CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Mark 16:1. Had bought sweet spices.—Simply, bought spices. No time specified, merely the fact stated. From Luke 23:56 we gather (unless, indeed, there were two companies of women) that the purchase was made before the Sabbath began. St. Mark’s point is, that the women bought spices some time or other—no matter when—in order that when the Sabbath was over they might come and anoint the body of the Lord. They seem to have wished to complete the imperfect embalming which Joseph and Nicodemus had hastily begun. See John 19:39-40, and cp. 2 Chronicles 14:14.
Mark 16:2. They came, etc.—They come (so as to be) at the sepulchre when the sun had risen. That is, they start from home very early, with the object of reaching their destination soon after daylight.
Mark 16:3. The door of the sepulchre.—“There was generally an approach to the tomb open to the sky; then a low entrance on the side of the rock, leading into a square chamber, on one side of which was a recess for the body, about three feet deep, with a low arch over it. The stone here referred to would be the stone which covered the actual entrance into the vault. It would probably be not less than six feet in breadth and three in height.” Had the women known of the arrangement recorded in Matthew 27:62-66, they might have hesitated about visiting the tomb that day at all.
Mark 16:4. Looked.—Looked up—“the only, but sufficient, proof that Calvary was a hill.”
Mark 16:5. While Mary Magdalene, after a hasty glance, sped away to inform Peter and John that the sepulchre had been, as she supposed, rifled (John 20:1-2), the other women made bold to enter and inspect for themselves. Affrighted.—The word, used only by St. Mark, signifies amazement blended with fear. It is found also in chaps, Mark 9:15, Mark 14:34, Mark 16:6. Such experiences as these women were now passing through filled them with awestruck surprise.
Mark 16:7. And Peter.—With what solemnity the apostle would utter these words as he recounted the matter to St. Mark 1
Mark 16:8. Quickly.—Omit. Fled.—Not as Mary Magdalene had done, in terror and hopelessness, but full of bewildered excitement, for agitation and ecstasy had them in its grip. And to no one said they anything, for they were afraid to pause until they had delivered their message to the disciples and Peter.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Mark 16:1-8
(PARALLELS: Matthew 28:1-8; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-10.)
The pious women visiting the sepulchre.—The present hopes of the followers of Jesus had been destroyed and their future expectations frustrated by the ignominious death of their Lord. When they beheld the accomplishment of all which the malice of His enemies could inflict, they seem to have given way to their feelings of despondency and dismay. But while the most favoured of the apostles had retired from the place where He was put to death, and from the garden in which they had seen His body laid and a large stone rolled to the mouth of the sepulchre, there were others whose faith and love had survived all these trials (Mark 15:40-41). During our Saviour’s life these pious women had ministered to Him of their substance. They had followed Him out of the distant part of the country in which they resided; and they were still found, in that hour of suffering, hoping against hope, or desirous to testify to the end the love which they bore to Him who had loved them. When, at a later hour of the same mournful day, the body of Jesus was taken down from the Cross and laid in the new sepulchre, “wherein never man before was laid,” the same affectionate attendants still followed their Lord (Luke 23:35). “As yet they knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.” But perceiving that they who had in a hurried manner buried the body of Jesus had not embalmed it, as the manner of the Jews was to bury, but had merely wrapped the body in linen with dry spices, they determined to perform that last office of affectionate care, and “returned, and prepared” the “spices and ointments” necessary for the purpose, and “rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment.” “And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.” They knew not that the heavy stone which they had seen placed over the mouth of the sepulchre had been farther secured by having been sealed with a seal and guarded by soldiers set as a watch. But they were aware that, even without such a precaution, there was an impediment to the accomplishment of their pious intention insurmountable by their own strength. Still they persevered in their exertions, though not without some secret misgivings that their labour would be in vain (Mark 16:3). But as soon as they reached the sepulchre all their apprehensions were proved to have been groundless. They came but to embalm the body of Jesus; they expected to have found a lifeless corpse; and lo! a vision of angels, which told them that He was risen from the dead.
I. The constancy of these pious women, contrasted with the comparative weakness of the faith even of the apostles, may remind us that the “faith which worketh by love,” the religion of the heart, is by no means in proportion to the outward advantages which different individuals may possess. There may be often found among the comparatively unlearned, in the meanest stations and in circumstances of the greatest apparent distress, a practical acquaintance with vital religion, a firm trust in God, an abiding faith in the merits of the Saviour, and a sense of the real consolations arising from a spiritual frame of mind, which may well serve as an encouragement and as a lesson to others who have been blessed with far greater opportunities of religious improvement. Such examples teach us, in language which cannot be misunderstood, what a treasure true religion is; for it is found supplying, and more than supplying, the want of all which this world can afford.
II. Another reflexion arising from this history is, that we are often ignorant of obstacles which really beset our path of duty, while we exaggerate to ourselves the magnitude of those with which we are acquainted. How many, when inquiry is made respecting their religious condition, are found to have fixed their apprehensions upon some circumstances which they conceived to be the principal, if not the only, bar to their advancement in piety! Some will complain of the cares of life. Before the eyes of others there may be set some trial of temper, some weakness of which they are especially conscious, some trouble which at present occupies their thoughts, or some easily besetting sin which they know not how to conquer or remove. And each of these may conceive that there is but this one barrier interposed between him and his duty. But when we are led thus unduly to estimate the magnitude of some one obstacle to a religious life, we overlook others of greater importance and still less surmountable by any powers of our own. If the sepulchre of Jesus was sealed with a seal to prevent all access from without, who knows not that the heart of man is by nature closed against Divine grace and remains dark and impervious to its holy light! If the sepulchre of Jesus was guarded with a band of soldiers, whose express duty it was to prevent the seal from being broken and the stone from being rolled away, who knows not what a band of evil passions and unholy desires and worldly thoughts besets the heart of man, and how the prince of the power of the air disposes his active and sleepless forces, to keep the thoughts and affections still cold and dark, “lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them”!
III. But while we thus learn justly to appreciate the real obstacles against which we have to contend, the example of the pious women may encourage us to persevere in the plain course of duty, in the firm persuasion that, although we cannot, by our own strength, roll away the stone from the sepulchre, yet that, however great it may be, there is a power which will remove it for us. There are periods when the heart even of the faithful Christian is weighed down with much sorrow. He is exposed to some great danger, or apprehends some severe trial. At such a time his faith is ready to fail him. He goes on his way, weary and sad at heart, although he knows that he is treading the direct path of Christian duty. But who shall set bounds to the mercy or power of God? When the Christian has accomplished his journey, he looks and sees that the stone is rolled away. Either his apprehensions are removed, or, if the trial which he feared has come upon him, strength has been given him to enable him to bear it. And if this be true in the trials which are of a temporary kind, so is it especially found in those which regard our spiritual state.
