09. St. John And The Resurrection.

ST. JOHN AND THE RESURRECTION.

XXX.

It is difficult for us to realize the dismay with which the death and burial of Jesus affected his followers. When we see him breathing his last, and the stone rolled to the door of his sepulchre, we are not afraid; for we know what is going to happen—that on the third day he is to rise again. At the time, however, none knew this. His enemies had, indeed, heard of his prophecies to this effect, but of course they did not believe them; and when they saw the spear thrust into his side they thought that all was over with him and his cause: he would never trouble them any more. His whole career appeared to them ridiculous. He had been a candidate for the grand office of the Messiah, whom the nation was expecting. There had, however, been other candidates before him, whose attempts had come to nothing; and his pretensions were perhaps the least considerable of all. The Messiah whom they looked for was to be a prophet, a priest and a king in one, but most of all a king; to liberate them from bondage and lift up the country into everlasting power and renown. Jesus of Nazareth had, in their eyes, utterly failed to fulfil this ideal. He was of lowly birth, and his followers were few and humble like himself; he made a reputation for a time in the provinces, but never had aroused the enthusiasm of Jerusalem; at last, coming into collision with the authorities of the nation, he had gone down without a single blow being struck on his behalf. His name was only one more added to the list of fictitious messiahs. Not only, however, did his enemies judge thus; the faith even of his friends was completely shattered. It is true, he had told them repeatedly beforehand that he was to die and the third day rise again. But these statements had made no impression on their minds and were no comfort to them when the crisis arrived: if they noticed them at all, they thought that their Master was speaking in parables, and they understood his words in a figurative sense. To the very last they believed that he was to be a great king, reigning over the house of Jacob for ever; and when his death rendered this impossible their faith was killed outright.

If it survived at all, it was in the form of love. They still loved him. They might, indeed, have felt that they had been deceived, and this feeling might have made them turn with resentment upon the memory of their buried Master; but, with the exception of Judas, they had been too completely captivated, and their hearts could not quickly cool towards One whom they had so many reasons for loving. In Mary Magdalene we see this triumph of love over the disenchantment of events. In tradition this woman is identified not only with the woman who was a sinner and anointed the feet of Jesus, but also with Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus; so that the traditional image of her is exceedingly rich and affecting. In reality she is identical neither with the one of these nor the other; and what we know of her is but limited. Seven devils went out of her at the command of Jesus; so that she had ample ground for deathless gratitude to him. Apparently she was a lady of property; for she, along with other honorable women, ministered of her substance to Jesus. The position assigned her among these women perhaps suggests that the place which she held in his affection and confidence was distinguished; and this is still more forcibly suggested by the interview accorded to her alone by the risen Saviour. At all events we may infer the fervor of her love from the fact that, after the Sabbath was past, she set out for the tomb before the break of day. But for what was she going to the sepulchre? Not to see if he had fulfilled his prophecy that he would rise again, but to help to anoint his corpse for its long sleep. When she arrived at the sepulchre she saw the stone rolled away; but what did this suggest to her? Not that he was risen; of this she had not the most distant surmise; but that a horrible outrage had been perpetrated on the feelings of all who loved him: as she expressed it, “They have taken away the Lord, and we know not where they have laid him.” That her state of mind was that of all the rest of the followers of Jesus—an absolute blank, as far as any thought or hope of his rising was concerned—is amply proved. When the holy women to whom the risen One had shown himself returned to their fellows, “their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.” The report of the two to whom he appeared on the way to Emmaus met with a similar reception; and what could more significantly indicate the general state of mind than the pathetic words of those two themselves before he was made known to them: “We trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel.” Thomas’ determination not to believe is well known; and even of the five hundred to whom the Lord showed himself in Galilee “some doubted.” In short, the universal belief among his followers, when he was lying in Joseph’s tomb, was, that his career was over and his enterprise at an end.

XXXI.

There are few things which move human beings more than the suspicion that there has taken place any tampering with the remains of their dead. An entire community can be convulsed with indignation at the mere rumor that a grave has been disturbed. Mary Magdalene was under the impression that the tomb of her beloved Lord had been rifled; and it was in a tumult of grief and indignation that she ran to bring word to the disciples.

She directed her steps to Peter and John; and soon she had them in earnest consultation on the subject. Whether Peter’s denial of his Lord was known to Mary Magdalene or not, we cannot tell; but there can be little doubt that it was known to John, who was in the palace of the high-priest at the time when it took place. But this knowledge did not prevent John from meeting his comrade on the old terms. Possibly Peter, after weeping bitterly by himself, had sobbed out his contrition on the bosom of the disciple whom Jesus loved; and John’s forgiveness may have been to him a confirmation of the forgiveness of the Lord.

