Luke 21:37,38

The Mount of Olives

Contemplations on Olivet

It will not be difficult to conceive how our Lord passed this sleepless night on the Mount of Olives.

I. NIGHT FOREBODINGS OVER THE DOOM OF THE CITY WHICH HAD REJECTED HIM. Can we wonder that His thoughts that night were sad? Meet the facts fully and attentively, of--

1. Christ’s grief over the apostate city.

2. Christ’s grief over the doomed city. He knew the inseparable connection between sinning against Christ and impending doom.

II. NIGHT REFLECTIONS UPON HIS PROPHECIES WHICH FORESHADOWED THE END. Desecration of the Holy City; slaughter and dispersion of God’s people; dire international struggles; decadence of faith, etc.

III. NIGHT ANTICIPATIONS OF THE CLOSING EVENTS OF HIS EARTHLY CAREER. He clearly read each incident of His nearing anguish, and He carefully confronted it all. Nothing could divert Him from His goal

IV. NIGHT PREPARATION FOR THE SURRENDER TO HIS NEARING DEATH.

1. Why this readiness to meet death? He would save others; not Himself.

2. For whom this readiness to die? For false friends and hating foes. (W. HJellie.)

Work and prayer

The life of the Lord Jesus on earth was a true human life; and it is only as we fully recognize this fact that we can find in it an example for our guidance. Here is a brief but instructive record of one important portion of His ministry on earth--itself a type of His whole course. The day was given to work--the evening to quiet rest, meditation, and prayer. Both were necessary to the fulfilment of His mission, and both arc essential to the completeness of our Christian character. Here are two elements of Christian excellence, apparently apposite, yet both must be blended in one who would attain to the fulness of the stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus. Many have tried, are trying, to separate them. There have been ages, there are still individuals and parties in whom there is an excess of the devotional--an excess, because it is to the exclusion of the active part. Man can never pray too often or too earnestly; but if his whole ideas of religious duty be confined to the reading of so-called spiritual books, the attendance on the public worship of God, or the performance of certain acts of private devotion--if the whole time that is not spent thus is regarded as something removed from the sphere of religion--if the ordinary work of the world be looked on as something that is fitted to lower the tone of the soul, and to interfere with spiritual earnestness--if even active service for Christ be depreciated, then the true character of a Christian life is altogether forgotten. There is the opposite danger, and it is perhaps that into which we are most prone to fall. Ours is the age of activity--from every side come to the Christian calls for earnest labour, for the overthrow of error, for the enlightening of ignorance, for the diffusion of the Gospel, for the relief of suffering and poverty, for the advancement of the numberless institutions which seek the advancement of Christ’s kingdom. Demands of this character are incessant; and if obedience to them be the whole of our religion--if such engagements prevent heart-searching, God-seeking, quiet, meditation, and earnest prayer--ii they draw us away from that self-communion which is the true prelude to communion with God--if all is bustle, excitement, outward struggle, there is sure to be weakness.

I. It will not need much argument to prove that ACTIVE LABOURS FOR CHRIST ARE AN ESSENTIAL PART OF CHRISTIAN DUTY. The life of Christ is the model for all true human lives. In the perfection of His self-sacrifice, in His readiness for all kinds of service, in His eagerness to search out opportunities for blessing man, in His indifference to every motive or feeling that would have held Him back in His ministry of love--in the resolve so early announced, that He must be about His Father’s business, our great Master inspires and guides us. His own teachings indicate clearly that His followers are not to be recluses dwelling apart from their kind, but men taking their place in the world’s associations and movements, that they may affect them for good. They are the salt of the earth, and that salt must be applied to the mass which it is to season and preserve, else where were its value? Surely it argues no want of charity to say that all these pleas argue an absence of true love to Christ. Men complain of want of opportunities, want of adaptation, want of intellect, when their one grand deficiency is want of heart. Love will quicken languid feelings, multiply the few talents, ennoble that which else were mean, breathe courage into trembling hearts, and make the foolish wise to win souls. Difficulties that to sluggards seem insuperable, will but stimulate its ardour and reveal its strength.

II. THE CHRISTIAN MAN MUST HAVE HIS TIMES FOR RETIREMENT AND PRAYER. This is the other lesson taught by the brief record of the last week of our Lord’s ministry on earth. Now as the crisis draws near and the cross is in immediate prospect, still more does His spirit crave that retirement in which, with strong crying and tears, He can make His supplication to His heavenly Father. To us the spectacle is alike sublime and mysterious, yet full of instruction. The glories which belong to the God cannot make us forget that He has become in all respects like to us, and that as our elder brother He teaches us our need, and shows us where we must seek for strength and succour. For we, too, need our times of rest for meditation, self-examination, and prayer. Soul and body in this follow the same law. Science tells us, and experience confirms the truth, that food is not more needful for the body than rest. Want of sleep will exhaust and kill as well as want of food. So with the soul. Asleep in the full sense it ought never to be, but rest, cessation of conflict, labour, and trial, it does need. Constant excitement, unrelaxing toil, unceasing struggle, would have the same effect on it as on the body. We feel, in our bodily life, need for even more than the night of sleep. Who can tell the blessing to the world, even as a mere physical good, of the Christian Sabbath? Our Good Shepherd knows our need, and therefore He has still waters to which He leads His flock--“waters of testings,” where our spirits, exhausted by work or warfare, may find the refreshment they require. He calls us, therefore, to rest and prayer, that we may find the “ renewing of the Holy Ghost.” Thus the earnest worker is prepared to be the most importunate pleader with God, and the fervent prayer, in its turn, fills the soul with the inspiration of a burning zeal and the confidence of an assured faith. (J. G. Rogers, B. A.)

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