IV. If we persevere in faithful obedience, our exertions will often be blessed beyond our utmost hopes.—The pious women who visited the sepulchre of their Lord looked only for the sad satisfaction of preparing His body for the tomb. And the apprehension which chiefly weighed upon their minds was instantly removed, as soon as they looked and saw that the stone, which had appeared so great, was rolled away. And after they had been relieved from this fear, a new source of holy joy was unexpectedly opened to them. Their Lord was risen from the dead, no more to see corruption. And so assuredly will God deal with His servants at all times. With the temptation He will make a way to escape, that they may be able to bear it; with the trial He will give strength; with the tribulation He will send patience; and with patience, experience; and with experience, hope.—Prof. Temple Chevallier.
Mark 16:3-4. All difficulties surmounted by the faithful.—If we look at the difficulties, trials, and sorrows which attend man from the cradle to the grave, and consider at the same time only man’s strength, which is perfect weakness, we must say with the apostle, “Who is sufficient for these things?” “Who then can be saved?” Happy is it for him who is brought to confess, “With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible”; for when men are brought to look out of themselves and to say, “Who shall roll us away the stone?” they have taken the first step towards its removal.
1. Sometimes the Christian is in great fear of danger, in common with other men who fear not God. He sees no means of escape—there may be no chance of it, as the world would say; a fatal sickness is around him, or he is in the power of an enemy. But is he without comfort or resource? Nay, he remembers Joseph in Egypt, Lot in Sodom, Daniel in the lions’ den, the three children in the furnace, Israel at the Red Sea, Paul and Silas and Peter in prison; and when ready to faint, and cry, “Who shall roll away the stone?” he hears again those cheering words, “He shall give His angels charge over thee,” etc. “Fear ye not, stand ‘still, and see the salvation of the Lord.”
2. Sometimes the Christian is poor and in misery, and knows not to-day how he shall live to-morrow; distress presses him hard; he is in great straits, and there seems no help for it; he cannot see the least prospect of his condition being bettered, or he may have a dread that poverty must soon come upon him; his faith is tried to the uttermost; bad success, misfortunes of various kinds, daily threaten him. And is he without comfort or hope? Does he forget Hagar in the desert, the Israelites in the wilderness, Elijah at the brook Cherith, the widow and her cruse of oil?
3. The Christian is sometimes much oppressed and made to suffer under false accusations, his character mistaken, words misrepresented, motives misunderstood and falsely stated. Who shall roll away the stone? But he is not without great comfort under all this, for he calls to mind our Saviour’s words (Matthew 5:11-12). He does not forget that Christ “came unto His own, and His own received Him not”; “He was despised and rejected of men”; “He was reviled.” If he be inclined to think that God hath forsaken him, he hears God reasoning with him thus: Isaiah 40:27; Psalms 37:5 to Psalms 7:4. The Christian is sometimes sorely perplexed in some of his plans and undertakings: nothing he takes in hand seems to prosper; so many difficulties arise that he is tempted to yield to despair. But even here he can patiently abide; “in quietness and confidence is his strength”; he leans more unreservedly upon God; he waits His time; he knows that man’s time is always ready—God’s time may not be yet. He remembers that God often permits one to sow and another to reap, one man to begin and another to finish—as David, who prepared the materials, and Solomon, who built Him a house; and so looking steadfastly to Him, he sees the stone rolled away.
5. The Christian is sometimes in great doubt as to how he should act—whether this or that is his duty; in a strait betwixt two, or else in perplexity as to how he should perform that which he knows to be best. He is often haunted with the fear of consequences and of a doubtful mind, tossed to and fro like a wave of the sea. How comforting then are such words to him! (John 7:17; Isaiah 50:10; Psalms 97:11; Isaiah 26:3).
6. But if ever the Christian is ready to say, “Who shall roll away the stone,” it is when, having borne the Christian name, he is convicted of having lived as a stranger to Christ the hope of glory—of exhibiting in himself that sad contradiction, a worldly and unholy Christian. Who can tell the blessing to a soul, weary and heavy laden with the burden of its sins, of hearing such words as these, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee”? Who can tell the comfort of such consoling counsel as this? Claim the privileges of the covenant, the first of which is pardon and forgiveness through Christ, into whom ye were baptised. Treat God as your Father: you are not strangers and foreigners, though you have been bad and rebellious subjects; but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints. You have “liberty to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus”; “and having a High Priest over the house of God, draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith”: for though you have no power of yourselves to help yourselves, you can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth you.—E. J. Boyce, M.A.
Mark 16:5-6. The first preaching of the Resurrection.—Mark has scarcely anything to say about our Lord’s appearance after the Resurrection. His object seems mainly to be to describe rather the manner in which the report of the Resurrection affected the disciples. And so he makes prominent the bewildered astonishment of the women. If the latter part of this chapter be his, he passes by the appearance of our Lord to Mary Magdalene and to the two travellers to Emmaus with just a word for each—contrasting singularly with the lovely narrative of the former in John’s Gospel and with the detailed account of the latter in Luke’s, he emphasises the incredulity of the twelve after receiving the reports. And in like manner he lays stress upon the unbelief and hardness of heart which the Lord rebuked.
