men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called;' but some are: 'We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways, And one who wears a coronet and prays; Like gleanings of an olive tree they show, It was so from the beginning. The last person on whom grace conferred honour in the cause of Christ before His death was one of the poorest of the poor;' yes, and the first after His death was one of the richest of the rich; Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive riches,' and as soon as He was slain, there was a capitalist waiting to offer the tribute of riches. There is every variety of zone in the moral as well as in the spiritual world; the plants of grace grow in high and low latitudes, in heat and cold, in soil of wealth and soil of poverty, that they may assume every variety of leaf and flower and fruit. III. Early Morning at the Sepulchre. Matt. xxvii. 61, xxviii. 1-4. Read also Mark xv. 47, xvi. 1-4; Luke xxiii. 55, 56, xxiv. 1-4; John xx. I. IF, F, some night, you could point to some particular planet, and say, 'There, this very night, in that very planet, the Son of God lies buried' although there might open round you infinite depths of distance, all kindling with millions of rolling worlds, you would have eyes for only that one; and of that one you would think with a thrill of wonder unbounded, of solemnity unspeakable. In the night after the transaction which has been described, an angel, pointing to this star of ours, might have said to his companions, There, in that star, the Son of God lies buried! We lately heard Him say, The hour is come; verily, verily, I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Then He died, and now He, the principle of all life, is in the grave, making that grave the seed-plot of immortality for all mankind.' It was a tremendous crisis; and if the world had been aware of the interests at stake during that burial, every soul would have been awake with the agony of suspense, and keen with the strain of watchfulness-watchfulness for some change. There was, however, no change that night; there was no change next day; there was no change in the dark hours following; but with the dawn came that mighty change which is now to challenge our attention. Under the head of ‘Early Morning at the Sepulchre,' and in our commentary on the report of what was seen and done then and there, we have to notice-first, the soldiers and the angels; next, the mourners and the angels. I. The soldiers. The first of the sacred passages having reference to this part of the story runs thus: 'Now the next day that followed the day of preparation,'1 the day before the Sabbath, was called 'the preparation,' because then everything requisite for the Sabbath was prepared; 'the next day,' therefore, was the Sabbath itself. You holy men; you men of delicately scrupulous conscience about sabbatic sanctities; you whose souls felt hurt to see the 1 Then why not say 'the Sabbath'? Bengel thinks that Matthew employed this periphrasis because he did not choose to call the Jewish Sabbath any longer 'the Sabbath.' disciples rub ears of corn in their hands on the Sabbath day; you who flamed with holy indignation at the sight of Jesus healing the sick on the Sabbath day; you who just now could not venture to tread on the unconsecrated ground of 'the pavement' on the Sabbath day; you feel no hesitation about taking counsel with a heathen on the Sabbath day, and trying to make him the tool of your own bitter malice against the Holy One of God! On the Sabbath, the chief priests and Pharisees came together to Pilate, their spokesman saying, ‘My Lord,1 we remember that that deceiver said, while He was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night, and steal Him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead; so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch; go your way, make it as sure as ye can.' That is--in short, haughty words, he said, 'Take a watch, do as you like, only begone.' 'They went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.' The watch was to prevent violence; the seal to prevent fraud. So it came to pass that these crafty plotters against the cause of Christ were made to serve it. There must be a 1 Aéyoνtes, kúpie; saying, ' My Lord.' 'They cringe to Pilate. They had not addressed him so before.'-BENGEL. seal on His tomb, and they had to set it; there must be a watch, and they had to muster it; they, of all men, must first sign certificates of His death and resurrection. What was the seal? We form an idea when we are told that a traveller, in primitive times, starting from a caravansary, wishing to leave his luggage in one of the cells, having no faith in the simple Eastern lock, would cover it with a handful of clay and stamp it with a coarse wooden seal; or, spreading a certain pigment over the seal, would print a cypher in black lines on the white surface. In the case of which we are now thinking, a cord would be strained across the great stone forming the door of the crypt, and over the fastenings on each side there would be sealed clay.1 What was the guard? It consisted of Roman soldiers; whether specially appointed, or drafted off from the number set apart to act as a kind of police during the great Paschal gathering, is uncertain. The certain fact is that all night, in turn, these soldiers paced the platform before the wall of rock, in an arch of which lay sealed the body of the Lord's Anointed. II. The appearance of the angels to the soldiers. Did anything wonderful happen in the night? Was there a sound of going in 1 See Harmer's Observations, vol. iv., p. 387. |