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1. After that the Lord Jesus had accomplished all that He foreknew
required accomplishment before His death, and had, when it pleased
Himself, given up the ghost, what followed thereafter, as related by
the evangelist, let us now consider. "The Jews therefore," he
says, "because it was the preparation (parasceve), that the bodies
should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath-day (for that
Sabbath-day was an high day), besought Pilate that their legs might
be broken, and that they might be taken away." Not that their legs
might be taken away, but the persons themselves whose legs were broken
for the purpose of effecting their death, and permitting them to be
detached from the tree, lest their continuing to hang on the crosses
should defile the great festal day by the horrible spectacle of their
day-long torments.
5. "Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and
of the other who was, crucified with Him. But when they came to
Jesus, and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His legs:
but one of the soldiers with a spear laid open His side, and forthwith
came thereout blood and water." A suggestive word was made use of by
the evangelist, in not saying pierced, or wounded His side, or
anything else, but "opened; that thereby, in a sense, the gate of
life might be thrown open, from whence have flowed forth the sacraments
of the Church, without which there is no entrance to the life which is
the true life. That blood was shed for the remission of sins; that
water it is that makes up the health-giving cup, and supplies at once
the layer of baptism and water for drinking. This was announced
beforehand, when Noah was commanded to make a door in the side of the
ark, whereby the animals might enter which were not destined to perish
in the flood, and by which the Church was prefigured. Because of
this, the first woman was formed from the side of the man when asleep,
and was called Life, and the mother of all living. Truly it pointed
to a great good, prior to the great evil of the transgression (in the
guise of one thus lying asleep). This second Adam bowed His head
and fell asleep on the cross, that a spouse might be formed for Him
from that which flowed from the sleeper's side. O death, whereby the
dead are raised anew to life! What can be purer than such blood?
What more health-giving than such a wound?
3. "And he that saw it," he says, "bare record, and his record
is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye also might
believe." He said not, That ye also might know, but "that ye
might believe;" for he knoweth who hath seen, that he who hath not
seen might believe his testimony. And believing belongs more to the
nature of faith than seeing. For what else is meant by believing than
giving to faith a suitable reception? "For these things were done,"
he adds, "that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him ye
shall not break. And again, another scripture saith, They shall
look on Him whom they pierced." He has furnished two testimonies
from the Scriptures for each of the things which he has recorded as
having been done. For to the words, "But widen they came to
Jesus, and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His
legs," belongeth the testimony, "A bone of Him ye shall not
break:" an injunction which was laid upon those who were commanded to
celebrate the passover by the sacrifice of a sheep in the old law,
which went before as a shadow of the passion of Christ. Whence "our
passover has been offered, even Christ," of whom the prophet Isaiah
also had predicted, "He shall be led as a lamb to the slaughter."
In like manner to the words which he subjoined, "But one of the
soldiers laid open His side with a spear," belongeth the other
testimony, "They shall look on Him whom they pierced;" where
Christ is promised in the very flesh wherein He was afterwards to come
to be crucified.
4. "And after this, Joseph of Arimathea (being a disciple of
Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews) besought Pilate that he
might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He
came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also
Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night at first, bringing a mixture
of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight." We are not to
explain the meaning by saying, "first bringing a mixture of myrrh,"
but by attaching the word "first" to the preceding clause. For
Nicodemus had at first come to Jesus by night, as recorded by this
same John in the earlier portions of his Gospel. By the statement
given us here, therefore, we are to understand that Nicodemus came to
Jesus, not then only, but then for the first time; and that he was a
regular comer afterwards, in order by hearing to become a disciple;
which is certified, nowadays at least, to almost all nations in the
revelation of the body of the most blessed Stephen. "Then took they
the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as
the manner of the Jews is to bury." The evangelist, I think, was
not without a purpose in so framing his words, "as the manner of the
Jews is to bury;" for in this way, unless I am mistaken, he has
admonished us that, in duties of this kind, which are observed to the
dead, the customs of every nation ought to be preserved.
5. "Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden;
and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid."
As in the womb of the Virgin Mary no one was conceived before Him,
and no one after Him, so in this sepulchre there was no one buried
before Him, and no one after Him. "There laid they Jesus
therefore, because of the Jews' preparation; for the sepulchre was
nigh at hand." He would have us to understand that the burial was
hurried, lest the evening should overtake them; when it was no longer
permitted to do any such thing, because of the preparation, which the
Jews among us are more in the habit of calling in Latin, coena pura
(the pure meal).
6. "And on the first of the week came Mary Magdalene early, when
it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and saw the stone taken away from
the sepulchre." The first of the week is what Christian practice now
calls the Lord's day, because of the resurrection of the Lord.
"She ran, therefore, and came to Simon Peter and to the other
disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken the
Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid
Him." Some of the Greek codices have, "They have taken my
Lord," which may likely enough have been said by the stronger than
ordinary affection of love and handmaid relationship; but we have not
found it in the several codices to which we have had access.
7. "Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came
to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and that other disciple
did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre." The repetition
here is worthy of notice and of commendation for the way in which a
return is made to what had previously been omitted, and yet is added
just as if it followed in due order. For after having already said,
"they came to the sepulchre," he goes back to tell us how they came,
and says, "so they ran both together," etc. Where he shows that,
by outrunning his companion, there came first to the sepulchre that
other disciple, by whom he means himself, while he relates all as if
speaking of another.
8. "And he stooping down," he says, "saw the linen clothes
lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him,
and went into the sepulchre, and saw the linen clothes lying, and the
napkin, which had been about His head, not lying with the linen
clothes, but folded up in one place by itself." Do we suppose these
things have no meaning? I can suppose no such thing. But we hasten
on to other points, on which we are compelled to linger by the need
there is for investigation, or some other kind of obscurity. For in
such things as are self-manifest, the inquiry into the meaning even of
individual details is, indeed, a subject of holy delight, but only
for those who have leisure, which is not the case with us.
9. "Then went in also that other disciple who had come first to the
sepulchre." He came first, and entered last. This also of a
certainty is not without a meaning, but I am without the leisure
needful for its explanation. "And he saw, and believed." Here
some, by not giving due attention, suppose that John believed that
Jesus had risen again; but there is no indication of this from the
words that follow. For what does he mean by immediately adding,
"For as yet they knew not the scripture, that He must rise again
from the dead"? He could not then have believed that He had risen
again, when he did not know that it behoved Him to rise again. What
then did he see? what was it that he believed? What but this, that
he saw the sepulchre empty, and believed what the woman had said, that
He had been taken away from the tomb? "For as yet they knew not the
scripture, that He must rise again from the dead." Thus also when
they heard of it from the Lord Himself, although it was uttered in
the plainest terms, yet from their custom of hearing Him speaking by
parables, they did not understand, and believed that something else
was His meaning. But we shall put off what follows till another
discourse.
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