Mark 16:6-7 And he said to them, Be not affrighted: You seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here… Ah! my brethren, let us see whether, in our annual pilgrimage to the grave of our Lord, we have anything of the love which shows so conspicuously in these zealous women. It is so easy for us to keep Easter with high pomp and gratulation, coming to a tomb which we know to be empty, because death has been vanquished in his own domain, that we may readily overlook the strength of that affection which glowed fervently towards Christ whilst supposed to be dead — dead, too, with every circumstance of indignity and shame. When now the Church marshals her children in solemn precession, and leads them up to the place where the Lord was laid, there is a thorough consciousness that mourning is about to be turned into joy, and all remembrance of Christ's having died as a malefactor, is perhaps lost in the feeling of His having come forth as the resurrection and the life. What would it be, if as yet we only knew Him as "Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified," and not as the Son of God who stripped the grave of all victory? Is it not too much the fact that (if such expressions may be used) we tolerate the humiliation of Christ, in consideration of His subsequent triumph, just as we can overlook the circumstance of a man's having been born a beggar, when we know him to have become a prince? We put up with, though we dislike, the cross, because we know that it conducted to a throne. And yet what ought so to endear to us the Redeemer, as the shame and the sorrow which He endured on our behalf? When ought He to seem so precious in our eyes as when, "a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He "gives His back to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that pluck off the hair?" Oh! that heart has scarcely yet been touched with celestial fire, which is forced to turn from Christ in His humility to Christ in His glory, ere it can be kindled into admiration and devotedness. (H. Melvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him. |
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