A Life of St. John for the Young Part 11

It was when "he was gone out" that Christ called the disciples by a new name, and gave them a new commandment. In both of them John took a special interest which he showed long after. That name was "Little Children." The word which Christ used had a peculiar meaning. This is the only time we know of His ever using it. It was an expression of the tenderest affection for His family, so soon to be orphaned by His death.

When John wrote his Epistles, he often used the same word, whose special meaning he had learned from his Lord, to show his own love for his fellow-Christians.

The new commandment was this--"That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." The command itself was not new, for it had been given through Moses, and repeated by Christ, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." But Christ gave the disciples a new reason or motive for obeying it. They were to love one another because of His love for them. As John grew older he became a beautiful example of one who obeyed the command. In his old age he urged such obedience, saying, "If G.o.d so loved us, we ought also to love one another."

Through the door of the Upper Room left ajar by three Evangelists, we catch glimpses of the group around the table of the Last Supper. Through it as opened wide by John we hear the voice of Jesus as He utters His farewell words. He comforts His disciples and tells of heavenly mansions. He gives His peace in their tribulations. He promises the Holy Spirit as a Comforter. He closes His address, even in this hour of sadness and apparent defeat, with these wonderful words, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

And now as John still holds open the door, we hear the voice of prayer, such as nowhere else has been offered. It is ended. There are moments of silence, followed by a song of praise. Then John closes the door of the Upper Room, which we believe was opened again as the earliest home of the Christian Church. There we shall see him again with those who, because of his experience with his Lord in that consecrated place, gave him the name of "The Bosom Disciple."

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN GETHSEMANE _Gustave Dore_ Page 163]

_CHAPTER XXIV_

_With Jesus in Gethsemane_

"He went forth with His disciples over the brook Kidron, where was a garden."--_John_ xviii. 1.

"Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto His disciples, Sit ye here while I go yonder and pray."--_Matt._ xxvi. 36.

"And He taketh with Him Peter and James and John, ... and He saith unto them, ... abide ye here, and watch."--_Mark_ xiv. 33, 34.

"And He went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed."

_v._ 35.

John was our leader to the Upper Room. And now he guides us from it, saying, "Jesus ... went forth with His disciples." That phrase "went forth" may suggest to us much more than mere departure. The banquet of love was over. The Lord's cup of blessing and remembrance had been drunk by His "little children," as He affectionately called them. He was now to drink the cup the Father was giving His Son--a mysterious cup of sorrow. It was probably at the midnight hour that Jesus "went forth" the last time from Jerusalem, which He had crowned with His goodness, but which had crowned Him with many crowns of sorrow.

Other Evangelists tell us that He went "to the Mount of Olives," "to a place called Gethsemane." John shows us the way thither, and what kind of a place it was. Jesus went "over the ravine of the Kidron," in the valley of Jehoshaphat. At this season of the year it was not, as at other times, a dry water-bed, but a swollen, rushing torrent, fitting emblem of the waters of sorrow through which He was pa.s.sing. Whether the name Kidron refers to the dark color of its waters, or the gloom of the ravine through which they flow, or the sombre green of its overshadowing cedars, it will ever be a reminder of the darker gloom that overshadowed John and His Master, as they crossed that stream together to meet the powers of darkness in the hour which Jesus called their own.

The garden of Gethsemane was an enclosed piece of ground. We are not to think of it as a garden of flowers, or of vegetables, but as having a variety of flowering shrubs, and of fruit-trees, especially olive. It might properly be called an orchard. On the spot now claimed to be the garden, there are several very old gnarled olive-trees. Having stood beneath them, I would be glad to believe that they had sheltered my Lord. But I remember that when the prophecy concerning Jerusalem was fulfilled, the most sacred trees of our world were destroyed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT _Old Engraving_ Page 164]

Who was the owner of that sacred garden? He must have known what happened there "ofttimes." Perhaps, like the "goodman of the house" in Jerusalem, he was a disciple of Jesus, and provided this quiet retreat for the living Christ, in the same spirit with which Joseph of Arimathaea provided a garden for Him when He was dead. To these two gardens John is our only guide. From the one he fled with Peter in fear and sadness: to the other he hastened with Peter in anxiety followed by gladness.

When at the foot of Hermon, Jesus left nine of His disciples to await His return. Now one was no longer "numbered among" them, as Peter afterward said of him "who was guide to them that took Jesus." At the entrance to the garden Jesus paused and said to eight, "Sit ye here while I go yonder and pray." So had Abraham nineteen hundred years before, pointing to Mount Moriah, visible from Olivet in the moonlight, said "unto his young men, Abide ye here ... and I and the lad will go yonder and worship."

