord.

Chapter12.
The Young Man in the Linen Cloth

"And there followed Him a certain young Mark 14:51, Mark 14:52.

Why is he Recalled?

The insertion of this story of the young man with the linen cloth needs accounting for. Mark omits many important details in the story of Christ's arrest, apparently in the interests of brevity. But this same evangelist, who in his passion for brevity omits items of importance, inserts this story about the young man with the linen cloth, though it is trivial in itself, and in no way affects the course of events. Why did this stern economist of words spare two verses in his brief and pregnant Gospel to tell this irrelevant story about some unknown young man? There must have been some strong reason operating on Mark to induce him to insert it.

A Personal Interest.

The usual way of accounting for its insertion is by saying that the little incident must have had some special interest for Mark himself; indeed that he himself was the young man of whom he speaks. If that supposition is right, we can understand how the story came to be inserted. If Mark was the young man in question, the incident was not trivial to him. The act that brought him even into momentary contact with Christ on that dread and bitter night would be one of supreme interest and importance. There are other guesses as to the identity of this young man. Some commentators, for example, think that he was Mark 14:53-65.

There are a great many omissions in Mark's account of the trial of our Lord. Those details mattered little to the people to whom Mark originally addressed His Gospel; but every little detail in the story matters to us, and we like to follow our Lord step by step along the sorrowful way that led from Gethsemane to the bitter Cross. And so I propose, before beginning the exposition of this paragraph, to trace what seems to have been the actual course of events after Jesus was arrested in the Garden.

The Two Trials.

One broad fact stands out plain and clear as we read and compare the various Gospel narratives, namely that there were two stages in the trial of Jesus. There was an ecclesiastical trial when His judges were the priests and the elders; and there was a civil trial when His judge was Pilate. The reason for the double trial was this. Rome dealt very leniently, not to say generously, with conquered and subject nations. She allowed them a very large measure of what we should call "Home Rule." And especially was Rome generous in the matter of religion. She never attempted to interfere with any local religion so long as the religion in no way menaced her imperial power. The consequence was that Rome did not interfere with Judaism, nor did she attempt to destroy the Sanhedrin—the supreme Jewish court. The Sanhedrin was allowed to try and to punish religious offenders; only, if offence was a capital one, the case had again to be tried before the Roman Governor, for the capital sentence could only be inflicted by the supreme authority of all. The chief priests and elders would gladly have settled the whole matter in their own court, but they would be satisfied with nothing save the death punishment, and to get that they had to secure the assent of Pilate.

The Two Charges.

That is why, too, the ground of accusation in the civil trial differs so much from the ground of accusation in the ecclesiastical trial. In the ecclesiastical trial, as we shall shortly see, the offences charged against Jesus were religious offences. He was charged with threatening the Temple; He was charged with making divine claims for Himself. But if His accusers had come with such accusations into Pilate's court he would probably have brushed them aside, as Gallio did subsequently at Corinth, saying that it was none of his business to interfere in their religious disputes. So when they appear before Pilate they shift their ground and charge Him with a State offence, namely, that of conspiring against Caesar. Or, to express it slightly differently, the ground on which the Sanhedrin condemned Him was blasphemy; the actual charge for which He was sentenced to the Cross was high treason. Pilate crucified the Lord, not because He said He was the Son of God, but because He said (or rather they said that He said) that He was King of the Jews.

The Ecclesiastical Trial: First Stage.

Of these two trials of course, the ecclesiastical trial took place first. It was as a result of the Sanhedrin's condemnation of Him that our Lord was brought before Pilate at all. The next thing to be noticed Mark 14:27-31, Mark 14:54, Mark 14:66-72.

The Story of the Fall.

