Chapter 1

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Quiet Talks on _John's Gospel_

By

S. D. Gordon

1915

Preface

_Everything depends on getting Jesus placed._ That lies at the root of all--living, serving, preaching, teaching. John had Jesus placed. He had Him up in His own place. This settles everything else. Then one gets himself placed, too, up on a level where the air is clear and bracing, the sun warm, and the outlook both steadying and stimulating. Get the centre fixed and things quickly adjust themselves about it to your eyes.

It will be seen very quickly that this little book makes no pretension to being a commentary on, or an exposition of, John's Gospel. That is left to the scholarly folk who eat their meals in the sacred classical languages of the past. It is simply a homely attempt to let out a little of what has been sifting in these years past of this wondrous miniature Bible from John's pen.

The proportions of this homely little messenger of paper and type may seem a little odd at first. The longest chapter is devoted to only the opening eighteen verses of John, the prologue. While the whole of the first twelve chapters of John, excepting that prologue, is brought into one smaller chapter. It wasn't planned so, though I felt it coming as the wondrous mood of this book came down over me. I think it mast be the effect of the atmosphere of John's book.

Sometimes John packs so much in so little space, and again he goes so particularly into the details of some one incident. The prologue is a miniature Bible. The whole Bible story is there in its cream. And on the other hand John spends five chapters (xiii.-xvii.), almost a fifth of the whole, on a single evening. He devotes seven chapters (xiii.-xix.), almost a third of all, on the events of twenty-four hours. John is controlled not by mere proportion of space or quantity, but by the finer proportions of thought and quality.

It has been difficult to hold these homely talks down to the limit of space they take here. So many veins of gold in this mine, showing clearly large nuggets of pure ore, lie just at hand untouched in this little mining venture. But it seemed clearly best to get the one clear grasp of the whole. That helps so much. But there'll be strong temptation to get one's pick and spade and go at this gold mine again.

But now these things are written that we common folk may understand a bit better, and in a warm way, that Jesus was God on a wooing errand to the earth; and that we may join the blest company of the won ones, and become co-wooers with God of the others.

S. D. G.

Contents

I. John's Story

II. The Wooing Lover

Who it was that came.

III. The Lover Wooing

A group of pictures illustrating how the wooing was done and how the Lover was received.

IV. Closer Wooing

An evening with opening hearts: the story of a supper and a walk in the moonlight and the shadows.

V. The Greatest Wooing

A night and a day with hardening hearts: the story of tender passion and of a terrible tragedy.

VI. An Appointed Tryst Unexpectedly Kept

A day of startling joyous surprises.

VII. Another Tryst

A story of fishing, of guests at breakfast, and of a walk and talk by the edge of blue Galilee.

I

John's Story

"I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes, I sped; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasméd fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after."

--_Francis Thompson, in "The Hound of Heaven_."

"These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name."--_John xx. 31_.

I

John's Story

The Heart-strings of God.

There's a tense tugging at the heart of God. The heart-strings of God are tight, as tight as tight can be. For there's a tender heart that's easily tugged at one end, and an insistent tugging at the other. The tugging never ceases. The strings never slack. They give no signs of easing or getting loose.

It's the tug of man's sore need at the down-end, the man-end, of the strings. And it's the sore tug of grief over the way things are going on down here with men, at the other end, the up-end, the heart-end, of the strings. It's the tense pull-up of a love that grows stronger with the growth of man's misunderstanding.

But the heart-strings never snap. The heart itself breaks under the tension of love and grief, grieved and grieving love. But the strings only strengthen and tighten under the strain of use.

Those heart-strings are a bit of the heart they're tied to, an inner bit, aye the innermost bit, the inner heart of the heart. They are the bit pulled, and pulled more, and pulled harder, till the strings grew. Man was born in the warm heart of God. Was there ever such a womb! Was there ever such another borning, homing place!

It was man's going away that stretched the heart out till the strings grew. The tragedy of sin revealed the toughness and tenderness of love. For that heart never let go of the man whom it borned. Man tried to pull away, poor thing. In his foolish misunderstanding and heady wilfulness he tried to cut loose. If he had known God better he would never have tried that. He'd never have _started_ away; and he'd never have tried to _get_ away.

For love never faileth. A heart--the real thing of a heart, that is, God's heart--never lets go. It breaks; but let go? not once: never yet. The breaking only loosens the red that glues fast with a tighter hold than ever. The fibre of the heart--God's heart--is made of too strong stuff to loosen or wear out or snap. Love never faileth. It can't; because it's love.