That very night Jesus was to ascend that very Mount on His way as a sacrifice, without any angel to stay the sacrificial hand.

At the garden gate there was no formal farewell, but a solemn final charge, "Pray that ye enter not into temptation." Jesus knew that the hour had come in which should be fulfilled Zechariah's prophecy. Sadly He had declared in the Upper Room, "All ye shall be offended because of Me this night; for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad."

He dreads to be entirely alone. He longs for companionship. He craves sympathy. In whose heart is it the tenderest and deepest? There is no guessing here. The names are already on our lips. Answer is found in the home of Jairus and on Hermon. Those whom He had led into the one, and "apart" onto the other, He would have alone with Him in the garden. So "He taketh with Him Peter and James and John." These companions of His glory shall also be of His sorrow.

As Jesus advanced into the garden, the three discovered a change in Him--a contrast to the calmness of the Upper Room and the a.s.surances of victory with which He had left it. He "began to be sore amazed and sorrowful and troubled," and "to be very heavy." We have seen John apparently quicker than others to detect his Lord's thoughts and emotions. We imagine him walking closest to His side, and watching as closely every change of His countenance and every motion that revealed the inward struggle. And so when Jesus broke the silence, he was somewhat prepared to hear Him say to the three, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS _Old Engraving_ Page 176]

The moment had come when He must deny Himself even the little comfort and strength of the immediate presence of the three. So saying, "Tarry ye here and watch with Me," He turned away. They must not follow Him to the spot of His greatest conflict. There He must be alone, beyond the reach of human help, however strong or loving. Even that which He had found in the few moments since leaving the garden entrance must end.

Their eyes followed Him where they might not follow in His steps. It was not far. "He went forward a little." "He was parted from them about a stone's cast"--probably forty or fifty yards. This separation implies sorrow. They were near enough to watch His every movement as He "kneeled down" and "fell on His face to the ground" They were near enough to hear the pa.s.sionate cry of love and agony, "O, My Father." This is the only time we know of His using this personal p.r.o.noun in prayer to His Father.

He thus showed the intensity of His feeling, and longing for that sympathy and help which the Father alone could give.

On Hermon the glories of the Transfiguration were almost hidden from the three disciples by their closing eyes. And now weariness overcame them in the garden. They too fell to the ground, but not in prayer. They tarried indeed, but could no longer watch.

They had seen Moses and Elijah with their Lord on the Holy Mount, but probably did not see the blessed watcher in the garden when "there appeared unto Him an angel from heaven strengthening Him" in body and soul. So had angels come and ministered unto the Lord of angels and men in the temptation in the wilderness.

"Being in agony He prayed more earnestly" until mingled blood and sweat fell upon the ground. The heavenly visitants on Mount Hermon in glory had talked with Him of His decease now at hand. The cup of sorrow was fuller now than then. He prayed the Father that if possible it might pa.s.s from Him. Then the angel must have told Him that this could not be if He would become the Saviour of men. He uttered the words whose meaning we cannot fully know, "Not My will, but Thine, be done."

The angelic presence did not make Him unmindful of the three. "He rose up from His prayer," and turned from the spot moistened by the drops of His agony. With the traces of them upon His brow, "He came unto the disciples." How much of pathos in the simple record, "He found them sleeping." Without heavenly or earthly companionship, His loneliness is complete.

"'Tis midnight; and from all around, The Saviour wrestles 'lone with fears; E'en that disciple whom He loved, Heeds not His Master's griefs and tears."

The head that reclined so lovingly on the bosom of the Lord in the Upper Room now wearily rests on the dewy gra.s.s of Gethsemane. The eyes that looked so tenderly into His, and the ear that listened so anxiously for His whisper, are closed.

As Jesus stood by the three rec.u.mbent forms held by deep sleep, and gazed by the pale moonlight into their faces which showed a troubled slumber, He knew they "were sleeping for sorrow." In silence He looked upon them until His eye fastened--not on the beloved John--but on him who an hour ago had boasted of faithfulness to His Lord. The last utterance they had heard before being lost in slumber was that of agonizing prayer to the Father. The first that awakened them was sad and tender reproof--"Simon, sleepest _thou_? Couldest thou not watch one hour?" In the Master's words and tones were mingled reproach and sympathy. In tenderness He added, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Because of the spirit He pardoned the flesh. The question, "Why sleep ye?" was to the three, as well as the charge, "Rise and pray, that ye enter not into temptation."

