1. He confirmed, His former word of peace. — "My peace I give unto you," He had said, and the word lived in their ears like deep irony. And now, when they sat in gloomy silence, with their sorrow, and their peril, and thoughts of the empty future making peace impossible. He comes again with His former word. It was a time when the common greeting might well have sounded like a wrong ; peace — when there is no peace and cannot be ! But Jesus Christ, whose words are living, calls them back from all such petulance. In its fullest latitude He meant His word, and thus made trial of their faith ; for peace was there, indeed, within their reach, if only they had courage to lay hands upon it. And in our disquiet the Lord speaks to us in the same way, and we shaU gain or miss the help of His presence according as we deal with the promise of His word.
2. He showed them the proofs of His victory, — His appearance was more significant than any word He spoke. He appeared to those men time after time in order that, when He had withdrawn from their sight, they might know the truth, the reality concern- ing Him, and know it for ever; that all doubt, all hesitation, might be gone from their minds. He showed Himself to them
ST. JOHN XX. 19, 20 343
that they might have His image in their hearts, and send on that image into our hearts through all the ages. Just as on earth in the days of His mortality He revealed Himself, so now in the days of His resurrection power He does but reveal Himself, Is there a halo ? There is none. Are there the robes of royalty ? They are not mentioned. Is His advent into the room heralded by the acclaim of the archangels ? No. But we are told in both records — ^it is the very central point of the narrative — that He showed them His hands and His feet. We are told that on the next Sabbath He saw Thomas, and He said, " See my hands ; see my side," The marks of the suffering were upon Him, His body was changed strangely. It was raised to a condition of existence entirely different from the old condition; but there was some- thing that was not changed. When you think how much was changed, that which was not changed is all the more significant. Instead of the halo there were the wound-prints, and it was those wound-prints that won for Him the name "My Lord and my God,"
f' •[[ Our Lord bought peace with His Passion, It is to the
Passion that He ascribes the Peace. He comes back with the signature of that treaty of peace written in His hands and side. There did not seem to be much peace in the Passion, rather it was the breaking of the storm. The old man in the Temple looked across the sky of the Child-life to where the clouds were gathering for Him and His Mother ; and on the Cross the storm broke. But the vessel, lost to sight in the storm, again appears, though with rigging torn and battered hull, creeping back to port with the dignity of a struggle that has found the goal.^ * F. E. Eidgewaj, Calls to Service, 219.
Christ's Mission and Ours.
945
Literature.
Bardsley (J. W.), Illustrative Texts, 29.
Benson (R. M.), The Final Passover, ii. (pt. ii.) 479.
Brown (J. B.), The Divine Life in Man, 309.
Coyle (R. F.), The Church and the Times, 35.
Dudden (F. Homes), Christ and Christ's Religion, 217.
Gurney (T. A.), The Living Lord, 256.
Henson (H. H.), Preaching to the Times, 174.
Hort (F. J. A.), Village Sermons in Outline, 246.
Knight (Q. H.), Divine Upliftings, 73.
Lockyer (T. F.), The Inspirations of the Cliristian Life, 120.
Macfarland (C. S.), The Infinite Affection, 63.
Mackennal (A.), The Life of Christian Consecration, 17.
Maclaren (A.), After the Resurrection, 40.
Marten (C. H.), Plain Bible Addresses, 208.
Rainsford (M.), The Lord's Prayer for Believers, 343.
Reynolds (H. R.), Lamps of the Temple, 82.
Young (D. T.), The Enthusiasm of God, 62.
Cambridge Review, i. No. 7 (Perowne).
Cliristian World Pulpit, xxxii. 312 (Glover) ; Ixx. 257 (Morgan).
Church of England Pulpit, Ixii. 237 (Hitchcock).
Literary Churchman, xvi. 184.
Preacher's Magazine, xii. (1901) 352 (Hamly).
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CHRIST'S Mission and Ours.
As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you. — John xx. 2X.
1. It was the evening of the greatest day in history, and the little company of the disciples sat watching anxiously within locked doors. They had waited all day for Jesus, but Jesus had not come. And now it was evening, and their hopes had perhaps dwindled with the setting of the sun, when suddenly, silently — without the sound of footfall or the warning of opened door — He was there. " Jesus came and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said he shewed unto them his hands and his side. . . . Jesus therefore said to them again. Peace be unto you ; as the Father hath sent me, even so send I you."
2. What an astonishing statement it is! Christ makes Himself co-ordinate with the Father. He associates in indefeasible unity " the Father " and " I." He tacitly claims the right to do what the Father does. He makes Himself equal with God. He was either incarnate God, or He was incredible blasphemer; there is no escape from the alternative. It is in such implications that we see our Saviour's Deity. These subtle claims of Christ are irresistible arguments for His absolute divineness.