Now all this explains Jesus. It was man's pull on these heart-strings that brought Him down. The pull was so strong and steady. It grew tenser and more insistent. And straight down He came by the shortest way, the way of those same heart-strings. For the heart-strings of God are the shortest distance between two given points, the point of God's giving, going love, and the point of man's sore need, given a sharper-pointed end by its very soreness.

It is a sort of blind pull, this pull of man on the heart of God; a confused, unconscious, half-conscious, dust-blinded, slippery-road sort of pulling, but one whose tight grip never slacks. Man needs God, but does not know it. He knows he needs _some_thing. He feels that keenly. But he does not know that it's God whom he needs, with a very few rare exceptions. It doesn't seem to have entered his head that he'll never get out of his tight corner till God gets him out.

Down the street of life he goes, eyes blinded by the thick dust, ears deafened by the cries of the crowd, by the noise of the street without, and the noise of passions and fevered ambitions within, heart a-wearied by the confusion of it all, groping, stumbling, jostled and jostling, hitting this way and that, with the fever high in his blood, and his feet aching and bleeding; sometimes the polish of culture on the surface; _some_times rags and dirt; but underneath the same thing.

Yet under all there's a vague but very real feeling of that unceasing pull upward upon His heart-strings. But though blind and vague and confused that tugging is never the less tense, but ever more, and then yet more.

Jesus was God answering the tug of man's need on His heart-strings. And so naturally there was an answering feel in man's heart. Man felt the answer a-coming. There was a great stir in the spirit-currents of earth when Jesus came. A thrill of expectancy ran through the world, Roman, Greek, Barbarian, far and wide, as Jesus drew near. The book-makers of that time all speak of it. It was the vibration of those same heart-strings connecting man and God.

The move at God's end was felt at man's. The coming down along the highway of the strings thrilled and stirred and awed the hearts into which those strings led, and where they were so tightly knotted. The earth-currents spread the news. Man heard; he felt; he knew: vaguely, blindly, wearily, yet very really he heard and felt and recognized that help, a Friend, some One, was nearing.

And then when Jesus walked among men how He did pull upon their hearts! So quietly He went about. So sympathetically He looked and listened. So warm was the human touch of His hand. So strong was the lift of His arm to ease their load. So potent was the spell of His unfailing power to give relief. How He did pull! And how men did answer to that pull! Unresistingly, eagerly, as weary child in mother's arms at close of day, they came crowding to Him.

The Fourfold Message.

It is fascinating to find one book in this old Book of God given up wholly to telling of this, John's Gospel. Of course the whole of the Book is really given up to it, when one gets the whole simple view of it at one glance. But so many of us don't get that whole simple glance.

So to make it easier for us simple common folk, and to make sure of our getting it, there is one little book, hardly big enough to call a book, just a few pages devoted wholly to letting us see this one thing. You can see the whole of the sun in a single drop of water. You can see the whole of the Book of God in this one little book that John wrote.

John's Gospel is like the small tracing of the artist's pen on the lower corner of an etching, the remarque, put there as a signature, the artist's personal mark that the picture is genuine, the real thing. The whole consummate skill of the artist is revealed at a glance in the simple outline-tracing on the margin. The whole of the God-story in the larger picture of the whole Book is given in few simple clear lines in this exquisite little thing commonly called John's Gospel.

It is striking to make the discovery that John's little book has _a distinctive message as a book_. It is full of messages, of course. But I mean that there is a distinct story told by the book as a whole, by the very way it is put together. It is told by the very sort of language used, the words chosen as the leading words of the book. It is told by the picture that clearly fills John's eye as he writes, and by the very spirit that floods the pages as a soft light, and that breaks out of them as the subtle fragrance of locust blossoms in the spring.

The fragrance of flowers cannot be analyzed: it must be smelled and felt. That's the only way you'll ever know it. The fine scholarly analyses of John are helpful. But there's the subtler something that cannot be diagramed or analyzed or synthesized. It eludes the razor-edged knife, and the keenly critical survey. It is recognized only by one's spirit, and then only when the spirit is warm, and in tune with John's.

Of course each of the Gospel stories has a message of its own, quite apart from the group of facts common to them all. And these four messages together give us the fuller distinctive message of these four little books. And a very winsome message it is, too, that takes hold of one's heart, and takes a warm strong hold at that.

_Matthew_ tells us that Jesus is a _King_. For a great purpose He chose to live as a peasant, as one of the common folks. But He was of the blood royal. He has the long unbroken kingly lineage. He showed kingly power in His actions, kingly wisdom in His teachings, and the fine kingly spirit in His gracious kindliness of touch. He was gladly accepted and served as King by those who understood Him best. He was acknowledged as King by the Roman Governor; and He died as a King, and as a King was laid in a newly hewn tomb.

