Tw o Deaths Contrasted One Brings a Work to an End—-the Other Results in World’s Greatest Work By DR. ALEXANDER MACLAREN
slight hints, are given which show how much the ties of companionship had been relaxed, even in a day, and how certainly and quickly they would have fallen asunder., But all at once a new element comes in, all is changed. The earliest visitors to the sepulchre leave it, not with the lingering sorrow of those who have no more that they can do, but with the quick, buoyant step of people charged with great and glad tidings. They come to it wrapped in grief— they leave it with great joy. They come to it, feeling that all was over, and that their union with the rest who had loved Him was little more than a remembrance. They go away, feeling that they are all bound together more closely than ever. The grave of John was the end of a “ school.” The grave of Jesus was the beginning of a Church. Why? The only answer is the message which the women brought back from the empty sepulchre on that Easter day: “ The Lord is risen.” The whole history of the Christian Church, and even its very existence, is unintelligible, except on the supposition of the resurrection. But for that, the fate of John’s disciples would have been the fate of Christ’s—- they would have melted away into the mass of the nation, and at most there would have been one more petty Gali lean sect that would have lived on for a generation and died out when the last of His companions died. So from these two contrasted groups we may fairly gather some thoughts as to the Resur rection of Christ, as attested by the very existence of a Christian Church,
‘-‘And John’s disciples came, and took up .the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus.”—Matt. 14:12. “And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy .”—Matt. "28:8. HERE is a remarkable parallel and still more remarkable con trast between these two groups of disciples at the graves of their respective masters. John the Bap tists’s followers venture into the very jaws- of the lion to rescue the headless corpse of their martyred teacher from a prison gravé. They hear it away and lay it reverently in its unknown sepul chre, and when they have done these last offices of love they feel that all is over. They have no longer a centre, and they disintegrate. There was noth ing to hold them together any more. The shepherd had been smitten, and the flock were scattered. As a “ school” or a distinct community they cease to he, and are mostly absorbed into the ranks of Christ’s followers. That sorrowful little company that turned from John’s grave, perhaps amidst the grim rocks of Moab, perhaps in his native city amongst the hills of Judah, parted then, to meet no more, and to bear away only a common sorrow that time would com fort, and a common memory that time would dim. The other group laid their martyred Master in His grave, with as tender hands and as little hope as did John’s disciples. The bond that held them to gether was gone too, and the disin tegrating process began at once. We see them breaking up into little knots, and soon they, too, will be scattered. The women come to the grave to per form the woman’s office of anointing, and they are left to go alone. Other
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