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THE TRAVAIL-PANGS OF A NEW CREATION
Mt xxiv (x. 17-23), xxv ; Mk. xiii; Lk. xxi. 5-36, xii. 35-38.
If the experience of that eventful day had invested the Master with fresh wonder in the eyes of His disciples, it had also accentuated the uneasy foreboding which had of late been oppressing them. They had witnessed His sharp encounters with the rulers and heard His indignant indictment of the Scribes ; and they perceived the inevitable issue. Those proud men would never rest until they had their revenge ; and, knowing how powerful they were, they recognised the certainty of His destruction. They followed Him in silence till they had passed from the sacred precincts ; and then, as they surveyed the Temple, that magnificent pile which the ambition of King Herod had built of huge blocks of gleaming marble inlaid with gold, their hearts sank within them. They felt how small they were and how helpless against a power thus enthroned. “Teacher,” one of them exclaimed, “see what manner of stones and what manner of buildings !” “You are looking at these great buildings ?” He calmly answered. “Verily I tell you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another which will not be pulled down.”
They would understand what He meant, since already they had heard from His lips forewarnings of the doom which was impending over the turbulent city [ p. 367 ] and which the rulers themselves apprehended. They said nothing at the moment, but by and by as they sat in the Garden ere lying down to sleep the favoured three and Peter’s brother Andrew, who had latterly shared their peculiar intimacy with the Master, craved fuller information (cf. Lk. xix. 41-44; Mt. xxi. 41; xxiii. 35; Jo. xi. 48 35.). “Tell us, when will this be ? And what will be the sign when it is all about to be accomplished ?” It was no idle question. Surely they had need of counsel in prospect of so terrible a catastrophe; and He responded to their entreaty, and there in the stillness of the orchard discoursed to them of the ordeal which awaited them after His departure.
His theme was twofold : the immediate catastrophe which happened some forty years later when Jerusalem fell before the army of Titus, and that final consummation, still unaccomplished—His glorious reappearing; and that we may truly appreciate what is here written, two facts should be considered.
(1) It was difficult for the disciples, whom the Master had so often to upbraid for their slowness in understanding even His simplest teaching, to comprehend His discourse on themes so transcendent and remote from their experience and expectation ; and their subsequent report could be but meagre—not His full discourse but merely so much as clung to their remembrance. And this was all the material that the Evangelists possessed. How did they deal with it ? St. Matthew’s is the with fullest report, and it is significant that it includes two passages which St. Luke assigns with to other occasions. Here their method is revealed (cf. Mt. xxiv. 23-28; 37-40 with Lk. xvii. 20-37, and Mt. xxiv. 43-51 with Lk. xii. 39-46). Our Lord, especially in the later days of [ p. 368 ] His ministry, frequently spoke of things to come, and many of His sayings lived in His disciples’ memories and were repeated by them after He was gone. And when the Evangelists told the story of that solemn night on Mount Olivet, they eked out the disciples’ meagre reminiscences of His discourse with other appropriate fragments.
(2) It was a legitimate method, but in its application their perspective was confused by an erroneous expectation which arose in the Church after the Lord’s departure and, as appears in St. Paul’s epistles to the Thessalonians, occasioned much trouble. In spite of is frequent and explicit intimations that the time of His return was hidden in God’s secret council and, since the operation of His purer poses is ever patient and gradual, was likely to be long delayed, the first generation of believers, impatient of abounding iniquity and eager for the speedy triumph of His Kingdom, looked for His return within their own lifetime. The Evangelists shared this expectation, and it warped their judgment in arranging His scattered intimations of the future ordeal. They foreshortened the perspective of events, the final consummation of His return hard after the imminent catastrophe of the city’s destruction (Mt. xxiv. 38; Ac. i. 7; Cf. Mt. xiii. 24-33). This is a natural and indeed inevitable consequence of their erroneous presupposition ; yet such was their fidelity to the evangelic tradition that they have in the same b rea th reported sayings of His which contradict it and prove what His teaching actually was (Mt. xxiv. 29; Mk. xiii. 24; Mt. xxiv. 6-8, 14; Mk. xiii. 7-10; Lk. xxi. 9; Mt. xxv. 5).
