CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Mark 14:32. Gethsemane.—I. e. Oil-press. The traditional site is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives on the north-west, where still are to be seen eight olive trees, believed to be over two thousand years old.
Mark 14:33. Sore amazed.—Filled with consternation at the thought of all He must pass through ere He reached the goal. Very heavy.—Uncertain whether ἀδημονεῖν is derived from ἄδημος, “away from home,” or ἄδην “imeasily”: in either case it expresses the yearning of heart-sickness. The two words are most aptly chosen to depict the feelings of one “surrounded with sorrow,” as Christ Himself describes His position in next verse.
Mark 14:36. Abba.—The very word used by Christ. Peculiar to Mark. Take away this cup from Me.—His soul “exceeding sorrowful unto death,” Christ feared apparently that the agony He was enduring might snap asunder the thin thread of His life there and then. He therefore prays for strength to reach the Cross, there to complete the offering of Himself as a ransom for the sins of the world. This may be the meaning of Hebrews 5:7. Nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt.—The sublime self-sacrifice of the preceding clause is intensified by this. He had said long before, “I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto Me.” But it seemed, in the garden, as if He were not to be lifted up on the Cross after all—as if His life-work might be frustrated at the very last, by His physical strength not holding out long enough. Even to this He resigns Himself, if it be the Father’s will. See Expository Times, vol. vi., No. 10, pp. 433, 434.
Mark 14:41. The meaning of ἀπέχει being uncertain, and the punctuation being equally undetermined, Christ’s words here are susceptible of very different interpretations:
(1) Sleep and rest for the time that remains; he (the traitor) is far away. Then, after an interval: The hour has come, etc.
(2) Sleep and rest for the time that remains. Then, after an interval: Enough! the hour has come, etc.
(3) Are you sleeping and resting for the time that remains? Enough! The hour has come, etc.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Mark 14:32-42
(PARALLELS: Matthew 26:36-46; Luke 22:39-46.)
The agony in the garden.—In our Litany we plead with our Lord by His agony and bloody sweat. From among the events of His life we thus select the agony in the garden as one of the most important. We bring it, if we may so say, to our Lord’s remembrance. We are convinced that it bore a prominent part in working out our salvation. The remembrance of it will operate to make Him grant our requests. No passage of His life is more mysterious; we should approach the topic with awe and reverence, taking as it were the shoes off our feet, because it is holy ground that we purpose to visit.
I. His sufferings on the Cross had not yet begun. What was the cause of this exceeding distress?
1. Chiefly, mainly, I believe, it was the grief of His whole life. He was in the place of sinners; He was the representative of sinners; He was suffering for sinners, bearing their punishment, and their punishment is that God hides His face from them; and the holier, the more loving, the more capable, the soul of the Christ was, the more bitter to Him was this punishment, which others deserved and He endured.
2. There were special reasons why the suffering thus produced should at this time press with extreme violence on His soul. He had completed other work; He had trained His apostles, finished the work given Him to do, had reissued the law, had fulfilled all types and prophecies, had revealed the Divine character, had exhibited the type of perfect manhood; and so the work of suffering and expiation alone remained. No more controversy, no more teaching—only endurance. The mind could no longer be diverted by other employment from that which lay before Him in the way of suffering.
3. All this suffering was foreseen, anticipated; it was not like our sufferings, which are mercifully hidden from us.
4. There are also other explanations of the horror of great darkness through which He now passed. He said a little farther on that it was the hour of His enemies and the power of darkness. We believe that Satan now put forth all his power to crush Him. Then we may also believe that the fear of death, the fear of all that was to come to body, mind, and spirit, all the agonising sufferings of the Cross, depressed the human soul of the Redeemer.
5. Again, He was denied those consolations which have made martyrs, under excruciating sufferings, triumphant. What is it makes a martyr meekly, gladly, patiently endure, though every nerve be racked? It is the infusion of God’s grace, a drop of the joy of heaven, a cordial sent by God on high to support the soul of His faithful witness. But this is just what was denied the Christ while bearing, as our representative, the burden of our sins.
6. We see, too, in the narrative the mark of another trial, viz. disappointment, owing to the failure of human support and sympathy.
II. What is to be learnt from this passage.—
1. This passage should impress on us that our salvation was no easy work. Creation, with all its wonders, might be effected by a word. He had only to speak, and it was done; but to recover mankind, to cancel sin, to extricate the race from Satan’s usurped dominion.—this was a task which cost much. This required the infinite descent, the inconceivable mystery of the Son of God emptying Himself, laying aside His garments of light, taking the form of a servant, humbling Himself to one descent after another, divesting Himself, as far as possible, of the exercise of the attributes of Godhead, acting through a created nature, submitting to humiliations, and laying Himself open to the keenest inroads of pain, spiritual, mental, and physical. Every time we plead with Him by His agony and bloody sweat, we should remember that our salvation cost Him pain, and that we must not expect ourselves without tribulation to enter into the kingdom of God.
2. We see the completeness of our Lord’s manhood. He took not only our body, but our mind, our most essential and distinctive quality, our will. He cries, “Not My will, but Thine.” He had therefore a will, as Man; and His perfection was that He bowed His human will, sacrificed it, adjusted it, subjected it to the Divine will.
3. We see that it is not wrong to make known our wishes to God in prayer. We may shrink from pain, we may ask to be spared suffering, so long as we do so in entire submission to the Divine will. We may ask that the cup of suffering may pass from us, if only we are willing to drain it cheerfully, when God signifies His will that we should drink it. And because we may have to give up our wills in a great matter, it is well to practise ourselves to get power over our will in smaller matters.
4. Observe our Great Master and Pattern called God His Father in the very crisis of bowing His human will to the greatest sacrifice that will of man ever made, to entire accordance, perfect submission to, and acquiescence in the Divine appointment, though it involved inconceivable sufferings: “Abba, Father.” May God produce in all of us a faith in the Fatherhood of God! Then we too shall be able to bear pain, to go into a crisis in faith, and to come out of it, as our Master did, unscathed.
5. Lastly, notice in this crisis that our Lord was not so engrossed with His own surpassing agony as not to attend to His disciples, and strive to rouse, stimulate, and shame them to better endeavours. He graciously makes allowance for them, acknowledges that the spirit is ready though the flesh is weak. He honours them by requesting their support and sympathy; He returns to them more than once; He rouses them at last that they may not be discredited by their negligence when the enemy is close at hand. Of those given Him, He will not lose one. May God give us grace to be, after His example, thoughtful for others, if God should be pleased to visit us with exhausting and engrossing sufferings!—Canon Burrows.
