Now I know there has been harm done by the very desire to exalt Christ"s great sacrifice on the Cross; when it has been so separated from His life as that the life has not been regarded as a sacrifice, nor the death as obedience. Rather the sacrificial element runs through His whole career, and began when He became flesh and tabernacled amongst us; but yet as being the apex of it all, without which it were all-imperfect, and in a special sense redeeming men from the power of death, that Cross is set forth by His own word.
For Him to "perish" was to "be perfected." As the ancient prophet long before had said, "When His soul shall make an offering for sin," then, paradoxical as it may seem, the dead Man shall "see,"
and "shall see His seed." Or, as He Himself said, "If a corn of wheat fall into the ground it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit."
I do not want to insist upon any theories of Atonement. I do want to insist that Christ"s own estimate of the significance and purpose and issue of His death shall not be slurred over, but that, recognising that He Himself regarded it as the perfecting of His work, we ask ourselves very earnestly how such a conception can be explained if we strike out of our Christianity the thought of the sacrifice for the sins of the world. Unless we take Paul"s gospel, "How that He died for our sins according to the Scriptures," I for one do not believe that we shall ever get Paul"s results, "Old things are pa.s.sed away; all things are become new." If you strike the Cross off the dome of the temple, the fires on its altars will soon go out. A Christianity which has to say much about the life of Jesus, and knows not what to say about the death of Christ, will be a Christianity that will neither have much constraining power in our lives, nor be able to breathe a benediction of peace over our deaths. If we desire to be perfected in character, we must have faith in that sacrificial death which was the perfecting of Christ"s work.
III. And so, lastly, notice our Lord"s resolved surrender to the discerned Cross.
There is much in this aspect in the words of my text which I cannot touch upon now; but two or three points I may briefly notice.
Note then, I was going to say, the superb heroism of His calm indifference to threats and dangers. He will go hence, and relieve the tyrant"s dominions of His presence; but He is careful to make it plain that His going has no connection with the futile threatenings by which they have sought to terrify Him. "Nevertheless"--although I do not care at all for them or for him--"nevertheless I must journey to-day and tomorrow! But that is not because I fear death, but because I am going to My death; for the prophet must die in Jerusalem." We are so accustomed to think of the "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" that we forget the "strong Son of G.o.d." If we were talking about a man merely, we should point to this calm, dignified answer as being an instance of heroism, but we do not feel that that word fits Him. There are too many vulgar a.s.sociations connected with it, to be adapted to the gentleness of His fixed purpose that blenched not, nor faltered, whatsoever came in the way.
Light is far more powerful than lightning. Meekness may be, and in Him was, wedded to a will like a bar of iron, and a heart that knew not how to fear. If ever there was an iron hand in a velvet glove it was the hand of Christ. And although the perspective of virtues which Christianity has introduced, and which Christ exhibited in His life, gives prominence to the meek and the gentle, let us not forget that it also enjoins the cultivation of the "wrestling thews that throw the world." "Quit you like men; be strong; let all your deeds be done in charity."
Then note, too, the solemn law that ruled His life. "I _must_ walk." That is a very familiar expression upon His lips. From that early day when He said, "Wist ye not that I _must_ be about My Father"s business," to that last when He said, "The Son of Man _must_ be lifted up," there crops out, ever and anon, in the occasional glimpses that He allows us to have of His inmost spirit, this reference of all His actions to a necessity that was laid upon Him, and to which He ever consciously conformed. That necessity determined what He calls so frequently "My time; My hour"; and influenced the trifles, as they are called, as well as the great crises, of His career. It was the Father"s will which made the Son"s _must_. Hence His unbroken communion and untroubled calm.
If we want to live near G.o.d, and if we want to have lives of peace amidst convulsions, we, too, must yield ourselves to that all encompa.s.sing sovereign necessity, which, like the great laws of the universe, shapes the planets and the suns in their courses and their stations; and holds together two grains of dust, or two motes that dance in the sunshine. To gravitation there is nothing great and nothing small. G.o.d"s _must_ covers all the ground of our lives, and should ever be responded to by our "I will."