He began with the immediate catastrophe which His [ p. 369 ] disciples in the course of nature would live to witness. Not only was it very grievous to Jewish hearts that the city of their fathers and their fathers’ God must perish, but who could tell what distress and suffering were in store ? The prospect was indeed dark, and He tells them that their worst forebodings would be more than realised. The ruin of Jerusalem was but an incident in a worldwide tragedy; for the wild fanaticism which their revolutionary ideal of a Messianic Kingdom had enkindled in Jewish breasts and which, as Josephus justly observes, directly precipitated the national disaster, was only a phase of that restless spirit which possessed the nations in those troublous days and must issue in universal commotion and calamity.
But what did it all mean ? Here the Lord speaks a great word of reassurance. “See,” says He, “you be not affrighted. All this is but the beginning of travailpangs.” The epigram expresses the Christian philosophy of history. Beneath all the seeming confusion of the world lies the sovereign will of Almighty God ever working out its invincible purpose of goodness and mercy and creating a higher and nobler order ; and the sufferings and sorrows of humanity are in truth but the birth-pangs of a better world. At the moment only the confusion appears, but by and by, looking back, we perceive how, in the language of Holy Writ, God’s shaking of the earth has ever signified the removing of those things that are shaken that the things which are not shaken may remain. (Heb. xii. 26-28)
And here lay the disciples’ high vocation and a challenge to their faith and courage. Jerusalem was the cradle of the Church, and would the Gospel perish with her destruction ? Surely it would if it remained [ p. 370 ] there ; but it was not to remain there. The disciples were the Lord’s Apostles, and their task was to bear abroad the message of His salvation and proclaim it far and wide, that when Jerusalem fell, it might still prosper on other and larger fields. It was a mighty task, and the time was short; but there was time enough for its achievement if only, as they would, they devoted themselves to it with stedfast hearts, fearless of peril and persecution. “This Gospel of the Kingdom will be proclaimed all over the world for a testimony to all the nations ; and then will come the end.” And so indeed it came to pass. The tragic end was still fourteen years off when the Apostle of the Gentiles wrote that “from Jerusalem and all round as far as Illyricum he had accomplished the preaching of the Gospel of the Christ.” (Rom. xv. 19)
The fall of Jerusalem was the end of the Jewish state and Israel’s historic position as God’s peculiar people and His witness among the nations, but it was not the end of all things. It was “the beginning of travail-pangs,” a fresh departure in the working out of the agelong purpose of redemption, that divine purpose which will attain its triumph when our Lord appears in glory to judge the world and establish His Kingdom. Of this final consummation He now speaks, employing the familiar imagery of the prophetic scriptures ; and in view of the natural curiosity of His disciples and the impatience wherewith they would surely expect it amid the impending distress and their discouragement at the tardiness of their deliverance, He addresses to them a double admonition. First He tells them with explicit emphasis that the time of that supreme consummation was hidden in [ p. 371 ] God’s secret council, even from Himself meanwhile in His state of humiliation. “Of that day and hour none knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor even the Son, but the Father alone.” It might be soon, but the likelihood was rather that it would be long delayed ; and it is remarkable, proving how emphatically He spoke here, that, imperfectly as they and their contemporaries appreciated it, the Evangelists were in no wise oblivious of this intimation. They tell how He warned His disciples at once against impatience and against the negligence which comes of hope deferred ; and St. Matthew, with his peculiar care in the preservation of our Lord’s teaching, has recorded, as spoken on that memorable night, two unforgettable parables, enforcing especially the latter warning.
The first is the parable of the Ten Virgins. Here the Lord tells the story of a wedding-feast like the one at Cana which He and His earliest disciples had attended at the beginning of His ministry. It was held, according to custom, after nightfall in the house of the bride’s parents; and ten maidens, the bride’s friends, went out betimes with lighted lamps to meet the bridegroom and escort him thither. Evidently his home was out in the country, and they betook themselves to the city-gate and awaited him there. By some mischance he was detained. Hour after hour passed, and as they sat waiting in the porch, they grew drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight the porter awakened them. “Here is the bridegroom ! ’ he cried. “Go out to meet him.” They started up and found that, while they slept, their lamps had burned low. Five of them had brought their oil-flasks with them and they replenished their lamps, but [ p. 372 ] the others had made no provision. “Give us some of your oil” they begged. “Our lamps are going out.” “There won’t be enough for us and you” was the answer. “Go and buy some for yourselves.” It was difficult to procure oil at that untimeous hour, and ere they returned the bridegroom had passed with their companions in his train. They hastened after them only to find that the feast had begun. It was the bridegroom that gave the wedding feast, and when they knocked at the closed door, it was he that answered. “Sir, sir,” they cried, “open to us !” But he refused, taking them for intrusive strangers. “I tell you, I do not know you.”
