To any save the few in the group of His friends that statement of Jesus
that being lifted up He would draw all men to Him must have sounded
like the ravings of one deluded. It has taken the centuries to show
that He was right. He was right in His estimation of His life's end;
it was a lifting up. His enemies thought it a casting down, a defeat;
He knew it to be a triumph. Sorrow, injustice, oppression, hatred, the
things that seem to crush are the things that elevate. Only by
opposition has any life discovered power. The fiercer blow these winds
the firmer grows the tree. Out of the petty persecutions, the
countless meannesses, the littleness of those who oppose him the great
soul builds its greatness. It is, and ever has been by a cross that
men are lifted up. History abounds with prisons, gibbets, and crosses
which have become thrones of eternal glory.
Whether we shall be cast down or lifted up depends upon ourselves;
neither enemies nor adverse circumstances have the power to do this.
The soul that seeks the stars builds its staircase out of the stones
flung by the persecutor, out of the rocks of difficulties. If your
heart is great, my brother, nothing can keep you from greatness; if it
is mean, no amount of o'ervaulting ambition can make you other than a
little, obscure man, as truly lost on the peak as you would be at the
base.
Jesus died a failure; His friends were few, and the best of them
thought His life a mistake. It takes more than the span of our lives
to measure their size. It is better that a great soul should be called
a failure than that it should die a shrivelled success. Earth measures
by what the hands hold; heaven by the heart. The hands at last lose
their grasp, but the heart wealth goes on from more to more. This it
is that is worth while.
Jesus was right when He said that He would draw all men to Him. Then
it sounded like folly; to-day it demonstrates His divine insight.
Lifted up in shame the riches of His life were revealed. After all,
the best in us answers to the best; it is love that leads. In the end,
goodness, truth, gentleness, sincerity have the greatest attraction for
men. Jesus is known and loved by millions who never heard of Nero or
of Augustus. Their glory was that of circumstance; His that of
character. His life lifts.
This it is that most helps the world; not learning, but a life; not
power or position, but simple passion for men; not riches, but wealth
of the inner life. You may not found a university or build libraries
or hospitals, or even write books or preach sermons. But every one may
do the principal thing that Jesus did. That was to live a life amongst
men of love for them, of simple kindnesses, of God-seeking aspiration,
of white sincerity. The race needs not so much men who will shake it
with their power or dazzle it with their learning as it needs men and
women who will lift it with the quiet earnestness and sincerity of
their lives. Herein is lasting greatness and true power, to live as He
lived, to love as He loved, true to God, to yourself, and to your
fellows, seeking the best and giving of your best.
Service and sacrifice are the things that lift to the supreme places;
the lower you stoop in helpfulness the higher you are lifted in lasting
glory. And they are lifted to heaven, they achieve immortality, they
can never die who were willing to die if death lay in the path of duty,
to be sacrificed if sacrifice was part of their service.