Gethsemane.—We may here learn our true attitude in suffering. The clouds which darken the sky of this transitory life have gathered over us all, and maybe their shadows fall upon some of you now. Adversity is an inheritance we cannot decline, forced upon us all, and forced because we have not sufficient grace to choose and bear it for virtue’s sake. Suffering—and by that I mean all the pains and trials, physical, intellectual, spiritual, which attack mankind—is inevitable. It may vary in degree and kind, but in some measure we all are its victims; and every doubt, every sick-bed, every grave, seals this true. There is no exemption, and the noblest hearts seem to hold the most; and looking ahead, we ask the question, not for the first time—
“Is it so, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer most,
That the strongest wander farthest and most hopelessly are lost,
That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain,
That the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?”
It may appear strange that one cup should contain so much more of bitterness than another. The best and perhaps only way of coming to know the “Why?” of these things is to bear a right attitude towards them, and towards Him whose care never fails, whose wisdom never errs, whose love never changes. Affliction is not calamity to the one who knows how to bear it, but a mine of inexhaustible wealth; and though the sun may go down, yet to the one who can read the heavens even the night will bring its joyful truths. Remember there is another side to the cloud under which you dwell, and there is light and deliverance and an everlasting Father.
I. Christ’s suffering did not shake His confidence in God.—“All things are possible unto Thee; remove this cup from Me.” There was the recognition of God’s power. The night was dark, but He did not cry, “There is no light!” The cup was bitter, but there was no complaint or cruel charge. The burden was heavy, but weakness never suggested, “There is no deliverer!” Brethren, do we not feel condemned when we recall our weakness and unbelief, when overtaken by adversity? At times God lets His shadow fall upon us, and we think it cold and harsh and meaningless. But instead of concluding that the sun has been extinguished when he sets, instead of idle, weak complaints, making the time bitter unto us, let us labour to discover the treasure of His love in the severest stroke He deals us. As in nature, so in grace, there must be a change of seasons. When grim winter appears and closes the eye and damps the smile of mother-earth, clothing her in a snow-white shroud, and freezing her body hard and cold, think we that her life has gone and we must starve, for nature’s cupboard is empty and cannot be replenished? Nay; we remember it lay as helpless but a year ago; but creeping beneath the sun’s directer rays it day by day revived, and the spring and summer came, followed by ripe old autumn with his lap full of golden fruit. Oh, how often shall the Master save us ere we cease to be afraid? When shall we learn to trustfully repose, through hope and despair, through joy and sorrow, in that eternal principle of truth, “We know that to them that love God all things work together for good”? “All things are possible unto Thee; remove this cup from Me.” The prayer is, however, by no means complete here. There must be something more than the acknowledgment of God’s power. We may come to God and say, “Thou art able,” and He answering may declare, “I am willing.” But should He declare, “I am not willing,” what then? If there be nothing more than the acknowledgment of God’s ability, the result will be disappointment and unbelief; and according to the estimate we had of God’s ability there will follow this bitterness. “Howbeit, not what I will, but what Thou wilt.”
II. The complete submission of Christ’s will to the Father’s.—Christ has expressed the desire of His heart, He has prayed for deliverance; but He closes His petition, He interrupts His very agonies, He turns right round to the Father and bows in adoring submission to His will; and how He suffered it we know. This, brethren, is the true spirit of prayer. To pray is not to claim unconditionally, to ask what we want and selfishly require it. It is the soul’s request submitted to the will of God. We must remember our ignorance, the restive desires of our hearts, the circumscribed present only visible to us; and realising all this, and more, we must pray, but leave our prayer in His hands, not dictating what we would have God do, but beseeching Him to grant our requests as they accord with His will, which is our eternal welfare. And if the answer come as we call, if the blessing descend whilst we still linger at the throne of grace, let us be thankful. But, on the other hand, if no voice replies, if the long-sought blessing be delayed, yea, and if it be delayed for ever and never greets us, still let us be thankful, rejoicing to forsake our own desires when the wisdom of God beckons us away. Our disappointment is our gain; the frustration of our hopes is our everlasting benefit. The supreme purpose of our life should be to know the will of God, and our zealous care to gain this patient, gentle grace, submission, which quickly turns its face whichever way the current of God’s Spirit flows, and with swift obedience answers each movement of His will. The knowledge of His will interprets our duty, which is the fulfilment of that will. There are truths we do not know, we cannot know; and many are the things which are veiled from our sight, for the revelation of which we must wait. They lie beyond the haze which surrounds and circumscribes our vision here, in a clearer, purer atmosphere. A time will come, and come speedily, when this concealing cloud shall be the pathway for our feet, and when we shall begin to know these hidden truths; but believe me, brethren, that time will also tell us of eternal secrets yet unveiled, and we shall find a path for our abiding faith. Our pride and unbelief must be quenched, and the Father’s will must reign supreme, the song of our heart ever rising in clear notes to the attentive sky, “Not my will but Thine be done.” It was this complete submission which led the Saviour to His death.
III. The victory of the Cross was gained in Gethsemane.—The Crucifixion was public, but the Saviour bore it first in secret. The hardship and grief of the soldier is not as he stands in the midst of the fight, but as he takes one farewell glance at the window yonder, where his child waves its tiny handkerchief and his bereaved wife sobs her pain away. The trial of Archbishop Cranmer was not greatest when he stood in the curling smoke and thrust his hand in the devouring flame, but in the agony it cost him to go there. And it was even so with our agonising Lord. He saw the cruel Cross as He knelt in Gethsemane, He felt the wounds of the nails, and wept as He heard the cries of the mocking crowd He died to save. He saw and felt it all as He wrestled there. If we would discover the secret of our Lord’s strength, we shall find it in those nights of earnest prayer spent upon the green slopes of the mountain. Our prayers may cast us, as Daniel of old, in the lions’ den, but they shall close the lions’ mouths. And now what consolation is ours and what remaineth unto us? We are not left comfortless, brethren; the Saviour has provided for His absence. The Spirit comes as a heavenly messenger to remind us that we have interests beyond, a Father who loves, a Saviour who intercedes, a throne vacant, till we gain the shore.—S. W. Kay.
