The Farewell

Lord! no guardian to defend me

In the world I have like Thee;
None so willing to befriend me:

Thou art all in all to me!

What is life? a scene of troubles

Following swiftly one by one;
Phantom visions — airy bubbles,

Which appear, and then are gone.

What at best the world’s vain fashion 1

Quickly it must pass away;
Vexing care and whirlwind passion,

Surging like the angry spray.

One brief moment, Lord, may sever

All that earth can friendship call;
But Thy friendship is for ever —

It outlives the wreck of all.

“Then the eleven disciples went away into GALILEE, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” — MATT. xxviii. Ifr 20; 1 COB. xv. 6.

WE have now reached the last of GENNESARET’S Sacreu. Memories. The time has come when the Saviour is to take a final farewell of its shores.

In the two previous chapters, we found Him by the Lake side, holding, in a quiet morning hour, a private and confidential meeting with His Apostles. A more numerous gathering is now appointed, that He may publicly bid adieu to the many devoted disciples scattered throughout Galilee, among whom He had longest lived and laboured.

The place .of assemblage was “a mountain,” most probably the Mount of Beatitudes — the spot hallowed by former burning words of warning and mercy, and which more than any other overlooked the scenes of His ministry and miracle. We have every reason, moreover, to believe that this was the same memorable Convocation to which St Paul refers * when he speaks of Christ having been “seen by five hundred brethren at once” — the greater part of whom were still alive when he wrote, though a few had “fallen asleep.” f>

* 1 Cor. xv. 6.

f A strong presumptive proof that the meeting of these five hundred brethren must have taken place on this mountain in Galilee, is the express mention made in Acts i. 15, that after the ascension, the total number of the disciples in Judea was one hundred and twenty. That more than the eleven disciples were present is also evident from the incredulity referred to by St Matthew, “And some doubted.” “This,” as Dr Robinson well observes,” could hardly be supposed to be true of any of the eleven, after what had already happened 1 1

As Jesus afterwards, on the summit of OLIVET, took farewell of the scenes of His ministry in Judea, so now, in presence of a larger throng, he closes His ministry in GALILEE, and upon the shores of its honoured Sea.

The Roman Hero of old, at the close of his victorious campaign, was wont to address his soldiers before being conducted to the Capitol to be crowned. The Prince of the Kings of the Earth, ere ascending the Hill of God, to receive the reward of His triumphs, assembles together His faithful followers, to convey to them words of encouragement and directions for duty, when His own visible presence would be withdrawn. As the Great High Priest of His Church, He had recently entered within the veil with the offering of His own blood. Now, the curtain being rent, He, the true Aaron, comes forth to pour His benediction on the waiting people; or, like a fond father, who, ere he sets forth to a distant clime, gathers his family around him, to breathe upon them farewell accents of comfort and peace.

The Evangelists give us no particulars regarding the interesting transaction here referred to. It is but the dim outline of a* picture which we long to have filled in. May we not, however, so far venture to realise it? With the local Scene we are already familiar. Few hamlets would there be on the Lake that would not probably send a believing delegate to the solemn assembly. Conspicuous among the band of five hundred, would there not be the Centurion of Capernaum, with his restored servant — The Leper, now purged of his

them in Jerusalem and Galilee, and after having been appointed to meet their risen Lord at this very time and place.” — Harmony of the Gospels, p. 192.

uncleanness, no longer an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, but a fellow-citizen with the saints and of the household of God — The Widow of Nam, with the tear of gratitude in her eye, as she first gazed on a restored son at her side, and then upon the face of the Great Eestorer — The Paralytic, standing upright, with vigorous limb and gleaming eye — The Maniac of Gadara, now the calm and loving believer — Jairus, too, with the living trophy of redeeming power leaning gently on his arm — Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Susanna, no longer ashamed to mingle in the same group with another (once outcast) sister, who had testified, at their common Master’s feet, by tears of anguish, the depth and intensity of her sorrow and love?

If we could have wisljed an ampler description of the Scene and its Convocation, still more could we have desired that the memorable farewell address of the Great Redeemer had been fully given to us. It has, however, for wise reasons been withheld. All that is recorded is the briefest of outlines; but that outline is, nevertheless, precious and significant. It embraces three statements, to each of which we would now invite attention.