And that brings me to the last point, and that is, our Lord"s glad acceptance of the necessity and surrender of the Cross. What was it that made Him willing to take that "must" as the law of His life?
First, a Son"s obedience; second, a Brother"s love. There was no point in Christ"s career, from the moment when in the desert He put away the temptation to win the kingdoms of the world by other than the G.o.d-appointed means, down to the last moment when on His dying ears there fell another form of the same temptation in the taunt, "Let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe on Him"; when He could not, if He had chosen to abandon His mission, have saved Himself. No compulsion, no outward hand impelling Him, drove Him along that course which ended on Calvary; but only that He would save others, and therefore "Himself He cannot save."
True, there were natural human shrinkings, just as the weight and impetus of some tremendous billow buffeting the bows of the ship makes it quiver; but this never affected the firm hand on the rudder, and never deflected the vessel from its course. Christ"s "soul was troubled," but His will was fixed, and it was fixed by His love to us. Like one of the men who in after ages died for His dear sake, He may be conceived as refusing to be bound to the stake by any bands, willing to stand there and be destroyed because He wills.
Nothing fastened Him to the Cross but His resolve to save the world, in which world was included each of us sitting listening and standing speaking, now. Oh, brethren! shall not we, moved by such love, with like cheerfulness of surrender, give ourselves to Him who gave Himself for us?
THE LESSONS OF A FEAST
"And it came to pa.s.s, as He went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day, that they watched Him. 2. And, behold, there was a certain man before Him which had the dropsy. 3. And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? 4. And they held their peace. And He took him, and healed him, and let him go; 5. And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an a.s.s or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day?
6. And they could not answer Him again to these things.
7. And He put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when He marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, 8. When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; 9. And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. 10. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. 11. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. 12. Then said He also to him that bade Him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. 13. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: 14. And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."
--LUKE xiv. 1-14.
Jesus never refused an invitation, whether the inviter were a Pharisee or a publican, a friend or a foe. He never mistook the disposition of His host. He accepted "greetings where no kindness is," and on this occasion there was none. The entertainer was a spy, and the feast was a trap. What a contrast between the malicious watchers at the table, ready to note and to interpret in the worst sense every action of His, and Him loving and wishing to bless even them! The chill atmosphere of suspicion did not freeze the flow of His gentle beneficence and wise teaching. His meek goodness remained itself in the face of hostile observers. The miracle and the two parables are aimed straight at their errors.
I. How came the dropsical man there? Possibly he had simply strayed in to look on at the feast, as the freedom of manners then would permit him to do. The absence of any hint that he came hoping for a cure, and of any trace of faith on his part, or of speech to him on Christ"s, joined with his immediate dismissal after his cure, rather favours the supposition that he had been put as the bait of the trap, on the calculation that the sight of him would move Jesus to heal him. The setters of the snare were "watching" whether it would work, and Jesus "answered" their thoughts, which were, doubtless, visible in their eyes. His answer has three stages--a question which is an a.s.sertion, the cure, and another affirming question. All three are met with sulky silence, which speaks more than words would have done. The first question takes the "lawyers" on their own ground, and in effect a.s.serts that to heal did not break the Sabbath. Jesus challenges denial of the lawfulness of it, and the silence of the Pharisees confesses that they dare not deny. "The bare fact of healing is not prohibited," they might have said, "but the acts necessary for healing are." But no acts were necessary for this Healer"s power to operate. The outgoing of His will had power. Their finespun distinctions of deeds lawful and unlawful were spiders"
webs, and His act of mercy flew high above the webs, like some fair winged creature glancing in the sunshine, while the spider sits in his crevice balked. The broad principle involved in Jesus" first question is that no Sabbath law, no so-called religious restriction, can ever forbid helping the miserable. The repose of the Sabbath is deepened, not disturbed, by activity for man"s good.
The cure is told without detail, probably because there were no details to tell. There is no sign of request or of faith on the sufferer"s part; there seems to have been no outward act on Christ"s beyond "taking" him, which appears simply to mean that He called him nearer, and then, by a simple exercise of His will, healed him.