Mark 14:37. The hour of watching.—There is an unknown element in human nature which makes the sympathy of others a necessary factor in our life. A writer has told us that joy unshared loses half its glow, and that the weight of sorrow is threefold heavier if there be none to watch with the sufferer. Specially in our dark moments of spiritual need we cry aloud for just one soul, one only, to watch with us, that we be not left alone. We pity the man who has to take a solitary path through the world; and if we have known the deep privilege of walking through the sunlight and shadow of earth with some sympathetic human soul, we recognise in how terrible a blank moves the uncompanioned life.
I. This half-sorrowful and half-indignant cry is just one of those cries for sympathy, for friendship.—The Bible never hesitates to emphasise the true humanity of Christ—His anger; His sorrow, His pity, His hunger and thirst and weariness, His need of love and fellowship. He could face, with all the self-reliance of His loving purpose, the frown of His critics and enemies, the scribes and Pharisees, the lawyers and the Roman soldiers; but here in the solitude of the garden He could not face without remonstrance the loneliness of the human heart. He pleaded for one hour of watching with Him. He knew, no doubt, that His disciples could not help Him much. Their simple and childlike natures were too far from His for that; and it was not until He was taken from them that they even began to understand what He was. Certainly they never guessed what He was suffering. And we, had we been there, with all our larger knowledge and deeper insight—we should have been, if sleepless, at least as dumb as they. For this is one of the tragic colours in the picture, that, whereas we can trace clearly enough all those outward forms, we do not know the depth of all they represent. We cannot tell what He suffered for the sins of men. Into the depths of that story the world has never entered. That patience, that humility, that love, have never been felt, fathomed, or rightly understood even by the most sacred spirits of earth. A very immortality of pain is centred in that one short hour.
II. Does not the cry ring down to us across the ages like a peal of thunder?—
1. It is primarily in our own personal life that we are thus called upon to watch with Christ. To all of us there comes, sometimes in little things, sometimes in great things, a temptation, an impulse to do what we know to be wrong—a time when our spiritual principles, our Christian temper, is put to the proof, and the hour of trial comes to the Christ within us. It is then that we are alone like He was, in the sense that we have to face and conquer that temptation without help from others; it is then that He appeals to us most earnestly to watch with Him one hour, to watch until the temptation has passed, and we come out victorious. There is a moral truth of a very supreme value in the words “one hour.” For the temptation that is thus met in the spirit of Christ is a brief one. It loses its power over us, and every successful resistance of it makes it less formidable on its next return. That is the true watchfulness that watches not, like the old ascetics, that it may shun temptation, but, like Christ, that it may meet and subdue it. We see, in a word, that trial and temptation are rather less things to be shunned than blessings in disguise, angels with hidden wings. The first step, as Socrates has warned us, in spiritual progress is learning to know ourselves, our own powers and potentialities, just as the soldier learns the work of shield and spear and the measure of his own courage only in the heat of the fight. Above all, we learn our own weakness, and so open the way for fresh watchfulness. Temptation, thus used, becomes the great helper in human development. We grow larger under God’s discipline, and emerge from it with new faculties and a finer character. We have seen something of the deep things of God, and can never more shake off the vision of them. If we have thus watched with Christ, we are in a manner sharing His sufferings and receiving His sanctification; and though, if we are wise, we shall love good because it is good and hate evil because it is evil, quite apart from any results they bring, that may fairly be our hope and prospect in the hours when we are tempted. While, on the other hand, if we have slept in the time of trial, there is the miserable thought that we have disappointed our Master’s hope.
2. The appeal comes to us not only as individuals, but as members of the organic body we call “the Church.” Whatever may be thought of the very singular age in which we live, we are all agreed on one point, that it is an age of transition, a time whose thoughts and feelings and ideals are not fixed, permanent, complete. It is the one short hour in which we as Christians are called upon to watch with Him. And we can do it best not by engaging in theological disputes, still less by ignorantly rejecting the genuine results of historical or scientific research, or by trying vainly to smother the flame of free inquiry, but by more maintaining our Christian principles unshaken, by offering to men the sweet apology of a holy and self-devoted life, by making them feel that with us at least religion shall be a reality and not a form. Christianity is not a system of beliefs, but a life, a new life, in the world. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” The thoughtfulness, therefore, and patience and self-devotion of our daily work may become the best apology for the Christian faith; for the new life that is thus lived in the spirit of Christ is an argument which men can neither answer nor ignore.—S. A. Alexander.
Mark 14:38. The nature and kinds of sins of infirmity.—One can scarce acquit the disciples of some degree of negligence and want of respect. But our Lord was pleased to put the mildest and most candid construction possible upon it. The night was far spent; sleep stole upon them unawares; and they were naturally slow and heavy, not apprehending how much depended upon that critical juncture. They intended no affront or disrespect to their Lord: they had a true and real, only not so lively and vigorous a concern for Him as they ought to have had; their spirit truly was willing, and they meant well; but yet, for want of quicker sentiments, they failed in the performance. It was natural infirmity which prevailed over their resolutions, which overpowered their very hearty and honest but languid endeavours.
I. What sins are properly sins of infirmity.—Their general nature is briefly described thus: that they are rather weak than wilful, having much more of frailty than of wilfulness in them. Something of wilfulness they must have, otherwise they could not be imputed as sins. But as the degree of wilfulness is small in comparison, and the frailty so much the greater, they have therefore their denomination from their most prevailing ingredient, and so are called sins of infirmity. They are a kind of slips, failings, or deviations, issuing from an honest and good heart, and carrying no malice prepense, no premeditated guile, no ill meaning in them—harmless almost as to the matter of them, and without any bad design. They are owing either to inadvertency, forgetfulness, surprise, strength of passion, or to the suddenness and violence of an unlooked-for temptation.
