1 Bishop Gore. ' T. Lloyd Williams.
ST. MARK 481
2. The command is accompanied with a reproof. — He up- braided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen (ver. 14). Eemembering that there are still millions of the human race who have never heard the Gospel, despite the fact that nineteen centuries have rolled away since the command was first given — if the Lord Jesus Christ appeared among us some happy Easter Day, should we wonder if He would upbraid ils for our unbelief and the hardness of our hearts ?
3. The command is addressed to all classes — to women as well as to men. It is given first in another form to Mary Magdalene : " Go unto my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and unto my God and your God" (St, John XX. 17). It is repeated to the other women who had come to anoint the body of Jesus, as they were wending their way back sadly to their homes. We feel at once there is a difference between them and the Magdalene ; she affords us the highest example of sorrow and love, and she is therefore first to seek Him ; when she sees the angels she shows no fear, so absorbed is she in the one thought about her Lord whom she had lost. But not so the other women. True, their love was deep, their sorrow was keen; but they came more calmly, debating, " Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre ? " Jesus Christ would send forth as His messengers, not only those who are filled with impulsive love to Him, but the calm, the calculating, and the prudent. You who see the stone and know the difficulties in the way, you who feel the awe and sacredness of the holy message ; there is need for you to go and tell ; there are some who will believe your story, while they will account a Magdalene with her ecstatic love as but an enthusiastic fanatic
IL
The Preparation of the Missionary.
In the context of the following verse, " He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that disbelieve th shall be condemned," we find the fundamental principles on which the equipment of the missionary for his work is based. " Be-
ST. MARK — 31
482 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
lieve and be baptized," is the watchword of New Testament teaching. What do these words mean to us ? — Bditf and Bayturrh.
1. Bcuptism. — Take the second first. The Catechism bids the catechist ask his pupil what it means. And the pupil is to reply : " I mean an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, given unto us, ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby we receive the same and a pledge to assure us thereof." Here the thoughts specially enforced are that the Sacrament, the Baptismal rite, the Eucharistic rite, is outward and visible, a thing which touches and affects the common senses, and can serve therefore as a " sign " recognisable by them ; and then that it stands related to something " inward and spiritual," belonging to the region of the " inner man " and to the unseen and eternal life, which something is the grace of God, His free saving action and virtue for us and in us.
Further, this " sign " is what it is by virtue of the direct institution of our Lord, by whom it was " given," " ordained " as nothing else of the outward and visible order was expressly sanctioned by Him.
Lastly, His sacred purpose in such gift and command is intimated. The "sign" is a means for the reception of the " grace," a channel by which our being finds contact with the spiritual action and virtue of God for our salvation. It is also "a pledge to assure us thereof," a token tangible and visible whereby we are to grasp with new certainty the fact of our possession, to be filled, as we contemplate the sign, with the animating conviction that this wonderful gift, the grace of God, is, for our future as well as for our present, " a sober certainty of waking bliss." ^
2. Belief. — What is belief in the Christian sense of the term? Is it not a reliance upon the intuitions rather than upon the reason ? " With the heart man beheves unto righteousness." Look at the whole method of Christ's teaching and you will see at once what this definition means. Has it ever struck you that the silences and the omissions in the teaching of Christ are remarkable ? He does not attempt to prove the existence
» H. 0. G. Moule, Faith : Its Nature and Its Work, 190.
ST. MARK 483
of God ; He takes it for granted. He does not offer a single argument for the existence of the soul, or the prolongation of human destiny beyond the earth, or the certainty of an unseen spiritual world. He shows us a publican at prayer — that is His way of proving the existence of a soul. He shows us Dives and Lazarus — that is His way of making us aware of the immortal destinies of man, and of his relation to an unseen world. Why is Christ silent upon the arguments which make for these great convictions ? Because He knows that no argument can give them cogency. They lie outside the reason. They are wit- nessed to by the intuitions of mankind. It is to these intui- tions that Christ appeals, and His appeal was justified by the astonishing fact that while men eagerly disputed His teaching upon conduct, the worst man never disputed His fundamental assumptions of the existence of God, of the soul, and of an unseen place of judgment behind the veils of time. Christ, in His own perfection and purity of life, suggests God ; the publican at prayer vindicates the soul, for mankind from the beginning of the ages has been a creature conscious of a need for prayer ; the inequalities of life displayed in Dives and Lazarus suggest a spiritual universe where wrong is righted, and final justice done to mankind.