There is no trace of thanks or of wonder in the heart of the sufferer, who probably never had anything more to do with his benefactor. Silently he comes on the stage, silently he gets his blessing, silently he disappears. A strange, sad instance of how possible it is to have a momentary connection with Jesus, and even to receive gifts from His hand, and yet to have no real, permanent relation to Him!
The second question turns from the legal to a broader consideration.
The spontaneous workings of the heart are not to be dammed back by ceremonial laws. Need calls for immediate succour. You do not wait for the Sabbath"s sun to set when your ox or your a.s.s is in a pit.
(The reading "son" instead of "ox," as in the Revised Version margin, is incongruous.) Jesus is appealing to the instinctive wish to give immediate help even to a beast in trouble, and implies that much more should the same instinct be allowed immediate play when its object is a man. The listeners were self-condemned, and their obstinate silence proves that the arrow had struck deep.
II. The cure seems to have taken place before the guests seated themselves. Then came a scramble for the most honourable places, on which He looked with perhaps a sad smile. Again the silence of the guests is noticeable, as well as the calm a.s.sumption of authority by Jesus, even among such hostile company. Where He comes a guest, He becomes teacher, and by divine right He rebukes. The lesson is given, says Luke, as "a parable," by which we are to understand that our Lord is not here giving, as might appear if His words are superficially interpreted, a mere lesson of proper behaviour at a feast, but is taking that behaviour as an ill.u.s.tration of a far deeper thing. Possibly some too ambitious guest had contrived to seat himself in the place of honour, and had had to turn out, and, with an embarra.s.sed mien, had to go down to the very lowest place, as all the intermediate ones were full. His eagerness to be at the top had ended in his being at the bottom. That is a "parable," says Jesus, an ill.u.s.tration in the region of daily life, of large truths in morals and religion. It is a poor motive for outward humility and self-abas.e.m.e.nt that it may end in higher honour. And if Jesus was here only giving directions for conduct in regard to men, He was inculcating a doubtful kind of morality. The devil"s
darling sin Is the pride that apes humility."
Jesus was not recommending that, but what is crafty ambition, veiling itself in lowliness for its own purposes, when exercised in outward life, becomes a n.o.ble, pure, and altogether worthy, thing in the spiritual sphere. For to desire to be exalted in the kingdom is wholly right, and to humble one"s self with a direct view to that exaltation is to tread the path which He has hallowed by His own footsteps. The true aim for ambition is the honour that cometh from G.o.d only, and the true path to it is through the valley; for "G.o.d resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble."
III. Unbroken silence still prevailed among the guests, but again Jesus speaks as teacher, and now to the host. A guest does not usually make remarks on the composition of the company, Jesus could make no "recompense" to His entertainer, but to give him this counsel. Again, He inculcated a wide general lesson under the guise of a particular exhortation appropriate to the occasion. Probably the bulk of the guests were well-to-do people of the host"s own social rank, and, as probably, there were onlookers of a lower degree, like the dropsical man. The prohibition is not directed against the natural custom of inviting one"s a.s.sociates and equals, but against inviting them only, and against doing so with a sharp eye to the advantages to be derived from it. That weary round of giving a self-regarding hospitality, and then getting a return dinner or evening entertainment from each guest, which makes up so much of the social life among us, is a pitiful affair, hollow and selfish. What would Jesus say--what does Jesus say--about it all?
The sacred name of hospitality is profaned, and the very springs of it dried up by much of our social customs, and the most literal application of our Lord"s teaching here is sorely needed.
But the words are meant as a "parable," and are to be widened out to include all sorts of kindnesses and helps given in the sacred name of charity to those whose only claim is their need. "They cannot recompense thee"--so much the better, for, if an eye to their doing so could have influenced thee, thy beneficence would have lost its grace and savour, and would have been simple selfishness, and, as such, incapable of future reward. It is only love that is lavished on those who can make no return which is so free from the taint of secret regard to self that it is fit to be recognised as love in the revealing light of that great day, and therefore is fit to be "recompensed in the resurrection of the just."