1. I begin with such as have respect to the inward thought. And here we are liable to offend two ways—either in not thinking as we ought to think, or in thinking as we ought not. Human frailty is too often and too sadly felt in what concerns the government of the thoughts. Who is there that does not often find distraction and wanderings and deadness at his prayers, private or public—but public more especially, as we there meet with more objects to divert the eyes and to turn off the attention? This kind of non-attention or absence of thought in religious exercises, so far as it is a sin (for it is not so always), is, generally speaking, a sin of infirmity, and no more. And it is then only to be reckoned among wilful sins, when a man makes a habit of it, and slothfully submits to it, without striving against it; or when it carries some contempt of the service with it, arising from some vicious principle of the mind. Besides the sin of infirmity now mentioned, I may name some others reducible to the same head,—such as the not thinking often enough or highly enough of God and His good providence; not having Him constantly in our thoughts, nor setting Him before our eyes; not attending to His calls, not regarding His judgments, nor being duly thankful for His mercies, etc. To these we may add, the not thinking how to lay hold of and to improve any opportunities we meet with of doing good in the world; and this through dulness, through inadvertency, or forgetfulness: for if we wilfully and designedly let slip the golden opportunity offered us, and despise the invitation, the sin is then wilful, and the offence presumptuous. Among sins of infirmity belonging to this head may be reckoned some kinds of unbelief, as both belief and unbelief respect the inward thoughts of the heart. Want of faith or trust in God’s words or His promises in some timorous minds may justly pass for a sin of infirmity. They despond and sink down in the day of adversity more than becomes them to do, as if they had forgot that the very hairs of their heads are all numbered, or as if they had never read that not so much as a sparrow falleth to the ground but by the order or with the permission of an All-knowing God. Hitherto I have been considering such sins of infirmity as respect the inward thoughts, in such cases wherein we do not think as we ought to think. There is another branch of the same head, which is the thinking as we ought not. The former is a sin of omission only, this of commission, both resting in the mind. When we are thinking of this world only, suppose in prayer-time or sermon-time, instead of thinking of a better, as most of us are apt to do—this, we hope, may pass for a sin of infirmity, if not chosen by us, nor designedly indulged. Sometimes profane, blasphemous thoughts will rise up in men’s minds; but if they be checked as soon as observed, and are not consented to, they are at most no more than sins of infirmity, owing generally to bodily indispositions. The same I say even of unchaste or malicious thoughts, if they are only short and transient, which abide not, which do not gain our consent, but are condemned by us as soon as perceived; they are then either sins of infirmity only, or not sins at all. For what the will or choice has no hand in is not imputable to us as a fault; it may be our misfortune. Too much warmth and eagerness, in some instances, is a sin of infirmity. Such, I suppose, was Peter’s eagerness, when he drew his sword, without staying for his Lord’s commission, and smote off a servant’s ear. To this head I may refer credulity or over-hasty belief, as being often a sin of infirmity and pertaining only to the mind. To the same head may be referred over-great carefulness or anxiety in respect of worldly things. Martha, a very good woman in the main, was yet careful and cumbered about many things more than she should have been; and she received a gentle rebuke for it from our Blessed Lord.
2. Many are our sins of infirmity in speech. Our greatest comfort is that several of them may pass for frailties only; and happy will it be for us if we go no farther. I am persuaded that even Peter’s denial of his Lord was rather weak than wilful; he was surprised into it, had forgot himself, and had not yet time to recollect. I should be willing to hope that hasty, heedless swearing, or taking God’s name in vain, in those who have unhappily got a habit of it from their childhood, may be but a sin of infirmity for some time; but to such as perceive it, and continue it, and use not all proper means and care to get the better of it, and to break the evil habit, to them it is wilful and deadly sin. Telling of lies I do not reckon among the sins of infirmity. It is, generally at least, a voluntary chosen thing. But varying a little from strict truth, or adding to it, as is sometimes done, undesignedly, hastily, forgetfully, in the making a report, if it be in things of slight consequence, that may be numbered among human frailties. Angry and passionate speeches may mostly fall under the head of infirmities; but bitter invectives, and irritating, injurious reflexions, made in cold blood, made deliberately, are without excuse. It would be endless to enumerate all the offences of the tongue which men are liable to. It is a difficult matter to talk much and well. Great talkers offend often, and they who say the least are generally the most innocent. Yet there may be a fault sometimes in being too reserved, shy, and silent—as when a man neglects to exhort or reprove his neighbour as occasions offer, or when he can patiently sit by and hear the name of God dishonoured or an innocent absent man abused without opening his mouth in defence of either. Such reservedness, in some cases, may rise no higher than a sin of infirmity; but for the most part we may more justly call it a wilful neglect, betraying meanness of spirit at least, or something worse.
3. I come now to the most material article of all, which concerns our outward actions. And here also we may offend two ways—either as neglecting to do what we ought, or doing what we ought not. Sins of infirmity are mostly seen in our manifold omissions and neglects, either forgetting what duties are incumbent upon us or performing them but in part. Hard would be our circumstances were we to give a strict account of all our omissions, or if much the greater part of them were not kindly overlooked by an All-merciful God, as pitiable frailties. Yet let not any man set light by omissions. Wilful omissions of known duties are wilful and presumptuous sins; and there are some kinds of omissions which will be always charged as wilful, and will be enough to exclude us from the kingdom of heaven, particularly if we omit or neglect to worship God or do good to man as our opportunities and abilities permit. I come next to speak of sins of commission, the doing what we ought not to do. Sins of this kind are mostly wilful; but some there are which may be justly looked upon as sins of infirmity. Drunkenness in righteous Noah, once only, might be a sin of infirmity. He was not aware of the effects of wine; he had not till then had experience of it; he was overtaken unawares, and surprised into it. I know not whether the like favourable excuse may not be admitted for others who may once unhappily fall into the like excess unawares. But, generally speaking, as the world now stands, a man can scarce be surprised into such excess or overtaken without his fault. Some have been weak enough to plead human frailty even for crying and scandalous sins, such as fornication or adultery or other sinful lusts. But all such pretences are vain. Sins of that kind never are, never can be, committed without great degrees of wilfulness. There are some other kinds of sins for which human infirmity is sometimes pleaded, and with very little reason—acts of hostility, assaults, beating, striking, wounding, and the like. Good men run sometimes into excessive warmth and zeal in the discharge of a duty or execution of an office. They may be guilty of indiscreet rigours, and push things too far—may be so afraid of not doing enough that they will even overdo, and be too officious or too severe, exceeding the bounds of Christian prudence, and doing hurt when they intended good. These and other the like indiscretions of good men are properly sins of infirmity, owing to inadvertency or surprise or to some natural weakness adhering to their particular temper, complexion, and constitution.
II. How far our spiritual state or condition is affected by the sins of this kind.—They do not exclude a man from the kingdom of heaven; they do not put him out of a state of grace, or out of favour with Almighty God. This may be proved several ways, both from Scripture texts and from the reason of the thing itself.
