The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 522

in our world, the very Pattern and Type of the seeking, watchful, compassionate Shep- herd. And in the unfathomed marvels and mystery of the cross he he.a comprehended all the length and breadth, the height and depth, of wisdom. Against those who neglect this, it must indeed be that the Queen of Sheba shall rise in the judgment.-B. Vera. 46-50 (see also Mark iii. 31-35; Luke viii. 19-21).-The necessary condition of right personal love. In comparing the accounts as quoted above, one thing first arrests our attention, that while no one of them speaks of more than "mother and brethren" seeking for Jesus, every one of them finds a place in the tenderness of Christ's reply for the introduction of the word "sister." St, Luke's, the shortest account, nevertheless explains precisely how "the press" of people was what prevented the "mother aud brethren" of Jesus reaching him ; while the "certain" of the people of St, Luke, and the "one" of St. Matthew, who informed Jesus of the fact, are so very naturally replaced by the "multitude" in St. Mark. How these took op the messaae, and tried to pass it on, pictures itself readily to our familiar knowledge of the ready tongue of a" multitude." No one of the evangelists' accounts tell us, however, of what might have been the object of the desire on the part of the mother and brethren of Jesus to "see" or to "speak with" him, It may have been to bring him refreshment for the body; it may have been to warn him of apprehended danger; it may have been to share with nearer position the manifested power and glory and manifestation of the Mighty One whom they had known, as they thought, so well. The significance of the silence on the point may lead us, not uncharitably,-to the theory that.it was.for some reason personal rather to them than to him. The incident described. in the passage before us, and which so naturally has arrested our attention and .our deep sympathetic feeliugs so often- I. SUGGESTS THE DIFFERENCE WHI0H CHRIST HIMSELF MARKED BETWEEN PERSONAL LOVE TO Hill All.'D A MERE LOVE TO ms PERSON. It is not by this to be understood for a moment that his mother's love to him was a mere love to his Person. But broad and deep is the line which Jesus does himself draw, as though for the help of all whomsoever who should be, between these two things. There is a vast gulf of separa- tion between our natural and our saintly desires. How hard it might seem sometimes to allow for this separating gulf, however I When our agonized meditative thought has led us betimes to say to our inmost self what we would give for a moment's vision of that Holy One in the garb of his hnman flesh alone; to see that form, to hear that voice, to know what his eye literally looked, to watch the expression of his countenance, to ask him one qnestion personally, to walk across the field by his adorable side, to plant one's step literally in the footprint of his own; and when one has been impelled to think how many millions for that one aged Simeon would now be ready, for such a boon granted, to say, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace," and welcomely to close the eyes on earth, and all it ever could have else to show, the words of Jesus here (1) warn us against a snare, manifest though it may be held to be;. and (2) point us the better, the more excellent way, to learn "to hear and to do the will of God "--of" my Father which is in heaven." Such desires on our part may even take rank among unearthly desires, among saintly desires even; but they are not the saintly dP.sire for a moment to stand in comparison of what Christ here places before us. Though we be not competent to say certainly now that it was any such mere super- ficial motive on the part of mother and brethren to see Jesus, and to share some reflected glory from his Person, it is competent to us to say that Christ seized the opportunity, at whatever other risk, to say that all personal relationship d~indles in the presence of that living, intrinsic, eternally abiding relationship that constitutes one the mother, another the sister, and millions the brethren of the now invisible One, the Lord Jesus Christ. I!. SUGGESTS 'l;;RE POSSIBILITY OF REALIZINCl A CERTAIN FULNEBS AND A CERTAIN TENDERNESS IN SU0R RELATIONSHIPS AS CHRIST 18 WILLING TO SUSTAIN TOWARD US, AND STATES FOBOlBLY THE CONDITIONS NECESSARY THERETO. What is most sacred, what is most tender, what is absolutely most real of earthly and human relationship, is employed to set forth the fulness, the tenderness, the absolute sympathy, tha~ bear witness of not a mere acquaintance with Christ, but of such an acquaintance as 1s all- pervadillg, knows no discord, is inspired by no jarring want of harmony, and already OR. :m.1-60.J THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BT. MATTHEW. 519