The Last Pleading of Love.
Note:
I. The patience of Christ's love. If we take no higher view of this most pathetic incident than that the words come from a man's lips, even then all its beauty will not be lost. There are some sins against friendship, in which the manner is harder to bear than the substance of the evil. It must have been a strangely mean and dastardly nature, as well as a coarse and cold one, that could think of fixing on the kiss of affection as the concerted sign to point out their victim to the legionaries. Many a man who could have planned and executed the treason would have shrunk from that. But what a picture of perfect patience and unruffled calm we have here, in that the answer to the poisonous, hypocritical embrace was these moving words. Surely if there ever was a man who might have been supposed to be excluded from the love of God, it was this man. Surely if ever there was a moment in a human life when one might have been supposed that ever open heart would shut itself together against anyone, it was this moment. But no, the betrayer in the very instant of his treason has that changeless tenderness lingering around him, and that merciful hand beckoning to him still.
II. The pleading of Christ's patient love. There is an appeal to the traitor's heart, and an appeal to his conscience. Christ would have him think of the relations that have so long subsisted between them, and He would have him think too of the real nature of the deed he is doing, or perhaps of the motives that impel him. The grave, sad word by which He addresses him is meant to smite upon his heart. The sharp question which He puts to him is meant to wake up his conscience; and both taken together represent the two chief classes of remonstrance which He brings to bear upon us all the two great batteries from which He assails the fortress of our sins.
III. The possible rejection of Christ's patient love. (1) Even that appeal was vain. Man can frustrate the counsel of God. (2) Judas held his peace no more. There was no need for him to break out with oaths and curses to reject his Lord with wild words. Silence was sufficient. And for us no more is required. (3) The appeal of Christ's love hardens where it does not soften. That gentle voice drove the traitor nearer the verge over which the fell into a gulf of despair.
A. Maclaren, Sermons preached in Manchester,3rd series, p. 305.
References: Matthew 26:52; W. F. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles,vol. ii., p. 241; S. Macnaughton, Real Religion and Real Life,p. 134.Matthew 26:55; Matthew 26:56. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 469. Matthew 26:56. Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 127; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 87.