1. There are two or three special texts of Scripture which number up and recite such particular sins as will most certainly, if not repented of, exclude the offenders from the kingdom of heaven (see 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21; Matthew 25:41-43). Sins of mere infirmity are not the sins which either St. Paul or our Blessed Lord refer to as excluding men from the kingdom of heaven. They are quite of another kind from those now mentioned; and therefore they do not exclude the person from a state of grace, but are consistent with the love of God and the love of one’s neighbour, and so are not mortal or damning sins. They are the spots of God’s children, such as the best of men are not entirely free from, though they are not imputed to them.
2. There is the greatest reason and equity imaginable here shewn in making such distinctions between sins of infirmity and deliberate sins; because this is estimating of men according to their sincerity, and according to the turn of their hearts, of which God alone is the unerring Judge, and which He has chiefly respect to; because indeed the heart is the principal thing—the mind is the man.
III. What kind of conduct or management on our part is prudent or proper in regard to them.—
1. It concerns us to repent of them, that is, to express our sorrow and contrition for them, and to humble ourselves before God on the account of them. That they are sins is supposed, though not wilful or deliberate sins; and as they are sins, they will stand in need of pardon; and if they need pardon, they will also require repentance, which is the condition on which pardon is promised, and by means of which it will be given. But then the question is, “What kind of repentance?” First, a general repentance may suffice. We need not, we cannot be particular in all our sins of infirmity. Who can tell how oft he offendeth in this kind? We are not aware perhaps of one half or a tenth part of our failures, and therefore cannot particularly repent of them. And even those which we have been aware of, while fresh and new, yet easily slip out of our memories; and the very number of them, as they happen daily or hourly, is much too great to be distinctly considered or retained. But there is a farther difference between the repentance proper to wilful sins and the repentance required for human frailties. A man must not be content merely to confess and to declare his sorrow for wilful sins, but he must renounce and forsake them, and never rest satisfied till he has divested himself of them. But as to sins of infirmity the case is different. They are such as a good man may be content to live with and die with, and that because he never can entirely remove them from him. They are inseparable from flesh and blood, are interwoven into our very frame, and are as natural and necessary, in some degree at least, as it is to be weak or frail, unthinking or unobserving; or as it is to be liable to forgetfulness, fatigue, weariness, and the like.
2. We should farther add our devout prayers to God, to make us every day less and less liable to them, and not to impute them. The greater perfection we attain to, the more secure are we against falling back; and not only so, but we thereby become qualified for a higher and nobler reward.
3. We must use our best endeavours along with our prayers, to guard as much as possibly we can even against those smaller sins, lest they should lead to greater.—Archdeacon Waterland.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mark 14:32. Retirement for prayer.—An afflicted heart ought to shut itself up from men by retirement, and to open itself to God by prayer. Christ, as the Good Shepherd, does that first Himself which He enjoins His sheep to do, preventing temptations by prayer. He prays retired, not out of any necessity, but both out of obedience to His Father, who had prescribed this to Him as well as all the rest, and out of love towards us, whom He would instruct, edify, and redeem by this means.—P. Quesnel.
Mark 14:33-36. Christ’s agony in Gethsemane was consistent with—
1. The affection of God towards Him. He suffered as the Substitute of guilty man (2 Corinthians 5:21)—according to the Divine plan (John 5:22)—with satisfaction to God (John 10:17).
2. Voluntary consecration.
(1) Christ was equal with God, and therefore could not be coerced.
(2) Christ was loved by God, and therefore would not be coerced.
(3) Christ was devoted to God, and therefore needed not to be coerced. It was not the nails but His love that bound Him to the Cross. He died when He could have lived.
3. Purity of character. He did not suffer because He sinned.
(1) Men testified to His purity. Judas, Pilate, Peter.
(2) Fiends testified to His purity. “Holy One of God.”
(3) God testified to His purity. “Well pleased.”
4. Consciousness of power to overcome opposition. “The prince of this world shall be cast out.” “And I, if I be lifted up,” etc. “It is finished.”
(1) He was fully conscious of the arduousness of His work.
(2) He experienced the terrible penalties of His work.
(3) He never shrank from the consequences of His work.
(4) He finally accomplished the design of His work.—B. D. Johns.
Christ’s agony of soul on account of sin.—He was, so to speak, mentally robing Himself for the great sacrifice; He was robing, He was folding round His sinless manhood, He was laying upon a sinless soul the sins of a guilty world. To us, indeed, the burden of sin is as natural almost as the clothes we wear; it sits on us as lightly, and for long tracks of life, it may be, we think nothing at all about it; but to Him the touch which we take so easily was an agony even in its lightest form. And when we consider the weight and magnitude, the subtle penetrating poison, the dreadful importunity of the burden which He willed to bear, when we think of that festering accumulation of ages, the sins of the men before the Flood, the sins of Egypt and of Babylon, the sins of Sodom, of Moab, of Philistia, of Tyre, the sins of Imperial Rome, of barbarous heathendom, and then, worse than these, the sins of Israel—sins of disobedience and stubbornness, sins of scorn and ingratitude, sins of cruelty and hypocrisy—when we think of all that was suggested to the mind of the Son of David as He looked up from the mount there in Gethsemane, and beheld in the moonlight the eastern wall of the city which was rejecting Him, on the hill over against the very spot where He knelt—when we recall that which touches us more nearly, the sins of redeemed Christendom, and Christian Churches, of Christian nations, of individual Christians—your sins and mine, our sins against light and knowledge, our sins against grace, our sins against merciful warnings and wholesome fears, all of them most intimately present to Him,—can we wonder that His bodily nature gave way, that His passion seemed to have been upon Him before its time, and that His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground?—Canon Liddon.
Christ in Gethsemane an example to us.—It is not at all times that even good Christians can enter into the meaning of this solemn scene; but there are mental trials which interpret it to us, and which, in turn, are by us, if we will, transfigured into heavenly blessings.
1. There is the inward conflict which often precedes our undertaking hard or unwelcome duty or sacrifice; there is no doubt of the obligation, and the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The eye measures the effort which is required, the length and degree of endurance which must be attempted ere the work is really done; and as the eye traverses the field before it, all the quick sensibilities of feeling start up and rehearse their past by anticipation, and cling to and clog and embarrass the will—the will already, perhaps, sufficiently sluggish or reluctant—that they may hold it back from the road of duty. Ah! struggles such as this between inclination and duty may be at times sorrow for the soul even unto death. When they come on you, brace yourselves by watching, by praying with Jesus in Gethsemane, that you may learn to say after Him, “Not my will but Thine be done.”