I. The first witness to the Resurrection.—There are singular diversities in the four Gospels in the account of the angelic appearances, the number, occupation, and attitude of these superhuman persons; and contradictions may be spun, if one is so disposed, out of these varieties. But it is wiser to take another view of them, and to see in the varying reports—sometimes of one angel, sometimes two, sometimes of one sitting outside the sepulchre, sometimes one within, sometimes none—either different moments of time or differences produced by the different spiritual condition of the beholders. We know too little about the laws of angelic appearances, we know too little about the relation in that high region between the seeing eye and the objects beheld, to venture to say that there is a contradiction where the narratives present variety. Enough for us to draw the lessons suggested by that quiet figure sitting there in the inner vestibule of the grave, gazing on the tomb where the Lord of men and angels had lain. He was a youth. “The oldest angels are the youngest,” says the great mystic. He was “clothed in a long white garment,” the sign at once of purity and of repose; and he was sitting in rapt contemplation and quiet adoration there, where the body of Jesus had lain. Wherefore was he there? Because that Cross strikes its power upwards as well as downwards—because He that had lain there is the Head of all creation, and the Lord of angels as well as of men—because that Resurrection following upon that Cross, “unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places,” opened a new and wonderful door into the unsounded and unfathomed abyss of Divine love—because into these things “angels desire to look,” and, looking, are smitten with adoring wonder and flushed with the illumination of a new knowledge of what God is and of what man is to God. Farther, we see in that angel-presence not only the indication that Christ is his King as well as ours, but also the mark of his and all his fellows’ sympathetic participation in whatsoever is of so deep interest to humanity. All the servants of our King in heaven and earth are one, and He sends forth His brightest and loftiest to be brethren and ministers to them who shall be “heirs of salvation.”
II. The triumphant light east upon the cradle and the Cross.—“Jesus, the Nazarene, who was crucified.” Do you not catch a tone of wonder and a tone of triumph in this threefold particularising of the humanity, the lowly residence, and the ignominious death? All that lowliness, suffering, and shame are brought into comparison with the rising from the dead. The cradle is illuminated by the grave, the Cross by the empty sepulchre. As at the beginning there is a supernatural entrance into life, so at the end there is a supernatural resumption of it. The Birth corresponds with the Resurrection, and both witness to the Divinity. Brethren, let us lay this to heart—that unless we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the saying “He was crucified” is the saddest word that can be spoken about any of the great ones of the past. “If He be not risen, our preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain.” “If Christ be not risen, ye are yet in your sins.” But if what Easter Day commemorates be true, then upon all His earthly life is thrown a new light, and we first understand the Cross when we look upon the empty grave.
III. The majestic announcement of the great fact, and its confirmation.—“He is risen; He is not here.” The first preacher of the Resurrection was an angel, a true ev-angel-ist. His message is conveyed in these brief sentences, unconnected with each other, in token, not of abruptness and haste, but of solemnity. “He is risen” is one word in the original—a sentence of one word, which announces the mightiest miracle that ever was wrought upon earth, a miracle which opens the door wide enough for all supernatural events recorded of Jesus Christ to find an entrance to the whole understanding and the reason. “He is risen.” The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is declared by angel lips to be His own act. The Divine power of the Father’s will did not work upon Him as from without to raise Him from the dead; but He, the embodiment of Divinity, raised Himself, even though it is also true that He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. These two things are not contradictory, but the former of them can only be predicated of Him; and it sets Him on a pedestal immeasurably above and infinitely apart from all those to whom life is communicated by a Divine act. He Himself is the Life, and it was not possible that Life should be holden of Death, Now, then, note the confirmation of this stupendous fact. “He is risen; He is not here.” We take it as a plain historical fact, which the extremest scepticism has never ventured to deny, that the grave of Christ was empty. The trumped-up story of the guards sufficiently shews that. When the belief of a resurrection began to be spread abroad, what would have been easier for Pharisees and rulers than to have gone to the sepulchre and rolled back the stone, and said, “Look there! there is your risen Man, lying mouldering, like all the rest of us”! They did not do it. Why? Because the grave was empty. Where was the body? They had it not, else they would have been glad to produce it. Now note the way in which the announcement of this tremendous fact was received. With blank bewilderment and terror on the part of these women, followed by incredulity on the part of the apostles and of the other disciples. These things are on the surface of the narrative; and very important they are. They plainly tell us that the first hearers did not believe the testimony which they call upon us to believe. And that being the state of mind of the early disciples on the Resurrection day, what becomes of the modern theory, which seeks to explain the fact of the early belief in the Resurrection by saying, “Oh, they had worked themselves into such a fever of expectation that Jesus Christ would rise from the dead that the wish was father to the thought, and they said He did because they expected He would”?
IV. The summons to grateful contemplation.—“Behold the place where they laid Him.” To these women the call was simply one to come and see what would confirm the witness. But we may, perhaps, permissibly turn it to a wider purpose, and say that it summons us all to thankful, lowly, believing, glad contemplation of that empty grave as the basis of all our hopes. Look upon it and upon the Resurrection which it confirms to us as an historical fact. It sets the seal of the Divine approval on Christ’s work, and declares the Divinity of His person and the all-sufficiency of His mighty sacrifice. “Behold the place where they laid Him,” and, looking upon it, let us think of that Resurrection as a prophecy in its bearing upon us and upon all the dear ones that have trod the common road into the great darkness. Chrift has died, therefore they live; Christ lives, therefore we shall never die. “Behold the place where they laid Him,” and in the empty grave read the mystery of the Resurrection as the pattern and the symbol of our higher life—that, “like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Oh to partake more and more of that power of His resurrection!—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Mark 16:7. The message of the Resurrection.—The text, ’tis the first joyful tidings that came to the Church of God of our Saviour’s Resurrection, the first blessed news of Christ’s triumphant victory over death and the grave, and thereby of His restoring of us to life and immortality. This day Satan and the powers of hell, all the enemies of our salvation, were vanquished and subdued by Christ’s Resurrection; the hold and fortress of death, the grave, was spoiled and ransacked, the gates and bars of hell broken in pieces. Our Samson hath taken the gates of the Philistines on His shoulders, and carried them away. Surely this is a day of joyful tidings. Let it be told to the King’s household, published in the Church of God. Say unto Zion, “Behold, thy God reigneth”: He hath triumphed gloriously; He hath led captivity captive; the horse and the rider, that pale horse, and Death riding on him, hath He slain in the battle (Revelation 6:8).
I. The despatch of this message, and that seems very hasty and somewhat abrupt: it begins here with a word of diversion—“But.” Why so? Were they in the wrong way? or in an unwarrantable employment? Just now, in the former verse, he bids them come and see the place, behold the sepulchre where the Lord was laid, and from whence He was risen. Why doth he now presently remove them from it, not let them stay and take their fill of that joyful vision? ’Tis said of Hilarion he went once to Jerusalem to see those monuments of Christ’s death and passion; but he went no more, he made no practice of it, placed no piety in it. So here the angel allows them a sight of the sepulchre to confirm their faith; but withal he dismisses them presently, suffers them not to fix their devotion upon it. Besides this reason, the angel is thus quick and speedy in his diversion, to teach us that even the spiritual delights of contemplation must give way to religious and pious actions. Their piety in meditating on His Resurrection must give way to their charity in imparting it to others. He is the best servant, not that delights to stand in his master’s presence, but that carefully minds and diligently goes about his master’s business. For the despatch of this message here are two things considerable.
