The passage: While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, telling them to take and eat, for this was his body. He took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, telling all of them to drink of it, for this was his blood of the new covenant, shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. He told them he would not drink of the fruit of the vine again until the day he drank it new with them in his Father’s kingdom. After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
These words, along with the matching accounts in Mark and Luke, are usually said to record the institution of the Lord’s Supper. The narrative is closely bound up with the history of the Passover meal: the bread and wine were those of that feast. Why then have Christians felt these sentences to hold the most solemn announcement of a new festival — one that was to be, and has actually become, the bond of a new society with no national or geographical limits? Has this belief of the whole Christian world been merely a dream? How is it that for eighteen centuries, across all the most civilized parts of the world, so strange a reality has answered to it?
I can explain this fact only in one way, and those who object may offer another. Suppose that beneath the Jewish kingdom there really lay another, deeper kingdom; that its national sacraments held the idea of some more real sacrament grounded on an actual relationship between the Son of God and human beings; and that this relationship is of the most intimate kind language can express, implying the closest communion of inward life and love. Then such language as our Lord uses, however profound, would be exactly what we should expect. The link between the new institution and the old would follow from the nature of both, the one succeeding the other as soon as the shell could no longer hold the bird within it. Suppose our Lord’s kingdom to be truly a family kingdom, resting on real union to a divine father and a divine brother: then the domestic element would matter even more to the new sacrament than to the old. And suppose, finally, that the Evangelists were thoroughly filled with this idea: then one would expect just these few quiet, unimpassioned sentences recording the giving of the bread and the cup in remembrance of him. But this is exactly what all the earlier records of these three Evangelists have been saying — they have set forth a divine kingdom established in a Son of God. So the institution of the Lord’s Supper agrees perfectly with every step we have already taken, and prepares for all that is to come.
The Warning to Peter
The passage: Jesus tells the disciples that they will all fall away from him that night, since Scripture says the shepherd will be struck and the sheep scattered; but after he rises he will go ahead of them into Galilee. Peter insists that even if all the others fall away, he never will. Jesus answers that this very night, before the cock crows, Peter will deny him three times. Peter protests that he would die with Jesus rather than deny him — and all the disciples say the same.
The three Evangelists all place this warning — that the cock will not crow before Peter has denied him three times — at the same point. Matthew and Mark tie it to the general saying that all of them will fall away that night. Luke expands the words to Peter, beginning, “Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have thee that he may sift thee as wheat.” No one, I think, has been surprised to find these words coming right after the institution of the Lord’s Supper and before the Agony; they have seemed to belong there. And although it is often useless to try to justify such a feeling, there is at least much plausibility in the common observation that Peter, the most affectionate and self-confident of the disciples, was warned how little he could rely on himself, and how little his strong personal love would help him when trial came. To put the same point more fully: Peter, along with the others, was being taught that the family feeling of union expressed and celebrated at their Passover meeting was not nearly enough to hold them together or to keep any one of them loyal — that unless God bound them closely to Himself and held them there, they could not stay united. Peter in particular was reminded that unless he held fast his confession, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and leaned on the One who had revealed that truth to him, he would certainly deny Jesus of Nazareth as his Master, however lively and eager his devotion to him as such might be. Taken together with the rest of Peter’s story, it is hard to draw any other lesson from his actions or our Lord’s words. And this is simply the consistent working-out of the principle we have traced throughout: that Christ’s divine Sonship and kingship are assumed in everything he does and says, and are borne witness to by the sins and unbelief of his disciples as much as by their faith and obedience.
The Agony
The passage: Jesus came with his disciples to Gethsemane, telling most of them to sit while he went to pray. Taking Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he grew sorrowful and heavy, and said his soul was sorrowful to the point of death; he asked them to watch with him. Going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed that, if possible, this cup might pass from him — yet not his will but the Father’s. He found the disciples asleep and asked Peter whether they could not watch one hour, telling them to watch and pray against temptation, for the spirit is willing but the flesh weak. A second time he prayed that, if the cup could not pass unless he drank it, the Father’s will be done; again he found them asleep. A third time he prayed the same words. Then he told them to sleep and rest, for the hour was at hand and the Son of Man was betrayed into sinners’ hands; and he called them to rise, for his betrayer was near.
