There are always a thousand blind men to one who can see. All have
eyes, but not all have vision. The things we most need and the things
for which we most long are often nearest to us, while we, with eyes
fast shut, grope our way to the place where we think they ought to be.
The best things are the things we miss. The crowd by the fords of the
Jordan was longing to see the Messiah; yet of them all there was only
one, the son of the desert, who saw that He was actually with them
already. John had eyes that pierced the husk of things. He looked on
this son of the carpenter and a thousand years of prophecy sank into
insignificance beside its fulfillment; the multitude became as nothing
beside the all glorious Son of Man. He alone knew his Lord, because he
alone looked with eyes of love.
John announced the sublime central truth that all the world's great
seers have declared; God is in His world. Man is an animal who seeks
God; he finds Him when his eyes are opened. Some are looking for Him
in the records of His ways with men; many are hoping to see Him in some
other world; a few see Him by their side.
Some, priding themselves on their spiritual vision, and boastingly
describing God as He was or God as He will be, have eyes of stone when
it comes to seeing God as He is. They do not stop to think that we
want a God in the present tense--a God in our homes, on our streets, in
our affairs. And others say, this thing is unthinkable, for, if you
say that this is a spiritual presence, you at once remove the whole
question from touch with real things.
They forget that the most real things lie beyond the senses. Who ever
saw mother-love? Yet who will not believe in it? Ambition, affection,
pity, memory, hope; these are the real things, the lasting things;
these are the spiritual things. No one ever saw these things, and yet
they can be seen everywhere; it only needs the vision; we all have seen
them at times.
There are the selfish, gross, and sensual who tell us there is no love
in the world; and there are those to whom every common bush is aflame
with God. So hearts that have forsaken the good see nothing but a
God-forsaken world; and, in this same world, hearts that are lifted up
find Him everywhere, they see Him in the movements of history, in the
forces of nature, they hear Him in the hum of commerce and in the
silence of the fields, in every human voice they catch His tone. He is
ever in the midst. He is more than a force, a dream, a thought. He is
to men to-day what He was to men when He walked their streets and
touched their sick; all that we think He would have been in that long
ago He is to-day.
Personal? Yes, that He may reach persons, for we cannot know
impersonal love or impersonal help. His personality turns the universe
from an institution into an organism. Yet more than personal; this one
in the midst is infinite; He is the whole where we are but fractions.
But He does not hide Himself in His infinity; He is "among you," with
men. Not by descent into the grave of the past, nor by ascent into
heaven do we find Him; He is here, on every hand. This it is that
transforms individual character, to know that He is by my side; this it
is that solves our problems, to see Him linking my fellow to me; this
it is that gives strength, to hear His voice; this it is that gives
hope, to know He is working with us; this it is that makes burdens
bearable, to know that He is sympathetic and strong. This one in the
midst explains suffering, inspires heroism, is the promise and the
potency of all the possibilities of the sons of men.