2. Then there are forms of doubt respecting God’s goodness and providence which are a great trouble at times to excellent Christians. There are, of course, obvious sources of relief for this calamity—wise books, thoughtful friends; but the best remedy is to kneel in spirit side by side with Jesus in Gethsemane. It is a prayer such as was His prayer, which struggles on under a darkened heaven into the light beyond.
3. And then, quite distinct from doubt, there is a desolateness of the soul, which, for long intervals of time, sometimes makes God’s service distasteful even to the best Christians. They who experience it can but kneel in their Gethsemane with that oft-repeated prayer, “Oh, my Father, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt.”
4. Lastly, there is the approach of death, which may come upon us suddenly as a thief in the night, but may be also ushered in, as it generally is, by a preface of weakening health and lingering sickness. “I was sitting at luncheon,” said one of the best of Christ’s servants in this generation, “and I suddenly felt as I never did before. I felt that something had given way. I knew what it meant, what it must mean. I went up into my room; I prayed God that He would enable me to bear what I knew was before me, and would at the last receive me, for His dear Son’s sake.” It was the close of a life as bright as it was beautiful, only there was much to leave behind, warm and affectionate friends, and an abundance of those highest satisfactions which come with constant and unselfish occupation; but it was the summons to another world, and, as such, it was obeyed. Death is awful, and that first gaze at the break up of all that we have hitherto called life must ever have about it a touch of agony; and yet if Jesus in Gethsemane is our Shepherd, surely we should lack nothing. “Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil,” for He is with us who has gone before, His rod and His staff comfort us.—Ibid.
Comfort to us from Christ’s agony.—In our reverential contemplation of Christ’s human perfections we are apt to overlook the important fact that they were not the result even of His original human nature left to itself, but as it was influenced and perfected by the same holy comfort which He has imparted to all His disciples. “He was made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted.” The tears which fell on the grave of Lazarus flowed from the same source out of which in unregenerate man springs weak repining or sullen discontent; his unwearied industry in “doing good” was but that which the miser or the ambitious man employs to other ends; and the calm fortitude with which He endured insult, pain, and death was formed out of the very same qualities which, ungoverned and misdirected, brought the guilty robber to a cross by His side. The materials were all human and our own, the workmanship alone Divine. And is the Lord’s arm shortened? Will not the same God that worketh in us also enable us like Him perfectly to will and to do of His good pleasure, if only the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus? It is true, indeed, that to us the Holy Spirit is given by measure; still that measure is a measure of grace sufficient for us.—S. Hinds.
Christ’s craving for sympathy.—Tender touch of nature to make Him with the whole world kin. In any great trial this craving of companionship, if no more; if no hand can help nor voice can soothe, yet a motionless, silent companionship; who is a stranger to the desire? It begins in childhood, when two infants will walk hand in hand “in the dark” where neither would go alone. Do these two innocents calculate that the twain are more defensible against “the giant” than one? By no means. It is the embryo of that wordless hunger of the soul, developing as life broadens, and finding its most exalted manifestation in Gethsemane. Invalids, who have counted the strokes of midnight wakeful hours, conjured by the wall-flashes and flickers of dim lamps, and need no other service, cry out, “Father! Mother! Some one!” It is nothing, only to hear you answer that you are there. Then we sit by them, long and patiently, perhaps dozing disciple-like as we hold their hands, saying and doing nothing, but being—near them. Jesus knew, as the crisis approached, that the acme of sorrow must ever be met in solitude; but up to the outer vestibule of that solitude He brought the eight disciples, and to the last inner door He brought the three. Even when He must be alone, in conflict and victory, He yet emerges twice to feel the helpfulness of His beloved near Him. He wants our sympathy still in His warfare with sin on the earth. He who so wanted the society of men will have His own with Him where He is, at last and for ever.—E. J. Haynes.
Mark 14:35. Secret prayer.—The prayer of Jesus Christ was secret. He had withdrawn Himself from His disciples. They were not able to bear the sight of such a conflict. Even at this distant period we read of it with painful emotions. The transactions of the soul with God demand secrecy. A deeper humiliation may become us before God than it would be proper for any about us to witness. We do well, therefore, to seek opportunities of retirement, and should reserve large portions of our time for the purpose of drawing nigh to God.—O. A. Jeary.
“Fell on the ground.”—With His face to the earth—a posture betokening far more abasement and earnestness than even kneeling. That the Son of God should have prayed in such a posture teaches us the fearful darkness of that shadow of death which He had resolved to pass through on our account; that the Son of God should have prayed in such a posture teaches us that we must worship God with the worship of the body. What a reproof to those who would fain make a shew of prayer, sitting at ease, to see the Holy One of God prostrated on the ground!—M. F. Sadler.
Mark 14:36. Submission to the will of God.—There is no Christian grace which we have oftener occasion to exercise than that of an humble and patient submission to the will of God.
1. There are few moments of our lives in which we are not either under the pressure of some evil which lies heavy upon our minds, or under the apprehension of some grievous calamity which hangs over our heads and is ready to fall down upon us. In both these cases an entire resignation to the good pleasure of God is necessary, that we should without repining bear whatever He hath been pleased to inflict, and that we should have our minds well prepared to endure whatever He in His infinite wisdom shall think expedient farther to lay upon us.
2. Those who have taken the greatest care to arm themselves against the time of conflict find it sometimes difficult enough to stand their ground and to come off conquerors in the day of battle; but those who have in their prosperous state made no provision against adversity, those who fall into the midst of troubles defenceless and unarmed, those who are then to learn the hard duty of submission when they are called to practise it, will be much more at a loss how to bear up against evils unforeseen and unprovided against, and how to demean themselves in the needful time of trouble.
3. The difficulties with which we are to encounter during our pilgrimage in this world are very many and very great, so many that we may not hope by any foresight to escape them all, and some of them so great that without due preparation we cannot expect to be patient under them. Liable we are to be attacked with troubles of mind and with pains of body, with losses of our nearest and dearest friends, with the ruin of our estates, and with the blastings of our reputations: these we are obnoxious to in our own persons, and in the persons of those who are so closely tied to us by blood or by friendship, by affection or by interest, that what happens to them touches us as nearly and afflicts us as sensibly as what happens to ourselves.