1. From whom it comes. The first news of Christ’s Resurrection is sent by an angel.
(1) It becomes the excellency of this great work of Christ’s Resurrection to be attended and published by the ministry of angels.
(2) Fit it was an angel should first publish it, a heavenly messenger, as being a matter supernatural and heavenly, and of special revelation. All proclamations are first published at the court-gate, then sent abroad into the kingdom. This new revelation, ’tis first proclaimed at heaven’s gates by an angel, and then sent abroad unto the sons of men.
(3) Angels are made messengers and publishers of these tidings, and they gladly undertake it. See now there is a sweet communion and intercourse ’twixt them and us. It shews us the virtue and power of that great atonement of Christ’s death and bloodshed; it hath made up the breach and alienation ’twixt us and the angels. They were all partakers in God’s quarrel; and therefore the Scripture presents them in martial and military and warlike appearances, tells us of armies and hosts of angels. When soldiers and martial men proclaim peace and good-will, there is peace indeed. This office of love the angel performs, ’tis the fruit of Christ’s mediation, the merit of His death, the purchase of His passion.
2. By whom the angel conveys this message; they are the women that repaired to the sepulchre. Reason would conceit that some other messengers should have been employed than these poor, weak women. But God’s thoughts are not as man’s thoughts are.
(1) God purposely makes choice of such instruments in this great and weighty service. In the whole carriage and economy of the gospel God observes a mixture of much spiritual power and glory, with much outward baseness and meanness.
(2) The tidings of His Resurrection are conveyed into the world by weak women. “Kings and princes,” saith Chrysostom, “make known their minds to inferior people by their great officers and ministers of state: God, He employs poor, feeble, contemptible men to declare His will to the potentates of the world.”
(3) But yet there is some congruity that God observes in the choice of these messengers. These good women, they stood to it and clave to Christ when the apostles all of them fled and forsook Him; they assisted His Cross when the others hid themselves (Mark 15:40); they watched His burial, repaired early and weeping to the sepulchre; they were forwardest in attending His passion; and so they are first made acquainted with His Resurrection.
II. The persons to whom these tidings are directed.—“Tell His disciples and Peter.”
1. Here is a general direction to His disciples.
(1) Why is not the message directed to Pilate and Herod, to Annas, and Caiaphas, and the priests, that condemned Him and compassed His death? It might have been a mighty conviction to them. No; ’tis purposely hid from them to punish their infidelity and former obstinacy. They had heard Him preach in His lifetime; now, should He appear from the dead, they would not believe Him.
(2) Why not to the common people, that sinned out of ignorance? No; this manifestation of His Resurrection was not made promiscuously to all, purposely to prepare a way to faith and believing. The great honour that Christianity doth to God is to embrace His truth upon belief.
(3) This message and tidings of Christ’s Resurrection is directed to His disciples. (a) They were the only visible body of Christians—to teach us, to whom the benefit of Christ’s Resurrection belongeth; ’tis to the Church, ’tis limited and confined only to believers. (b) The faith of the disciples was now in a great weakness; they had almost given over all belief that Jesus was the Messias (Luke 24:21). Our faith, not only when ’tis in robore, in its full strength and vivacity, but when ’tis in vulnere, wounded and weakened and overwhelmed with temptations, is accepted of Him. (c) These disciples were at this time full of sadness and sorrow for the loss of their Master. Such mourners are blessed mourners; they shall be comforted. They that can lament for His passion, they shall be partakers of the joy and comfort of His Resurrection.
2. To acquaint Peter with these good tidings an express message is directed to him.
(1) Peter had fallen most foully—denied, forsworn, his Master with curses and execrations. Oh, ’twas a great sin of the first magnitude! And yet to such and so vile a sinner are these tidings directed. It shews the virtue of the gospel of Christ’s death and Resurrection; the greatest sinners, the most heinous offenders, may get good by it.
(2) Peter’s faith and graces have received a very great bruise and maim by his fall: his conscience is deeply wounded. He is like one fallen from a high place, exceedingly bruised, and lies for dead. Such a one must be catched up in our arms, more carefully tended.
(3) Peter is now overwhelmed with sorrow for his heinous sin: he wept bitterly, no doubt abhorred himself in dust and ashes. And to extraordinary mourners God graciously directs extraordinary and special and more personal comforts.
(4) Peter by his great fall in denying of Christ hath incurred a great and an infamous scandal, given a great offence to the whole Church of God. This personal message to him shall not only comfort his conscience, but cure his credit too. It plainly signifies he must not be cast off, but be dealt mercifully withal, and accounted as a brother. Nay, it restores him not only to his discipleship, but to his office of an apostle. The tidings are sent to him under the name of Peter, his apostolical name.
(5) From this personal message to Peter we may briefly collect these three corollaries: (a) As loving parents are most tender of their weakest children, so is Christ to the feeble Christians, sorrowful, heavy-hearted Christians; His bowels of compassion yearn most towards them. (b) The angel pities Peter, and hath care and compassion on him. Peter’s tears were the wine of angels; they were a banquet in heaven. (c) In conformity to Christ, in imitation of His angel, it must be our duty to practise the charge given to these messengers; have a care of Peter, of a sorrowful, contrite, broken-hearted Christian.
III. The sum of the message, the news to be imparted.—“He goes before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him.”
1. Here is an intimation of Christ’s Resurrection. The angel is careful to confirm that truth to them. Indeed, ’tis the main capital truth of Christian religion—the sum and pith and kernel of the gospel. It strengthens our faith in other saving truths.
(1) It confirms us in the truth of His Divinity (Romans 1:4; Psalms 16:10).
(2) It confirms to us the benefit of His death and passion. Had He died only, death had overcome Him; now He is risen, He hath overcome death.
(3) This intimation is the strongest means to revive and comfort them. Faith, ’tis like the flower called heliotropium: when the sun sets, it fades and closes; when the sun rises and returns, it blows out and flourishes.
