took a stool at his feet, in the confidence of innocence. Martha loved him just as much, and knew that he must have something to eat, and water to wash with, and a comfortable bed. Mary thought of what she needed of Jesus. Martha thought of what Jesus needed of her. She was so anxious to get back to Jesus that she felt keenly how her work was depriving her of the pleas ure and profit of the company of her illustrious friend and guest. Mary was having all the good of it. Martha was not envious of her sister, but she desired to have some of the happiness of that society, and if no one helped her she would lose it all. Reply of Jesus to Martha. It was, however, only The reply of Jesus has generally been regarded as a rather severe rebuke to Martha, and a boundless compliment to Mary. I venture to say that it was neither the one nor the other. He did most probably convey in his tone, as is intimated in the repetition of her name, some dissatisfaction with Martha's course. the dissatisfaction of love, not of anger. He desired to have her there where Mary was. He loved the sisters equally. He was not satisfied that Martha should be worrying in the kitchen, and he should be losing her society. He did not undervalue care for his personal comfort. No man, sinner or saint, ever does. It was a token of her love substantially given. He must have uttered the words tenderly, with the tone of love, reproving love for putting itself to trouble. He did need food and a resting-place, but he also needed her company. And so, with a loving smile and a kind look that pleaded his love against his words, he uttered this sentence that had in it more of warning than of reproof. She was in peril. She was undertaking too much for her means. That was making her over-careful. She was becoming distracted and worried, anxious and troubled. She was losing her self-control. She was in danger of losing her whole enjoyment of those for whom she was working. Now, no true man can see his friend, especially if that friend be a woman, making over-exertion for his comfort, and be unconcerned. Unless he be entirely selfish he will interfere. So Jesus did as soon as she opened the door and looked in. Nor did the reply of Jesus imply that only one dish was necessary. That is an absurd interpretation of his words. Nor did it mean that religion was that one thing. This is a mystical inter pretation. The plain, common-sense meaning of this part of the reply is, that he required only one thing in his reception, namely, love of him. Martha had that. All then that was necessary was simple attention to his simple wants. What he says of Mary is not so much complimentary as defensive. We must recollect that. It was not a volunteered statement. Martha knew that she loved Jesus, and believed that Mary did too; but thought that her sister had a very indifferent way of showing it; and Martha intimated as much. Jesus simply meant to defend Mary. He said, "Martha, you shall not take away Mary's share in this loving reception of me. She has chosen the part of goodness as well as you." The fact is, that the reply of Jesus was a sweet speech to both the women, and both felt pleased and improved by it. There is no record of what followed; but I have no doubt that when Martha shut the door behind her, Jesus intimated somehow to Mary that she should go to the help of her sister, for he saw that Mary's peril was in the direction of quietism, as Martha's was in the direction of worry.* From Bethany Jesus went up to the metropolis. While passing he saw there a man who had been blind from his birth.† This * I venture to refer the reader to two published sermons of mine, entitled, Mary; or, Religion in Beauty, and Martha; or, Religion in Service. I can unite with Dean Milman, who, in a note to the text of his Hist. Christianity, in loco, says: "I hesitate at the arrangement of no passage in the whole narrative more than this history of the blind man. The Harmonists have two opinions, one placing it at the time when Jesus escaped from the wrath of his enemies in the Temple, and the other in the time I have given it in my text above. In favor of the former it may be urged that the narrative seems so closely connected that we can hardly imagine an interval. Moreover, we know that that conflict in the Temple was on the Sabbath, and that this healing took place on the Sabbath. (ix. 14.) The objection to that view is that Jesus evidently departed alone from the Temple, while at the healing of the blind man his disciples were with him. Archbishop Trench replies that it is easy to suppose that they could have extricated themselves as Jesus did himself; but the Archbishop must have overlooked the fact that they were not present at that violent interview. The argument from the Sabbath is not con. clusive, because the conflict took place on a festal Sabbath, and this healing on a regular weekly Sabbath. Both might have fallen on the same day, but it is not known that they did. I have been inclined to place it where it stands in the text, because the connection of the conclusion of the narrative seems to me quite as close as that which is urged for the beginning, and the conclusion (John x. 22) connects itself with the Feast of Dedication, at which his disciples were with him, as they were not on the former occasion. Moreover, a was the first time that the disciples were in Jerusalem with Jesus. As they were passing a certain place they saw a man who had been blind from his birth. It occurred to the disciples to extract from their Teacher some light on a dark difficulty, as old as the history of human thought. Jerusalem. The blind man. John ix. Traces of the profound study given by men to such questions as the existence of evil in the universe of the good God; the transmission, if not of mental and moral traits, Existence of evil. at least of penalties; the connection between sin and suffering; and kindred problems, are almost everywhere in the stream of recorded thought, as far up towards the fountainhead as the literature of the world enables us to ascend. It is probably impossible to say when men first began to have these conceptions in shapely manner in their minds. But this much is certain, that very early in the history of human society we discover that the doctrine of retribution was not held merely loosely as hypothesis, but was imbedded in the human mind, and springing up in all forms of hunan literature and art. The heathen classics are full of it. The students of the old Greek dramatists can never forget with what power it comes out in the writings of Eschylus, the father of classic tragedy; how he shakes his readers with the grand horrors of the Prometheus, the Agamemnon, the Eumenides; how in them and his other tragedies which have survived we are thrilled by the perpetual reproduction of ancestral guilt, the punishment of successive generations of sinners who are pressed into the commission of atrocities by the doom which lay mountain heavy on their race. Nor will they fail to great difficulty lies against the other date, namely, that Jesus would scarcely have left the Temple in a secret manner, and then immediately perform a miracle which would attract all eyes to him at the moment of a popular tumult, nor would there have been space during the remainder of the day for the events to have occurred which are contained in the narrative. It is a beautiful thought that it exhibits his godlike calmness to be able thus in his own peril to stand still and work this beneficent miracle. If I were writing a poem in stead of a history, I should take the other date, in favor of which are Lange, Olshausen, Meyer, Stier, Trench, and Milman; against whom, and in favor of the view I adopt, stand Lücke, Tholuck, De Wette, Alford, and Rev. Morris Dods, who translated and editel Lange's "Life of the Lord Jesus Christ." Macknight places the healing on the day of the escape from the Temple; the recognition and subsequent proceedings during the visit at the Dedication. The reader must examine and decide for himself. |