The first thing to be done in studying the pitiful account of Peter's fall is to reconstruct the actual story. For there are considerable differences in the Gospel narratives; though when sceptical writers try, by magnifying these differences, to cast doubt upon the whole episode, they clean over-reach themselves. There is perhaps no event in the whole of the Gospel story which is more clearly and fully attested. The evangelists tell the story from their own special points of view, and with slight variations; but upon the fact that, in the high priest's palace, Peter did three times deny his Lord they are all agreed. The variations can practically all be harmonised, and in any case they detract nothing from the reliability of the narrative, they rather add to it. They only show how wide-spread and familiar the story was in the very earliest days of the Christian Church.

The Boldness of Peter and John.

Comparing Gospel with Gospel, the course of events seems to have been something like this. First there is the Lord's solemn announcement, "All ye shall be offended because of Me this night," followed by Peter's confident assurance of his own loyalty. Then the prophecy of Peter's fall, and his vehement protest. The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane is swiftly followed by the arrest. After this, sudden panic seems to have seized the disciples. "They all left Him and fled." But in the case of at any rate two out of the eleven, the panic does not seem to have lasted very long. Peter and John seem to have recovered some measure of courage, and instead of running away, they followed the procession as it made its way to the house of Annas. They followed "afar off" says Mark 14:27-31, Mark 14:54, Mark 14:66-72.

The Story of the Fall.

The first thing to be done in studying the pitiful account of Peter's fall is to reconstruct the actual story. For there are considerable differences in the Gospel narratives; though when sceptical writers try, by magnifying these differences, to cast doubt upon the whole episode, they clean over-reach themselves. There is perhaps no event in the whole of the Gospel story which is more clearly and fully attested. The evangelists tell the story from their own special points of view, and with slight variations; but upon the fact that, in the high priest's palace, Peter did three times deny his Lord they are all agreed. The variations can practically all be harmonised, and in any case they detract nothing from the reliability of the narrative, they rather add to it. They only show how wide-spread and familiar the story was in the very earliest days of the Christian Church.

The Boldness of Peter and John.

Comparing Gospel with Gospel, the course of events seems to have been something like this. First there is the Lord's solemn announcement, "All ye shall be offended because of Me this night," followed by Peter's confident assurance of his own loyalty. Then the prophecy of Peter's fall, and his vehement protest. The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane is swiftly followed by the arrest. After this, sudden panic seems to have seized the disciples. "They all left Him and fled." But in the case of at any rate two out of the eleven, the panic does not seem to have lasted very long. Peter and John seem to have recovered some measure of courage, and instead of running away, they followed the procession as it made its way to the house of Annas. They followed "afar off" says Mark , no doubt keeping themselves in the shadow of the houses and the trees in order to avoid detection. When the procession arrived at the house of Annas (where many hold that the denial took place) John passed in with Jesus and the soldiers into the high priest's hall. John was in some way or other known to the high priest, and had the entree into his house. But Peter had no such privilege, and when the procession passed through the gateway, he remained without. John , Peter's inseparable comrade, did not like to think of his friend being left outside there in the darkness. So he went and spoke to the portress and persuaded her to open the door and let him in. It was done with the best motives in the world, but John , unthinkingly, did a disservice to Peter that night. He introduced his friend without knowing it into a perfect furnace of temptation. "The best of friends," says Dr Stalker, "may do this sometimes to one another, for the situation into which one man may enter without peril may be dangerous to another." John saw no risks in the high priest's palace; Peter wellnigh lost his soul.

The Danger Zone.

In order to understand the sequence of events, observe the arrangement of a great house such as that into which Peter entered. The houses of the rich in the East are built quadrangular fashion, and the windows all look in upon the courtyard in the middle. Facing the road there is often just a blank wall, with a great gate in it, through which admission is gained. The gate opens upon a passage leading to the courtyard which is open to the sky. Round the courtyard, and raised a little above it, are the reception rooms and the living rooms. When Jesus was brought in by the traitor band, He was taken promptly to one of these rooms off the courtyard, there to be examined by Annas. But the soldiers and the servants who had been the instruments of the arrest, stayed in the open courtyard, and as the night seems to have been bitterly cold, for their greater comfort they kindled a fire. Now that was the disposition of things when John begged the portress to admit Peter. Jesus was in one of the private rooms undergoing examination, the soldiers and servants were gathered in a noisy group about the fire.