The parable is a picture of the coming of the Heavenly Bridegroom to claim His blood-bought Bride ; and the lesson which our Lord here inculcates on His disciples is that, since they know not when He may come, it behoves them to be always ready, lest they be taken by surprise. What was the difference between those maidens? (Eph.v. 25-27; Rev. xix. 7-9) Had the bridegroom come betimes, they would all have greeted him joyfully and accompanied him to the feast; but he tarried, and it was his tarrying that made the difference. And thus will it be on that great day when the Lord will appear. Even as all the maidens “drowsed and fell asleep,” it may be, nay it must be, that His coming will take us by surprise; but what manner of surprise will it be ? It is told of that beautiful man of God, St. Francis de Sales, that once he was found by an austere brother sitting with a child beside him. The little lad had laid his chessboard on the saint’s knee and was playing a game with him. The intruder was shocked. “Brother [ p. 373 ] Francis,” he remonstrated, “what if the Lord should appear and find you at play with a foolish child ?” “My brother,” was the answer, “I would finish the game : it was for His glory that I began it.” Here is the test whether we be ready for His appearing : Are we living continually as in the light of His holy and blessed Face ? Wherever we may be and whatever our employment, be it worship or business or pleasure, could we, if He were suddenly manifested in our midst, rise without shame or confusion and bid Him a joyful welcome ? “In whatsoever employments I may surprise you,” is one of His unwritten sayings, “in these will I judge you.” Well for us in that solemn and inevitable hour if there be within us a deep, full fountain of faith and love. Then His coming may surprise us, but it will in no wise dismay us.
Against impatience and discouragement there is a sovereign remedy; and this the Lord shows His disciples in a second parable. He tells how a merchant had occasion to travel abroad, and that his affairs might prosper during his absence he committed the management of them to three of his slaves—“his own slaves,” says our Lord, meaning the three whom he had kept about him in his business and deemed best qualified. According to his judgment of their abilities he entrusted one of them with five talents (approximately £1000), another with two (£400), and the third with one (£200), 0 each according to his peculiar ability,” and charged them to trade with his money till he returned. Pleased with their master’s confidence the first and second set blithely to work and traded diligently and successfully. But what of the third ? The comparative insignificance of his [ p. 374 ] trust aggrieved him, and he thought bitterly of his master. Why should he take trouble for one who had so slighted him, a greedy tyrant whom there was no satisfying ? A rascal might have made off with the money, but he was no rascal. He would not trade with his trust, but he would restore it intact. And what should he do with it meanwhile ? After the old-world fashion he dug a hole in the ground and buried it there.
The master was a long time away; and his return was celebrated by a joyous banquet. He was anxious to learn how his affairs had gone in his absence, and while the table was being spread he interviewed the three slaves and called them to account. The first told him proudly that he had doubled the £1000. “Well done, my good and faithful slave !” cried the master, “You have been faithful to a small trust: I will appoint you to a large one. Come you to your master’s feast.” The second reported that he too had doubled his capital, and produced £800. “Well done, my good and faithful slave !” cried the master again. “You have been faithful to a small trust: I will appoint you to a large one. Come you to your master’s feast.” The third was standing by, and his fellows’ achievements and the commendation which they had won rebuked his negligence and his misjudgment of so generous a master; but regret was now unavailing, and he tried to brazen it out. “Master,” said he, producing the £200, “I had learned that you are a hard man, ‘ reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter ’; and I was afraid and went and hid your £200 in the earth. See ! you have your own.”
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It was an insolent speech, and it was untrue. The fellow asserted his honesty, but he had really defrauded his master by letting his money lie idle. If he would not trade with it himself, he should have handed it over to others who would. “You wicked slave and slothful!” said the indignant master. “You knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter? Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and now that I have come I would have got ‘ my own ’ and interest with it.” There was no place for him at the feast that night. “Take the £200 from him and give them to the man with the £1000 ; and expel the useless slave into the outer darkness.”
