Two of the recorded instances fall into their place here. The one is
this of our text, of the woman who came behind Christ to touch His
robe, and be healed: the other is that of the young ruler.
Take that first instance of the woman, wasted with disease, timid with
the timidity of her sex, of her long sickness, of her many
disappointments. She steals through the crowd that rudely presses on
this miracle-working Rabbi, and manages somehow to stretch out a
wasted arm through some gap in the barrier of people about Him, and
with her pallid, trembling finger to touch the edge of His robe. The
cure comes at once. It was all that she wanted, but not all that He
would give her. Therefore He turns and lets His eye fall upon her.
That draws her to Him. It told her that she had not been too bold. It
told her that she had not surreptitiously stolen healing, but that He
had knowingly given it, and that His loving pity went with it. So it
confirmed the gift, and, what was far more, it revealed the Giver. She
had thought to bear away a secret boon unknown to all but herself. She
gets instead an open blessing, with the Giver's heart in it.
The look that rested on her, like sunshine on some plant that had long
pined and grown blanched in the shade, revealed Christ's knowledge,
sympathy, and loving power. And in all these respects it is a
revelation of the Christ for all time, and for every seeking timid
soul in all the crowd. Can my poor feeble hand find a cranny anywhere
through which it may reach the robe? What am I, in all this great
universe blazing with stars, and crowded with creatures who hang on
Him, that I should be able to secure personal contact with Him? The
multitude--innumerable companies from every corner of space--press
upon Him and throng Him, and I--out here on the verge of the crowd-how
can I get at Him?--how can my little thin cry live and be
distinguishable amid that mighty storm of praise that thunders round
His throne? We may silence all such hesitancies of faith, for He who
knew the difference between the light touch of the hand that sought
healing, and the jostling of the curious crowd, bends on us the same
eye, a God's in its perfect knowledge, a man's in the dewy sympathy
which shines in it. However imperfect may be our thoughts of His
blessing, their incompleteness will not hinder our reception of His
gift in the measure of our faith, and the very bestowment will teach
us worthier conceptions of Him, and hearten us for bolder approaches
to His grace. He still looks on trembling suppliants, though they may
know their own sickness much better than they understand Him, and
still His look draws us to His feet by its omniscience, pity, and
assurance of help.
The other case is very different. Instead of the invalid woman, we see
a young man in the full flush of his strength, rich, needing no
material blessing. Pure in life, and righteous according to even a
high standard of morality, he yet feels that he needs something.
Having real and strong desires after 'eternal life,' he comes to
Christ to try whether this new Teacher could say anything that would
help him to the assured inward peace and spontaneous goodness for
which he longed, and had not found in all the round of punctilious
obedience to unloved commandments. As he kneels there before Jesus, in
his eager haste, with sincere and high aspirations stamped on his
young ingenuous face, Christ's eyes turn on him, and that wonderful
word stands written, 'Jesus, beholding him, loved him.'
He reads him through and through, knowing all the imperfection of his
desires after goodness and eternal life, and yet loving him with more
than a brother's love. His sympathy does not blind Jesus to the
limitations and shallowness of the young man's aspirations, but His
clear knowledge of these does not harden the gaze into indifference,
nor check the springing tenderness in the Saviour's heart. And the
Master's words, though they might sound cold, and did embody a hard
requirement, are beautifully represented in the story as the
expression of that love. He cared for the youth too much to deceive
him with smooth things. The truest kindness was to put all his
eagerness to the test at once. If he accepted the conditions, the look
told him what a welcome awaited him. If he started aside from them, it
was best for him to find out that there were things which he loved
more than eternal life. So with a gracious invitation shining in His
look, Christ places the course of self-denial before him; and when he
went away sorrowful, he left behind One more sorrowful than himself.
We can reverently imagine with what a look Christ watched his
retreating figure; and we may hope that, though he went away then, the
memory of that glance of love, and of those kind, faithful words,
sooner or later drew him back to his Saviour.
Is not all this too an everlasting revelation of our Lord's attitude?
We may be sure that He looks on many a heart--on many a young
heart--glowing with noble wishes and half-understood longings, and
that His love reaches every one who, groping for the light, asks Him
what to do to inherit eternal life. His great charity 'hopeth all
things,' and does not turn away from longings because they are too
weak to lift the soul above all the weights of sense and the world.
Rather He would deepen them and strengthen them, and His eternal
requirements addressed to feeble wills are not meant to 'quench the
smoking flax,' but to kindle it to decisive consecration and
self-surrender. The loving look interprets the severe words. If once
we meet it full, and our hearts yield to the heart that is seen in it,
the cords that bind us snap, and it is no more hard to 'count all
things but loss,' and to give up ourselves, that we may follow Him.
The sad and feeble and weary who may be half despairingly seeking for
alleviation of outward ills, and the young and strong and ardent whose
souls are fed with high desires, have but little comprehension of one
another, but Christ knows them both, and loves them both, and would
draw them both to Himself.