4. Upon all these occasions which do so frequently occur, which are now, it is to be feared, present to many of us, and which to those who may think them at a very great distance may probably be much nearer than they imagine, submission to the will of God is a duty which we are called to exercise, and which therefore it concerns us to be well acquainted with and to be well prepared for.—Bishop Smalridge.
“Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me,” was the first thought that human frailty suggested even to our Blessed Saviour Himself; and therefore it cannot be blameworthy in us if upon the first hasty view of any great calamity ready to overtake us we do in the like manner desire and beg that we may escape it; but when we have time to consider and deliberate, we must bring our natural desires under a strict discipline, and curb them with the same restraint as Christ did: “Nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt.”—Ibid.
Christ’s two wishes.—Christ is not two Christs, but one; yet has He two wishes—a general wish, and a particular wish. His particular wish is to escape this suffering, His general wish that God’s will be done. The one is the wish for His own sake, the other the wish for God’s sake. The one is a temporary wish, the other an enduring wish. If Christ knew not before He prayed what was possible and what impossible, how much less likely is it that we should know?—Jas. Lonsdale.
Obedience learnt by suffering.—No one has ever learned obedience to the will of God, and joy in that obedience, except through suffering. He who endures because he must suffers only as a servant. He who endures only because he hopes to gain something by it is not a Christian at all. Christ’s submission is a lesson of utter unselfishness. “God has good ends in view for you,” we say, to console the sufferer. But God had ends in view in Christ’s sufferings, not for His Son, but for His Son’s enemies. He only has learned to suffer as a son who has found that the will of God is sweet even when it involves what is in itself bitter. To suffer gladly because it is our Father’s will is to have learned obedience. When that is learned, the Christian need not wait for great afflictions, but finds in every little trial, every disappointment, each daily cross and care, a discipline to bring him into richer revelations of sonship with God.
Mark 14:37. “Couldest not thou watch one hour?”—Probably many of us would be discomposed by an arithmetical estimate of our communion with God. It might reveal to us the secret of much of our apathy in prayer, because it might disclose how little we desire to be alone with God. We might learn from such a computation that Augustine’s idea of prayer as “the measure of love” is not very flattering to us. We do not grudge time given to a privilege which we love. Why should we expect to enjoy a duty which we have no time to enjoy? Do we enjoy anything which we do in a hurry? Enjoyment presupposes something of mental leisure. How often do we say of a pleasure, “I wanted more time to enjoy it to my heart’s content.” But of all employments none can be more dependent on “time for it” than stated prayer. Fugitive acts of devotion, to be of high value, must be sustained by other approaches to God, deliberate, premeditated, regular, which shall be to those acts like the abutments of a suspension bridge to the arch that spans the stream. It will never do to be in desperate haste in laying such foundations. This thoughtful duty, this spiritual privilege, this foretaste of incorporeal life, this communion with an unseen Friend—can you expect to enjoy it as you would a repartee or a dance?—“The Still Hour.”
Mark 14:38. Watching and prayer.—If we must watch and pray, to prevent and withstand temptation, let us not be surprised that so many enter into it and fall thereby: it is for no other reason but because there are very few who watch and pray in that manner and with that constancy which they ought. Prayer is necessary in order to watch, and watchfulness in order to pray; and both the one and the other are so to secure us from temptation. Peter was deficient in vigilance because he was so in prayer; and through the neglect of both he fell, being overcome by the fear of death and the love of life.—P: Quesnel.
Mark 14:39. The simplicity and plainness of Christ in His prayers is an important lesson, and of great use and advantage. A Christian who prays to God is not an orator who would persuade by his eloquence, but a beggar who would move to compassion by his poverty and humility. These speak plainly and without ornament. And Jesus speaks thus to God because He has clothed Himself with our humility and poverty.—Ibid.
Trouble—great, searching, overwhelming trouble—has no varied diction. Sorrow has but few words. These are syllabled by lips that are pale and quivering. There is a terrible concentration in grief. The soul that groans under its pressure is swathed in darkness, even amid the splendour of high noon. The light is gone. The stars glitter no more. The voices of the loving are unheard. Oh the frightful abstraction of woe!—Dean Lefroy.
Mark 14:41-42. The past and the future.—He had warned the disciples in vain to watch and pray, and now it was too late for that—all was over; the opportunity had slipped away from them and was buried in the past, so that, as far as this duty went, they might sleep on, for it must remain for ever undone. But then He turned away at once from this contemplation of the unchangeable, and pointing onward to present duty He said, “Rise, let us be going.” The one thing was beyond their control, and though they might mourn they could not alter it; there would be no answer to their endeavours but “Too late,” so that it behoved them now to turn at once to the courses which were still open.—J. Percival, LL.D.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 14
Mark 14:32. The Garden of Gethsemane.—There is a garden in the Alps surrounded by dizzy peaks, mighty glaciers, yawning crevasses. There one hears the gurgling waters far beneath one’s feet, like the moan of imprisoned spirits. The approach to that lonely island in a frozen sea is through a broken way of ice and snow and frost. The route lies in uncertainty and even peril. No leaf, flower, or shrub appears along the icy sea. But when the garden is reached, the gentian and the forget-me-not, the saxifrage and the rose, are found decking the solitude with beauty and the scene with life. So here this Gethsemane garden has its environment of height and depth—of shadow, dark, dreary, and deathlike—of light, faint and full; but as we, by faith and in love, approach reverently near to Him who gives it all its meaning, we gather those fruits and flowers which ripen best in an atmosphere which was sanctified by the presence of the Man of Sorrows, and which for that reason are likely to be refreshing to those who, living His life, breathe His Spirit.—Dean Lefroy.
In communion with God.—There was each morning, during General Gordon’s first sojourn in the Soudan, one half-hour during which there lay outside his tent a handkerchief, and the whole camp knew the full significance of that small token, and most religiously was it respected by all there, whatever was their colour, creed, or business. No foot dared to enter the tent so guarded. No message, however pressing, was carried in. Whatever it was, of life or death, it had to wait until the guardian signal was removed. Every one knew that Gordon, in there alone, was in communion with God.