Conscious that for the last time they were standing in the presence of their Divine Master, the multitude would doubtless listen in breathless silence as they heard the farewell tones of the Voice they loved so well. Let it be with something of the same feelings that, in this closing chapter, we gather in thought around the feet of Jesus, and hear the parting word He has to say unto our souls 1

The three recorded assertions of our Lord consist of — .

I. A PARTING ASSURANCE.
II. A PARTING COMMISSION.
III. A PARTING PROMISE.

I There is A PARTING ASSURANCE — “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”

What more precious farewell truth, what more blessed Keepsake, could the Saviour have confided to these waiting hundreds, than this — that to Him has been committed the Sceptre of universal Empire! Many there had witnessed His poverty, His humiliation, His cruel buffetings, His bitter death. But now these were all past. His head was about to be “crowned with many crowns’ As King and Head of His Church, “All things had been delivered to him of his Father.” * He knew that “the Father had given all things into his hands.” ‘-f- He would impart the comfort of this ennobling truth to the orphaned Church He was to leave behind Him; — when the chariots of God had borne Him away from their sight, they could still think of the CHRIST OF GALILEE as boundless in His resources; that He who so often had spoken to them “in righteousness,” was still “mighty to save” — “The Prince who had power with God,” and must “prevail” — “the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the MIGHTY GOD,”

This “prophecy” was of no “private interpretation,” intended merely for the ears of this mountain auditory, These five hundred formed the representatives of the Church of Christ in every age; — whatever truths were soothing

* Matt. ri. 27. t John xiii. 3.

and consolatory to them, may be equally so to us. And who will not exult in the glorious assurance, that to these very hands, that were jpierced on Calvary s Cross, has been confided the Sovereignty of the Universe?

John, sixty years later, beheld in striking vision, in Patnios, a book or roll “sealed with seven seals.” Tears came to the aged eyes of the Evangelist, because no one in heaven or in earth was found “worthy to take the book” and unloose its mysteries. All at once, one of the Redeemed from the Dearth conveys to him the joyous assurance, that he need no longer “weep” for the “Lion of the tribe of Judah had prevailed to open the book” and unloose its mystic seals. What was this, but the announcement in significant figure of the Saviour’s own last utterance, that He has had committed to His keeping the roll of Providence; — that roll in which is inscribed not only the fate of kingdoms, the destinies of nations — but all that concerns the humblest and lowliest member of His Church on earth; — with Him rests the unfolding of the roll — the breaking of the seals — the pouring out of the vials — the bursting of the thunders. Need we wonder that in taking “the book” into his hands, the ransomed myriads in the Apocalyptic vision should be seen falling down at the feet of THE LAMB, with their harps and golden vials full of odours; and, exulting in the thought that the Great Ruler of all was a Brother of the human race, they should attune their lips to the lofty ascription, “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, FOE Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation 1”

Yes, I repeat, who will not exult in the thought, that this vast world of ours is committed to the rule of JESUS — that it was “created by Him,” that it was created “for Him,” that “by him all things consist?” I look up to the spangled dome of Heaven with its myriad constellations. I am told these lamps, hung in the sky, are burning incense-fires to His glory — that they march at His word, and their eternal music is an anthem to His praise. I look to the landscape beneath; — all that vast furniture in the Palace of Nature is His providing. It is He who covers it in its robe of light, who wreathes the brow of Spring in living green, and decks the valleys in Summer glory. Not a breeze murmurs through the forest, nor a dew-drop sparkles on its leaves, the sun shoots not one golden arrow through its glades, but by His permission. It is He who pencils the flower, and intones the thunder, and gives voice to the tempest, and wings to the lightning.

But these manifestations of His power in nature are subordinate to a nobler sovereignty with, which He is invested in the moral and spiritual world. There, too, nothing can happen but by His direction, nothing can befal us but what is the dictate and result of His loving wisdom. Often, indeed, that wisdom and love are veiled behind gigantic clouds of permitted evil. “Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself” — “Thy judgments are a great deep” — is often all the explanation which our finite minds can offer. But when we remember the pledge, in His own life’s blood, which He lias Himself given of His love to His people, dare we impugn the rectitude of His dealings, or arraign the wisdom of His ways? Nay; — This Saviour-God reigneth, “let the earth be glad,” From the heart stripped of its loved gourd by the gentle hand of death, to the more terrible cry of perishing thousands in a revolted empire or beleaguered capital — what truth more sublime, what syllables fall with more soothing music on the soul than these — “HE” (the Saviour who died for me, who now lives for me) “doeth according to his will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth!”

