What a precious charge was here committed to the disciple whom Jesus loved! The sacred care of watching over and protecting her who had been the earthly parent of the Redeemer ! He was to take her to his own home and be to her as a dutiful and affectionate child; and thus to have sweet occasions, daily occurring,, of testifying his love to his departed Lord. Thus did the blessed Jesus, in the midst of His bitter suffering, and on the very eve of His departure for paradise, provide for the comfort of His mother during the remainder of her stay in this world, securing for her the society and support of one who would be to her as a son. "Even from the cross He deigned to bow, Her His sole earthly care." It is said of the fifth commandment that it is the first with promise. We might add that it was the last to receive the sanction of our Lord's example. In the agonies of death He commended it to our notice. E. I suppose our Lord's sufferings were nearly over now? M. Yes; "there is no day so long, but it hath its evening," and the painful sufferings of the Saviour were drawing at last to an end. The hour, the appointed hour, was fast approaching. It was the third hour of the day, or, as we reckon it, was nine o'clock in the morning, when the body of the holy Jesus was nailed to the ignominious cross. At noon of this awful day, an extraordinary darkness took place, which covered the whole land and continued for three hours, as if nature herself sympathized with the divine Sufferer, and the sun were ashamed to behold so foul a deed. E. I suppose it was an eclipse that caused the darkness. M. No; the sun was not eclipsed, for it was now about the time of full moon; and an eclipse of the sun cannot take place except at new moon, or rather a little before the first crescent of the moon appears, while she is as yet invisible to our eyes. The darkness was, as I have said, extraordinary, that is, out of the common course of things; nor can we doubt that it was intended to mark with peculiar solemnity the event of our Lord's crucifixion, in which the powers of darkness seemed to prevail over the Lord of light and life. Nor was this the only strange sign that took place. "The sun was darkened," the Evangelist says; and he adds, "the vail of the temple was rent in the midst;" that is to say, the curtain which separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple was rent asunder, as if to signify that the way into the true holy of holies, which hitherto had not been made manifest, was now by the death of Christ opened to all believers. The darkness of which we have spoken lasted until three o'clock in the afternoon, the ninth hour of the Jews. Now the ninth hour was the very time of the day fixed in the law for the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb. "Between the two evenings," that is to say, between the afternoon and the later evening, the victim was to be slain. Now it is very remarkable that the hour at which our Saviour expired, should agree exactly with this hour; for it was at the ninth hour that Jesus uttered that mournful cry to which I have already alluded, saying with a 1 Exod. xii. 6. Marg. tr. loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani," which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! It was then too that He said, "I thirst," and that the vinegar was put to His lips. And now, all things being accomplished which the prophets had foretold that the Christ should do or suffer, in order to the redemption of the world, "Jesus said, it is finished." "There was no more now to do: all predictions, all types and ceremonies, all sufferings and satisfactions were happily accomplished; and nothing now remained but that the Lord Jesus should yield Himself up with sweet and heavenly resignation into the hands of His eternal Father;-that He should bow His patient head, and closing His eyes to all that had vexed and grieved Him here, should enter at once into instant rest, triumph, and glory." "When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.' Such, Edward, is the history given us by the holy Evangelists, one of whom, as we have seen, was with Him to the last, of the closing scene of our Redeemer's life. So much did it cost to redeem our souls from the bondage of sin and death, and to make us heirs of the kingdom of Heaven! May we ever remember the price at which we have been bought, and the claim which our Lord has in consequence to our unbounded gratitude and love! See Matt. xxvii. 27-50. Luke xxiii. 26-46. Mark xv. 16-37. John xix. 16-30. FIFTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY EVENING. THE BURIAL. M. The Saviour's sufferings were now ended; the price of redemption was paid; the work was finished, which the Father had given the Son to do; the cup of sorrow had been drunk to the very dregs; Messiah had been cut off, and the body of the Just One hung lifeless upon the cross. But the signs which marked this solemn event were not yet completed. The vail of the temple had, indeed, been rent; the sun had been darkened; the heavens above had put on their mourning robes; and now the earth quaked as if in awe at the death of One so holy; the hard rocks were rent, as if to put to shame the heart of man, so much harder than themselves; and Death, as if to acknowledge the victory which had been commenced over his power, as if in return for the ransom which had just been paid, began to give up his captives. For "the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of their graves, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many." E. What! did the dead come to life again at the death of Jesus? M. So the Evangelist plainly declares. Dead they were certainly in the common sense of the word; but the Scripture continually speaks, as you know, of the sainted dead as only asleep. Their life remained in them, waiting only the call of Christ to waken it again; and to these holy men, who were thus called forth from their quiet graves, our Lord was pleased to grant the extraordinary privilege of rising immediately upon His death, to go and give proof to their countrymen of His saving power. These were the first fruits of His victory over the grave; gracious tokens that our ransom from the bondage of death had been paid, and was sufficient. The death upon the cross brought life into the tombs. E. What effect had all this, Mamma, upon the persons who witnessed it? M. Hitherto there had been scarcely any thing but mockery at the cross of Jesus: but now, when all these extraordinary things had happened, the very soldiers were filled with fear. Their centurion, in particular, when he saw the manner of our Lord's death, how at the very last He cried with so loud a voice, then, in the midst of His strength, expired at once, and when he saw, too, the earthquake and the darkness, "glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man: truly this was the Son of God!" Jesus had been put to death as a traitor against Cæsar, as an offender against the public peace; but now, by the mouth of the centurion, the voice of truth repeats the declaration of Pilate, "I find no fault in him." The chief priests had persecuted Jesus as a blasphemer for calling Himself the Son of God: and what now is the evidence extorted from an observer, who had most probably been prejudiced against the sufferer? Truly this was the Son of God!" Nor was it the soldiers only who were affected by what they had seen. The impression was general. Those whom curiosity had led to the spot, those too whom a blind zeal, it may be, had first driven on to join in the persecution of the "Holy One and the Just"these and all the people, that came together to that [Second Series.] D d - |