Thus we can see how, as a matter of historic fact, the adventure of the women at the grave did sink into comparative oblivion beside the much vaster and more vital issues which events determined. Its memory was cherished personally by the women themselves, for they alone had the honiur of originating a very human service to their Master at a time of great danger and uncertainty. It was known to the disciples themselves. In quieter and more settled times it was doubtless included in the instructions of the Church. And out of that widespread dissemination of the story throughout the Christian churches of Europe and Asia arose all those divergent and developed accounts of which St. Luke and St. Matthews versions are typical. Thus the young man at the grave, who really was a young man in the original story, became in course of time the great angel of St. Matthew, and the two mighty and dazzling celestial visitants of St. Luke. Thus, too, the rolling away of the stone, the true history of which was known only to the priests, became the subject of numerous conjectures, some saying that it rolled away of itself, others that the angels moved it. But behind all these secondary versions stood the simple and historic facts. It is when we recognize this clearly that we begin to understand something of the meaning and significance of that wonderful document which throughout these pages I have described as the Marcan fragment. Many years later, when the hopes of an immediate return of Christ were fading, and the Church was settling down to its historic work, the need was felt for some connected record of the outstanding events of life and dealth of Jesus. The earliest extant history of that kind is the famous fragment of St. Mark. If the writer was John Mark, he was singularly fitted for telling that story, especially the closing chapters. He was a Jerusalemite who as a youth lived through those stormy and tempestous days. That he had access to first-hand information about the closing week is obvious from the minuteness, the almost startling sharpness and fidelity of his detail. No one but a writer in close touch with the facts could have given us that unforgettable moonlight picture of the Garden of Gethsemane. I submit, too, that there are touches in his description of the womens adventure which suggest a similar authentic source. For some reason St. Mark believed that Jesus had not only predicted His own death, but His resurrection also. He believed, too, that shortly before His death, on the way to Gethsemane, Our Lord reiterated that solemn warning. With these conceptions in his mind and with the first-hand information which reached him from other sources, he pieced together and built up one of the most graphic pieces of description in all literature. It stands out above its fellows by its sheer objectivity, the crystalline quality of its clarity. He describes the vigil in the garden and the midnight arrest in words which only too plainly rest upon fact. He gives us a really intelligible account of the trial before Caiaphas and the abasement of Peter. He describes the Roman trial, the journey to Calvary, and the Crucifixion, in language so simple and yet so poignant that as Mr. Chesterton has truly said the reader feels as though rocks had been rolled over him. He describes how, just as the awful tragedy was coming to its culmination, Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate for permission to bury the body, and obtained it. He tells how the stricken and sorrowing women followed in Josephs trail, and beheld where the body was laid; and how, as the sun went down upon that awful afternoon, the stone was hurriedly but reverently placed across the mouth of the cave. He also explains how, having bought spices during the week-end, the women arose early on Sunday morning and came to the tomb at dawn. Peace!
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 06:53:25 +0000
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