Part 21

Now I have left myself no time for some more spiritual thoughts with which I wanted to end. I do not think that it much matters, if you remember how the spiritual lives on the practical material working of Church organisation; but I just want to say this (I wish I could feel it for myself, and I do wish that our members could feel it), that there is a great risk of well-to-do congregations unconsciously growing very selfish, and being shut up in themselves. That position brings a curse with it if it brings a blight in the heart, and if we come to Christ just to get our souls saved, and then selfishly congratulate ourselves upon that. Christ wants a great, loving heart, panting to do good to every one, and to save him from sin. He says, "Do not be satisfied with just coming to say your own prayers, and sing your praises, and get your sorrows comforted, and have your joys brightened, by belonging to a congregation; but think of all the great Church everywhere, and whether you might not do something for it." I think that God gathers us into congregations just for the same reason that He gathers us into families. Our love is too weak to be left spread out—it would die altogether; it would be chill and cold as the world—and so he shuts it in, and bids a man love wife and child with family affection; and so he nurses that love, and makes it profound. What is it that causes the love of father and mother to be so strong and tender? Is it not that there are such endless demands upon them for giving their money, and time, and prayers? It is God's greatest gift. But sometimes I see men and women misuse it, and make gigantic walls, and turn them into prison walls, and they do not care for any human being outside their little circle. It becomes a blight and a curse to them. Our Church is strong now in England under the Presbyterian system, while others are isolated. There is a real danger that our hearts will be dried up and narrowed; and I put it to you that here is one means of counteracting it, by giving with a warm heart, thinking of the manses away in the North, and the ministers' homes, that will be made happier and better by the liberality of those whom God has prospered. The Church that shows most liberality and loyalty to others is the Church that will have most love and loyalty to the Master.

XV.

_OUR LORD'S TREATMENT OF ERRING FRIENDS._

SUNDAY READINGS.

I.

Read Ps. cxxxviii., and John xiii. 1-17.

THE SELF-ASSERTING.—John xiii. 4, 5.

On the evening before He died, Jesus washed the disciples' feet. This touching action of our Lord is constantly taken and turned into a picture of spiritual truths, and it is a very fair use to make of the story. No wonder if there is ever an overflowing surplus of meaning in all the things that Jesus said and did. But we must not forget that their symbolic use is a matter of secondary moment, and we must take care, first and chiefly, to recognise in our Lord's words and deeds that simple, direct meaning which He intended them to have. In the present case He has Himself told us why He did this strange and beautiful act of self-abasement to His faulty followers, and what effect the memory of His great humility ought to have on our hearts and characters, if we would be like Him, divinely wise and good in our treatment of erring friends.

In the country where Jesus lived the roads were hot and dusty, and the people wore sandals that left the upper part of the foot exposed. In the course of even a short journey the skin became covered with an irritating kind of sand. Therefore, on the arrival of a visitor, it was the first duty of hospitality to offer water to wash and cool the weary feet. When a feast was made the guests, as they entered, would lay aside their sandals, and take their places on the couches that surrounded the table. Then the humblest servant of the house was wont to come with basin, towel, and pitcher of water, to kneel behind each couch, to pour the water over the projecting feet, to wash them clean and free from stain, and to wipe them gently dry. It was a comfortable and kindly custom, and we know, from the anecdote of Simon the Pharisee, that our Lord missed it when it was omitted, and gratefully welcomed it when it was observed.

This night Jesus and His disciples are gathered for supper in the upper room of a strange house in Jerusalem. The room has been lent for the occasion, and so there is no servant in attendance on them. In such circumstances it had been customary among the little company for one of their number, ere the meal began, to do this needful service for the rest. In a corner of the room stood the pitcher and basin, with the towel folded by their side. They had all taken their places round the table, and the time to commence supper had come (so read verse 2). But this night—the last of their Master's life on earth—none rose to wash their feet, none stirred to perform that friendly office. One and all, they kept their places in painful and embarrassed silence. Their refusal of the lowly but accustomed task was due to an unwonted access of pride and self-assertion in their hearts. That very day, in the way, there had been a fierce contention among the disciples as to which of them was greatest. The dispute reached the Master's ear, and he firmly rebuked their rivalry and quelled the quarrel. The storm of passion was silenced on their lips, but the sullen surge of anger had not quite died out of their hearts. Not yet would it be easy for any one of them to forget his dignity, and do a humbling service to the rest. And so it came to pass on that solemn evening, when their Master's heart was so soft and tender, their hearts were hard with pride and anger, and though they felt the painfulness of the pause and the wrongfulness of their obstinacy, not one of them had the manliness to rise and end it, and by humbling himself make peace and harmony in their hearts.

