The Mount of Olives, and Other Lectures on Prayer

“And he went, as he was wont, to the Mount of Olives:’

The mountains are Nature’s monuments. Like the islands they dwell apart, and like them they give asylum from a noisy and irreverent world. In their silence many a meditative spirit has found leisure for the longest thought, and in their Patmos-like seclusion the brightest visions and largest projects have evolved; whilst by a sort of overmastering attraction they have usually drawn to themselves the most memorable incidents which variegate our human history. And, as they are the natural haunts of the highest spirits, and the appropriate scenes of the most signal occurrences, so they are the noblest cenotaphs. Far off they arrest the eye; and though their hoary chronicle tells its legend of the past, their heaven-pointing elevations convey the spirit onward towards eternity. We do not wonder that excited fancy has sought relics of the ark on the top of Ararat; and in the grim solitude of Sinai, it is solemn to remember and easy to believe that the voice of Jehovah has spoken here. Elijah has made Carmel all his own, and the death of Moses must be ever Pisgah’s diadem. The words of Jesus seem still to linger on the hills of Galilee, their lilies forbidding “thought for raiment,” and their little birds twittering “no thought for to-morrow,” whilst every grassy tuft and scented flower is breathing its own beatitude. But though heavenly wisdom spake on that mountain-side, and excellent glory lighted up the top of Tabor, there is another height to which discipleship reverts with fonder memory, and which it treads with softer step — that mountain where beyond any spot in Palestine “God was manifest in flesh,” — where the great Intercessor was wont to pray, where Jesus wept over Jerusalem, on whose slopes he blessed the Apostleband, and sent his message of mercy to mankind — the mountain at whose base lay Bethany and Gethsemane — on whose gentle turf his feet last stood, and where they yet may stand again — the Sabbatic, pensive, and expectant Mount of Olives.

Round this Incarnation-monument let our thoughts this day revolve. To learn the mind which was in Christ, and so the mind which is in God, let us confine our view to that little spot, and ponder those scenes in the Saviour’s history and those words in the Saviour’s ministry of which the theatre was Olivet. And whilst we do this for purposes of general piety — to get materials for our faith and love — let us, as the best introduction to a few discourses on Prayer, keep an especial eye to the suppliant Saviour. That we may know the Intercessor above, there is no way so excellent as to get acquainted with that same Jesus while he sojourned here below.

1. Olivet reminds us of the Saviour’s pity for such as perish. It was a pleasant evening in spring, and the Holy Land looked happy The rapid verdure — the bright blush of the pomegranate, and the tender scent of the budding vines — the nestling dove in her mur-B 2 muring joy, and the colt and lamb in their crazy gambols — all felt the gush of vernal glee. And people felt it. It was the sunny paschal tide, and the waysides resounded with shouting pilgrims on their journey to Jerusalem. From Hermon to Zion it was one long stream of music and merry hearts, and even round the Man of Sorrows it looked like a dawn of joy. They seem at last to guess his mission and suspect his glory. They are conducting him in triumph. They are rending down the palm-branches and cleaving the welkin with their shouts, “Hosannah to the Son of David!” and proud is he on whose mantle the pacing colt of their new monarch sets his foot. — But why this solemn pause? this slackened gait, this quivering lip, this tearful eye? Jerusalem is full in sight — straight over yon narrow vale, so near that you may count each stone of the glistening temple, and catch from the teeming streets this evening’s tune of mingled gladness. Is it not a goodly sight? yon gorgeous fane — the true Jehovah’s sanctuary; yon crowding population, God’s ancient people — and more than all, the thought of happy meetings and blessed homes on which this evening’s sun will set? But the Saviour saw another crowd and heard another shout. Through the darkened noon he saw the erected cross, and round it heard the frantic mob exclaiming, “Away with him, away with him! Crucify him, crucify him! His blood be on us and our children.” The Saviour saw another sight. Across the gulf of forty years he looked as clearly as then he looked across the valley of Jehoshaphat, and saw the dismal prayer fulfilled. He saw another passover, and another multitude, and another evening like this — but saw that there should never be the like again. He beheld the Roman eagle swoop down on Ids quarry, and in the straitness of that siege saw things from which the piteous soul of Immanuel shrank away. He saw another sight. He saw these goodly stones all tumbled down, and barley growing in silent fields where now so many footsteps nimbly tripped it — no temple, no ephod, no priest, no passover! And, oh! he saw yet another sight. He saw another world, and in its sullen gloom and endless weeping recognised many a one whose beaming face and sparkling eye lit up that evening’s

b 3 festival. As if already in the place of woe he looked on many round him; and though their voices were that moment merry and shouting in his train, he knew that they would despise his blood and hate his Heavenly Father, and their present mirth made Jesus weep the more. “He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.”

Every tear that Jesus wept is a mystery, and this solemn incident in the Redeemer’s history no one can entirely explain. But, my dear friends, it teaches this awful lesson — that some may share a Saviour’s tears who never profit by a Saviour’s blood. It shows that his pity for sinners is far beyond their pity for themselves. 0 Christless sinner! these, tears of the Saviour speak to thee. They ask, Do you know to what a hell you are going, and what a heaven you are losing? You may be merry now — but so was Jerusalem then — and yet its mirth made Jesus weep the more. You may be light-hearted and lovely to your friends- — and so were many of those whose ungodly souls and dark hereafter made Jesus weep. You may be in the midst of mercy and surrounded with the means of grace — and so were they; but mercy so near them and grace rejected only made the Saviour’s tears flow faster. “Would that thou hadst known in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace!” And you may have even some interest about the Saviour. Under some erroneous impression, or on a holiday triumph, you may join the jubilant company and shout Hosannah — but oh! if you despise his blood, or join the world that crucifies him, you are one of those whose cup of wrath will only be embittered by a pitying Saviour’s slighted tears. You who never come to a communion

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