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Pilate's Power.

JOHN xix. 8-11.

WHEN Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; and went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art Thou? But Jesus gave him no answer.1 Then saith Pilate unto Him, Speakest Thou not unto me? knowest Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and have power to release Thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above:3 therefore he that delivered Me unto thee hath the greater sin."4

I

"Once more, leaving the yelling multitude without, he takes Jesus with him into the quiet Judgment Hall, and asks Him in awestruck accents, 'Whence art Thou?' Alas! it was too late to answer now. Pilate was too deeply committed to his gross cruelty and injustice; for him Jesus had spoken enough already; for the wild beasts who raged without, He had no more to say."-Farrar's "Life of Christ."

2

"I have power."] "Pilate's brief impression of fear soon vanishes. He now speaks in displeasure at Christ's silence. Pilate has again and again pronounced Jesus innocent. He now says he has power to release Him. Why then does he not exercise that power? Because in his heart he cares not for justice."

3 "That is, plainly, 'from God.' So St. Paul says 'There is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God' (Rom. xiii. 1). Our Lord does not mean, of course, to imply that Pilate had absolute power over Him, but that the authority of which he boasted was allowed him by God, and to this authority, as ordained of God, and now exercised for God's great purposes, Jesus bows."

...

4 "Behold how the Prisoner already sits in judgment upon His judge, awarding to him and to others their degrees of guilt!" . . . Pilate "was an instrument in God's Hands, unconsciously fulfilling God's decrees. 'Therefore' -because Pilate .. was in ignorance of the great crime he was committing in condemning the Son of God,—'he that delivered' Jesus to him, being no blind instrument in the hands of others, but having abundant means of knowing the truth, and recognizing the Messiah, had 'the greater sin.' We must not forget that Pilate's sin was great, for he was distinctly an unjust judge. But the sin of Caiaphas was greater."-Canon How.

"Now

The Hour of Death.

JOHN xix. 25-27.

OW there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother, and His Mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His Mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith unto His Mother, Woman, behold thy son!' Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home."

"Oh, loving thoughtful care in the midst of the agonies of such a death! This was the hour when the 'sword' was indeed piercing through the Virgin Mother's soul (Luke ii. 35). . . . The Divine Son loved His human Mother to the last, and gave her in her hour of desolation another son to care for her, even him, whom of all His well-loved disciples He loved the best."-Canon How.

"He Who recommended to one another's care His Mother and His most favoured disciple, in some of His last words, when the pains of death had begun, . . . He, the gracious Son of Man, feels for and with us His poor creatures, both in our affliction on losing friends or seeing them suffer, and in the comfort we take in their presence, when we are afflicted. He had before wept at Lazarus' death: He had had compassion on the widowed mother at Nain; and now He looks down from His Cross, in the midst of His pangs, and is afflicted in the affliction of His Mother. . . . He points out one who should do a son's part by her by which He teaches us, that in all our bereavements, the comfort we take in one another's presence and care comes in truth from no other but Him. It is He Who provides so wonderfully as we often see for those who would otherwise seem to be left helpless. 'He is a Father of the fatherless, and defendeth the cause of the widows,' causing continually some one to be at hand, who can more or less take the place of such as are removed by His chastisements; He will open fountains in the wilderness, and 'streams in the desert' (Isa. xxxv. 6)."—Keble's “Sermons."

"In all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth, in the hour of Death, and in the day of Judgment, Good Lord, deliver us."

"How comes it that so few comparatively, especially of those who have leisure and ability for the purpose, take any pains to live in such a way as to be missed when they die? Oh! think over what it must be,-after all that our dear Saviour has done for us, and said to us,—to come to die with the reflection that we have done no real good to any; that our life has been a selfish and an useless one!"—Rev. Sir Lovelace T. Stamer, Bart.

"Whether we live, may we live unto Thee, and whether we die, may we die unto Thee, so that living or dying we may be evermore Thine."—Bishop Oxenden's "Family Prayers."

"A

It is Finished."

JOHN xix. 28-30.

FTER this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.' Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost."

I See Psalm lxix. 22.

2 "What is finished?' He that can answer this must be rich indeed in knowledge of Christ; for that little word 'It' contains in itself all that the Redeemer came to do-Sufferings, Life, Work, Scripture, Salvation, All! ”— Canon How.