EXCUSES NOT REASONS
"They all with one consent began to make excuse.
--LUKE xiv. 18.
Jesus Christ was at a feast in a Pharisee"s house. It was a strange place for Him--and His words at the table were also strange. For He first rebuked the guests, and then the host; telling the former to take the lower rooms, and bidding the latter widen his hospitality to those that could not recompense him. It was a sharp saying; and one of the other guests turned the edge of it by laying hold of our Lord"s final words: "Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just," and saying, no doubt in a pious tone and with a devout shake of the head, "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the Kingdom of G.o.d." It was a very proper thing to say, but there was a ring of conventional, commonplace piety about it, which struck unpleasantly on Christ"s ear. He answers the speaker with that strange story of the great feast that n.o.body would come to, as if He had said, "You pretend to think that it is a blessed thing to eat bread in the Kingdom of G.o.d, Why! You will not eat bread when it is offered to you."
I dare say you all know enough of the parable to make it unnecessary for me to go over it. A great feast is prepared; invitations, more or less general, are sent out at first, everything is ready; and, behold, there is a table, and n.o.body to sit at it. A strange experience for a hospitable man! And so he sends his servants to beat up the unwilling guests, and, one after another, with more or less politeness, refuses to come.
I need not follow the story further. In the latter part of the parable our Lord shadows the transference of the blessings of the Kingdom to the Gentiles, outcasts as the Jews thought them, skulking in the hedges and tramping on the highways. In the first part He foreshadows the failure of His own preaching amongst His own people.
But Jews and Englishmen are very much alike. The way in which these invited guests treated the invitation to this feast is being repeated, day by day, by thousands of men round us; and by some of ourselves. "They all, with one consent, began to make excuse."
I. The first thing that I would desire you to notice is the strangely unanimous refusal.
The guests" conduct in the story is such as life and reality would afford no example of. No set of people, asked to a great banquet, would behave as these people in the parable do. Then, is the introduction of such an unnatural trait as this a fault in the construction of narrative? No! Rather it is a beauty, for the very point of the story is the utter unnaturalness of the conduct described, and the contrast that is presented between the way in which men regard the lower blessings from which these people are represented as turning, and in which they regard the loftier blessings that are offered. n.o.body would turn his hack upon such a banquet if he had the chance of going to it. What, then, shall we say of those who, by platoons and regiments, turn their backs upon this higher offer? The very preposterous unnaturalness of the conduct, if the parable were a true story, points to the deep meaning that lies behind it: that in that higher region the unnatural is the universal, or all but universal.
And, indeed, it is so. One would almost venture to say that there is a kind of law according to which the more valuable a thing is the less men care to have it; or, if you like to put it into more scientific language, the attraction of an object is in the inverse ratio to its worth. Small things, transitory things, material things, everybody grasps at; and the number of graspers steadily decreases as you go up the scale in preciousness, until, when you reach the highest of all, there are the fewest that want them. Is there anything lower than good that merely gratifies the body? Is there anything that the most of men want more? Are there many things lower in the scale than money? Are there many things that pull more strongly? Is not truth better than wealth? Are there more pursuers of it than there are of the former? For one man who is eager to know, and counts his life well spent, in following knowledge
"Like a sinking star, Beyond the furthest bounds of human thought,"
there are a hundred who think it rightly expended in the pursuit after the wealth that perishes. Is not goodness higher than truth, and are not the men that are content to devote themselves to becoming wise more numerous than those that are content to devote themselves to becoming pure? And, topmost of all, is there anything to be compared with the gifts that are held out to us in that great Saviour and in His message? And is there anything that the ma.s.s of men pa.s.s by with more unanimous refusal than the offered feast which the great King of humanity has provided for His subjects? What is offered for each of us, pressed upon us, in the gift of Jesus Christ? Help, guidance, companionship, restfulness of heart, power of obedience, victory over self, control of pa.s.sions, supremacy over circ.u.mstances, tranquillity deep and genuine, death abolished, Heaven opened, measureless hopes following upon perfect fruition, here and hereafter. These things are all gathered into, and their various sparkles absorbed in, the one steady light of that one great encyclopaediacal word--Salvation. These gifts are going begging, lying at our doors, offered to every one of us, pressed upon all on the simple condition of taking Christ for Saviour and King. And what do we do with them? "They all, with one consent, began to make excuse."