2. Here is a prediction that must evidence the truth of His Resurrection. “He goes before you into Galilee.”
(1) Here is an act of local motion. Christ’s body now, after His Resurrection, ’tis a glorified body, and yet within the compass and condition of a true natural body, to be transferred by motion from one place to another. (a) After His Resurrection ’twas a finite body: “He is risen; He is not here.” When it was in one place, it was not in another, (b) It was a sensible body (Luke 24:39). (c) It was organical: we read of His hands, feet, side. It had all the parts and members of a human body, in a just proportion and situation, the fit proportions of a human body.
(2) Here is an act of prevention: “He goes before you.” Early and speedily He hastens to Galilee, to visit and comfort them. Tis the gracious course of God’s preventing goodness; He is forward to relieve and comfort His Church. All delays are tedious to Him. Nay, see the impatience of His love to His poor disciples: He appoints them Galilee; but He cannot withhold Himself so long from them—He appears to them sooner. (a) To Mary in the garden. (b) To the women in the way as they are going to Jerusalem. (c) To the two disciples as they are going to Emmaus. (d) To the apostles ere they stirred one foot out of the city. This is the speediness of His mercy (Isaiah 65:24). He is still better than His promise.
(3) Here is the designation of the place: “Galilee.” Why to so remote a place? (a) As ’tis said of Peter’s sinking, ’twas not pedes, but fides; not his feet, but his faith failed him,—so Christ here requires them not to exercise their feet, but their faith. He would have them begin with faith, and then they shall end in sight. (b) He sends them so far the more to quicken and inflame their desires and longings to see Him. If He comes sooner to them, ’tis to comfort them; if He stays longer, ’tis to quicken and enliven their desires towards Him.
(4) In particular Galilee is the place appointed. (a) ’Twas locus tutus: He graciously provides for His disciples’ safety; He calls them out of Jerusalem, the place of persecution—makes them withdraw themselves from that bloody generation, where they were beset with dangers—leads them into a place of safety, where with greater freedom they might converse with Him. (b) ’Twas locus familiaris, a place where He had usually conversed with them; ’twas the place of His abode—He was called a Galilean. Purposely Christ chooses all the circumstances that might help forward their faith. In Galilee they had often enjoyed His presence; His appearing there would more fully affect them. (c) ’Twas locus discipulorum plenus; it was a place wherein Christ had most of His disciples. His preaching had nothing the success at Jerusalem that it had in Galilee. In Galilee He was seen of five hundred brethren at once. Here is the place that Christ delights to visit and frequent, where He hath the fullest churches, the greatest communion of saints and believers. (d) ’Tis locus typicus. Christ calls them from Jewry to Galilee; it casts the shadow of a type and prefiguration; it represents to us the passage and remove of Christ and His gospel from the Jews to the Gentiles. Before in His lifetime He confined His own presence and preaching to the nation of the Jews, and forbade His apostles to preach unto the Gentiles; but His Resurrection brake down the wall of separation; now their commission is enlarged, “Go, teach all nations.”—Bishop Brownrigg.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mark 16:1-2. The quest of faith.—
1. Faith seeks after life in the very sepulchre of Christ, and it will find even more than it seeks, because it seeks it as it ought, and out of a principle of obedience.
2. A solid and substantial devotion is always regular, does everything in its proper time, and is very far from neglecting what is commanded for that which is not.
3. The Spirit of God, which guides these holy women, permits them not to dispense with the observance even of a dying law, that so they may perform a service to Christ which could be deferred but a very little while.—P. Quesnel.
The earnestness of the women.—It is no wonder if we find the women here more earnest than the apostles in their grief and in regard to the death, the burial, and the embalming of the Lord’s body. The woman is the first in the expression of her grief, for she was the first in hastening to the Fall; she goes before to the tomb who was the precursor to corruption; she brings the tidings of the Resurrection who had been the herald of death; she who had conveyed to the man the message of so dreadful a destruction herself conveys to men the sounds of a great salvation; that the loss which she occasioned by her suggestion to unbelief she might now compensate for by the tidings of faith (Genesis 3:6; Genesis 3:12; 1 Timothy 2:14-15).—Pet. Chrysologus.
Apparent discrepancies in the narratives.—To harmonise the accounts a certain effort is necessary, because they tell of interviews with men and women who had to pass through all the vicissitudes of despair, suspense, rapturous incredulity, and faith. Each of them contributes a portion of the tale. From St. John we learn that Mary Magdalene came early to the sepulchre, from St. Matthew that others were with her, from St. Mark that these women, dissatisfied with the unskilful ministrations of men whose rank knew nothing of such functions, had brought sweet spices to anoint Him who was about to claim their adoration; St. John tells how Mary, seeing the empty sepulchre, ran to tell Peter and John of its desecration; the others, that in her absence an angel told the glad tidings to the women; St. Mark, that Mary was the first to whom Jesus Himself appeared. And thenceforth the narrative more easily falls into its place. This confusion, however perplexing to thoughtless readers, is inevitable in the independent histories of such events, derived from the various parties who delighted to remember each what had befallen himself.—Dean Chadwick.
Mark 16:2. The first day of the new creation.—Surely we Christians may see the reason of our keeping this day far more than any other day, inasmuch as it is the first of all days, the first day of the old creation, and the first day of the new in Christ, as on this day Christ rose from the grave. On this day, the first day in the beginning, the light was created. On this day, the first of days, Christ, the True Light, the Sun of Righteousness, rose from the grave. On this day the Holy Spirit came down, the true illumination, to fill the new creation with the light of God. This day, therefore, is beyond all days the day of our Maker, the day of our Redeemer, the day of our Sanctifier (Psalms 118:21-25.)
The journey of the women.—A journey of—
1. Love.
2. Provident care.
3. Hope.
4. Joy.
5. Life.
Mark 16:3. “Who shall roll us away the stone?”—This question is applicable to—
1. Those who are seeking Divine guidance and direction. To be involved in circumstances of doubt and perplexity respecting some path is no evidence of the want of the Divine favour. God sometimes keeps His children in the dark to secure their safety (Isaiah 50:10).
2. To the subjects of anxious care through poverty and affliction. “Stand still, and see the salvation of God.”
3. To the persecuted and tempted believer. God will strengthen thee in thy weakness, and nerve thee for thy duty.
4. The hour of death. The eye of sense sees only the western horizon, and says, “The sun is going down.” The eye of faith turns to the glowing east, and sees the Sun of Righteousness rising with healing in His wings.
