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1. It is no light question, brethren, that meets us in the Gospel
of the blessed John, when he says: "When Jesus had thus said, He
was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." Was it for this
reason that Jesus was troubled, not in flesh, but in spirit, that
He was now about to say, "One of you shall betray me"? Did this
occur then for the first time to His mind, or was it at that moment
suddenly revealed to Him for the first time, and so troubled Him by
the startling novelty of so great a calamity? Was it not a little
before that He was using these words, "He that eateth bread with me
will lift up his heel against me"? And had He not also, previously
to that, said, "And ye are clean, but not all"? where the
evangelist added, "For He knew who should betray Him:" to whom
also on a still earlier occasion He had pointed in the words, "Have
not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" Why is it,
then, that He "was now troubled in spirit," when "He testified,
and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall
betray me"? Was it because now He had so to mark him out, that he
should no longer remain concealed among the rest, but be separated from
the others, that therefore "He was troubled in spirit"? Or was it
because now the traitor himself was on the eve of departing to bring
those Jews to whom he was to betray the Lord, that He was troubled
by the imminency of His passion, the closeness of the danger, and the
swooping hand of the traitor, whose resolution was foreknown? For
some such cause it certainly was that Jesus "was troubled in
spirit," as when He said, "Now is my soul troubled; and what
shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause
came I unto this hour." And accordingly, just as then His soul was
troubled as the hour of His passion approached; so now also, as
Judas was on the point of going and coming, and the atrocious villainy
of the traitor neared its accomplishment, "He was troubled in
spirit."
2. He was troubled, then, who had power to lay down His life, and
had power to take it again. That mighty power is troubled, the
firmness of the rock is disturbed: or is it rather our infirmity that
is troubled in Him? Assuredly so: let servants believe nothing
unworthy of their Lord, but recognize their own membership in their
Head. He who died for us, was also Himself troubled in our place.
He, therefore, who died in power, was troubled in the midst of His
power: He who shall yet transform the body of our humility into
similarity of form with the body of His glory, hath also transferred
into Himself the feeling of our infirmity, and sympathizeth with us in
the feelings of His own soul. Accordingly, when it is the great,
the brave, the sure, the invincible One that is troubled, let us
have no fear for Him, as if He were capable of failing: He is not
perishing, but in search of us [who are]. Us, I say; it is us
exclusively whom He is thus seeking, that in His trouble we may
behold ourselves, and so, when trouble reaches us, may not fall into
despair and perish. By His trouble, who could not be troubled save
with His own consent, He comforts such as are troubled unwillingly.
3. Away with the reasons of philosophers, who assert that a wise man
is not affected by mental perturbations. God hath made foolish the
wisdom of this world; and the Lord knoweth the thoughts of men, that
they are vain. It is plain that the mind of the Christian may be
troubled, not by misery, but by pity: he may fear lest men should be
lost to Christ; he may sorrow when one is being lost; he may have
ardent desire to gain men to Christ; he may be filled with joy when
such is being done; he may have fear of falling away himself from
Christ; he may sorrow over his own estrangement from Christ; he may
be earnestly desirous of reigning with Christ, and he may be rejoicing
in the hope that such fellowship with Christ will yet be his lot.
These are certainly four of what they call perturbations fear and
sorrow, love and gladness. And Christian minds may have sufficient
cause to feel them, and evidence their dissent from the error of Stoic
philosophers, and all resembling them: who indeed, just as they
esteem truth to be vanity, regard also insensibility as soundness; not
knowing that a man's mind, like the limbs of his body, is only the
more hopelessly diseased when it has lost even the feeling of pain.
4. But says some one: Ought the mind of the Christian to be
troubled even at the prospect of death? For what comes of those words
of the apostle, that he had a desire to depart, and to be with
Christ, if the object of his desire can thus trouble him when it
comes? Our answer to this would be easy, indeed, in the case of
those who also term gladness itself a perturbation [of the mind].
For what if the trouble he thus feels arises entirely from his
rejoicing at the prospect of death? But such a feeling, they say,
ought to be termed gladness, and not rejoicing. And what is that,
but just to alter the name, while the feeling experienced is the same?
But let us for our part confine our attention to the Sacred
Scriptures, and with the Lord's help seek rather such a solution of
this question as will be in harmony with them; and then, seeing it is
written, "When He had thus said, He was troubled in spirit," we
will not say that it was joy that disturbed Him; lest His own words
should convince us of the contrary when He says, "My soul is
sorrowful, even unto death." It is some such feeling that is here
also to be understood, when, as His betrayer was now on the very
point of departing alone, and straightway returning along with his
associates, "Jesus was troubled in spirit."
5. Strong-minded, indeed, are those Christians, if such there
are, who experience no trouble at all in the prospect of death; but
for all that, are they stronger-minded than Christ? Who would have
the madness to say so? And what else, then, does His being troubled
signify, but that, by voluntarily assuming the likeness of their
weakness, He comforted the weak members in His own body, that is,
in His Church; to the end that, if any of His own are still
troubled at the approach of death, they may fix their gaze upon Him,
and so be kept from thinking themselves castaways on this account, and
being swallowed up in the more grievous death of despair? And how
great, then, must be that good which we ought to expect and hope for
in the participation of His divine nature, whose very perturbation
tranquillizes us, and whose infirmity confirms us? Whether,
therefore, on this occasion it was by His pity for Judas himself thus
rushing into ruin, or by the near approach of His own death, that He
was troubled, yet there is no possibility of doubting that it was not
through any infirmity of mind, but in the fullness of power, that He
was troubled, and so no despair of salvation need arise in our minds,
when we are troubled, not in the possession of power, but in the midst
of our weakness. He certainly bore the infirmity of the flesh, an
infirmity which was swallowed up in His resurrection. But He who was
not only man, but God also, surpassed by an ineffable distance the
whole human race in fortitude of mind. He was not, then, troubled by
any outward plessure of man, but troubled Himself; which was very
plainly declared of Him when He raised Lazarus from the dead: for it
is there written that He troubled Himself, that it may be so
understood even where the text does not so express it, and yet declares
that He was troubled. For having by His power assumed our full
humanity, by that very power He awoke in Himself our human feelings
whenever He judged it becoming.
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