Mark 14:33. Mutual sympathy.—Christ asked His disciples to watch with Him in Gethsemane. Tender touch of nature to make Him with the whole world kin. Two infants will walk hand in hand “in the dark” where neither would go alone. Invalids, who have counted the strokes of midnight wakeful hours, conjured by the wall-flashes and flickers of dim lamps, and need no other service, cry out, “Father! Mother! Some one!” We sit by them, long and patiently, perhaps dozing disciple-like as we hold their hands, saying and doing nothing, but being near them. Through the streets of Paris, between prison and block, the most desperate were often observed sitting upon the cart’s edge hand in hand. Triumph wants friends also. Jesus wants our sympathy still in His warfare with sin on the earth. He who so wanted the society of men will have His own with Him where He is, at last and for ever.—Haynes.
Mark 14:36. Resignation to the Divine mill.—Epictetus, a heathen philosopher, thus prayed, “Great God, use me henceforward according to Thy pleasure. I am altogether of Thy mind. It is indifferent to me how Thou dealest with me; I refuse nothing if Thou seest it good for me; lead me where Thou thinkest it convenient; clothe me in what garment Thou pleasest, whether it be whole or torn, either shall be welcome; whether Thou wilt have me to bear the office of magistrate, or lead a private life; whether Thou wilt have me to stay in my own country, or let me be driven into exile; whether Thou wilt have me rich or poor; in all this, by my equanimity, I will justify Thee before men.” This from the lips of a heathen is wonderful, and the more so because real Christians seldom reach such an elevation of soul. The King of Arragon (Alfonso) was once asked whom he considered the most perfect man; and he replied, “Him who receives all things, whether sad or pleasant, as coming from a kind and wise Father’s hand, with an even mind.” And so it is now; he is the most perfect Christian who is not lifted up by prosperity, nor cast down by adversity; who, whatever happens to him, still looks beyond second causes to God, the great first cause of all; who makes it his daily business to desire nothing but that which God appoints; and whose constant prayer is, that God’s will may be fully carried out, and accomplished in him, and in all his concerns. Edward Payson, who was a great sufferer, being asked if he saw any particular reason for a dispensation, replied: “No, but I am as well satisfied as if I could see ten thousand. God’s will is the very perfection of all reason.” Mr. Simeon, on his death-bed, telling an inquiring friend of his dependence upon God, said: “He cannot do anything against my will.”
“Thy will be done.”—It is related that when St. Gertrude used to say the Lord’s Prayer she would repeat the words “Thy will be done” several times over. One day, when she was praying in this manner, the Saviour appeared to her holding health in His right hand and sickness in His left. “Choose, My daughter, which you please,” said the Lord; to which she replied, “Thy will be done, not mine, O Lord.” Many an impressive homily on acquiescence to the Divine will has been written by sufferers. Richard Baxter was throughout life familiarised, as few are, with hours of sickness and prostration. Perhaps it was this habitual discipline of pain, causing him for long years to hover on the very border-land of death, which imparted so much pathos and fervency to his Saint’s Rest, and its realistic vision of “the better country.” Quaint and beautiful is his prayer—a formula of devout submission—to Him whose loving hand and wisdom he recognised in it all. “What Thou wilt; where Thou wilt; when Thou wilt!”
Mark 14:38. “Watch and pray.”—There is a custom among the Breton sailors, when launching their boats, to offer this prayer, “Keep me, my God; my boat is so small, and Thy ocean is so wide.” The life of a Christian may be likened unto a frail bark cast upon the mighty ocean, which unless rightly steered may run into some contrary current that will toss it about and turn its course. In this great ocean of ungodliness it is necessary to pray that the current of sin may not turn us from our course. “Pray that ye enter not into temptation”; and if ye do, “call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver Thee,” saith the Lord. Prayer is not enough. Like the Scots when they conquered the English at Bannockburn, or the English when they conquered the French at Creçy, we are to rise from our knees; to stand up and fight; to quit us like men; “having done all,” to stand. We are to put on the whole armour of God; and since we know neither when nor where the adversary may assault us, we are never to put it off. Live and die in harness,—using such precautions as some say Cromwell did against the assassin’s dagger—his dress concealed a shirt of mail. In the council-chamber, at the banquet, in court as in camp, he wore it always. Let the good man go to his workshop, counting-room, market, the place of business, and scenes of enjoyment, as the peasant of the East to his plough, where fiery Bedouins scour the land, and bullets whistling from the bush may suddenly call him to drop the ox-goad and fly to arms. The sun glances on other iron than the ploughshare, a sword hangs at his thigh, and a gun is slung at his back.—T. Guthrie, D.D.
Mark 14:39. “Spake the same words.”—The late Rev. W. H. Krause, of Dublin, was visiting a lady in a depressed state—“weak, oh, so weak!” She told him that she had been very much troubled in mind that day, because in meditation and prayer she had found it impossible to govern her thoughts, and kept merely going over the same things again and again. “Well, my dear friend,” was his prompt reply, “there is provision in the gospel for that too. Our Lord Jesus Christ, when His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, three times prayed, and spoke the same words.” This seasonable application of Scripture was a source of great comfort to her.
Mark 14:40. The power of sleep.—The most violent passion and excitement cannot keep even powerful minds from sleep; Alexander the Great slept on the field of Arbela, and Napoleon upon that of Austerlitz. Even stripes and torture cannot keep off sleep, as criminals have been known to give way to it on the rack. Noises which at first serve to drive it away soon become indispensable to its existence; thus, while a stage-coach, stopping to change horses, wakens all the passengers, the proprietor of an iron forge, who slept close to the din of hammers, forges, and blast furnaces, would wake up if there was any interruption to them during the night; and a sick miller who had his mill stopped on that account passed sleepless nights until the mill resumed its usual noise. Homer, in his Iliad, elegantly represents sleep as overcoming all men, and even the gods, except Jupiter alone.
Mark 14:41. The hour of crisis.—Often has the fate of kingdoms and empires been left to the decision of an hour, and that hour of inconceivable importance to millions. Often have the rights and the liberties, the freedom or the slavery, of a nation depended upon the result of a contest where valour and patriotism and magnanimity struggled hard amidst the clash of arms and the din of war; and their bosoms have beat with trembling anxiety, as from lip to lip the important announcement passed, “The hour is come.” But although we could put together all the interesting anticipations, all the distressing and conflicting hopes and fears, all the important deeds and destinies that were ever suspended upon any hour in the world’s history, they would instantly sink into insignificance compared with the vast and eternal interests of innumerable myriads which were suspended upon the results of that hour which our Saviour declares in the text to be at hand. The fate of kingdoms and empires is nothing compared with the fate of the universe, upon whose destiny it was to bear its decision for eternity.