Obstacles in the Christian’s path.—-Many of the obstacles in the life of the Christian, when they are first sighted ahead and when they are seen from a distance, appear to be invincible, insurmountable—barriers never to be overstepped or moved out of the way. The fact is, they are looked at only as to themselves and their own great size, and for the time there are not taken into account the weapons which may be brought to bear against them and for their removal. In themselves, and as they stand before us, they are certainly formidable and fear-inspiring. Any mountain in the Alpine range is certainly of itself rather a startling and somewhat real obstacle; but it only requires, that one should pass over it into the fertile fields beyond, a stout heart, and a good physical frame, and abundance of “stay” and resolution, and plenty of time. A flood of water or. an army of men is, either of them, fear-inspiring under certain circumstances; but the one, be it remembered, is made up of single drops, and the other of single units; and either the one or the other may be very easily restrained or destroyed.—W. M. Arthur.
Mark 16:4. The stone rolled away.—
I. To let Christ out of the grave.—
1. To express the Divine acceptance of the work of Christ.
2. To do homage to the person of Christ.
3. To acknowledge the grandeur of the occasion.
4. To shew the futility of the mightiest human opposition.
5. To reveal the sympathy of the holy universe with the plan of salvation.
II. To let Christians into the grave.—
1. To convince them of the reality of the Resurrection.
2. To comfort them with the fact of the Resurrection.
3. To impress them with the power of the Resurrection.
4. To qualify them for the announcement of the Resurrection.
5. To assure them of their own resurrection.—B. D. Johns.
Mark 16:5. The tomb of a wealthy Jew, even when hewn from the solid rock, was a large and ample structure. It commonly consisted of at least two parts:
(1) an antechamber, which often took the form of a long vestibule or corridor; and
(2) the mortuary chamber itself, in which the body or bodies were laid. Joseph’s tomb seems to have been of this type. When the women looked up as they drew near, they saw at once that the rocky slab which closed the corridor on the outer side had been removed from its place. Filled with amazement, they seem to have paused for a while; and then, while Mary of Magdala ran off to summon Peter and John (John 20:2), the other women gathered courage to climb up to the vestibule and enter it. And here a still more amazing spectacle met their view. They saw—in the mortuary chamber, I suppose, or at the entrance into it—a youth sitting on the right hand, clothed in a long white stole, i.e. a talar, “which indicated a heavenly being, none other wearing such a vestment.” They would know him for an angel by his garb and by his youth, angels being assumed never to lose the bloom and beauty of youth. “And they were affrighted,” or rather amazed, the word denoting the extreme mental perturbation which a supernatural presence naturally inspires in those who are compassed with “this muddy vesture of decay.” And what wonder that amazement, a solemn awe, should seize them, when, in the chamber of death, they saw the very type of immortal life! An angel in a tomb should teach us at least, if it did not teach them, that death is not the end, but a new beginning.—S. Cox, D.D.
Mark 16:6. The empty grave.—
1. A sure and undeniable proof of Christ’s Deity.
2. A full security that He is alive, to die no more.
3. An awful view of the evil nature of sin.
4. The insufficiency and uselessness of all our own righteousness in the matter of our justification before God.
5. In the grave of Christ we may see the curse of the broken law buried, and the wrath of God finally and effectually appeased in relation to every one who enjoys an interest in a risen and glorified Redeemer.
6. Here we may see death itself lie buried, so that none of the followers of Christ have any reason to be afraid of that last enemy.—J. Young.
“He is not here.”—
1. Not in the grave, for He is risen from the dead.
2. Not in the garden, for He goes forth into all the world.
3. Not here on earth, for He is entered into His Divine glory.
Where Christ is not.—There is but one place, only one, in which Christ is not to be found—His grave. He is not there; He arose and left it, and has never returned thither. If, then, that be the only place where He is not, He must be found by you, if you seek Him everywhere else, and everywhere only to bless you and do you good. “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” And yet, though emptied of Christ, that grave is full of consolation. His not being there tells us that He is Emmanuel, “God with us”—that His sacrifice is accepted, and that we are saved.
“The place where they laid Him.”—With most tombs the interest consists in the fact that all that is mortal of the saint or the hero or the near relative rests beneath the stone or the sod on which we gaze. Of our Lord’s sepulchre the real interest is that He no longer tenants it. It is not as the place in which He lies; it is not even chiefly as the place wherein He lay; it is as the place from which He rose that the tomb of Jesus speaks to faith.—Canon Liddon.
The empty tomb of Jesus recalls an event which is as well attested as any in history; it is so attested as to put the idea of what is called illusion out of the question. The main purpose, the first duty, of the apostolic ministry was to witness to the fact that Christ had risen. The apostles did not teach the Resurrection as a revealed truth, as they taught, for example, the doctrine of justification; they taught the Resurrection as a fact of experience, a fact of which they themselves had had experience. And this is why the different Evangelists did not report the same appearances of our Risen Lord. Each one reports that which he himself witnessed, or that which was witnessed by an eye-witness on whose authority he writes. Put the various attestations together, and the evidence is irresistible. That which these witnesses attest must be true, unless they have conspired to deceive us, or are themselves deceived. The idea that they are deceiving us cannot be entertained by any man who understands human character; the idea that they were themselves deceived is inconsistent with the character of the witness which they give.—Ibid.
The empty tomb an incitement to Christian endeavour.—And why? Because of all effective endeavour hope must be a main ingredient, and hope nowhere so learns successfully to resist the pressure and shock of disappointment, and to reach forward with confidence into an unexplored future, as at the empty tomb of Jesus. Had He been crucified without rising from the dead, hope in the eventual triumph of truth and goodness must perforce have died away from the hearts of men; but as it is the Resurrection is a warrant that if the heaviness of spiritual discouragement should endure for a night, the joy of spiritual success, patiently awaited, cometh in the morning. So it is that those who while endeavouring to live the new life of Christ are fighting a hard battle against untoward circumstances, against strong insurgent passions, against deeply rooted and perhaps very evil habits, against some fatal weakness or warp of the will. Fail they must, if they essay to fight that battle in their own natural strength; but they can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth them, and the Christ that strengtheneth them is not only the teacher Christ, the example Christ, the perfect sacrifice for sin, He is also the Risen Christ, risen for their justification, and to this end making them a free present of His Resurrection strength. As such a soul in moments of deep discouragement comes in thought to see the place where the Lord lay once, but where He lies no more, it learns to understand its share in His great victory, and to expect with confidence that He will take it out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and will set its feet upon a rock, and will order its goings. And so, too, with enterprises undertaken for the good of others—enterprises which seem to be stricken with the note of failure, which fail over and over again, which we are tempted to give up as a bad business. Do not give up that enterprise, be it what it may, if you can dare to offer it, if you have offered it, to God as intended to promote His glory and the good of your fellow-men—do not give it up. There was darkness over the whole world on the day of Calvary—darkness which lately portended, though it necessarily preceded, the brightness of the Resurrection morning. Your enterprise will have its Easter, if you will only have the patience and the grace to wait.—Canon Liddon.