The consciousness of discord entered the holy heart of Jesus and pierced it. His soul was filled that night with love unspeakable, and He longed to pour out to His friends the joy and the pain of His mighty purpose. But that could not be while their breasts were possessed by petty rivalries, and mean thoughts, and angry feelings. He must first shame away their pride, and melt their hardness, and make them gentle, lowly, and loving. How can He do this most quickly and completely? "He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded." Who is not able to picture the scene—the faces of John, and James, and Peter; the intense silence, in which each movement of Jesus was painfully audible; the furtive watching of Him, as He rose, to see what He would do; the sudden pang of self-reproach as they perceived what it meant; the bitter humiliation and the burning shame! The way John recites each detail tells how that scene had scorched itself on his soul and become an indelible memory. Truly his Master had "given him an example." To his dying day John could see that sight, and many a time in the hour of temptation it crossed his path and made him a better man. May that same vision of our Lord's great humility rise before our eyes, when life is full of pride and rivalry, and our hearts are hot and angry; and may its sweet influence come on our spirits like cool, pure water, to wash these evil passions out, and to make us good and gentle, like Jesus!

II.

Read Job xvi., and Matt. xxvi. 31-46.

THE UNSYMPATHETIC.—John xiii. 1-3.

The preface to the narrative of the feet-washing is long and involved. The ideas move in a lofty sphere, seemingly very remote from the simple scene they prelude. At first sight the reader is tempted to count the introduction cumbrous, and to question the relevancy. A more profound appreciation of its contents and connection changes questioning into admiration, and transforms perplexity into wondering delight. We perceive how the thoughts of the prelude light up the whole scene with a golden glow of human tenderness and Divine grandeur, so that, like a picture set in its true light, we now discern in it a depth of meaning and a wealth of beauty previously unsuspected. The perplexing preface proves to be the vestibule that leads into the innermost shrine of the temple.

The Gospel of St. John was not written till half a century later than the events it records; yet it is written as though it were but yesterday the Apostle had witnessed the scenes he describes. Those recollections had not been casual visitants, but constant inmates of his mind and heart. There was hardly ever a day he had not thought about them. At night when he lay awake and could not sleep he had thought about them. He conned them over in memory, he pored over them in his mind, he cherished them in his heart lovingly. And the promise his Lord had given came true to him, for the Holy Spirit took of these things of Christ, and showed them unto him, so that they grew to his eyes better and better, and more beautiful, and more full of meaning, till their inmost heart of Divine goodness was revealed to him. Ah! when we first get to know Christ it is but His face, His eyes, His outer form we see. That is a great sight! But to see and know all the heart of God that was in Him—that takes a very long time; it takes half a century; it takes eternity to get at that! John lived in that high quest almost all his life, gazing at the Master, worshipping and adoring, laying his heart on the Master's heart; and the result was that he got to know Jesus far better than he did when he lived with Him. Hence it is that the fourth Gospel is so different from the other three. They just tell us what Jesus said and what Jesus did. But John's Gospel mixes up the acts and words of Jesus with John's own thoughts and explanations, so that it is sometimes hardly possible to tell whether we are reading what Jesus said or what John thought about it. He is ever passing behind the loveliness of the human life, to trace its explanation in the inner heavenly nature. He paints for us the tree with its beauteous branches, leaves, and blossoms, and then he bids us behold the great root in God's earth out of which it grew; that wonderful root, which is Divine, and which is the source of all the sweetness that is brightening the upper air. The Jesus of John's Gospel has more of God in the look of face and eyes, and in the ring of His voice, than the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is the Jesus that lived and grew on in John's loving memory, year by year becoming greater, holier, Diviner in the illumination of the Holy Spirit, that was brooding over that home of Christ in the heart of John. It is, indeed, Jesus coloured by John's thoughts and John's feelings; but then they are true thoughts and true feelings. And so it is that sometimes, in the evangel of the Beloved Disciple, we almost lose sight of the outer form and familiar features of our Lord, but only that we may see more clearly the glory of His inner nature and the beauty of His heart Divine.

