There are three instances of this class. The first is when He looked
round on His disciples and said, 'Behold My mother and My brethren!'
(iii. 34). Perhaps no moment in all Christ's life had more of
humiliation in it than that. There could be no deeper degradation than
that His own family should believe Him insane. Not His brethren only,
but His mother herself seems to have been shaken from her attitude of
meek obedience so wonderfully expressed in her two recorded sayings,
'Be it unto me according to Thy word,' and 'Whatsoever He saith unto
you, do it.' She too appears to be in the shameful conspiracy, and to
have consented that her name should be used as a lure in the wily
message meant to separate Him from His friends, that He might be
seized and carried off as a madman. What depth of tenderness was in
that slow circuit of His gaze upon the humble loving followers grouped
round Him! It spoke the fullest trustfulness of them, and His rest in
their sympathy, partial though it was. It went before His speech, like
the flash before the report, and looked what in a moment He said,
'Behold My mother and My brethren!' It owned spiritual affinities as
more real than family bonds, and proved that He required no more of us
than He was willing to do Himself when He bid us 'forsake father and
mother, and wife and children' for Him. We follow Him when we tread
that road, hard though it be. In Him every mother may behold her son,
in Him we may find more than the reality of every sweet family
relationship. That same love, which identified Him with those
half-enlightened followers here, still binds Him to us, and He looks
down on us from amid the glory, and owns us for His true kindred.
That look of unutterable love is strangely contrasted with the next
instance. We read (viii. 32) that Peter 'took Him'--apart a little
way, I suppose--'and began to rebuke Him.' He turns away from the rash
Apostle, will say no word to him alone, but summons the others by a
glance, and then, having made sure that all were within hearing, He
solemnly rebukes Peter with the sharpest words that ever fell from His
lips. That look calls them to listen, not that they may be witnesses
of Peter's chastisement, but because the severe words concern them
all. It bids them search themselves as they hear. They too may be
'Satans.' They too may shrink from the cross, and 'mind the things
that be of men.'
We may take the remaining instance along with this. It occurs
immediately after the story of the young seeker, to which we have
already referred. Twice within five verses (x. 23-27) we read that He
'looked on His disciples,' before He spoke the grave lessons and
warnings arising from the incident. A sad gaze that would be!--full of
regret and touched with warning. We may well believe that it added
weight to the lesson He would teach, that surrender of all things was
needed for discipleship. We see that it had been burned into the
memory of one of the little group, who told long years after how He
had looked upon them so solemnly, as seeming to read their hearts
while He spoke. Not more searching was the light of the eyes which
John in Patmos saw, 'as a flame of fire.' Still He looks on His
disciples, and sees our inward hankerings after the things of men. All
our shrinkings from the cross and cleaving to the world are known to
Him. He comes to each of us with that sevenfold proclamation, 'I know
thy works,' and from His loving lips falls on our ears the warning,
emphasised by that sad, earnest gaze, 'How hard is it for them that
have riches to enter into the Kingdom of God!' But, blessed be His
name, the stooping love which claims us for His brethren shines in His
regard none the less tenderly, though He reads and warns us with His
eye. So, we can venture to spread all our evil before Him, and ask
that He would look on it, knowing that, as the sun bleaches cloth laid
in its beams, He will purge away the evil which He sees, if only we
let the light of His face shine full upon us.