I come now to the final scenes of our Lord's visible life on earth. It is not surprising that we sometimes fail to realize His presence among us, for His first disciples only believed in His resurrection when they saw Him face to face. Where other conquerors ride proudly through their defeated foes, He showed Himself only to those who loved Him, and then privately, " the doors being shut." The chief priests and scribes did not discern Him, nor did Pilate, nor Herod. And with Peter, who denied Him, and James His brother, who was so slow to believe on Him, there were interviews so secret that we know nothing of what abundant pardon He there granted. He also appeared to women, to the Apostles, to a company of five hundred, and to others, all of whom went forth into the world, not as logicians or as philosophers, not as clergy or as priests, but as eye-witnesses, "with the mighty ordination of His pierced hands." It was no fleeting vision. "He was seen of them con5tant1y for forty days."
Women at the Sepulcher
The women who first sought Him were the first to see Him. When they set forth, moved by the love that casteth out fear, the Sun of Righteousness had not risen, and it was still dark. These women were in no delusive ecstasy. After the emotions of the day of crucifixion, they had rested quietly throughout the Sabbath. On their way to the Sepulcher, they talked quite reasonably about the stone--how it was to be rolled away. On reaching the tomb, they found that the stone was removed--and at once each of them revealed her own personality. Mary of Magdala, emotional and excitable, hurried back to Peter and John. Her companions, of a more disciplined character, looked into the sepulcher, and saw the angel, without fright or flinching. He spoke calmly, bidding them leave the tomb, however sacred, and appeal to the Living Manhood of the race. In the splendor of that service, they forgot their spices; nor did they linger over the grave--clothes, though worthier of reverence than any relics since devised. In the amazement of these women there was no alloy of superstition or curiosity, and because they left the tomb, and all it still contained, therefore they saw the Living Christ. Worshiping Him as God, they held Him firmly by the feet, thus gripping His Humanity with His Deity, and hearing His very words, eternal, yet in their own language. He also, like the angel, sent them to the men who had drifted from Him, and especially to Peter with the contrite heart.
Summoned by Mary of Magdala, Peter and John ran to the tomb. Once more, let us notice how each, like the women, displayed his own individuality. John was the better athlete, but Peter was bolder in spirit. As he plunged twice into the lake, so plunged he into the tomb, seeing the clothes neatly folded, with the napkin by itself, and he knew that no thief did it. Then and only then did John look into the sepulcher, and, there recognizing the escape of the Spiritual from the Material, he believed.
Mary of Magdala had now returned, and stood there weeping. To her intense personal love, it was terrible to think that her Lord was abroad in the world, unshielded from rough hands; and even when she saw two angels in the sepulcher, sitting where His head and feet had been lest any should approach and disturb His revealed evidences, she was not comforted. Christ risen was still to her a bereavement, when suddenly she turned round, and saw Him, there in the dim light of the dawn. So near was He, so actual to her sight, that she supposed Him to be the gardener. "Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?" He had asked. It was only when He called her, as He always calls His own, by name, that she cried out, "Rabboni." Hers was faith at a word; and when she would have touched Him, falling back on physical aids to reverence, He forbade her, claiming not her fingers only, but her mind, and appealing from her impulses to her intelligence, by showing Himself as the Lord Christ who is not only risen, but will ascend to the Father, and will so dwell with us, not in body but by the Spirit. She henceforth must walk by faith.
Two disciples were going to Emmaus. They had before them all the evidence, past and present, which pointed to His resurrection; but this evidence, though conclusive as they summarized it, was not enough. Joining the two on their journey, He "opened to them the Scriptures," until their hearts--so slow to believe--glowed within them. It was not Assyriology that kindled the flame, or research, but His living voice explaining the ancient Scriptures in terms of Himself. They besought Him to come in and dwell with them, not knowing who He was. To their hospitality, as to every good impulse, He responded; but it was not until He broke bread that they knew Him by His familiar actions. Risen, He was the same to-day as yesterday; and, so recognized, He vanished from their sight, though not from their hearts. Thus did they, like the others, learn to walk by faith alone; and their way led them back to Jerusalem, where were His still discouraged followers, fear in their souls.