It is to this loving industry of John's mind that we owe the preface of our story, so laden with great thoughts. It bids us, before we scan the picture of our Lord's humility, gaze into His heart, and see how that night it was filled with contending emotions of exaltation and agony, of tenderest devotion and unrequited love, and then, in the light of His inner grandeur, grief, and forlornness, measure the marvel of this wondrous act of self-abasement. He who washed the feet of those sinful men was the Son of God and the world's Saviour. He made Himself their servant! He washed their feet! But more than that, He was a dying man that night, and He knew it. His hour was come. Already the presaging pangs of the bloody sweat, of the scourging and the spitting, of the anguish and forsakeness of the cross, had broken like stormy waves of a troubled sea on Christ's sensitive spirit. The pain, and the parting, and the solemn awe of death had fallen upon His soul. He was going to bid good-bye to the faces He had loved, to the things that were so beautiful in His eyes, to the lilies and the birds, to those He had clung to on earth, to mother, and brother, and friend, to all that was sweet and dear to His human heart. His thoughts were preoccupied that night. He was preparing Himself for death. His heart was already getting detached from earth. Oh, if ever there was an hour when He might have been forgiven, if He had had no thought but of Himself, it was that night! If ever He might have held Himself exempt from thinking of others, and expected them to think of Him, it was that night. If ever there was an hour when He might have counted selfishness unforgivable, and bitterly resented want of sympathy, it was that night, when His grief was so great and His love so warm and tender. And yet, says John, it was on that night that amongst us all, engrossed in our petty, selfish rivalry, He was the one that could forget Himself, could lay pride aside, and humble His heart, and do the lowly act that made peace amongst us, and melted all our pride away, and made us good, and loving, and fit to hear the wondrous thoughts of grace and love that were glowing in His heart for us and for all mankind.

The lesson is one for good men and women. They are too apt to think, because they have set out on some great enterprise of goodness, that therefore they are exempt from the little courtesies and forbearances of lowlier service. They mean to do good, but they must do it with a high hand and in a masterful fashion. They cannot stoop to conciliate the lukewarm and to win the unsympathetic. And so too often their cherished purpose ends in failure, and we see that saddest sight in Christ's Church—beautiful lives marred and noble service spoiled, because the sacrifice is not complete enough, because pride lingers in the heart, and self-assertion and selfishness. We cannot be faithful in that which is greatest unless we are willing to be faithful also that in which is least.

III.

Read 2 Sam. xxiv., and John xxi. 15-23.

THE WILFUL.—John xiii. 6-10.

The character of Peter stands clear cut in the Gospels. He had a warm heart, an eager mind, an impulsive will, a quick initiative, and a native aptitude for pre-eminence. He took the lead almost unconsciously and without premeditation, but none the less he was conscious of a keen pleasure in being first. Prominence with him was not a choice of calculation, but rather an innate instinct and necessity of nature. Alike by what was best and by what was worst in him, it was natural for Peter to stand out from the rest, and whether right or wrong, to be their spokesman, champion, and chief.

As Jesus went round, washing the disciples' feet, there was perfect stillness in the room. None ventured to speak in explanation or remonstrance till He came to Peter. But as He prepared to kneel down behind him, Peter stopped Him with a protest: "Lord, dost thou wash my feet?" It looks on the face of it altogether good, and pure, and manly. But then Christ was no narrow-hearted pedant, eager to find fault, and imagining offence where none existed. Yet Peter's protest, instead of being approved, is gently but firmly refused. "What I do thou dost not understand now, but thou shalt understand presently." Beneath the fair surface of the remonstrance there must have been some unlovely thing that had to be rebuked away. What was the jarring chord? Had Peter's motive been contrition, and contrition only, would he have waited till it came to his turn? Would he not have leapt to his feet at once, and insisted on taking the Master's place, and washing the feet of them all? Did he sit still, ashamed for himself and them, but angrily ashamed, resolving first that he would not basely allow his Lord to demean Himself, then thinking hard things of the others, who suffered it without protest? And so, when it came to his turn, was his heart full of censorious thoughts, and a proud resolve that he would come out of the humiliation better than the rest? If, without breach of charity, we may take this to have been his mood, then we can understand Christ's kindly deprecation of his words and act. He fancied his impulse all good and noble. He did not know the treachery of his own heart. He did not fathom the necessity for the humbling experience of having to be washed by his Master. With the cleansing of his feet in simple obedience, his heart would be cleansed also of pride and of anger. Then he would understand what his Master was doing, and how He had to do it to put right so much that was wrong in the heart of His wayward follower.

It is not easy to obey without understanding. What was noble in Peter, and what was base, combined to hold him back from yielding. Peter's love recoiled from the humbling of his Master. Peter's pride shrank from the humbling of himself. "Thou shalt never wash my feet." Truly a noble, proud refusal! There was in it a strange mixture of good and evil. Peter wanted to come back to right, but he wished to come in his own way. Christ's way was painful, and the disciple would fain choose another that did not lead through the Valley of Humiliation. But then, if you have gone wrong through pride you cannot get right again and yet keep your pride. If you would be good you must abase yourself. Peter's refusal meant that his spirit still was not quite subdued, his heart not quite humble and contrite. In that mood he could not enter into the sacred communion of his Master's dying love. With that spirit cherished and maintained he could not belong to His fellowship. "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me."