Every difference in the accounts of the Agony deserves careful attention. One detail in St. Luke’s version is fixed in our minds with the story and has almost named it. Still, St. Matthew is the fuller and more detailed. He brings out perfectly the anguish, the solitude, the craving for sympathy that goes unmet, and it is to him especially that we owe the repeated prayer with its memorable change. I have nothing to add to what thousands have already said of it; what has really drawn out its meaning is what has not been said — the unspoken, unspeakable experience of suffering human beings over eighteen hundred years. I would trust that experience to say whether the word “Father” has not been felt to hold the very heart of both the sorrow and the comfort — whether, without it, the whole account would not become incoherent, filled with a vague horror the heart could neither escape nor name. The intensity of the sorrow lies in this: that it is a son’s sorrow, the Son’s own will coming forth as though separate and alone, yet in the agony of prayer striving to submit itself and to claim its perfect, essential unity with the Father’s will. Who can find words but those the Evangelists give, even to hint at this conflict and this sacrifice — a sacrifice made complete by the very intensity of the conflict? Our words for such a struggle of life and death must sound paradoxical and self-contradictory. Yet everyone feels that the truth they point to lies at the root of all human feeling and sorrow, and of every individual, and that the secret of the Gospel’s power and life is there. No one has ever doubted that, if the New Testament holds more than a few fine moral sayings and truly reaches the deepest root of our being, the story of the Agony is its most living, inward part — the part by which we understand the rest. Why? Because Christ’s sonship is revealed here even more fully than in the Temptation. And because his kingly relation to all human beings, which we have followed through his acts of power and mercy, is here brought out just as wonderfully. He enters the deepest experience of human suffering; he enters the innermost depth of that struggle of the human spirit to be independent, which is the ground of all its suffering and sin. He treads that winepress alone, with none beside him — yet comes out wearing the stained garments of the Conqueror. Again one feels how poor these attempts at commentary are. The simple narrative holds the whole. The writer’s mind was so filled and possessed by the idea of the divine Son and divine King that he could only speak the words, or a few of the words, by which the Son of God himself had expressed it. No single Evangelist can take in the whole mystery; each gives one side or glimpse of it, and their differences have surely proved themselves true to men in different stages and moods of suffering — the full result of all belonging to the history and life of the universal Church.
The Betrayal and Apprehension. The Sanhedrim. Peter’s Denial
The passage: While Jesus was speaking, Judas came with a crowd sent by the chief priests, armed with swords and clubs. Judas had given them a sign — the man he kissed was the one to seize — and he kissed Jesus, who called him “Friend” and asked why he had come. When they seized Jesus, one of His companions drew a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant, but Jesus told him to put the sword away, for those who take the sword die by it; He could call on His Father for more than twelve legions of angels, but then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that this must happen? He asked the crowd why they came against Him armed, as against a robber, when He had taught daily in the temple and they had not touched Him — but all this happened to fulfil the prophets. Then all the disciples fled. He was led to Caiaphas, where the scribes and elders were gathered, and Peter followed at a distance and sat with the servants to see the outcome. The council sought false witnesses to condemn Him but found none, though many came; at last two said He had claimed He could destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. The high priest asked why He gave no answer, but Jesus was silent. Then the high priest charged Him under oath by the living God to say whether He was the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said, “Thou hast said,” and added that they would see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power, coming on the clouds of heaven. The high priest tore his clothes, called it blasphemy, and the council said He deserved death. They spat on Him, struck Him, and mockingly told Him to prophesy who had hit Him. Meanwhile Peter, sitting outside, was three times accused of being with Jesus, and three times denied it — the last time with curses — and then the cock crew. Peter remembered Jesus’ word that he would deny Him three times before cockcrow, and went out and wept bitterly.