The Confession of Thomas
Not in excitement was He seen of them. His word was peace; it was the usual greeting, as we would say, " Good day, or God's day, be unto you," and as their gaze steadied, they found Him to be no phantom, but flesh and blood--a Man among men, who could eat a piece of a broiled fish and an honeycomb. Thomas was absent, and, like others, he doubted. Yet his will was towards the Redeemer, for seven days afterwards he rejoined the Apostles, and met the Lord, with the print of the nails in His hands and the wounds in His side, at which proofs that He was a Saviour who really died for sin, the Apostle cried, "My Lord and my God!" A noble confession, at once personal and universal. Yet happier still, said the Redeemer, are those who, not having seen, do in their souls believe. Once more it was faith transcending sight; and many years later, the Apostle Peter, writing to disciples throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia--many of them the ancestors of the martyred Armenians of to-day--said, "Whom, having not seen, yc love."
He said He would meet them in Galilee, the place of the old duties, and at His word they left Jerusalem and returned to the dull occupation of fishing. Journeying before them to the old trysting-place, He was watching them as they fruitlessly toiled, and His voice, though unrecognized, guided them even in their daily occupation. In the dimmest light, John knew the distant Christ and told Peter--who came to Him through the water, learning how He who wears our nature cares for us, even in material things like warmth and food. He did not condemn Peter's fishing--most of His disciples worked at a trade--but He recalled a higher duty than wage-earning: "Feed My sheep." Whatever be your business, be also a shepherd. Go forth, not once, nor twice, nor thrice, but as many times as in past years you have denied Him. And let your motive be, not a desire for advertisement or self-merit, but only His constraining, binding love.
To the last, they clung to His visible presence. They would talk to Him so freely that, as in the old days, they even asked Him when He would set up His Kingdom : but the Christ of special circumstances and special places had to lead them on to know Him as the Christ who fills the heaven of heavens, and is everywhere with us at every time. In His company, one day, they walked the familiar path to the Mount of Olives, His place for communion with the Father. So like was He unto His brethren, that the city there across the valley knew nothing of that farewell progress. Standing with them on the summit of all that is possible on earth, He could see the uplands around His cradle, the valley of His baptism, the wilderness of His temptation, the Temple of His rejection, the Calvary where He suffered, the Garden where He was in agony, and the sepulcher whence He rose from the dead. Once more, He could look abroad--north, south, east, and west--as from the high mountains of His teaching and His transfiguration, and we can almost see His gesture as He sweeps the horizon, with the Arm that saves, the Eye that sees, and cries: "Go ye into all the world, and tell the good news to every creature." To win the world with men and women, so weak, so full of sins--this was His astounding, His majestic enterprise.
Ascension into Heaven
In a moment, the ignorant, the vacillating, the sorely tempted among obscure men and women were raised up for purposes which reach further than the dreams of statesmanship, of science, of conquest, and of the arts, Still clothed in man's flesh and blood, but supreme over all nature and her forces, He rose from the earth as from the tomb, unassisted by man or angel, and as He rose, "Behold," said He, "I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Not in the upper room alone would He visit us. Not on the road to Emmaus only would He accompany us. Not only by the lake-side of Gennesaret would He care for us. When thou passest through the waters, He will be with thee; and through the fire thou shalt not be burned. I am with you always," was what He said; "the great I AM"--Jehovah, restored to men, not to the Jews alone, but to every people, in every century. "Jehovah with us" meant "God with us"; the full circle was complete. At His ascension we return to the Emmanuel of His annunciation. The cloud received Him--the Cloud of God, known to Moses, known to Elijah, and bright with the veiled glory of the Eternal--the Shekinah Cloud--and He vanished out of their sight. But only out of their sight. . Their faith held firm. They shed no tears. They put on no garments of mourning. And when two angels told them that they had looked long enough into heaven, that theirs was not to be a merely meditative piety, these men of Galilee--practical men, hard-handed and capable--walked back to Jerusalem, still noting that it was a Sabbath day's journey, as if this mattered; and our Lord Jesus, promising to come again in the clouds, began His ever-enlarging and ever-deepening work from above, which continues in the hearts of men and women and their children even unto this day.