Ver. 11.-Death and sleep. Here we have another instance of what is so frequent in John's Gospel, Jesus using common words in special and unexpected meanings. 'l'hc disciples did not understand Jesus-how were they likely to do so? Their rcjoin<ler was a very natural one. Why, then, should JesUB speak of the reality of death under the form of sleep? • I. ALL DEATH WOULD BE PECULIAllLY REPUGNANT TO JESUS.• Jesus, ·we may ta.ke it, had in him a fulness and healthiness.of natural life which would lie at the very antipodes of death. Many live on the verge of death, as it were, for a long time. They have• just enough of the vital principle in them to keep the organism going. But Jesus, in his own natural life, was far away from death. He had no occasion to look upon it in the despairing, bewildered way which the common run of men must adopt. To have spoken of Lazarus as dead, without being forced so to speak, would have suggested thoughts to the disciples which he wished to be swallowed up in the inspiring dis- coveries of a new revelation. IL DEATH WAS To GET A NEW AND SPECIAL MEANING. Contrast the way in which Jesus speaks of Lazarus here with the language he uses in Luke ix. 60. Here he speaks of the dead Lazarus as only sleeping; there he speaks of Jiving unbelievers in himself as being dead. Tbois is the true death, to be dead to the reception of the heavenly Bread. Lazarus was de&d, according to the manner in which men use that word ; no one would have thought of putting food into that mouth.· But so far as concerned the BrE-ad that cometh down from heaven, Lazarus was not dead. The life that needs nourishing from heaven is more than the flesh and blood, which is only converted food. The flesh and blood may go, but the life remains. With regard to the unbelievers, however, Jesus reckoned them as dead, for the true Bread found them as indifferent to its nearness as a corpse would be to a loaf laid beside it. "Death" is a word that very reasonably has the most dreadful associations, and Jesus wished to make the most of it as reserved for the most dreadful state of things be knows. That a believer in Jesus should pass from the world of sense is dreadful, just as a paroxysm of physical pain is dreadful; but once the experience is over, all may be right. But that any one should remain out of living union with Jesus is far worse than any pa.in or deprivation belonging to physical death. III. SLEEP WAS TO GET A NEW AND BPEOUL MEANING. Human beings get separated from each other in sleep. No communication is possible between them that sleep and them that wake. But that very lapse of communication will make the com- munication fresher and more active when the lapse is over. Itis probable that Lazarus, returning to life, returned to a healthier and more vigorous life, Natural sleep comes after a period of labour, and as the result of exhalllltion, and it is followed by fresh power and zest for work. But it is work of the same sort, and with the same faculties, When the Christian believer falls a.sleep, he falls to wake in an altogether new sort of morning, amid new scenes, and to engage in a new service, free from the toil and 11tru;gle and thwarting which belong to the service here. In the higher state of exist- (lH, xr. 1-67.] 1'HE GOSPEL ACCORDING 'fO BT. JrJHN. 127
enoe there wl.11 still be work, in e. eenee-the work of faith; but the eoil of Jove e.nd the nadurance of hopo will alike have ve.nished.-Y.
Ver.19.-llfartha's and Mary's comforters. I. A IIISBIONTHAT oour.o NOT BE E~OAPED, The mourners must not be left anvieited, however awkward and vain the condolences may be. Such visits may indeed be looker! upon as often having somewhat of evil in them; but the evil is not a necessitr, whereas the good is always a probability. And in certain circumstances, where everything is favourable, where Christian character belongs lllike to the departed, the mourners, and the comfort.era, such a. mission may bnve in it the highest good. Sympathy, though it be no more than silent companion- ship, is the demand of humanity. II. A 11118810N BUCH AS HAD DEEN PERFORMED INNUMERABLE TIMES. That very day, all over Israel, people would be setting out on similar errs.ode. Condolence would be reduced to a. system. The very worrls would get stereotyped. Ill. A 11118810N BUCH AS IN MANY INSTANCES WOULD ONLY INTENBil"Y THE LOBS, When people are mourning for their dead, nothing the unaided intellect of men is able to devise can lighten the blow or heal the wound. Too often there is an incongruity between the words that must be spoken and the real feelings. We cannot sorrow for the bereaved as they sorrow themselves. If we could watch the vast majority of people so ns to observe from what occupations they go to condole, and to what occupations they return, how we should be impressed with the inconsistencies of human life) A man may go visiting the widow and the fatherless in the afternoon, but that will not keep him from the convivial circle in the evening. To go from the house of mourning to the house of feasting is all in the business of the day. The visitor heaves a. sigh of relief when he has got the necessary formality over. And this is plainly what must be, according to the limits of nature. To feel the pain of bereavement as the bereaved feel it would mnke life intolerable. IV. A MISSION WBIOH JESUS OFTEN UNDERTAKES IN ms OWN WAY. Jesus has done for few, very few, what be did for Martha and Mary. But, after all, we must not exag- gerate the act whereby he comforted them. The resurrection of Lazarus was not as the resurrection of Jesus. La.za.ras twice knew the pains of death. It was the mortal body into which he ea.me back. But to 1111 mourners Jesus would come with the plain, unvarnished truth. He would not say, "Comfort I comfort!" when there is no comfort. He would have his people understand that the only guarantee of abiding relations is that there should be a spiritual element in them, Mere natural relations soon break: up when there is nothing better in them. Jesus virtually tells all so to live that, when they a.re gone, survivors may not be driven to delicate hypocrisies concerning them, as it were whitening their sepulchres to please the bereaved.-Y.