Suspicion Aroused.

When the portress let Peter in she scrutinised him, and something in his manner made her a trifle suspicious. However, the probability is, she said nothing at the moment, but allowed Peter to pass unchallenged. He at once made for the group sitting round the fire, partly because he, too, wanted to share in the grateful warmth, and partly because he thought that by mingling with the crowd he would be less likely to bring suspicion upon himself. John seems to have passed on immediately to the room in which Jesus was undergoing examination.

The First Challenge.

But the place which Peter imagined promised him safety, proved his undoing. As I said, something in Peter's manner had aroused the suspicion of the girl at the gate as he passed in. But it was not till the light of the fire fell full upon Peter's face that her suspicion was changed into something like certainty. Leaving the gate for a moment and running to the group around the fire, she challenged Peter and said, "Thou also wast with the Nazarene Jesus." The challenge took him clean by surprise. He felt himself in a trap. Besides, he had compromised himself. For while he had been sitting there at the fire he had tried to pass himself off as one of the crowd. I daresay they had been jesting about Jesus, making coarse jokes about Jesus, and Peter had listened to it all without protest, and perhaps affected to laugh with the rest. What could he do now he was thus challenged? What could he do but try to keep up the deception? And so he pretended that he did not understand. The agitation, the sheer terror of the man is reproduced in his answer, as it is rendered in the margin of the R.V. "I neither know, nor understand; thou, what sayest thou?"

The Second Challenge.

At the moment Peter does not seem to have been pressed any further. But he came to the conclusion that the glare of the fire was a thing he ought to avoid. And so he took the first opportunity of withdrawing into the shade of the porch, perhaps intending to slip out as soon as ever the great door should open. But in the porchway, the same maid, or another maid to whom she had communicated her suspicions, or possibly both together, returned to the charge and said to the servants lounging near, "This man is one of them." And again Peter denied, and to escape the attention of the maid, sought once more to hide himself in the crowd at the fireside.

The Final Challenge.

But the whole company was now on the alert, and Peter's agitation and distress were obvious. He had no sooner taken his place amongst the servants by the fire, than a man took up the work of baiting the Apostle. He had plunged into the conversation in order to give an impression of ease, and to divert suspicion. But it only made matters worse. "Of a truth," said this man, "without doubt thou art one of them, for thou art a Galilean." Peter's rough accent betrayed his Galilean origin. And what should a Galilean be doing there in that company if he was not one of the Galilean followers of Jesus! And then to bring things to a climax, another of the servants, a kinsman of Malchus, scrutinising Peter's face, remembered he had beneath the flash of torches seen those features in the Garden. "Did I not see thee in the Garden with Him?" he said.

The Denial and the Reminder.

Peter was now fairly in the toils, and, frantic with fright, he began to curse and to swear that "he knew not the Man of Whom" they spake. And possibly this final denial had its effect—for these soldiers and servants knew at any rate as much as this about the servants of Jesus, that profane speech never issued out of their mouths. They did not believe Peter's assertion, as Dr Stalker puts it, but they could not help believing his sins. This cursing and blaspheming man could be no disciple of Him Who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. The "swearing" was probably only the resurrection of a bad old habit that had lain dormant for the last two or three years. But it silenced Peter's accusers, and they made no attempt to stop him when he rose to go. Then at that moment something happened, or rather two things happened. "Straightway the second time the cock crew." And Peter remembered! Remembered his own proud and foolish boasting; remembered the Lord's tender and solemn warning. And the remembrance filled him with contrition and shame.

Conviction and Remorse.

