We find, in the early portion of these discourses, that twice they
ventured to interrupt our Lord with more or less relevant questions,
but as the wonderful words flowed on, they seem to have been awed into
silence; and our Lord Himself almost complains of them that 'None of
you asketh Me, Whither goest Thou?' The inexhaustible truths that He
had spoken seem to have gone clear over their heads, but the verbal
repetition of the 'little whiles,' and the recurring ring of the
sentences, seem to have struck upon their ears. So passing by all the
great words, they fasten upon this minor thing, and whisper among
themselves, perhaps lagging behind on the road, as to what He means by
these 'little whiles.' The Revised Version is probably correct, or at
least it has strong manuscript authority in its favour, in omitting the
clause in our Lord's words, 'Because I go to the Father.' The disciples
seem to have quoted, not from the preceding verse, but from a verse a
little before that in the context, where He said that 'the Spirit will
convince the world of righteousness because I go to My Father, and ye
see Me no more.' The contradiction seems to strike them.
These disciples in their bewilderment seem to me to represent some very
common faults which we all commit in our dealing with the Lord's words,
and to one or two of these I turn for a moment.
Note this to begin with, how they pass by the greater truths in order
to fasten upon a smaller outstanding difficulty. They have no questions
to ask about the gifts of the Spirit, nor about the unity of Christ and
His disciples as represented in the vine and the branches, nor about
what He tells them of the love that 'lays down its life for its
friends.' But when He comes into the region of chronology, they are all
agog to know the 'when' about which He is so enigmatically speaking.
Now is not that exactly like us, and does not the Christianity of this
day very much want the hint to pay most attention to the greatest
truths, and let the little difficulties fall into their subordinate
place? The central truths of Christianity are the incarnation and
atonement of Jesus Christ. And yet outside questions, altogether
subordinate and, in comparison with this, unimportant, are filling the
attention and the thoughts of people at present to such an extent that
there is great danger of the central truth of all being either passed
by, or the reception of it being suspended on the clearing up of
smaller questions.
The truth that Christ is the Son of God, who has died for our
salvation, is the heart of the Gospel. And why should we make our faith
in that, and our living by it, contingent on the clearing up of certain
external and secondary questions; chronological, historical, critical,
philological, scientific, and the like? And why should men be so
occupied in jangling about the latter as that the towering supremacy,
the absolute independence, of the former should be lost sight of? What
would you think of a man in a fire who, when they brought the
fire-escape to him, said, 'I decline to trust myself to it, until you
first of all explain to me the principles of its construction; and,
secondly, tell me all about who made it; and, thirdly, inform me where
all the materials of which it is made came from?' But that is very much
what a number of people are doing to-day in reference to 'the Gospel of
our salvation,' when they demand that the small questions--on which the
central verity does not at all depend--shall be answered and settled
before they cast themselves upon that.
Another of the blunders of these disciples, in which they show
themselves as our brethren, is that they fling up the attempt to
apprehend the obscurity in a very swift despair. 'We cannot tell what
He saith, and we are not going to try any more. It is all cloud-land
and chaos together.'
Intellectual indolence, spiritual carelessness, deal thus with
outstanding difficulties, abandoning precipitately the attempt to grasp
them or that which lies behind them. And yet although there are no
gratuitous obscurities in Christ's teaching, He said a great many
things which could not possibly be understood at the time, in order
that the disciples might stretch up towards what was above them, and,
by stretching up, might grow. I do not think that it is good to break
down the children's bread too small. A wise teacher will now and then
blend with the utmost simplicity something that is just a little in
advance of the capacity of the listener, and so encourage a little hand
to stretch itself out, and the arm to grow because it is stretched. If
there are no difficulties there is no effort, and if there is no effort
there is no growth. Difficulties are there in order that we may grapple
with them, and truth is sometimes hidden in a well in order that we may
have the blessing of the search, and that the truth found after the
search may be more precious. The tropics, with their easy, luxuriant
growth, where the footfall turns up the warm soil, grow languid men,
and our less smiling latitude grows strenuous ones. Thank God that
everything is not easy, even in that which is meant for the revelation
of all truth to all men! Instead of turning tail at the first fence,
let us learn that it will do us good to climb, and that the fence is
there in order to draw forth our effort.
There is another point in which these bewildered disciples are
uncommonly like the rest of us; and that is that they have no patience
to wait for time and growth to solve the difficulty. They want to know
all about it now, or not at all. If they would wait for six weeks they
would understand, as they did. Pentecost explained it all. We, too, are
often in a hurry. There is nothing that the ordinary mind, and often
the educated mind, detests so much as uncertainty, and being
consciously baffled by some outstanding difficulty. And in order to
escape that uneasiness, men are dogmatical when they should be
doubtful, and positively asserting when it would be a great deal more
for the health of their souls and of their listeners to say, 'Well,
really I do not know, and I am content to wait.' So, on both sides of
great controversies, you get men who will not be content to let things
wait, for all must be made clear and plain to-day.
Ah, brethren! for ourselves, for our own intellectual difficulties, and
for the difficulties of the world, there is nothing like time and
patience. The mysteries that used to plague us when we were boys melted
away when we grew up. And many questions which trouble me to-day, and
through which I cannot find my way, if I lay them aside, and go about
my ordinary duties, and come back to them to-morrow with a fresh eye
and an unwearied brain, will have straightened themselves out and
become clear. We grow into our best and deepest convictions, we are not
dragged into them by any force of logic. So for our own sorrows,
questions, pains, griefs, and for all the riddle of this painful world,
'Take it on trust a little while,
Thou soon shalt read the mystery right,
In the full sunshine of His smile.'