The main differences among the accounts concern the wounding of the high priest’s servant, the young man mentioned only by St. Mark, and Mark’s account of the cock crowing twice during Peter’s denial. St. Luke puts the denial before the examination by the high priest. Otherwise the narratives agree. I pass over the parts about the betrayal and the denial, since I already touched on both in speaking of our Lord’s prophecy at the Paschal Feast. I do not want the reader distracted by side events from the real object and result of the arrest: the accusation before the Sanhedrim, which every Evangelist records carefully. Matthew gives the high priest’s charge, “I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us if thou art Christ the Son of God”; Mark has “Art thou the Christ, the Son of the blessed One?”; Luke adds other questions, but they all come down to the one, “Art thou the Son of God?” The answer in Matthew is “Thou hast said — nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven”; in Mark, “I am: and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Luke gives these words earlier with one important variation, “Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God,” and has them ask, “Art thou then the Son of God?” and Jesus answer, “Ye say that I am.” All three give nearly the same verdict; Luke leaves out the tearing of the clothes, but the high priest’s and the council’s cry, “what need we any further witness?” is common to all.
I have dwelt on these points because you can see how important they are for the object of this lecture. No one has ever disputed that our Lord’s condemnation by the Jewish nation turned on the blasphemy of His claiming to be the Son of God. The history began with that proclamation, and it is about to end with the effects and proof of it. But the high priest’s all-important question is met by an equally important answer, which belongs to the very heart of the gospel: He who is the Son of God is also the Son of Man. The Son of God is about to be condemned to death, so that the Son of Man may sit at the right hand of the power on high. So one part of the claim the gospels have been making throughout is now being sealed. But there is another. Another title was claimed, and another charge is to be brought. They all rose and led Him to Pilate.
Christ the King. The Arraignment Before Pilate
The passage: When morning came the chief priests and elders decided to put Jesus to death, bound Him, and handed Him to Pilate the governor. Pilate asked whether He was the King of the Jews, and Jesus answered, “Thou sayest.” When the priests and elders accused Him, He said nothing at all, so that Pilate marvelled. At the feast the governor used to release one prisoner the people chose. There was a notable prisoner, Barabbas. Pilate, knowing the priests had handed Jesus over out of envy, asked which of the two they wanted freed; but the priests persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. When asked, they said Barabbas, and when asked what to do with Jesus, they cried, “Let Him be crucified.” Pilate asked what evil He had done, but they only cried out the more. Seeing he could do nothing and a riot was starting, Pilate washed his hands, declaring himself innocent of this just man’s blood, and the people said, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” He released Barabbas, scourged Jesus, and handed Him over to be crucified. The soldiers gathered the whole band, stripped Him, put a scarlet robe on Him, plaited a crown of thorns for His head and gave Him a reed, then bowed and mocked Him, “Hail, King of the Jews!”—spitting on Him and striking Him with the reed. Afterward they dressed Him again in His own clothes and led Him off to be crucified.
The parts I have left out in Matthew concern the death of Judas and the message from Pilate’s wife. What belongs only to St. Luke is the whole account of Jesus being sent to Herod. What all three accounts bring out is that Jesus is accused, mocked, and condemned as a King. Pilate is never allowed to treat the matter any other way; he does everything he can to show his contempt for the charge. His insults, like those Luke records from Herod, are Roman jokes at the Jewish nation—partly political, meant to show how little he feared a Jewish rising; partly the ordinary pride of a conqueror; partly merciful, to save the man from punishment by making him contemptible. I am convinced Barabbas, though a brigand, was more than an ordinary robber: he was one of those who had gone into the wilderness as a kind of chieftain and Christ, claiming a divine commission to free the people. The priests probably disliked Barabbas heartily, as one of those insurgent leaders who interfered with their own hold on the people even more than they shook Rome’s power. The people would be surprised to hear the priests urging the release of a man whose death had seemed certain; they would welcome it as a generous concession, and be easily led to leave the other victim to his fate. In effect the priests were saying and feeling, “This is the more dangerous of the two pretenders; though He comes with less violence, He is the real underminer of Cæsar’s throne.” Their thoughts were surely very mixed. Partly they really thought Him a blasphemer, partly they hated Him for denouncing them. They were insincere in pretending any love for Roman rule, yet they believed it safer for the nation and themselves than whatever might come if it broke up. They half thought Him a mere impostor, and half suspected some mysterious royalty in Him. So they could easily justify their acts to themselves; in their own minds nothing in their accusations was directly false. It is inward, spiritual falsehood that the Evangelists charge them with; their acts the Evangelists see as expressing and bringing out the most precious and living of all truths. Pilate they see as adding his own Gentile testimony to that truth, for this was the inscription he set on the cross in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew: “This is Jesus the King of the Jews.”