Let imagination fill out the outline drawn by the Evangelists:--"He went away again the second time and prayed; He came and found them asleep again; He left them and went away again and prayed the third time; and He cometh a third time and saith unto them, 'Sleep on now and take your rest.'" If we may suppose any period of rest, it was soon broken by the cry, "Arise, let us be going; behold he that betrayeth Me is at hand." They need "watch" no longer. Their Lord's threefold struggle was over. He was victor in Gethsemane, even as John beheld Him three years before, just after His threefold conflict in the wilderness.

As they rose from the ground the inner circle that had separated them, not only from the other Apostles but from all other men, was erased. We do not find them alone with their Lord again. They rose and joined the eight at the garden gate.

Recalling Gethsemane we sing to Jesus,

"Thyself the path of prayer hast trod."

The most sacred path of prayer in all the world was in Gethsemane. It was only "a stone's cast" in length. The Lord trod it six times in pa.s.sing between the place where He said to the three, "tarry ye here,"

and that where He "kneeled down and prayed." One angel knows the spot.

Would that he could reveal it unto us.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHRIST BEFORE PILATE (Ecce h.o.m.o) _H. Hofmann_ Page 182]

When Jesus was praying and the three were sleeping, Judas reported himself at the High-Priestly Palace, ready to be the guide of the band to arrest his Master. There were the Temple-guard with their staves, and soldiers with their swords, and members of the Sanhedrin, ready to aid in carrying out the plot arranged with the betrayer. It was midnight--fit hour for their deed of darkness. The full moon shone brightly in the clear atmosphere; yet they bore torches and lamps upon poles, to light up any dark ravine or shaded nook in which they imagined Jesus might be hiding. If any cord of love had ever bound Judas to his Master, it was broken. That very night he had fled from the Upper Room, which became especially radiant with love after his departure. To that room we believe he returned with his murdering band. But the closing hymn had been sung, and the Pa.s.sover lamps extinguished two or three hours before. The consecrated place was not to be profaned with murderous intent. Another place must be sought for the victim of hate and destruction.

John in his old age recalled precious memories of it, because Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with His disciples. But he had a remembrance of another kind. It is when speaking of this midnight hour that he says, "Judas also which betrayed Him knew the place." Thither he led his band--to Gethsemane.

"Lo, he that betrayeth Me is at hand," said

Jesus to the three, as He saw the gleams of the torches of the coming mult.i.tude. His captors were many, but His thought was especially on one--His betrayer. Again John reads for us the mind of Jesus, as he did when the "Lord and Master washed the disciples' feet." He would have us understand the calmness of the fixed purpose of Jesus to meet without shrinking the terrible trial before Him, and to do this voluntarily--not because of any power of His approaching captors. "Knowing all things that were coming upon Him," He "went forth" to meet them--especially him who at that moment was uppermost in His thought. John now understood that last, mysterious bidding of the Lord to Judas, with which He dismissed him from the table--"That thou doest, do quickly." He now "knew for what intent He spake this unto him." It was not to buy things needed for the feast, nor to give to the poor. It was to betray Him.

What a scene was that--Jesus "going forth," the three following Him; and Judas in advance, yet in sight of his band, coming to meet Him.

"Hail, Rabbi," was the traitor's salute. And then on this solemn Pa.s.sover night, in this consecrated place, just hallowed by angelic presence, interrupting the Lord's devotions, rushing upon holiness and infinite goodness, with pretended fellowship and reverence, profaning and repeating--as if with gush of emotion--the symbol of affection, Judas covered the face of Jesus with kisses.

How deep the sting on this "human face divine," already defaced by the b.l.o.o.d.y sweat, and to be yet more by the mocking reed, and smiting hand and piercing thorn. The vision of the prophet seven hundred years before becomes a reality--"His visage was so marred more than any man." "But nothing went so close to His heart as the profanation of this kiss."

According to John's account, Judas' kiss was an unnecessary signal.

Jesus Himself leaving the traitor, advanced toward the band, with a question which must have startled the Apostles, as well as the traitor and his company--"Whom seek ye?" The contemptuous reply, "Jesus of Nazareth," did not disturb His calmness as He said, "I am He," and repeated His question, "Whom seek ye?" Nor was that infinite calmness disturbed by the deeper contempt in the repeated answer, "Jesus of Nazareth." They had come with weapons of defence, but they were as useless as the betrayal kiss, especially when some of them, awed by His presence and words, "went backward and fell to the ground."

We have seen Jesus going forward from His company and meeting Judas going forward from his. We must now think of Judas joining his band, and the eleven disciples surrounding their Lord. John has preserved the only request made of the captors by the Master. It was not for Himself, but for His disciples;--"If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way."