_Mark_ adds a fine touch to this picture, a warm touch with colour in it,--this King of ours is _a serving King_. This comes not only with a warm feel, but it comes as a distinct surprise. Men's kings are _served_ kings. There have been kings, and are, who rendered their people a fine high service, and do. But the overpowering impression given the common crowd watching on the street is that kings are superior beings, to be waited upon, humbly bowed to, and implicitly obeyed. They are to be served.

Bat Mark's picture shows us a King whose passion is to serve. The service which He draws out of His followers is drawn out by His warm serving spirit towards us. The words on the royal coat-of-arms are, "Not to be ministered unto, but to minister." And in the first meaning of the words He Himself used that means "not to be _served_ but to _serve_." In Mark the air is tense with rapid action. The quick executive movement of a capable servant is felt in the terse words short sentences and swift action of the story.

There's yet warmer colouring in _Luke's_ picture. This serving King is _nearest of kin to us!_ He is not only of the blood royal, but of the blood human. He is bone of our bone, blood of our blood, and life of our common life. He came to us through a rare union of God's power with human consent and human function, never known before nor repeated since. This is the bit that Luke adds to the composite message of these four little God-story books.

Here Jesus has a tenderness of human sympathy with us men, for He and we are brothers. There's an outlook as broad as the race. No national boundaries limit its reach. No sectional prejudices warp or shut Him off from sympathetic touch with any. He shares our common life. He knows our human temptations, and knows them with a reality that is painful, and with an intensity that wets His brow and shuts His jaw hard.

This king who serves is _a man_. He _can_ be a king of men for He is a _man_. He has the first qualification. I might use an old-fashioned word in the first old-time meaning,--He is _a fellow_, one who shares the bed and bread of our common experience. And so He is _kin to us_, both in lineage and in experience, in blood and in spirit.

And John's share in this partnership message adds a simple bold touch of colouring that makes the picture a masterpiece, _the_ masterpiece. This King who serves, and is nearest of kin to us, is also _nearest of kin to God_. He is not only of the blood royal, and the blood human, but of the blood divine. He was with God before calendars came into use. He was the God of that creative Genesis week. He came on an errand down to the earth, and when the errand was done, and well done, He went back home, bearing on His person the marks of His fidelity to the Father's errand. This is John's bit of rich high colouring.

And so _we are nearest of kin to God_ through Jesus. Kinship is always a matter of blood. There is a double kinship, through the blood of inheritance, and the blood of sacrifice. Our _inherited_ kinship of blood has been lost. But His blood of sacrifice has made a new kinship. We had broken the entail of our inheritance clean beyond mending. We were _outcasts_ by our own act. But He _cast in_. His lot with us, and so drew us back and up and in. He made a new entail through His blood. And that new entail is as unbreakable as the old broken one is unmendable. And so we come into the family of a King. And we are kingliest in character when we are Christliest in spirit and action. We are most like the King when we are helping others.

Our true motto, in our relation to our fellows, is: "I am among you as he that serveth." Towel and basin, bended knee and comforted pilgrim-feet and refreshed spirit,--this is our family crest. We're kin to all the race through Jesus. Black skin and white, yellow and brown; round heads and long, slanting eyes and oval, in slum alley and palatial home, below the equator and above it,--all are our kinsmen.

We are reaching highest when we are stooping lowest to help some one up. We're nearest like God in character when we're getting nearest in touch to those needing help. We are kingliest and Godliest and Christliest when we're controlled by men's needs, but always under the higher control of the Holy Spirit.

This is the composite message of the four Gospels; and this is its practical human outworking.

God on a Wooing Errand.

But it's the other John message we are especially after just now. There's another message of John's book quite distinct from this, though naturally allied with it. And this other is the crowding message of his book. Its thought crowds in upon you till every other is crowded into second place. And as it gets hold of you it crowds your mind and heart and life till every other is either crowded out, or crowded to a lower place; _out_, if it jars; _lower place_, if it agrees, for every agreeing bit yields to the lead of this tremendous message.

But one must get hold of John before John's message gets hold of him. John was swayed by a passion. It was a fiery passion flaming through all his life. It burned through him as the fierce forest fire burns through the underbrush. Every base thing was eaten up by its flame. Every less worthy thing came under its heat. It melted and mellowed and moulded his whole being.

It was _the Jesus-passion_. It was kindled that memorable afternoon early in his life down in the Jordan bottoms.[1] John's namesake, the Herald, applied the kindling match. From then on the flames never flickered nor burned low. They increased steadily, and they increased in purity, until his whole life was under their holy heat.

