In the next place, our text illuminates Christ's fearlessness, and that indeed is the textual meaning of it, for it was when the disciples were trying to alarm Him that Jesus silenced their suggestions so.
Master, they said, "It is a dangerous thing to show Yourself at Bethany.
Remember how they sought to stone you on Your last visit; it will be almost certain death to go thither again.
And it was then, to silence all their terror and with a courage as sublime as it was simple that Jesus asked, "Are there not twelve hours in the day ?"
What did He mean? He meant, I have my day. Its dawn and its sunset have been fixed by God.
Nothing can shorten it and nothing can prolong it.
Till the curfew of God rings out, I cannot die.
It was that steadying sense of the divine disposal which made the Christ so absolutely fearless and braced Him for every clenched antagonism that rose with menace upon the path of duty.
When Dr. Livingstone was in the heart of Africa, he wrote a memorable sentence in his diary.
He was ill and far away from any friend, and he was deserted by his medicine-carrier.
But he was willing to go anywhere provided it was forward, and what he wrote with a trembling hand was this: "I am immortal till my work is done."
That was the faith of Paul and of Martin Luther, the faith of Oliver Cromwell and of Livingstone.
They had caught the fearless spirit of the Master who knew there were twelve hours in the day.
~George H. Morrison~