Mary Magdalene’s communication awoke in the two apostles a tumult of emotion as great as her own: they thought that the enemies of their Master, not content with the shame and injustice wreaked on him during his trial and crucifixion, had, in anger that he should have been laid by loving hands in an honorable grave, perpetrated on his corpse some new indignity; and they immediately set out to the spot to ascertain what had taken place. As they went, so hot were their hearts within them that they began to run; and soon they were running at full speed. There are moments in life when decorum is thrown to the winds, and everything is cast aside which stands in the way of an overmastering purpose. It shows how wild was the grief of the apostles, that they thus flew to their object. In this crisis, when nature had her way with them, the characteristic differences between the two men showed themselves. The “other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre.” Why was this? It has been conjectured that it was because Peter was older: John had the lightness and fleetness of youth. Or it has been thought that Peter was delayed by his penitence, the memory of his denial clogging his feet like a weight of lead. This motive would only have acted, however, had he thought that he was on his way to a meeting with Jesus, and there is not the slightest reason for thinking that any such expectation had crossed his mind. It was because John was the disciple of love that he arrived first at the sepulchre; for love lends wings, and its tension gave John the advantage. At the sepulchre, however, Peter’s temperament gave him the advantage. John, though he arrived first, remained outside. The stone was rolled away, but awe arrested him at the threshold; and all he ventured to do was, with hand over eyes, to gaze into the obscurity; and from this standpoint he could not see all that required to be seen in order to learn the true state of the case. Like Mary Magdalene, he saw in the rocky opening the sign of a deed of darkness, instead of the passage through which hope was about to break. But Peter, when he arrived, at once went in and encouraged John to follow. This was like the practical spirit of the man, who was not impeded with the finer sensibilities of his comrade; and on this occasion, at least, such boldness was what was required. In the spiritual life, as in the natural, ghosts are frequently laid by boldly advancing on them. Only enter what looks like the yawning mouth of calamity, and you may find yourself in the sunshine of glorious discovery. Many a one, for example, is trembling before the spectre of religious doubt who, if he would only go forward, determined to find out exactly how much is in the objections which he fears, would discover that they melt away when closely examined, and in the very place haunted by them he would find the strongest confirmation of faith. Is not death to many all their lifetime like a gloomy opening into the unknown, before which they fear and quake? Yet if they would boldly examine the reasons why they fear, and the reasons which a Christian has for despising death, or even glorying in it, they might be emancipated from their bondage and enabled to serve the Lord with gladness and singleness of heart.

Let us take John for our instructor in the swiftness of love, and Peter for our teacher in courage.

XXXII. So the two apostles stood inside the sepulchre. An ancient tomb was a spacious place, in which it was possible to stand erect and to move about; and, when their eyes had become accustomed to the obscurity, or they had placed themselves in a position to obtain the help of the light streaming in through the open doorway, they saw what astonished them. The body, indeed, was not there; but objects presented themselves to view which at once exploded the hypothesis to account for its absence which Mary Magdalene had suggested, and with which their minds had been preoccupied as they ran to the sepulchre. The grave-clothes were lying where the body had been. Why should these have been left behind if the body had been stolen? If in wanton rage his enemies had stripped them off there would have been evidence of violence in their torn and disarrayed condition. But the reverse was the state of the case. The clothes were lying in perfect order, as if they had been put off in a leisurely and orderly way by him who had worn them. And their attention was particularly arrested by a fact trivial in itself, but in the circumstances most significant: they espied the napkin with which the head of the dead was wont to be bound not lying with the rest of the grave-clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. In what garments the risen humanity of our Lord was invested when he appeared from time to time during the forty days we are not informed, nor need we inquire; but obviously it would have been most unbecoming that he should have continued to wear the vestments of a dead man. Accordingly, before he left the tomb he divested himself of these. And is there not something which we feel to be worthy of him, though we can hardly tell why, in this little touch: that he folded up the napkin, in which his face had been enveloped by loving hands, and laid it carefully aside? In this and in the other features of the scene St. John, with the quick discernment of love, recognized the handwriting of his Master; and there and then the truth flashed through him — “he saw and believed.” This statement appears to assign him again a priority over his companion, whom perhaps he had to instruct in the significance of the phenomena at which they were looking. This was the most revolutionary moment of their lives, though both of them experienced other moments, both before and after, of vast importance. There, standing alone in the tomb in the morning light, they saw the glory of their Master as they had not seen it even on the Mount of Transfiguration; and they saw, in a flash, the course of their own future history. The disappointment and despair of Christ’s death were transmuted, in a moment, into unspeakable joy: for they saw that their Master had not deceived them; that his death was not defeat, but a step in his triumph; and that his cause was not at an end, but only beginning. They recalled his sayings about his rising again the third day and wondered how they could have forgotten or misinterpreted them—perhaps also they began to recall some words of the Old Testament scriptures which they were afterwards to quote, with telling effect, in reference to his resurrection; for St. John expressly says that till this revolutionary moment they knew not the Scripture, that he should rise from the dead. In great crises of experience the mind is preternaturally active and into minutes can crowd the thinking of years. Of course afterwards these thoughts were to be far more fully cleared and developed; the apostles were also to receive far more convincing evidence of the Lord’s resurrection than the aspect of his empty tomb; yet it is not too much to say that, before they passed out of that rocky door, which, as they approached it, had struck into their hearts such cold and deadly terror, they were changed into new men, and had received into their souls the seeds of all which they subsequently achieved.

