You will remember that it is followed by solemn words spoken after He
had taken His garments and resumed His place at the table, in which
there blended, in the most wonderful fashion, the consciousness of
authority, both as Teacher of truth and as Guide of life, and the
sweetest and most loving lowliness. In them Jesus prescribed the
wonderful act of His condescending love and cleansing power as the law
of the Christian life. There are too many of us who profess to be quite
willing to trust to Jesus Christ as the Cleanser of our souls who are
not nearly so willing to accept His Example as the pattern for our
lives; and I would have you note, as an extremely remarkable point,
that all the New Testament references to our Lord as being our Example
are given in immediate connection with His passion. The very part of
His life which we generally regard as being most absolutely unique and
inimitable is the fact in His life which Apostles and Evangelists
select as the one to set before us for our example.
Do you ask if any man can copy the sufferings of Jesus Christ? In
regard to their virtue and efficacy, No. In regard to their motive—in
one aspect, No; in another aspect, Yes. In regard to the spirit that
impelled Him we may copy Him. The smallest trickle of water down a city
gutter will carve out of the mud at its side little banks and cliffs,
and exhibit all the phenomena of erosion on the largest scale, as the
Mississippi does over half a continent, and the tiniest little wave in
a basin will fall into the same curves as the billows of mid-ocean. You
and I, in our little lives, may even aspire to 'do as I have done to
you.'
The true use of superiority is service. _Noblesse oblige_! Bank,
wealth, capacity, talents, all things are given to us that we may use
them to the last particle for our fellows. Only when the world and
society have awakened to that great truth which the towel-girded,
kneeling Christ has taught us, will society be organised on the
principles that God meant.
But, further, the highest form of service is to cleanse. Cleansing is
always dirty work for the cleaners, as every housemaid knows. You
cannot make people clean by scolding them, by lecturing them, by
patronising them. You have to go down into the filth if you mean to
lift them out of it; and leave your smelling-bottles behind; and think
nothing repulsive if your stooping to it may save a brother.
The only way by which we can imitate that example is by, first of all,
participating in it for ourselves. We must, first of all, have the
Cross as our trust, before it can become our pattern and our law. We
must first say, 'Lord! not my feet only, but also my hands and my
head,' and then, in the measure in which we ourselves have received the
cleansing benediction, we shall be impelled and able to lay our gentle
hands on foulness and leprosy; and to say to all the impure, 'Jesus
Christ, who hath cleansed _me_, makes _thee_ clean.'