BLAIR

1718—­1800

THE HOUR AND THE EVENT OF ALL TIME

Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father! the hour is come.—­John xvii., 1.

These were the words of our blest Lord on a memorable occasion.  The feast of the Passover drew nigh, at which He knew that He was to suffer.  The night was arrived wherein He was to be delivered into the hands of His enemies.  He had spent the evening in conference with His disciples, like a dying father in the midst of his family, mingling consolations with His last instructions.  When He had ended His discourse to them, “he lifted up his eyes to heaven,” and with the words which I have now read, began that solemn prayer of intercession for the Church, which closed His ministry.  Immediately after, He went forth with His disciples into the garden of Gethsemane and surrendered Himself to those who came to apprehend Him.

Such was the situation of our Lord at the time of His pronouncing these words.  He saw His mission on the point of being accomplished.  He had the prospect full before Him of all that He was about to suffer—­“Father! the hour is come.”  What hour?  An hour the most critical, the most pregnant with great events, since hours had begun to be numbered, since time had begun to run.  It was the hour at which the Son of God was to terminate the labors of His important life by a death still more important and illustrious; the hour of atoning, by His sufferings, for the guilt of mankind; the hour of accomplishing prophecies, types, and symbols, which had been carried on through a series of ages; the hour of concluding the old and of introducing into the world the new dispensation of religion; the hour of His triumphing over the world, and death, and hell; the hour of His creating that spiritual kingdom which is to last forever.  Such is the hour.  Such are the events which you are to commemorate in the sacrament of our Lord’s Supper.

I. This was the hour in which Christ was glorified by His sufferings.  The whole of His life had discovered much real greatness under a mean appearance.  Through the cloud of His humiliation, His native luster often broke forth; but never did it shine so bright as in this last, this trying hour.  It was indeed the hour of distress and of blood.  He knew it to be such; and when He uttered the words of the text, He had before His eyes the executioner and the cross, the scourge, the nails, and the spear.  But by prospects of this nature His soul was not to be overcome.  It is distress which ennobles every great character; and distress was to glorify the Son of God.  He was now to teach all mankind by His example, how to suffer and to die.  He was to stand forth before His enemies as the faithful witness of the truth, justifying by His behavior the character which He assumed, and sealing by His blood the doctrines which He taught.