ord 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.

Jesus had spoken of this indirectly but distinctly when first He told
His disciples of His suffering and death, six months before. And each
time afterwards when He told them of His death the words were always
added, "and the third day rise again."[130] I The two things are nearly
always linked. But they hadn't seemed to sense what He meant. The thing
seems quite beyond them.

He spoke of it again on that never-to-be-forgotten night of the
betrayal, the night of the feet-washing, and that last long talk, and
that wondrous Kidron-prayer. He spoke of it more than once that night.

It was a very emphatic word He spoke as they were walking along the
darkly shadowed Jerusalem streets out towards the east gate. He said, "a
little while and ye shall behold Me no more; and again a little while
and ye shall see Me."[131] And the disciples pick this up and puzzle
over it.

And the Master explains rather carefully and at some length. There was a
time of sore trouble coming for Him and for them. And while they were
sorrowing the outer crowd would be making merry. But it would be just as
with the expectant mother, He said. All the while even when the pains
cut she is thinking of the great delight that is to be hers. Her
after-joy clean wipes out of her thought the sharp cutting of the pain.

So it would be. "_I will see you again_," He said in plainest speech.
And again that same night He said, "after I am raised up, _I will go
before you into Galilee_." Could any appointment be more explicit as to
time and place?

But they forget. Aye, there's the bother, this thing of forgetting. The
memory is ever the index of t