"The Birth of Christ and the Death of Christ are very nearly bound together; they are two links in the same chain. . . . The Death is, as it were, the seal of the Nativity; the words of Christ on the Cross, 'It is finished!' are the pledge that the work which was begun on Christmas-Day was carried unto a successful end. Strange though it may seem, yet it is perfectly true that the joys of Christmas-tide would have all come to nothing if Jesus Christ our Lord had not undergone the Agony and the bloody Sweat, the Cross and Passion, whereby He made atonement for the sins of the whole world. . . Hence, they who would celebrate Christmas as it ought to be celebrated, must come to the Feast which Christ prepares for them; they must contemplate the great Sacrifice made for sin; they must join with Angels and Archangels, and all the Company of Heaven, in glorifying God; and then, when they spiritually eat the Body of Christ and drink His Blood, they will know something of the mystery of Christ's Incarnation."-Sermon by Bishop Harvey Goodwin.

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"When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of Death, Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers!"

"Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of Thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with Him; and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for His merits, Who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

"Finished was His holy Life; with His Life His struggle, with His struggle His work, with His work the redemption, with the redemption the foundation of the new world."-Lange.

"O all-atoning Sacrifice,

I cling by faith to Thee."

The Savio u r.

JOHN XX. 11-18.

"MARY stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she

wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two Angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father: but go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things unto her."

St. Leo thus gives the meaning of our Lord's words, spoken, as he says, through Mary Magdalene, to the whole Church: 'I will not have thee come to Me corporeally, nor recognize Me by the sensations of the flesh. I am putting thee off to something loftier: I am preparing for thee something greater. When I shall have ascended to My Father, then shalt thou handle Me more perfectly and more truly, for then shalt thou embrace what thou touchest not, and believe what thou seest not." . .

...

"St. Augustine, who takes the same view, sees in the words a gentle rebuke to Mary for earthly and human conceptions of Christ, as though it were, 'I am not in thine eyes ascended: thou dost not yet look upon Me in My Godhead as one with the Father; thou hast not yet risen to the beholding of My Divine Nature.' When any one accepts and knows Christ as God, then to such an one Christ, as it were, ascends to the Father."-Canon How.

"By the mystery of Thy holy Incarnation: by Thy holy Nativity and Circumcision; by Thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation; by Thine Agony and bloody Sweat; by Thy Cross and Passion; by Thy precious Death and Burial; by Thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension; and by the Coming of the Holy Ghost; Good Lord, deliver us."

"THE

HE same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when He had so said, He showed unto them His hands and His side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed' on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."3

"The Lord is now about to give to His Apostles their solemn commission as stewards of His gifts and mysteries (see 1 Cor. iv. 1), and in doing so, He repeats His salutation of Peace. . . The messengers of Christ must go forth, their 'feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace' (Eph. vi. 15).”

"When God made man, He 'breathed into his nostrils the breath of life' (Gen. ii. 7). The Son of God now breathes into the souls of His disciples the breath of a new life. How full of deep meaning is this action!"

2 "That is, for the fulfilment of the commission He has laid upon them, and for the exercise of the powers He is entrusting them with. It is true that their full powers as Apostles were to be bestowed at Pentecost, so that this gift is but a sort of earnest of farther and fuller gifts to come. It seems as though our Lord desired to connect the remission of sin very closely with His own Death and Resurrection, and so proceeded at once to bestow upon the Apostles the power to convey to others the benefit of His Passion."

3"In these solemn words our Lord commits to His Apostles, and through them to His Church, the exercise of a godly discipline in the remitting or retaining of sins; assuring them that their sentence on earth, as spoken in His Name and with His authority, will be ratified and confirmed by Himself in heaven. The doctrine of the Church of England on this subject is excellently given by Bishop Wilson, who speaks thus: 'Our Church ascribeth not the power of remission of sin to any but to God only. She holds that faith and repentance are the necessary conditions of receiving this blessing. And she asserts, what is most true, that Christ's ministers have a special commission, which other believers have not, authoritatively to declare this Absolution, for the comfort of true penitents; and which Absolution, if duly dispensed, will have a real effect from the promise of Christ.'"-Canon How.