Conscious that the Lord hath set Him as “King on His holy hill of Zion,” we may well take up that triumphant Psalm, which to hundreds of bleeding hearts will ever have a memorable significance, — that Psalm which speaks pre-eminently of the ascension glories of a reigning Redeemer. In one of the world’s very darkest hours, when the last vestige of the footsteps of a God of Love seemed obliterated — when, man-forsaken and God-forsaken, the hapless innocents were about to go down into darkness, tempted to cry out in frantic unbelief, “Is there a God on the earth? “the glorious truth of the text was made to fringe the edges of the looming cloud — a blood-stained leaf floating on the crimson deluge pointed to the all-power of Jesus as the alone sheet-anchor in the maddening storm.*” The Lord has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to our God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises. God reigneth over the heathen; God sitteth on

* Of that frightful Aceldama — the massacre at Cawnpore — an officer in General Havelock’s noble band thus writes: — “I picked up a mutilated Prayer Book. It had lost the cover. It appeared to me to have been opened at p. 36 in the Litany, where I have little doubt but these poor creatures sought and found consolation in those beautiful supplications. It is here sprinkled with blood. The book has lost some pags at the end, and terminates with the 47th Psalm, in which David thanks the Almighty for his signal victories oter his enemies.”

the throne of his holiness. The shields of the earth belong unto our -God: he is greatly exalted.” *

II. We have here A PARTING COMMISSION.

“Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”

Appropriate seemed the spot where Jesus now stood to issue this great commission. It was on the frontier land of Judea — “Galilee of the Gentiles” — almost within sight of Heathendom.

At an earlier period of His public ministry the command had been very different — “Go NOT into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” •(• A new dispensation, however, with the rending of the old temple veil, had now dawned on the world; — the brotherhood of the human family was boldly announced; the leaves of the tree of life were no longer to be for the healing of Judea, but for “the healing of the nations.”

The announcement of Christ’s investiture with “all power” is beautifully connected with this missionary injunction — “All power” says He, “is given to me,” THEREFORE, (’ go ye and teach all nations” — as if the first use He would make of this Mediatorial rule and sovereignty was to break down the barriers that had so long separated race from race, and make the waters of salvation roll round the globe, and, like its own oceans, touch every shore. Set as King in the citadel

Psalm xlvii. 5, 6, 8, 9. t Matt. x. 5, 6.

of Zion, He had examined its armoury, inspected its treasures, and the first use He makes of these is to panoply His Disciples, and send them forth as the conquerors of the world.

What a startling commission! what a gigantic undertaking! Had the wise of this world been of the listening throng on that Galilee mountain, how would they have laughed it to scorn! What! that handful of Galilean boors and fishermen to go forth on the conquest of the human race — men devoid of learning, polish, worldly tact, worldly wisdom, to proclaim a lowly Jew, who lived a lowly life and died an ignominious death, Lord of all! To undertake, moreover, to wage war with lust, and passion, and self in every shape — to proclaim that there was sin against high Heaven, not in the word and deed only, but in the secret thought of revenge, the rising passion, the unclean look; — to hurl the venerated systems of ages from their thrones — to dethrone JUPITER from the Capitol, MINERVA from the Acropolis, and erect in their place the pure, self-denying doctrines of the Cross, and the worship of a God Invisible! It seemed the ravings of childish enthusiasm, the boldness of ignorant and infatuated dreamers. And what were to be their weapons? The battle of the world’s warriors is “with confused noise and garments rolled in blood,” The secret of Mohammedan triumph was the power of the sword. But the commission is not “go and subdue’’ “go and conquer” — but go and teach, go “make disciples.”* It was to be a moral victory over Mind, Conscience, Will, a debased Nature, grovelling Passions. It was by a few scrolls written by Hebrew prophets, and. Jewish fishermen and publicans, that the world was to be “turned upside down,”

The unlettered listeners, with nothing but the simple sling of faith and the smooth pebbles from the brook of eternal Truth, were to go forth on their apparently hopeless undertaking!

