_THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM._
MATT. xiii.
"The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side."
We can well imagine that, after such a series of discouragements and
mortifications, the weary and heavy-laden Saviour would long to be
alone, to get away from the abodes of men, to some lonely place where
silent nature around Him would calm His spirit and furnish a temple in
which He might lift up His soul to God. How long He was allowed to be
alone we cannot tell; but possibly He may have contrived for a time to
remain unobserved. How burdened His spirit must have been! What
strength of faith it must have needed to look forward with any hope to
the future of His work at such a time of crushing disappointment! We
must remember that He was true man, and therefore His heart must have
been very sore as He dwelt on the painful experiences through which He
had just been passing. The obstacles which lay right in His path must
have seemed well-nigh insuperable; and it would have been no wonder if
at such a time He had despaired of the prospects of the kingdom of
righteousness and peace and joy He had come to set up on the earth. He
did not despair; but He did most deeply ponder; and the result of His
thinking appears in the series of parables recorded in this chapter,
which set forth, on the one hand, the nature of the obstacles the
kingdom must meet, and the reason why it must meet them, and on the
other, its certain prospect, notwithstanding these, of growth and
development onward to its final consummation.
If He was permitted to enjoy His seclusion, it was only for a short
time. "He could not be hid," His quiet retreat was discovered; and
presently there came to Him great multitudes, so many that the only
convenient way to address them all was to get into a boat, and speak
to the people gathered on the shore. It is a lovely picture: the
multitudes on the shore with the green fields around and the hills
behind, and the Master speaking from the little boat. Viewed apart
from the sorrowful experience of the past, it would have been full of
cheer and hope. What more encouraging sight than such a throng
gathered to hear the words of light and hope He had for them? But how
can He view it apart from the sorrowful experience of the past? Have
not these crowds been around Him day after day, week after week; and
what has come of it all?
It is one thing to sow the seed of the kingdom; it is quite another to
gather the harvest. The result depends on the soil. Some of it may be
hard, so that the seed cannot enter; some of it, though receptive on
the surface, yet so rocky underneath, that the fairest shoots will
wither in a day; some of it so filled with seeds of thorns and weeds,
that plants of grace are choked as they attempt to grow; while only a
portion, and it may be a small proportion of the whole, can yield a
fair or full return. Such were His thoughts as He looked on the field
of men before Him, and glanced from it to the fields of the plain of
Gennesaret around, in the foreground of which as in a picture the
multitudes were set. As He thought, so He spoke, using the one field
as a parable of the other, thus veiling, and at the same time
beautifully revealing, His thought in a figure, which, simple as it
was, demanded some degree of spiritual understanding for its
appreciation; and accordingly after speaking the parable He adds the
suggestive word, "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."
There is something very touching in that word. It thrills with the
pathos of these preceding chapters of disappointment. He had such a
message for them--good tidings of great joy, rest for the weary and
heavy laden, words of life and light and hope eternal--if only there
were ears to hear. But that sad passage of Isaiah is running in His
mind: "By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing
ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people's heart is waxed
gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have
closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear
with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be
converted, and I should heal them." That is the great obstacle, the
one hindrance. Oh! if only men would hear; if only they would not
close the ears of their souls! "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."