_An Evening with Opening Hearts: the Story of a Supper and a Walk in the Moonlight and the Shadows_
Nigh and nigh draws the chase, With unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, And past those noised Feet A Voice comes yet more fleet-- "_Lo, naught contents thee, who content"st not Me._"
--"_The Hound of Heaven._"
"I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father."--_John xvi. 28_.
"I thought His love would weaken As more and more He knew me; But it burneth like a beacon, And its light and heat go through me; And I ever hear Him say, As He goes along His way, Wand"ring souls, O _do_ come near Me; My sheep should never fear Me.
I am the Shepherd true."
--_Frederick William Faber._
IV
Closer Wooing
(Chapters xiii.-xvii.)
Knots.
The knot tied on the end of the thread holds the seam. The clinching of the nail on the underside holds all that has been done. Love ties knots to hold what has been gotten. The bit of prayer knots up the kindly act.
The warm hand-grasp knots the timely word. The added word and act tie up all that"s gone before. Hate imitates love the best it can. But its intense fires are never so hot.
The rest of John"s book is simple. It is tying knots on the ends of threads. Five knots are tied on the ends of these same three threads we have been tracing.
There"s a triple knot on the end of the blue thread of acceptance; an ugly tangled knotty knot on the end of that black thread of opposition and rejection; and a knot of wondrous beauty on the end of that yellow thread of winsome wooing. Chapters eighteen and nineteen tie two of these, the black and the glory-coloured.
Chapters thirteen through seventeen, is the first knot on the faith thread, the betrayal-night knot. Chapter twenty is the second, the Resurrection knot; chapter twenty-one the extra knot, the love-service knot. We take a look now at the patient skilful tying of the first knot on the end of that true-blue faith thread.
It"s taken a good bit of careful work to _get_ that thread, tearing loose, cleansing, spinning, twisting, careful handling, till at last a good thread is gotten, and is being woven into the warp. Now a knot is tied on its end to hold what has been gotten, and keep it from ravelling out, for there"s a desperately hard place coming in the weaving.
There"s a clean finish at the end of the twelfth chapter of John.
There"s a sharp break, an abrupt turn off to something quite different.
The direct-wooing case is made up. There is no more added to it, except the indirect, the incidental. The evidence is all in. Wondrous wooing it has been, in its winsomeness, its faithfulness, its rare power. Now it is over. It"s done, and well done. That door is shut, the national door.
Now another door opens. The inner door into Jesus" heart is being opened by Him. And the inner door into the disciples" heart is being knocked at that it, too, may open. It is the betrayal night. Jesus is alone with the inner circle. They have received Him. Now He will receive them into closer intimacy than yet before. They have opened their hearts to His love. Now He opens His heart to let out more the love that is there.
Love accepted is free to reveal itself. And love revealing its warmth and tenderness and depth yet more calls out quickly a deeper, a tenderer love.
It"s the Pa.s.sover evening. They have met, the twelve and their Master, by appointment, in the home of one of Jesus" faithful unnamed friends.
In a large upper room they are shut in, gathered about the supper board.
As they eat Jesus is quietly but intently thinking. Four trains of thought pa.s.s through His mind side by side.[103] The Father had trusted all into His hands. He had come down from the Father on an errand and would return when the errand was done.
And now the hour was come. The turn in the road was reached, the sharp turn down leading to the sharp turn up and then back. It had seemed slow in coming, that hour.[104] Dreaded things seem to linger even while they hasten, dreaded longed-for things, dreaded in the experience of pain to be borne, eagerly longed for in the blessed result; as with an expectant mother. Now the hour"s here.[105]
And yonder across the board sits the man so faithfully wooed, yet dead-set in his inner heart on a dark purpose, more evil in its outcome than he realizes. There must be more and tenderer wooing. He shall have yet another full opportunity. And under all is the heart-throb of love for these who are His own, being birthed into a new life by the giving of His very own life these months past. He loves His own, and will to the uttermost, the utterest, the mostest, limit of love and of time left Him before _the_ great event. These are the thoughts pa.s.sing quietly, clearly, intensely, through Jesus" mind as they sit at supper.
Teaching Three Things in One Action.
Now He acts.[106] Quietly He rises from the table, picks up a towel and fastens its end in His waistband for convenience in use, after the servant"s usual fashion. Then He pours water into a basin and turning stoops over the feet of the disciple nearest Him. And before they can recover from their wide-eyed astonishment He begins bathing his feet and then carefully wiping them with the convenient towel. And so around the circle. Peter, of course, protests, and so calls out a little of the explanation. And then with tender pa.s.sionateness he asks for the washing to take in all his extremities, head and hands as well as feet. How their hearts must have felt the touch upon their feet!
Then follows a bit of explanation.[107] But the chief thing had already been done. The acting was more than the speech. Three things the Master was doing. The teaching about humility lies on the surface, within easy reach. It was acted, then spoken; done, then said. It was sorely needed, and is. In it was the key to Jesus" great victory within the twenty-four hours following,[108] and would have been for them had they used it.
Humility is the foundation of all strength and victory. Only the strong can stoop. It takes the strongest to stoop lowest. He who so stoops is revealing strength.