Mark 16:7. The message to Peter.—Whence happened it that to Peter, guilty, fallen Peter, is vouchsafed not only a common interest with his brethren in the angelic tidings, but a separate and individual communication?
I. Because he had greatly offended against his Lord and Master.—The Good Shepherd went, as it were, into the wilderness to recover him to the way of life and salvation. And what message so likely to effect the purposes of infinite love, or to animate the apostle’s hopes, as the assurance that Christ had gotten Himself the victory over death, had triumphed gloriously over the wide dominion of the grave, and proved Himself to be the Son of God with power by the Resurrection from the dead? He was thus taught that the sincerity and bitterness of repentance which he had felt were not in vain; but that the same compassion which had awakened in his mind a salutary sense of his guilt still waited to pardon, to embrace, to restore him.
II. Because he was a penitent transgressor.—“The remembrance of his sin was grievous unto him, the burden of it was intolerable.” Shame and remorse had wrung his heart with anguish, which could bear no other witness than the eye of Heaven: “He went out and wept bitterly.” Happy the tears which Peter shed in the seed-time of his sorrow! and great the measure of his joy when the reaping of the harvest came!
III. In order that he might be invigorated for future duty.—“When thou are converted,” said our Lord, “strengthen thy brethren.” The infant Church was in some degree committed to his especial care; and therefore an express revelation of his Master’s triumph over death was vouchsafed, that he might bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His abundant mercy, had begotten him again to a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. His faith was to be confirmed by the tidings of that wondrous event. His holy boldness in the great gospel cause was to be aroused by this pledge of his Saviour’s power and truth. And thus it actually happened. He continued sound in the faith, unshaken in danger, unmoved in tribulation, and at length laid down his life for his Master, with whom he now reigns in glory everlasting, bearing on his brow the bright diadem of Christian martyrdom.
1. The preachers of the gospel may learn from the angel’s message what should be the pattern of their own ministrations. We should guide the undutiful son to the tender Father whom he has left; and when he comes to himself, when he arises to seek salvation, we should shew how his peace has been made, and how he may partake the mercies of that amnesty which the trumpet of the gospel jubilee proclaims to all.
2. The spiritual application of this subject will also teach us the duty of preparing to meet our Risen Saviour in the world of glory. He hath first departed to prepare the way for us.—R. P. Buddicom.
A forgotten promise.—In common with the apostles they had forgotten His gracious promise, as in our hours of darkness we too commonly forget the words which should inspire trust and hope: “But after I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee” (Mark 14:28: see also, for the pastoral figure, the previous verse),—go before you as a shepherd who collects and leads his scattered sheep. It may be doubted whether we have any of us laid such stress on this promise as it deserves, or as the Gospels lay on it, and on the means taken to secure its fulfilment—whether we have not been almost as forgetful of it, and with less excuse, as the apostles themselves. What it really meant was, that before they returned from the feast to their Galilean homes Jesus would be there, going before them and shewing the way. Had they remembered the promise and acted on it, how much suffering they might have been spared! If, instead of mourning and weeping in Jerusalem, they had set out for Galilee, assured that He would there manifest Himself to them and renew His broken intercourse with them, the days lost in grief might have been bright with hope and action.—S. Cox, D.D.
Galilee, the place of meeting.—Galilee was the place where He had spent most of His time on earth, where His first miracle had been wrought, and where His apostles had been called to follow Him. It was the locality where He Himself had been brought up, and also the native place of the dearest of His disciples—Peter, James, and John. These had followed Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and there had witnessed many sad and solemnising scenes—scenes fitted to trouble, to agitate, and to overwhelm. Remembering all this, we cannot help seeing that there was great tenderness and love on the part of the Redeemer in asking them to meet Him after His Resurrection,—not at Jerusalem, where He had been faithlessly betrayed by one of the twelve; not at Gethsemane, the scene of His indescribable agony; not at Calvary, where He had poured out His soul even unto death; but in Galilee—remote and secluded Galilee—inseparably associated with the memory of their earliest days, and with their first impressions of the riches of the Saviour’s grace.
A testing lesson in faith.—We believe on evidence, but in difficult things we want the greatest possible amount of evidence. Faith is awakened in us, but faith needs to be trained and confirmed by some hard act of faith. The disciples heard of the Resurrection, but heard it as an idle tale. Then He appeared to them, and they were affrighted, supposing they had seen a spirit. They behold His hands and feet; they handle Him, and find that He has flesh and bones, and is not a ghostly apparition. But there may yet be room for doubt; it may be an illusion or contagion of credulity that has crept into their wearied and excited minds. And so they are led away from the scene of the event to Galilee, a three days’ journey. Thus a twofold end is gained: fresh confirmation, and a stern, testing lesson in faith. “Is it, after all,” we can imagine them saying, “worth the while to make the journey to Galilee? Can He who died on the Cross, whose feet were pierced with nails, journey thither? That He should appear here is possible; we have heard the like before: but will He appear in Galilee?” So their minds may have acted; and as they made the journey every step and every hour must have tended to throw them out of their belief and hope. For there is nothing that so tests our faith in an event difficult of belief as to get out of the atmosphere of it. The wonder lessens as we go away from it. When remote from it, the mind settles back into the old habit of belief, and into its every-day habit. And nothing so aids this tendency as a journey. Its weariness takes away the edge of interest; the wider view of the world draws us back to the steady order of the world and the great facts of nature. In a journey we believe in what we see; we are engrossed in the changing scene. Travel helps the mind, but it is not favourable to the finer exercises of the spirit. This journey to Galilee was made by the disciples in resistance of all these influences. Doubtless the energy of their faith sank with weariness, and their practical minds fell under the spell of the old, every-day world. Doubtless they often said to one another, “Has not our life these three years been a mistake? Have we not left a real and rational life in the world for the vagaries of an enthusiast?” This is a temptation that we all undergo,—the temptation to let go the ideals of life that have been revealed to us—purity, honour, unselfishness, self-denial, truth, spirituality—and sink back into the selfish, striving world that is all about us, clamouring at every door of our nature for entrance. But if this experience of the disciples was a trial of their faith, it also strengthened it. For faith is not hurt by doubt until it yields to it. The very weakness and faltering of faith may be turned into strength by pressing on in its path, fighting doubt, and resisting the appeals of the world. This journey of simple trust and stout adherence to hope was a fine preparation for harder experiences soon to follow. There would come times when not merely the faltering of their own hearts was against them, but all the powers of the world—times when their only refuge would be their faith in the Risen and Ascended Lord. Then the memory of this experience, crowned by actual sight of their Master, would come to their rescue.—T. T. Munger, D.D.