And then something else happened. It chanced that at that very moment Jesus was being conducted, with hands pinioned behind His back, through the courtyard on His way to the judgment hall of Caiaphas. Perhaps He had heard these wild and frantic curses with which Peter accompanied his last denial. Anyhow, He knew what had happened, knew the depths of shame and apostasy to which His chosen Apostle had sunk—knew it all. And as He was led through the courtyard He turned round and looked full in the face of His conscience-stricken Apostle. The cock-crowing had made him realise his sin; the Lord's look broke his heart. "When he thought thereon," when he remembered his Lord's warning, and realised the meaning in that look, "he began to weep." Or, as the Greek might be translated to bring out its exact force, "he wept and he wept," "he kept on weeping." He wept as if he could never stop. Peter as he flung himself shame-stricken and heartbroken out of the house of Annas in the early dawn of that tragic day could have taken those familiar lines of Toplady's hymn into his lips and they would have expressed the feelings of his guilt-laden soul

"Could my zeal no respite know,

Could my tears for ever flow,

All for sin could not atone,

Thou must save and Thou alone."

Lessons of the Story.


Warning to the Strong.

Now sceptics and cynics have poured floods of cheap scorn over what they are pleased to call the cowardice of Peter. But I agree entirely with Bishop Chadwick—this is not the story of the breakdown of a coward. We miss its significance if we do not realise this is the story of the breakdown of one of the bravest and the best. This story is a warning, not to the weak, but to the strong. It is addressed not simply to the Fearings, but to the Great-hearts of the Christian host. For spite of this calamitous failure, Peter was a brave man. His boast that he was ready to die with Christ was no vain and empty boast. Remember how he drew sword in the Garden, and would have defended his Lord, one man against a multitude! If Peter had had his way in the Garden, the soldiers would only have laid hands on Jesus over his own dead body. This is not the story of the failure of the coward; it is a story of the breakdown of the brave. And the solemn warning it sounds across the centuries is this: "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."

—And against Self-Confidence.

Now the initial mistake that Peter made, the fons et origo of all these calamitous denials was this, he was so absolutely sure of his own steadfastness and strength. Self-confidence is always the peril of the strong man. It was Peter's peril. You remember how he boasted of it, only a few hours before. He could conceive of all his fellow disciples turning traitor, but he could not imagine himself turning coward. "Though all should deny Thee, yet will not I." He was so absolutely sure of himself that he had felt no need of watching and praying in the Garden. And that self-confidence led directly to his fall. For it was self-confidence that made him enter the high priest's hall in the first instance. He deliberately thrust himself into temptation. He ventured into the danger-zone and he fell. There is one verse in Peter's first Epistle which always seems to me to be written not with common ink but with the Apostle's own life-blood, for it embodies the lesson learnt from the most humbling and shameful experience of his life. It is this, "Be sober, be watchful, your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour." It is the warning of a strong man who fell through over-confidence to other strong men against committing the same fatal mistake.

The Danger of Compromise.

Now, notice what a series of calamitous blunders Peter committed since he put himself in the way of temptation by entering Annas" house. He made his first blunder when he went and joined the group by the fire and tried to pass himself off as one of them. It was fear that made him do it. He sought to divert suspicion from himself by pretending to be just one of the crowd that had joined in the arrest of Christ. But instead of diverting suspicion he fatally compromised himself. For as I suggested a moment ago, the talk around the fireside had all been about Jesus. It had very likely been coarse and scurrilous talk. And Peter had made no protest of any sort. On the other hand he tried to look as like one of the scorners himself as he could. So doing, he put himself between the devil and the deep sea. Either he had openly to confess himself a cheat, or else he had to maintain the deception by denying all knowledge of Jesus. The one safe course for Christian folk to take is boldly to avow themselves as Christ's followers. The man who begins by being ashamed of Christ is almost sure to end by betraying Him. There is only one way of being a Christian—be strong and very courageous.