The Crucifixion
The passage: As they went out they forced a man of Cyrene, Simon, to carry Jesus’ cross. At Golgotha, “the place of a skull,” they offered him vinegar mixed with gall, which he tasted but would not drink. They crucified him, divided his clothes by lot, and sat to watch. Over his head they placed the charge, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews.” Two thieves were crucified beside him. Passers-by mocked him, telling him to save himself and come down if he were the Son of God; the chief priests, scribes, and elders jeered that he saved others but could not save himself, and that they would believe if the King of Israel came down; even the thieves reviled him. From the sixth hour darkness covered the land until the ninth, when Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Some thought he called for Elias; one gave him vinegar on a sponge. Jesus cried again and died. The temple veil was torn in two, the earth quaked, rocks split, graves opened, and many dead saints rose and later appeared in the holy city. The centurion and those watching feared and said, “Truly this was the Son of God.” Women who had followed him from Galilee looked on from a distance. The parallel accounts are in Mark 15:21–41 and Luke 23:26–49.
I said most of what I have to say in my last words, so I will add little here. You can see that these reports differ; the story of the thief is perhaps the most memorable difference in the Gospels. But what stays the same? Surely everyone would point to the inscription, “This is the King of the Jews,” and to the cry of “Father”—whether “forgive them,” “why hast Thou forsaken me?” or “into my hands I commend my spirit.” The heart of the story, and the mystery of the cross, lies in these. We will never preach the cross or glory in it as the Apostles did, and never understand the coherent meaning of the Evangelists and all the Scriptures, until we see in it the revelation of Jesus the Son of God and the King of Men.
The Burial
The passage: When evening came, a rich man from Arimathæa named Joseph, himself a disciple of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate ordered it given to him. Joseph wrapped it in clean linen and laid it in his own new tomb, cut in the rock, rolled a great stone across the entrance, and left. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sat facing the tomb.
Whatever we make of the words “It is finished,” the Evangelists plainly do not take them to mean that the deepest humiliation has now been reached or that the story of Christ’s acts is over. To them the laying of the body in the tomb by the man who waited for the Kingdom of God is a necessary part of the story—told quickly, like the rest, without any grand words, yet a fact important in itself and a needed step toward what comes next. The quiet burial is noted as carefully as the violent death, and the honor paid to the body as much as the suffering it endured. If it were only the body of a dead and beloved friend, we would hear how grief overturned every law and duty; but since it is the body of a Son of God and King of Men, it may rest through the Sabbath-day, and the tomb in the rock is a sign that the light of the world, though it seems put out, is only hidden.
The Resurrection
The passage: The 28th chapter of Matthew, the 16th of Mark, and the 24th of Luke tell how Christ rose from the dead.
What impression does this history leave on anyone who reads it? Surely this: that the Evangelists treated the Resurrection as the natural and inevitable end of their story. They take no pains to show how so strange and unparalleled an event could happen, and no pains to gather weighty testimony for it. When the disciples doubt, that is recorded with blame; when they wonder and rejoice, it is recorded without comment. Matthew is very brief, and part of his account explains the deal struck between the priests and the soldiers. Mark tells how our Lord rebuked the disciples for their hardness of heart. In Luke He asks, “ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?” The assumption throughout is that, given the premises of the story, any other outcome would be incredible; that the Resurrection was the exact fulfilment of God’s order, the victory over irregularity and disorder. It was not possible that death should hold Him—not possible if He was the Son of God and the King of Men, not possible if His baptism, His temptation, His miracles, His parables, His whole life were what the three Evangelists declare them to have been.
The narrative of the Resurrection belongs to all three Evangelists; the narrative of the Ascension belongs only to two of them. This is the point where I begin to examine what is peculiar to these documents, having so far tried to work out the common ground and meaning they share.