John didn't always understand his Master. Sometimes he misunderstood. But he never failed in his trust of Him, nor in his fidelity to Him. Of the chosen inner circle John was the one who remained true through the sorest test, that betrayal-night test. Judas betrayed; Peter denied; the nine fled in terror down the road to save their cowardly lives; John went in "_with_ Jesus." That fiery nature of his, that early won for him the stormy name "son of thunder," came completely under the sway of this holier tenderer stronger flame, and burned itself out in a passion of love for Jesus.

The Jesus-passion swayed John completely. This explains the man, and his career. It explains this little book of his ripe old age. And only this can. One must read the book through John's own heart, then he begins to understand it. This Jesus-passioned man is the key to the book, the human key.

And the distinctive message of the book is simply this: _Jesus was God on a wooing errand to the earth_. That simple sentence covers fully all that is found in John's twenty-one chapters. Every line in these fourteen or fifteen pages can be traced back into that brief statement.

Indeed this becomes an outline of the book. See: in the opening paragraphs the wooing Lover is coming down to earth.[2] In the first twelve chapters the Lover is pleading winsomely and earnestly for acceptance.[3] Then He is seen in closest touch with the inner group of those who have accepted, opening His heart yet more, wooing still closer.[4] Then comes the last tragic pleading, pleading in intensest action, with those who persist in rejecting.[5] And then the last close heart-touches with the inner circle.[6]

The Water-Mark of John's Gospel.

The very words John so thoughtfully chooses as his leading words bear the distinct impress of this, like the sharply indented stamp of the mint on the new coin. Two such words stand out above all others, "believe" and "witness." The first actually occurs oftenest, sounding out like the dominant chord of music running throughout a symphony. The second is like the chief warp-thread into which the fabric is being woven.

The two words are really twins, born at the same time, of the same mother. They grow up together and work in perfect accord. The witnessing is that men may understand and believe. It's the servant leading up to the belief that shall become the mastering thing. The belief is servant, too, in turn, leading up to the witnessing that becomes the mastering passion in those who believe.

These words are worth digging into for the fine gold that lies hidden within waiting the miner's pick. The word "believe" is a nugget of pure gold, whether you take our English word or John's word lying underneath. The underneath word, that John uses in his own mother tongue, runs a sliding scale of meaning.

It's a ladder rising from bottom round to topmost. It means to be persuaded that a thing is true; then to place confidence in it, to trust. And _trust_ always contains the idea of _risk_. The heart-meaning always is that you _risk_ something very precious to you, risk it to the point of heart-breaking disaster if your trust proves wrong.

Our English word is of very close kin. It runs the same sort of sliding scale, from something valuable and precious in itself, on to something that _satisfies you_ regarding the matter in hand. You are not only satisfied but pleased, content. And so there is the same trusting and risking, the same leaning your whole weight upon the thing. Deep down at its root, _believe_ is a close kinsman to _love_. They both spring out of the same warm creative womb.

When we dig a bit into that word _believe_ in the usage of common life it means three distinct things, each leading straight into the other,--knowledge, belief, trust. That is, _facts_, facts _accepted_, facts _trusted_ in regard to something that takes hold of your life. You hear something. You believe it's true. But there must be the third thing, risking something valuable. There's no belief in the heart-meaning without this thing of _risking_. The trust that risks is the life blood of faith. The rest is only the bony skeleton with tendons and sinews and flesh. There's no life without the blood. There's no belief without trust.

And the word _witness_ is the same pure-gold sort of nugget, assaying full weight. John's native word and our own are just the same in meaning. Their meaning is _to tell what you know_. We shall be running across this word again, and digging a bit deeper into it. But this is the thing that stands out in it. You tell something that you yourself know. There's personal knowledge. There's a telling some one else this thing you know. And yet more, there's the purpose in the telling, that others may know what you know, and get all the good that comes with knowing it.

The _witnessing_ is that others may _believe_. It is a striking thing in John that the _thought_ of witness is more common than the _word_. The word occurs several times, and always in a leading way. But the thought of witnessing is the colouring of every page, and the chief colouring.

I said that these two words were twins, born at the same time, of the same mother. That warm-hearted brooding mother is the word _wooing_. Originally _wooing_ means bending towards, inclining forward or reaching out towards another. And the purpose of the reaching out is to get the other to reach forward towards you. And that purpose puts the warm feel into the reaching out.

All words were pictures first. Here in this word _wooing_ is a picture, by one of the old masters, waiting to be restored, with all the dusty accumulations of the years carefully removed. And here's the picture: a man standing, with the light of the morning shining in His eyes, body bending forward, hands reaching out, with an eagerness, an expectancy in every line of His body, and tender love glowing out of His face, and sounding in the very tones with which the voice is calling.