Mark 16:8. “They were afraid.”—Why? Certainly not, as Petter supposes, “from the apprehension of some hurt or danger which might befall them by or upon the apparition of the angel to them.” Neither is it natural to think of any far-seeing solicitude lest the news should get wind and reach the ears of the members of the Sanhedrin, so as to arouse to persecution. Dr. Edward Wells comes nearer nature. “For,” says he, “they were afraid to stay, and not to hasten all they could to the apostles.” They were in a tumult of commotion, and could not pause by the way to speak to any.—J. Morison, D.D.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 16
Mark 16:1. The devotion of the holy women.—The nightingale is celebrated for its singing in the night. We have, however, seen it maintained that it is all a mistake to suppose that she sings only in the night. She sings in the day as well, only, as other songsters are then in full chorus, her sweeter strains are not particularly distinguishable from the rest. But at night, when all others are hushed, her song is heard, and is more sweet by reason of the contrast with the surrounding stillness. Similarly was it with these women. They served in the day of bright sunshine, but their service was then overshadowed, so to speak, by the demonstrative crowd that thronged around Him. Amidst all the marks of attention paid Him, theirs did not appear particularly distinguishable. But when the voice of the noisy, effusive crowd was hushed during the dark night of trial and suffering which followed the brief day of popularity, they continued to give forth the music of love and sympathy through the dark loneliness of the night.
Mark 16:3-4. Imaginary difficulties.—Once upon a time—so the homely tale runs—a man and his wife started one pleasant morning to pay a long-promised visit to a friend some four or five miles away. The good woman carried her only little one with her; and they had not got far from home when she suddenly remembered a bridge they had to cross which was very old and very unsafe. Then she began to worry about it. “What shall we do about that bridge?” she said to her husband. “I shall never dare to go over it, and we can’t get across the river by any other way.” “Oh,” said the man, “I forgot that bridge! It is a bad place, What if it were to break, and we fall into the water and be drowned?” “Or even,” said the wife, “suppose you should step on a rotten plank, and break your leg, what would become of me and the child?” “I don’t know,” said the man, “what would become of any of us, for I couldn’t work, and we should starve to death.” So they went on worrying and fretting and framing evil till they got to the bridge, when, behold I since they had been there last, a fine, new, substantial stone bridge had been built! They crossed by in safety, and found that they might have saved themselves all this anxiety.
Difficulties overcome.—Men who undertake great works, like the Mont Cenis tunnel, the Atlantic cable, a railway across a continent, know that there are palpable, vast, and costly difficulties. There are costs which are certainly known, which civil engineers can readily calculate; and there are probable costs, which hinge upon conjectured contingencies; and there are possible costs which may be brought to light by the progress of the work. The men who furnish the capital necessarily look at these. They do not want to be in company with the man whose tower was not finished, of whom the Master told us. But, nevertheless, they go forward. Immense difficulties had to be overcome to establish the Central and Erie and Pacific Railways, the continental and sub-ocean telegraphs, and other great works; but they have been brought into existence, and stand to-day, because men who are not visionary had the nerve to dare to take up great burdens, and the shoulders broad and strong enough to bear them.
Love never retreats.—A little English drummer-boy was brought prisoner before Napoleon. The emperor told him to sound the retreat. “I never learnt it,” was the prompt reply. Love never retreats. Love is ever accompanied by faith and hope, and in their company it always dares to pursue its course, however the odds may appear against it.
Mark 16:6. The secret of Christ’s influence.—During the years which followed the outbreak of the French Revolution, and the revolt against Christianity which accompanied it, there was an extraordinary activity in some sections of French society, directed to projecting religions that might, it was hoped, take the place of Christianity. New philanthropic enthusiasms, new speculative enthusiasms, were quite the order of the day. On one occasion a projector of one of these schemes came to Talleyrand, who, you will remember, was a bishop who had turned sceptic, and so had devoted himself to politics; but whatever is to be said of him, he was possessed, in a very remarkable degree, of a keen perception of the proportions of things, and of what is and is not possible in this human world. The visitor observed, by way of complaint to Talleyrand, how hard it was to start a new religion, even though its tenets and its efforts were obviously directed to promote the social and personal improvement of mankind. “Surely,” said Talleyrand, with a fine smile—“Surely it cannot be so difficult as you think.” “How so?” said his friend. “Why,” said Talleyrand, “the matter is simple; you have only to get yourself crucified, or, anyhow, put to death, and then, at your own time, to rise from the dead, and you will have no difficulty.”—Canon Liddon.
Nature’s testimony to the Resurrection.—In the life of Michael Faraday there is a very touching and instructive reference to the Resurrection. He tells us that during his travels on the Continent he was particularly struck with the beauty and simplicity of the little posts of remembrance set up on the graves in a quiet little graveyard in Switzerland. He speaks of one grave which more than any of the others arrested his attention. Some one was too poor to put up an engraved brass plate, or even a painted board, but had written on a piece of paper the dates of the birth and death of the one whose remains were resting below. The piece of paper was fastened to a board, and mounted on the top of a stick at the head of the grave. The paper was protected from the rain by a small roof, the ledge of which protruded sufficiently to carry the water away from the board. It was a very simple contrivance to memorialise a friend. But on examining the contrivance Faraday saw that Nature had contributed her part towards that humble memorial. Because under that little shelter formed by the protruding ledge, and by the side of the inscription on the paper, a caterpillar had attached itself, and there had passed through its death-like state of a chrysalis, and ultimately assumed its finished state of a butterfly, and had winged its flight from the spot, leaving its corpselike relics behind. And the young scientist turned away from that humble grave, his heart strengthened in the belief of the Resurrection, and his thoughts kindled into a glow by the contemplation of the wonderful works of God.