Here our Lord shows His disciples how they should prepare to meet Him when He comes again. There was work for them to do, and that work was the trust which He committed to them; and their ambition should be that, when He came, whether soon or late, they should be found faithful. And see how nobly He encourages them. Opportunity is the measure of responsibility, and faithfulness the measure of reward. The master proportioned each slave’s trust to “his peculiar ability.” The first received £1000, and the second, because his ability was less, only £400 ; but with their differing abilities they displayed an equal diligence, and they were equally rewarded. And had the third been equally diligent in the discharge of his lesser trust, he would have been equally rewarded ; nay, had he displayed a larger diligence, his reward would have been the greatest of all. And see what their reward was. It is a saying of Rabbi Simeon ben Azzai that “the reward of a commandment is a [ p. 376 ] commandment,” signifying that faithfulness brings ever a larger opportunity and one duty well performed opens another. The Master’s reward of faithful service rs the privilege of serving Him more. And therefore the neglected trust of the unfaithful slave passed to his neighbour who had proved his pre-eminent ability.
There was a problem which could not but present itself to the minds of the disciples as the Lord thus discoursed. As it concerned them and those who like them should hear His word and accept His trust, the justice of His final reckoning was unchallengeable ; but what of those who should remain strangers to Him and His Gospel ? What of the myriads of heathendom ? Would they be accounted, as the Rabbis taught, mere fuel for Gehenna,” doomed for not believing in a Saviour whom they had never known and not obeying a command which they had never heard ? Perhaps the disciples raised the question. At all events it must have been in their minds, and, expressed or unexpressed, He now answers it by setting before them, in the familiar imagery of the prophetic Scriptures, a picture of the Last Assize—the judgment, be it observed, not of “all nations,” as our old Version has it, but of “all the nations,” (Cf. Zech. xiv. 5; Dan. vii. 13; Joel iii.) the scriptural designation of the heathen world. “When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all His angels with Him, then will He sit upon the throne of His glory, and all the nations will be assembled before Him.” (Cf. vers. 37-39.44 .) At this solemn tribunal such and only such will be arraigned as have never seen the Saviour’s face or heard His name , and it will be for them a day of surprise. [ p. 377 ] revealing to them spiritual relationships and eternal issues all undreamed of. As at the close of day the sheep and the goats which have mingled on the mountainside will be folded apart, so will the kingly Judge marshal the throng on His right hand and His left and pronounce their several destinies. “Come, My Father’s blessed ones,” He will say to those on His right, “inherit the Kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. I was hungry and you gave Me meat; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you harboured Me, naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.” Yet never till that hour had they seen His face. “Sir,” they will exclaim, “when did we see you so bested and so befriend you ? ” And He will point to the poor souls whom they have succoured in distress. “Verily I tell you, forasmuch as you did it to one of these My brothers, so insignificant, it was to Me that you did it.” And so to the assemblage on His left: “Away from Me, accursed ! Forasmuch as you did it not to these, it was to Me that you did it not.”
Here our Lord enunciates a profound truth which, little as the disciples may have understood it at the moment, was afterwards revealed to them by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Even as in the days of His flesh, so evermore in His glory our Lord is the Lover of men, especially those whose need is great; and since love is vicarious, there is not a human joy or sorrow which He does not share. Hence whatever we do to our fellow-men, we do to Him ; and every one, even though he never heard the Saviour’s name, who [ p. 378 ] loves his brother and ministers to his need, is loving Him and serving Him.
“Still wheresoever pity shares
Its bread with sorrow, want, and sin.
And love the beggar’s feast prepares,
The uninvited guest comes in.
“Unheard, because our ears are dull,
Unseen, because our eyes are dim,
He walks our earth, The Wonderful,
And all good deeds are done to Him.”
“Forasmuch as you did it to one of these, it was to Me that you did it.”
This will be the final test for those who have never known the Saviour here. For those who have known Him and heard His Gospel, the question will be whether they have believed it. And in truth there is no difference ; for not only is a Christlike love in those who never knew Him an evidence that had they heard His Gospel they would have believed it, but its lack in those who know Him and profess faith in Him gives the lie to their profession. And so it is written : “If one say, ‘ I love God’ and hate his brother, he is a liar (1 Jo. iv. 20,21). For one who loves not his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment have we from Him, that one who loves God love his brother too.”