The Pulpit Commentary — Mark — Volume 1 — Section 343

first great necessity of the sinful soul. Josus came to call sinnen to repentance, but he came at the same time to a.ssure the penitent of pardon-the purchase of his precious blood. What bread is to the hungry, that is pardon to the contrite, humbled, suppliant transgressor. And this is the gift of Christ, who came with "power on earth to for11ive sins." Do we feel an inner craving for a strength which we do not find within ourselv:s- for a power which shall uphold us in the labour and the conflict of this earthly life? Not only to know the will of God but to do it-this is the want of man's soul. Power to do this is bread to his hungering nature, Do you not, indeed, when you best know yourselves, feel that truly to live you must have strength to live to God? And who but God himself can impart this strength? It is given in Jesus. Eat of this bread, and labour shall be sweet and work welcome. His meat and drink was to do the will of him who sent him, and to finish his work. And in his people is "the mind of Christ." Does not the sorrowful and tempted soul-the soul cppressed by the infirmities of the flesh and the ills of life--hunger for a consolation nc,t to be found from the wilderness? Who of us has not felt this, in seasons of grief and anxiety? Surely, God knows the heart which he has fashioned; he reads its laments he witnesses its struggles, he comprehends its fears. It was to allay our anxiety, to assuage our griefs, that Jesus dwelt on earth, wept our tears, tasted the bitterness of our death; tha.t he might be a. " High Priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities." As long as" ma.n is born to sorrow," so long shall the "Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief," be the dearest Friend the heart can know, Jesus is a" brother born fo~ .adversity." "Bnt what to those who find? Ah I this Nor tongue nor pen can show; The love of Jesus, what it is None bnt his loved ones know." IV. This language suggests THE SATISFACTION FOUND BY THOSE WHO PABTAKE OP "TIIIS SPIRITUAL FOOD. We read in the Gospel that, when the great Lord of nature and of men miraculously supplied the wants of the hungering crowds," they did all eat, and were filled." In this they prefigured a.ll who, in every land and age, should feed by faith upon the Son of God. Of him it ma.y truly be sa.id, " He filleth the hungry soul with goodness." Three remarks may be made upon the power of the Lord Jesus to -appease the spiritual hunger and to supp!y the spiritual wants of men. He is sufficient for ea.eh, sufficient for all, sufficient for evermore. Each soul, however drawn or driven to Christ-driven by the desperation of wa.nt, or drawn by the excellence and abun- dance of the Divine supply-finds in him all that be himself has promised. To believe, to trust, to love, to follow Cbrist,-this is to appropriate him, to prove and learn his Divine sufficiency. "He that cometh to me," says Jesus," shall never hunger; and he tha.t believetb on me shall never thirst." The same faith which first reveals Christ to the soul, and stays its hunger, is the means of attaching the soul to Christ and the means by which the soul finds in him all the fulness of God. For he of God is made unto his people " wisdom a.nd righteousness, sanctification and redemption." The bounty of the Lord Jesus is unrestricted. As the vast multitude of bis auditors were fed by his beneficence-as men, women, and children all ate a.nd had enough, so that basketsful of fragments were taken up-so throughout this wide world its teeming and varied populations a.re all destined to find in him the Saviour of mankind. "I," said he, "if I be lifted up from the earth, will dra.w a.11 men unto me." Untold myriads have feasted at the table of Christ, a.nd none have risen hungry and dis- satisfied. Still have the ministera of his grace the privilege of announcing to the starvinu children of men, " ' Yet there is room.' Come ye iri, that the guests may be many a~d the tables filled. 'Eat ye tba.t which is good, a.nd let your soul delight itself in fatness.'" Still further to enhance the conception of the preciousness of the great salvation, let it be remembered that it is an unfailing, an everlasting, an imperishable satisfaction which is to be found in Jesus Christ. He that eats of earthly bread and drinks of earthly streams hungers and thirsts again; but he who, by Divine mercy, feeds c,n heavenly food and drinks of the living water hungers and thirsts no more. For him is provided a perpetual feast, an immortal satisfaction and content. Generation succeeds geueration, and age follows age. The experience of humanity is prolonged from century cu. vm. 1-38.) THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 341