And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. . Preached at St. Paul's on the Third Sunday after Easter, April 30, 1882. I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide SERMON XIX. THE PEACE OF CHRIST. ST. JOHN XX. 19. The same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. THIS HIS was our Blessed Lord's fifth appearance on the day of His rising from the dead. First, He had met some devoted women, in the early morning, as they were on their way to tell the disciples that the sepulchre was empty. He met them, saying, "All hail;" and they in their joy held Him by the feet and worshipped Him." Next, somewhat later, He appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden, outside the sepulchre, which Peter and John had just left. She knew Him by His way of pronouncing her name, Mary; she would have seized Him in her ecstasy, but He said, "Touch Me not." Thirdly, in the afternoon He joined two sad travellers, walking along the road to Emmaus, and after they had poured out to Him their tale of disappointment and perplexity,disappointment at the seeming failure of their hopes for the redemption of Israel, and perplexity at the strange a St. Matt. xxviii. 9. VOL. II. b St. John xx. 14-17. c St. Luke xxiv. 13-31. A rumours which had reached them as to what had happened in the morning of the day,-He first interested them by showing how all that had occurred was in accordance with prophecy, and then He revealed Himself to them in the Sacrament of His love, and vanished from sight. On their return to Jerusalem they found that at some earlier hour He had appeared to St. Peter alone; but of this fourth apparition no details are preserved. And now the evening had come. The story of the empty grave had made its way, no doubt before this, very widely in Jerusalem, and had produced its effect upon the passions of the great and upon the passions of the multitude. The official explanation was circulated without loss of time; what had happened was represented as a pious fraud on the part of the disciples. But there must have been many men who repeated this, and who tried to persuade themselves of its truth by a process of constant repetition while at heart they suspected something else. They felt that the antecedents of the Prophet of Nazareth made something else at least possible. They knew that His immediate followers were men with no resources at command, no skill or craft of purpose, no social influence. Still there was the empty grave; it had been emptied in some way, that was certain; it might after all have been emptied by some unearthly power. Who could say? This sort of suspicion would probably have haunted the brain of many a Jew; and any such suspicion would of course have made the religious system or creed which occasioned it an object of fear, of suppressed, unacknowledged fear, of fear which tried to evaporate in expressions of affected contempt, but which obstinately survived the experiment. And fear, we all know, is wont to be cruel. Especially fear of an unknown religious influence a St. Luke xxiv. 33, 34. is apt to be cruel beyond other varieties of fear; it has been guilty of some of the worst crimes that have disgraced human history. The disciples would have been well aware of the strength and character of this public feeling in Jerusalem; so they naturally kept themselves. out of sight; they did not wish to provoke violence by showing themselves at nightfall in the public streets. Thus they were assembled in an upper room, mainly for fear of the Jews, when "Jesus came and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you." He came; they knew not how; they knew only that the chamber was strongly secured against intrusion or surprise. No bolt was withdrawn; no door was opened; no breach was made in the wall of their place of assembly; there was no visible movement as from without to within, or from point to point. One moment they were, as they thought, alone; and the next, they looked, and lo! an outline, a Form, a visible Body and Face, a solid human frame was before them, as if created out of the atmosphere which they breathed. "Jesus came, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you." They gazed at Him; they gazed at each other in bewilderment and terror. They supposed that they had seen a "spirit;"" they were with difficulty reassured-so St. Luke's report seems to imply by the means which our Lord took to convince them that a body of flesh and bones was before them. At last they were glad when they saw the Lord.b Brethren, it would be interesting to dwell at length on the character of our Lord's Easter appearances, as illustrating the nature of His presence in the Christian Church; but this would not leave us time for considering the words which He uttered; words which are always a St. Luke xxiv. 37. b St. John xx. 20. |