One hears of barbarous people that have no use for the gold that abounds in their country, and do not think it half as valuable as gla.s.s beads. That is how men estimate the true and the trumpery treasures which Christ and the world offer. I declare it seems to me that, calmly looking at men"s nature, and their duration, and then thinking of the aims of the most of them, we should not be very far wrong if we said an epidemic of insanity sits upon the world. For surely to turn away from the gold and to hug the gla.s.s beads is very little short of madness. "This their way is their folly, and their posterity approve their sayings."
And now notice that this refusal may be, and often in fact is, accompanied with lip recognition of the preciousness of the neglected things. That Pharisee who put up the pillow of his pious sentiment--a piece of cant, because he did not feel what he was saying--to deaden the cannon-ball of Christ"s word, is only a pattern of a good many of us who think that to say, "Blessed is he that eateth bread in the Kingdom of G.o.d," with the proper unctuous roll of the voice, is pretty nearly as good as to take the bread that is offered to us. There are no more difficult people to get at than the people, of whom I am sure I have some specimens before me now, who bow their heads in a.s.sent to the word of the Gospel, and by bowing them escape its impact, and let it whistle harmlessly over.
You that believe every word that I or my brethren preach, and never dream of letting it affect your conduct--if there be degrees in that lunatic asylum of the world, surely you are candidates for the highest place.
II. Now, secondly, notice the flimsy excuses.
"They all, with one consent, began." I do not suppose that they had laid their heads together, or that our Lord intends us to suppose that there was a conspiracy and concert of refusal, but only that without any previous consultation, all had the same sentiments, and offered substantially the same answer. All the reasons that are given come to one and the same thing--viz. occupation with present interests, duties, possessions, or affections. There are differences in the excuses which are not only helps to the vividness of the narrative, but also express differences in the speakers. One man is a shade politer than the others. He puts his refusal on the ground of necessity. He "must," and so he courteously prays that he may be held excused. The second one is not quite so polite; but still there is a touch of courtesy about him too. He does not pretend necessity as his friend had done, but he simply says, "I _am_ going"; and that is not quite so courteous as the former answer, but still he begs to be excused. The last man thinks that he has such an undeniable reason that he may be as brusque as he likes, and so he says, "I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come" and I do not make any apologies. So with varying degrees of apparent recognition of the claims of host and feast, the ground of refusal is set forth as possessions in two cases, and as affections in the third; and these so fill the men"s hearts and minds that they have no time to attend to the call that summons them to the feast.
Now it is obvious to note that the alleged necessity in one of these excuses was no necessity at all. Who made the "must"? The man himself.
The field would not run away though he waited till to-morrow. The bargain was finished, for he had bought it. There was no necessity for his going, and the next day would have done quite as well as to-day; so the "must" was entirely in his own mind. That is to say, a great many of us mask inclinations under the garb of imperative duties and say, "We are so pressed by necessary obligations and engagements that we really have not got any time to attend to these higher questions which you are trying to press upon us." You remember the old story. "I must live," said the thief. "I do not see the necessity," said the judge. A man says, "I _must_ be at business to-morrow morning at half-past eight. How can I think about religion?"
Well, if you really _must_, you _can_ think about it. But if you are only juggling and deceiving yourself with inclinations that pose as necessities, the sooner the veil is off the better, and you understand whereabouts you are, and what is your true position in reference to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
But then let me, only in a word, remind you that the other side of the excuse is a very operative one. "I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come." There are some of us around whom the strong grasp of earthly affections is flung so embracingly and sweetly that we cannot, as we think, turn our loves upward and fix them upon G.o.d. Fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, parents and children, remember Christ"s deep words, "A man"s foes shall be they of his own household"; and be sure that the prediction is fulfilled many a time by the hindrances of their love even more than by the opposition of their hatred.