Humility is not thinking meanly of yourself; it is merely getting into correct personal relation with G.o.d, and so with men. It is our true normal att.i.tude, as dependent creatures, as those who have sinned, as those who have been bought with blood. Everything we have is from Another, originally and continuously; we are utterly dependent. All rights have been forfeited by our wilful conduct; we retain nothing in our own right. And all we have now has been secured for us at the cost of blood; we are being carried at enormous expense. Not much room there for self-satisfaction, is there?
Humility is simply _recognizing_ our _utter dependence upon Another_, and _living_ it. And this controls our touch with our fellows. In this lies the secret of all strength,--mental keenness and vigour, sympathetic touch with others, and power of action in life and in service. All this touches the _weakest_ spot in these men, and in--us.
But there"s more here. The humility teaching is out on the surface.
There"s a bit _under_ the surface, that they would soon be needing and needing badly. It"s this: the thing in you that"s wrong _must_ be made right; and it _can_ be. Every sin done by the man who is trusting Christ as his Saviour, every such sin _must_ be cleansed away. And it _can_ be.
The feet-washing told this bit of tremendous truth.
These men trusted Christ. But their moral feet would get badly messed that night, mired and slimed by pa.s.sionate betrayal and blasphemous denial and cowardly flight. The man going to the bath-house was clean on returning home except where his sandalled feet had gathered some soil from the road. These men were cleansed in heart through Christ. But the foot-soilings must be cleansed. These two things ring out. Sin _must_ be reckoned with and cleansed out. _And_, blessed truth! it _can_ be. This is the second bit. It would be brought to their remembrance that same night when the road they took dirtied them up so badly, and afterwards.
But there"s a deeper, a tenderer bit yet here. There is _the love touch_. Jesus was giving them the tenderest touch yet of His love, to _hold_ them. The personal touch is the tenderest. Man yearns for the personal touch, of presence, of lips, of hands. Something seems to go _through_ the personal touch from heart to heart. The spirit-currents find their connection so. Jesus gave the tender personal touch that evening, the closest yet. His hands touched their feet, but He was not thinking most about their feet. He was reaching higher up. His hands reached past their feet for their hearts.
And they felt it so. Their hearts understood, if their heads didn"t yet.
Judas felt those hands reaching to touch his heart. And he had to set himself afresh to resist that touch. John felt it, and _remained steady_. Peter felt it and came back with flooded eyes. The fleeing nine felt that touch and yielded to it as they penitently returned. Love won. That personal touch did it.
But Jesus feels Judas" heart hardening as He touches his feet, and the gentle word already spoken availed not.[109] Now His great heart is sorely troubled for Judas.[110] He tries once again to reach his heart and stay his wayward feet. He reaches for his feet through his heart this time. They"re all together about the table again. Quietly, but with tactful indirectness, Jesus lets Judas know that _He_ knows. He says, "One of you is planning to betray Me."
The men stare one at another in questioning astonishment. Peter touches John"s arm and with eye and word quietly asks him to find out. John reclining next to Jesus asks the question in undertone. And as quietly Jesus makes reply. Then the last appeal is made to Judas in the last delicate touch of special personal attention. Judas" unchanged spirit makes wordless answer. The hardening of the purpose is a further opening of a downward door and that door is quickly used by the evil one.
And Judas rises abruptly with jaw set and eye tense, and goes out into the blackest night the clouds ever shut in. So the first tremendous part of the evening"s drama is now done. The wooing of Judas has been intense and tender clean up to the last moment, _and_ resisted. Now that chapter is done. Another corner is pa.s.sed. The extremes have--parted. One man has gone out. Eleven stay in, and in staying come closer.
Believe--Love--Obey.
The atmosphere clears now. That black cloud shifts. The pressure is relieved. The air changes. Breathing is easier. Jesus did His best to keep Judas in by trying to have him turn something--some one--out. But the something that held the some one is kept within, so the man goes out. That inside air was getting a bit thick for Judas. Love"s tender pleading unyielded to makes breathing difficult.
Again Jesus begins talking in the cleared air. The hour had full come.
The character of the Son of Man would now be revealed,[111] and in being revealed G.o.d"s character would also be understood, and G.o.d Himself would show what _He_ thought of Jesus by His personal recognition and acknowledgment of Him, and He would do it at once. The clock is striking the hour. Now He was going away. They would not understand.[112]
Then Jesus strikes the great key-note of their future conduct as He goes on. _The_ thing is this: _love one another_. This is the badge He gives them to wear. It will always identify them as His very own. Peter picks up the one bit he understands, and is told that he cannot yet follow in the tremendous experience lying just ahead for Jesus, but some day he can, and will. And then to Peter"s blundering self-confidence comes a plain tender reminder of his weakness.[113] So that wondrous fourteenth chapter that Christendom loves begins back in the thirteenth.
And Jesus goes quietly on as they still linger about the table.[114] He had been sorely troubled,[115] but He would have them not troubled by their doubtings regarding Himself. It is true that they were outcasts with Him, from their national home, but He would provide them a home, and a better one. They did believe in G.o.d. They should believe Him just as implicitly. This is the warp into which is woven the whole fabric of that evening"s talk. The whole talk is a plea for their trusting loving acceptance of Himself as fully as of G.o.d. This word "_believe_" changes its outer shape three times during that evening, making four words in all, but it"s always the same thing underneath.