XXXIII.

Such was the power of the resurrection over the hearts and minds of the apostles. And it still has the same power, when it is. properly realized. There is perhaps no other point in the whole circle of Christian truth to which in times of intellectual darkness inquiring spirits may so hopefully turn.

If Christ rose from the dead, then there can be no doubt that the scheme of Christianity as a whole is true. What confirmation, for example, does the resurrection lend to the miracles of Christ! This is the greatest miracle; and, if it happened, any of the rest may have happened. What a reality it imparts, too, to the world invisible, and to the life to come! If Christ rose, to begin a new stage of existence in another region of the universe, then heaven is not a dream, or a land of shadows, but actual as this earth on which we tread, and all that the Bible says about immortality receives the strongest confirmation. The resurrection of Christ is, it is true, a stupendous event, only to be credited on the most stringent evidence. But in both quantity and quality the proof is overwhelming.

First, there is the testimony of those by whom he was seen alive after his passion. It is thus summarized by St. Paul: “He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures; and he was seen of Cephas; then of the Twelve; after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep; after that he was seen of James; then of all the apostles; and, last of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.” The detailed records of the Evangelists are still more impressive; and the character of the witnesses is for truthfulness above suspicion. What is said by those who disbelieve their testimony is that they were in an excited state of mind, and anxious to believe, and that their hopes created the appearances which they thought they saw. Nothing, however, is more remarkable in all the accounts than the evidence that they had no expectation whatever that he was to rise. Is it not manifest that Mary Magdalene, Peter and John had their minds preoccupied with a theory totally opposed to resurrection? Others, even after they were informed that he had risen, were thoroughly skeptical. Instead of being ready to be imposed upon by any suggestion of the fancy, they were in a state of mind to resist any evidence, however strong. Besides, what kind of fanciful appearance could have simultaneously imposed upon so many different persons in so many different places and circumstances? In their desperation to account for the facts some of the more devout believers in the literal truth of the resurrection have actually resorted to the notion that God allowed a kind of ghostly image of Jesus to appear to the different persons concerned; but surely this is more difficult to believe than the resurrection itself. The mere testimony of those who saw the risen One is not, however, all the proof. When, immediately after the ascension, Christianity began to run its victorious course amidst the influences of Pentecost, the central theme of apostolic testimony was the resurrection; and the scene of the earliest preaching was Jerusalem. What Peter and his companions told the Jerusalemites was, that he whom they had condemned as a blasphemer and hanged on a tree had been raised up by God, who, by so exalting him, had placed on his claims the seal of heaven. This testimony brought the apostles into collision with the ecclesiastical authorities, who were concerned to repel the heresy which so discredited themselves. If Jesus had not risen, how easy it would have been to confute the preachers. The grave in which he had been laid was at hand; had the Jewish authorities been able to open the sepulchre, and show the body lying there, the apostles would have been silenced effectually and forever. Why did the authorities not do so? It will not now be said that the disciples had stolen the body. The strongest proof of all, however, has yet to be mentioned. Convincing as the testimony of the apostles is, it is nothing at all compared with the evidence of their conduct. There cannot be a doubt that, when the Master expired and was put beneath the ground, the minds of his followers were in the lowest depths of depression and despair. They had been disappointed, if not deceived; the cause to which they had attached themselves had failed; and now all was over. They were without a head or a plan; and nothing remained for them but to return to their lowly occupations disillusioned and discredited men. Yet, a few weeks thereafter, they were before the public, full of conviction and enthusiasm, declaring that Christianity was not ended, but only beginning. What had wrought this change? It may be said, they were committed to Christianity, and could not forego the ambitions so long cherished in connection with it or return to their unexciting pursuits. The remarkable thing, however, is, that they were not now pursuing earthly ambitions; they knew they were not to gain the world, but suffer its enmity and opposition; and in point of fact they went cheerfully to prison and to death. They were transfigured men; no longer ignorant and vacillating, but wise, spiritual and determined. What had wrought this change? They say themselves that it was the resurrection; and what else could have done it? This resurrection of Christianity is a miracle in some respects more remarkable than even the resurrection of Christ; and nothing but Christ’s resurrection can account for it.