And men answer to Jesus’ great plea.  With flooded eyes and broken hearts, and bending wills, and changed lives, men of all the race bow gratefully at the feet of Jesus, our Saviour and Lord and coming King.

VI

An Appointed Tryst Unexpectedly Kept

     A Day of Startling Joyous Surprises

“Halts by me that footfall:  Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand outstretched caressingly?  ’Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He whom thou seekest! Thou drawest love from thee, who drawest Me.’”

    —­“The Hound of Heaven.

     “After I am raised up I will go before you into Galilee.”—­Mark
     xiv. 28.

VI

An Appointed Tryst Unexpectedly Kept

(John xx.)

The Appointment.

Jesus had made an appointment.  It was with these dear friends who had responded so lovingly to His wooing.  It was a significant appointment, most significant.  He had appointed to meet them three days after His death.  He had made a further appointment to meet them in Galilee.  What a stupendous appointment to make!

It was a sacred appointment, sacred as the love that made it, sacred to Jesus as the friendship of these men with whom it was made, sacred as His word that never was broken.  Our Scottish friends use a most significant word for appointment, the word tryst.  They used to use it some for ordinary appointments, but chiefly it is used for friendship and for love-appointments.  The appointment is a tryst.

Tryst is the same word as trust.  In the old Gothic language it was one of the words used for a covenant or treaty.  In medieval Latin it was a pledge given that an agreement would be kept.  It is a fine turn of a word that uses the very spirit of confidence in one’s heart in another as the name for the appointment made with him.  The trust in the heart gives the name to the appointment.  It’s an appointment with one who can be trusted to keep his word, and who is trusted.

So an appointed tryst becomes more than a mere appointment.  It is a pledge of faith.  Now this is the real force of the word here.  Jesus had appointed a tryst with these men, and in making it He was plighting His troth, pledging His word to them.  He had asked them to risk all for Him.  In this tryst He is pledging all to them.

He never forgot that sacred appointment.  He had thought much before He made it.  He knew it would involve much to keep it.  The power of God was at stake in the making and the keeping of it.  He knew that.  He thought of it.  He made the appointment and He kept it.  Jesus keeps His appointments.  His word never fails.  Not even the gates of death, nor the power of the evil one, can prevail against it.

This was a staggering appointment.  It took so much for granted.  It reckons God’s power is as big as it is.  But then that’s a way Jesus had, and has.  And it is a way he will come to have who companions much with Jesus.