If those localities are sacred in the world which are associated with the first plannings and conception of a great enterprise, where originated some grand thought or purpose which has had a powerful influence for good on mankind; — if that spot is memorable where Columbus first dreamed of his unknown western world — or where Newton sat under his garden-bough and grasped the law which moulds the rain-drop and gives the planet its pathway — or the library where Luther found the dusty volume which gave birth to the Reformation, and emancipated the human mind from the despotism of ages; — how illustrious and hallowed surely must ever be that mountain-scene in Galilee where the Jew listened with startled ears to the strange command, that “Repentance and remission of sins “were now to be preached, in the name of Jesus, “to all nations” — that henceforth there was to be “neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free” — that the Angel of the Jewish Church had now folded his wings, and that “another Anger’ was about to “fly in the midst of Heaven, having the Everlasting Gospel, to preach to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” *

What a sacred trust was here confided to us I Woe betide that Church which neglects so hallowed a bequest, and selfishly appropriates its spiritual blessings without one effort to convey them to others.

If farewell words are ever solemn and binding ones, let

* Rev. xiv. 6.

the Church of Christ come to this Mountain of Galilee, and listen to the parting command and injunction of her Great Lord. Striking surely, and significant it was, that, ere He ascended, one of His last farewell looks should have been turned towards the nations yet sitting in darkness; that His last utterances were burdened with a solemn charge to the Church of the future to “go far hence unto the Gentiles,” The wailing cry of unhappy Heathendom was doubtless, at that moment, borne to His ear from all coming ages. The wild shriek that has risen in our own age may have mingled in the terrible appeal. Well He knew that nothing would tame savage hearts but the regenerating power of His own blessed Gospel; and, therefore, ere He bids the world farewell, and suffers the chariot-cloud to descend, he utters, with heathen mountain-peaks in view, and half heathen villages at his feet, the ever-memorable command, “Go and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

III. We have, finally, THE PARTING PROMISE.

The Saviour’s discourse is drawing to a close; a few more utterances and He will vanish from sight never again to be seen by His Church on earth, till the Great Day of His appearing.

Sorrow was doubtless filling their hearts at the thought of His departure, when the most sacred and joyous of friendships seemed about to be dissolved for ever. But by one glorious promise He turns their sorrow into joy, — “I go,” He seems to say, “and yet I will never leave you. These heavens are about to receive me, but though my personal presence be withdrawn, — though this Risen Body is soon to be screened from view behind the veiled glories of the Holiest of all, think not in reality my Presence is gone, ‘Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.’ >:

There is a beautiful connexion and contrast between the first and the last assertions of this farewell discourse. The assertion of His unlimited sovereign Dominion was a cheering and gladdening one. It was the announcement that the garnered riches of the Universe were in His possession, and that all these would be used in behalf of His people. He seems in it to take the telescope and sweep the boundless firmament of His power, proclaiming His kingdom to be an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion enduring throughout all generations. But now is the telescope laid aside, and the microscope is turned to every atom of redeemed dust! He leaves the symbols of His might in the Heavens above, — His regal sway over “thrones, dominions, principalities, powers,” — and turning to each one individual member of His Church on earth, the feeblest, the poorest, the lowliest, the most desolate, — He says, Lo! I am with YOU alway, even unto the end of the world! The splendours of His mediatorial throne were at that moment in view. The harps of Heaven were sounding in His ear. But He assures them, when standing on the very threshold of all this glory, that His heart of love would still continue with the Pilgrim Church He was to leave in a Pilgrim World. “All power is given to me in Heaven;” YET, “Lo I I am with YOU!”

That farewell saying has lost none of its comfort. “You,” — that little word embraced every one of us! — You, — Jesus looked down the vista of eighteen centuries, His eye, perhaps, was on some lone spirit now reading these pages who thinks he has been left to the mercy of the storm, and still He says, “0 thou of little faith, wherefore art thou cast down? — dry thy tears, dispel thy misgivings, ‘Lo! I am with You!’”