Christ knew Peter's heart. The man loved his Master with a passionate personal attachment. These words fell on his spirit with a sudden chill. To have no part with Christ—that was more than he could bear. "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." It is as though he would say, "A great part in Thee!" And we might readily count the request blameless, and the mood that uttered it commendable only. But Jesus declines it, and in refusing suggests that it has in it something of unreality and excess. So then, without his knowing it, there must have lurked in the thought Peter's love of pre-eminence. First of all, he had wished to differ from the others in not being washed at all. Now that he must be washed, he would be the most washed of all. Ah, the subtle danger of wanting to be first, even in goodness! We cannot safely try to be good for the sake of being foremost. We must be good just for goodness' sake, with no thought of self at all. And surely silent submission had become Peter better than any speech. When a man knows he has gone wrong again and again, and Christ has undertaken to set him right, his wisdom is to offer no resistance, nor make any suggestion, as if he knew better than Jesus what had best be done.

Self-will in choosing the way in which we are to be saved and sanctified is a blunder from which few are quite free. We cannot leave our souls simply in God's care and teaching. We catch at Christ's hands, and distrust the simplicity of His grace, and dictate to the Holy Spirit the experience and discipline we deem best. Surely it is not becoming and it is not wise. When a man has been taken into God's hands, and has been forgiven his sins, and is being taught by God, he should just keep very still and very humble, and let God make of him what He will.

IV.

Read 1 Sam. xxiv., and Luke xxii. 47-62.

THE FAITHLESS.—John xiii. 11.

Jesus enjoined us to love our enemies. We count it a hard saying. An enemy is not lovable. The sight of him wakes instinctively not affection, but antagonism. It is not easy to wish him well, to do him good. We find it difficult to endure his presence without show of repugnance. Still harder is it to pity him, to help him, to do him a service. But there is something worse than an enemy, something more repulsive, more unforgivable. That is a traitor—the faithless friend, who pretends affection with malice in his breast, who receives our love while he is plotting our ruin, and under cover of a caress stabs us to the heart. Open hostility may be met, resented, and forgotten, but cold-blooded treachery our human nature stamps as the all but unpardonable sin. Its presence is revolting, and its touch loathsome. An honest heart sickens at the sight of it.

Among the guests gathered around the table, that night before our Lord's death, was Judas, who betrayed Him. He had sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver, and was watching his opportunity to complete the covenant of blood. He sat there while Jesus washed their feet. Jesus knew all his falseness, all his heartlessness, all his treachery. He knew it, and He washed the traitor's feet.

The perfection of our Lord's holiness is apt to mislead us into the idea that because it was faultless, it was therefore easy. We conceive His goodness as spontaneous, His sinlessness as without effort. But in truth He was a man tempted in all points like as we are. He was obedient unto death, but His obedience He learned by the things which He suffered. He was perfect in purity, meekness, self-denial, but only by humbling Himself and crucifying the flesh. His self-control was absolute, but it cost Him as much as it does us—perchance more. His sinless, holy heart shrank from sin's foulness, and suffered in its loathsome contact as our stained souls cannot. The base presence and false fellowship of a Judas must have been a perpetual pain to His pure spirit. But He endured his meanness with a heavenly self-restraint that curbed each sign of repugnance, and to the last He maintained for the traitor a Divine compassion that would have saved him from himself, and that in Jesus's nature compelled the very instincts of loathing to transform themselves into quite marvellous ministries of superhuman loving. It was no empty show of humility and kindness, it was pity and love incarnate, when Jesus knelt at Judas's back, and washed the feet of His betrayer.

That seems to me one of the most wondrous, most tragic scenes in this world's story. Could we but have seen it—Jesus kneeling behind Judas, laving his feet with water, touching them with His hands, wiping them gently dry, and the traitor keeping still through it all! What a theme for the genius of a painter—the face of Jesus and the face of Judas—the emotions of grandeur looking out of the one, of good and evil contending in the other! If anything could have broken the traitor's heart, and made him throw himself in penitent abasement on the Saviour's pity, it was when he felt on his feet his Master's warm breath and gentle touch, and divined all the forgiving love that was in His lowly heart.

This was our Lord's treatment of a faithless friend. On the night of His betrayal He washed the feet of His bitterest enemy, of the man who had sold Him to death. He rises from that act, and speaks to you and me, and says, "I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you." If you have a friend that has deceived you, do not hate him; if you have an enemy, forgive him; if you can do him a humble kindness, do it; if you can soften and save him by lowly forbearance, be pitiful and long-suffering to the uttermost. It is the law of Christ. If you call it too hard for flesh and blood, remember how your Master, that night He was betrayed, washed the feet of the man that betrayed Him.

V.

Read Isa. xl., and 1 Cor. xiii.

THE SECRET OF MAGNANIMITY.—John xiii. 12-17.