The Gospel of St. John: A Series of Discourses. / New Edition

by Frederick Denison Maurice

We are now arrived at the point in which the narratives of the different Evangelists coincide. All the others lead us from Galilee to Jerusalem at this Passover. St. John, who has taken us so often to Jerusalem at other feasts before, yet prepares us, by many significant intimations, to feel the special grandeur of the present.

'Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with His disciples. And the Jews' passover was nigh at hand; and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves. Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that He will not come to the feast? Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where He were, he should shew it, that they might take Him.'

He had walked the twelve hours of the day, and no stone had reached Him. But the night was closing in. The Jews were about to take the great step of confessing Cæsar to be the only king; therefore the King must prepare to be the Sacrifice.

The story which follows connects the two characters together:—'Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with Him.'

I spoke, last Sunday, of the domestic tone which pervades the history of the resurrection of Lazarus; how St. John refused to regard death except as the breaking of a family bond—resurrection except as the renewal of it. The same tone is preserved here. The family feast is the resurrection feast; it is the union of the several limbs of a body which had been torn asunder. There is no change of relation or of sympathy; the old ways of expressing it are retained. Only service has been ennobled. He who sits at meat, and she who serves, are brother and sister. For there is a Guest at the table whose life has been a service, and yet whose acts are all kingly. The awe of Lazarus, who has known the secrets of the grave, does not interrupt fellowship; for He must know them better, and He is with them, sharing in their gladness. 'And what is He? Is He only the elder brother of one household? May He not be the elder brother of all households? Has He only done acts of mysterious grace and power for us? May He not be the Ruler everywhere—over the whole earth, and over those who are in the region from which Lazarus has come back?'

Such thoughts may have been in the minds of both sisters. Martha cannot express them save by fulfilling her simple household duties; they are done for Him. He can translate them into heavenly ministries. Mary must find some other way to utter what is working in her heart,—what no words can give expression to. 'Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray Him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?' Mary was probably puzzled by this question. She could not the least have defended her act, or even have explained what she meant by it. She had heard of the anointing of kings, and of the anointing in tombs. The thought of royalty and of burial would become associated in her mind. But why she should have done this thing,—why she had not reserved the money for those who needed it,—she could not have told. Judas may have seemed to her a prudent and religious man for rebuking her. And the other Evangelists say that he was not alone in the complaint. The Apostles generally seem to have agreed in it, and felt its reasonableness.

Later knowledge led St. John to say, 'This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.' But at the time he may have shared the feeling of the others. The covetousness of the betrayer may have been quite concealed by his judicious charity; Mary's act may have been measured by his rules. If it were so, John and his fellows showed that there was in them that mind which was rapidly becoming the only mind in Judas. It might become victorious in them; it might be overcome in him. This perhaps was a very critical moment in their lives. Mary's act was essentially a woman's act. No man would be commended for it; a man who imitated it would not be doing what he could, but attempting awkwardly to do what he could not. To rough men, therefore, it was a trial to understand her and sympathise with her. They had need to pass through many hard processes themselves—to be purged of the covetous spirit,—to be under the guidance of a Spirit who was not yet given,—before they could enter into the worth of services which they were not called to perform, before they could judge them by their origin, not by their immediate results, before they could see what a force love may put into symbols, and how that force may be felt from generation to generation by the humble and meek, whom words and notions affect very little.

But there was one who knew Mary's meaning not only better than they knew it, but better than she knew it. 'Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.' What the day of His burying was, must have been unintelligible to the disciples generally; but the reference to it, and to a time when He should not be with them, may have had a solemnising effect upon them; they will have been less ready to judge, more inclined to honour those whom He honoured. Mary may have divined a little more of His meaning. The thought of His burial might perplex her. But it could not cause her despair. She knew that a body which had lain in the grave four days had been safe there. Surely some anointing, better than hers, would keep His body if it was laid in any tomb. In her the instinct of love made the thought of death and sacrifice, however wonderful, not incredible. On Judas it is evident that the sight of Mary's devotion had a withering effect. First, it led him to hypocritical professions about the poor, that he might persuade himself he had some benevolent feelings; then, when Christ drove him from this ground,—when he was reminded that he might always help the poor if he chose,—a conscious hatred against goodness began to unfold itself in him. He went away from that feast a traitor in heart, prepared to accomplish the prophecy that Jesus had uttered concerning Himself. He was to be present at one more feast,—to take one more sop,—then all would be dark within him.

The Evangelist leaves a strong impression upon our minds of the hurry and confusion in Jerusalem at that feast; the curiosity of the people to see Jesus and to see Lazarus; the questionings of the council whether the excitement could be removed without the death of both; the half-formed thought, which might soon take shape and lead to some act, that perhaps the king was among them after all. And then follows the story of the entrance into Jerusalem, which is told at less length than in the other Evangelists; but to which there are two additions that are worthy of note. St. John quotes, as St. Matthew has done, the prophecy of Zechariah:—'Thy king cometh, meek, and sitting upon an ass:' and then adds, 'These things understood not His disciples at the first: but when He was risen from the dead, then remembered they that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things unto Him.' The illumination of his own mind, and of the minds of his fellow Apostles, respecting the sense and connexion of the Scriptures,—how they learned to connect with Him the descriptions of a King reigning in righteousness, which the Old Testament contained,—how the resurrection from the dead identified Him as the fulfiller of them,—how it linked His relation to God with His relation to man,—this we learn more clearly from St. John than from all the other apostolical writings. They take the matter, in a certain degree, for granted; he enables us to see the process of it. I have spoken of this subject in considering the passage,—'The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.' The more we meditate upon it, the more, I believe, we shall be able to trace lines of thought running through the Old Testament, by which the formal critic is puzzled,—the more we shall find how little the word written in letters could profit, if the Living Word did not expound it to the heart and reason,—the more we shall be sure that the laws which governed men in the old time are those which govern us; that we must have the same Teacher as they had; or that while we seem to know everything we shall know nothing.

The other addition is this:—'The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after Him.' The words may indicate a doubt whether the new scheme which Caiaphas had devised was likely to succeed so well as their own; whether the feeling of the people for the Christ would not prove stronger than their submission to the Romans; whether it was not better, therefore, to accuse Him of breaking a law which the multitude did regard as sacred and Divine, however little they might understand it. At any rate, they show how much men, who have lost all sympathy with truth, are apt to overrate the power of mere numbers, and to underrate the effects of one simple, humble, brave act. The crowds that shouted 'Hosanna!' alarmed the Pharisees. Yet, in a few days, the temper of those crowds was changed; they could cry that Barabbas might be released, and Jesus crucified. The mere coming into Jerusalem royally, yet without the outward signs of royalty, was nothing in their eyes. Yet therein lay the real effective message to their city; that was the hour of its visitation; that has been received by generations of men, in the most cultivated nations of the earth, as the warning of its doom.