Yes, Blessed assurance amid much that is changing here! Heart and flesh do faint and fail! Often our cisterns are scarcely filled when they break in pieces — our suns have scarce climbed the meridian when they set in weeping clouds; — our fondest schemes are blown upon — our most cherished gourds withered. We seat ourselves in our homes, but there are blanks there — vacant seats tell the too truthful tale of severed links, and blighted hopes, and early graves. As age creeps on, we look around us, but the companions of our pilgrimage are gone — noble forest trees, one by one, have bowed to the axe; “the place that once knew them, knows them no more,” BUT there is ONE surviving the wreck and ruin of all sublunary joys, changeless among the changeable — “Lo! I am with you” — and “the wilderness and the solitary place” are by that presence made glad!

Amid sacred musings over departed friends — when visions of “the loved and lost” come flitting before us like shadows on the wall, — how often do we indulge the pleasing imagination of their still mingling with us in mysterious intercourse — their wings of light and smiles of love hovering over us; delighting to frequent with us hallowed haunts, and re- participate with our spirits in hallowed joys. This may perchance be but a fond delusion regarding others, — but it is sublimely true regarding JESUS! When the gates of the morning are opened, swifter than the arrowy light His footstep of love is at our threshold, and His voice is heard saying,

2B “Lo! I am with you.” When the glow of health has left our cheek, and the dim night-lamp casts its flickering gleam on our pillow, His unslumbering eye is watching us, and His lips gently whisper, “Lo! I am with you.” When the King of Terrors has entered our dwellings — when we are seated amid the awful stillness of the death chamber, gazing on the shroud which covers the hope of our hearts and the pride of our lives; — oh! amid that prostration of earthly hopes, — when unable to glance one thought on a dark future, — when the stricken spirit, like a wounded bird, lies struggling in the dust with broken wing and wailing cry — longing only for pinions to flee away from a weary world to the quiet rest of the grave; — in that hour of earthly desolation, He who has the Keys of death at His girdle — nay, who has tasted death Himself, and, better still, who hath conquered it — draws near in touching tenderness, saying, “Lo I I am with you.” I will come in the place of your loved ones. / am with you to cheer you, to comfort you, to support and sustain you. /, who once wept at a grave, am here to weep with you — / will be at your side in all that trying future — I will make my grace sufficient for you, and my promises precious to you, and my love better than all earthly affection. The one is changeable, / am unchangeable — the one must perish, / am the strength of your heart and your portion for ever!

Mark the word in this parting promise, “Lo I I am with you ALWAY.” In the original it is more expressive; it means “All THE days” * — (all the appointed days). Our times are

ras ypepas.

in the hands of Jesus — He counts not our years, but our DAYS — and He promises to be with us every day to the last day of all; and when that last day comes, He withdraws not His Presence but changes the Scene of it, and says, “TO-DAY slmlt thou be with Me in PARADISE,”

Reader! cleave to this glorious farewell promise. Rejoice in Christ’s fidelity to it. Nature never belies her promises; we can calculate with unfailing accuracy on her unvarying sequences. The sun that sets to-day behind the western hills, will rise to-morrow. The trees which in the waning year are bared of their foliage, will be clothed with verdure in returning spring. The husbandman, casting his seed in the prepared furrow, sees afar off Autumn with her joyous sickle coming to bear the harvest treasure home.

And if the outer world be thus scrupulously truthful and unerring — “He is faithful that promised, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” True, we may not, and do not, witness, in visible manifestation, the Saviour’s power or presence. But as the mightiest agencies in nature * — gravitation, heat, electricity — are hidden and impalpable, yet constant in their influence, and stupendous in their effects; so it is ‘with this ever-present Saviour. We see Him not — we hear not His voice — we cannot touch, like the believing suppliant of old, the hem of His outer garment. But it is the mission of Faith to rise above the impalpable and intangible, and to hold converse with the UNSEEN. The Believer, planting his footsteps on the Rock of Ages, can say with triumphant joy, “THE LORD LIVETH, and blessed be my

* Harris.

Rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted.” Mounting with Paul on soaring pinions, he can challenge the Heavens above and the Earth beneath, legions of Angels and hosts of devils, ever to separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus his Lord!