March 15
Christ Healing the Ear of
The Christian's Daily PortionMALCHUS.
And he touched his ear, and healed him.—Luke 22:51.
WHEN they came to apprehend Jesus, Peter, with his usual boldness, stepped forward, and, drawing his sword, cut off the ear of Malchus, the servant of the high priest. This unadvised and rash act was immediately censured by Christ, and a striking prediction delivered in regard to the Jews: "for, all that take the sword, shall perish by the sword." The Jews were now availing themselves of the Roman power, a power by which they were annihilated as a nation, their temple burnt, and their city afterwards destroyed. Jesus then directed his attention to the sufferer; and though that sufferer was an enemy, he had compassion on him. He touched the ear with his omnipotent hand, and the wound was immediately healed. Thus, one of the last acts of his life was one of grace and mercy. In the midst of a rude band of soldiery, just after the intense sorrows of the garden, with death before his eyes, arrested by the sign of misery, he forgot himself for the moment, and healed the sufferer. How characteristic of Christ's person and work. Love was the leading feeling of his heart, to heal, the great business of his life. He came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. It is obvious from this event, that Christ totally disapproves of the employment of the civil sword in defence of his religion. Christ's kingdom is not of this world. The weapons of christian warfare are not carnal, but spiritual, and sufficiently mighty through God, to the pulling down all the strongholds that are in opposition to it. The word of truth is the only sword Christ will allow his servants to wield. Legislative enactments, magisterial interference, or the angry passions of the human heart, most assuredly will injure those who employ them, as well as the church of Christ. Persecution is fire, far too unhallowed to burn on the christian altar.
Christ, by healing the ear of Malchus, has embodied and placed before us a striking illustration of his own precept, "I say unto you, love your enemies."